The Brooklyn Nets: I just noticed that the Nets are now abbreviated as BRK in brackets. When I tried sounding this abbreviation out, I realized it's not a very good name for a basketball team.

Toronto's team building strategy: DeMar DeRozan, in addition to having a lot of capitol letters in his name, now has about 40 million dollars coming to him over the next four years. That's roughly 10 million dollars for every capital letter.  I'm not saying he's not a good player or anything, but that's going to make him the 2nd highest paid player on the roster after Andrea Bargnani, and after him it's Amir Johnson. As franchise players go, that's far from good.  Meanwhile, Kyle Lowry is making four million less a year. Last night while DeRozan was busy scoring 10 points on 14 shots, and Bargnani was shooting 4 for 15 from the floor; Lowry scored 21 points on 11 shots with 8 assists 7 rebounds and 5 steals. That's some Walt "Clyde" Frazier shit. The Raptors should be glad to have this player, but might want to be a little weary of him playing that well, otherwise it might be a short stay. In a way you almost have to credit the organization for its depressing, but also perversely realistic, decision to select Bargnani and DeRozan as franchise stars. In a time where premium players are flocking in mass to the siren song of bigger markets and southern climates, the Raptors have at least chosen cornerstones that nobody else is likely to offer a competitive salary.

Landry Fields:  Speaking of players the Raptors are set to pay more than Kyle Lowry next year, Landry Fields had the same number of of points last night as he had famous directors wearing his jersey and sitting courtside in Toronto. Zero. This wasn't for lack of court time either, that's 0 pts in 24 minutes. At least he can say he missed the hurricane.

So long. I'd visit you, but...you know.

DJ Augustin: You would think that his first professional game out of a Bobcats uniform would be a liberating experience for the fifth year guard. You'd be wrong. Augustin went 1-4 in 15 minutes. I worry about this guy. It could be an amazingly depressing experience for someone to realize one day that they miss being on the Bobcats.
 
The Denver Nuggets: Now that the OKC experience has been tainted for me with the question of what might've been if they'd kept Harden, I admittedly have high hopes for this squad making some noise in the West. A night when your highest scorer, Ty Lawson, needs 17 attempts to score 16 points isn't about to intimidate the regional powers.

George Karl: This loss might have been averted if he had decided to give Kenneth Faried more than 17 minutes. Word to the wise coach, Kenneth Faried is fucking awesome and you should never only play him that measly amount of minutes again this season. Karl tried to justify his choice after the game telling reporters, "In a catch-up situation, I don't think Kenneth is our best option". Interesting technique. I guess he could try only playing the Manimal when the Nuggets have the lead for the rest of the season. If nothing else it will give him plenty of rest.   

The Los Angeles Lakers: Their 0-8 record for the preseason was weird, but nobody really cared. This 0-2 to start the season is starting to look bad, but not as bad as Steve Nash leaving with an injury on the 2nd game of the season. The rest of the Lakers were unable to overcome their obvious disadvantage of only having 3 all stars to pit against Portland. The Lakers lost by 10 points despite Kobe and Dwight showing up in their turn-of-the-millennium Shaq & Kobe costumes to combine for 63 points on 35 shots. Kobe afterwards was quick to point out that although the party sucked, he and Dwight clearly had the best costumes. Dwight, for his part, even managed to get a Lakers jersey for the occasion at some point during the offseason.


Playing in the finals is totally overrated


James Harden: Normally, I wouldn't give out WOTN dishonors for a player who scored a career high 37 points while throwing in 12 assists. But, seriously Harden, talk about throwing salt on fresh wounds.

Sam Presti: There was an anonymous suggestion in the comments section to nominate Sam Presti for Worst of the Year on this trade. I second the nomination. I know it's only the beginning of the season, but I find it difficult to believe the Thunder will be as good without Harden. As a fan I would have liked to see the management at least wait out his contract til the end the year. This may have meant losing him as a restricted free agent, but it would have given the group they had invested in a chance to win it all. This is all purely speculative, but winning could have convinced Harden to stay. Even if he left in the summer, I find it hard to believe that the Thunder couldn't then find a Kevin Martin calliber player to fill the void that wanted to play with Durant and Westbrook. 

Thomas Robinson: The rookie didn't do much in 21 minutes for the Kings. He scored 3 points to go with his 3 rebounds and 3 turnovers. Some of you may recall that before the draft I wrote something for this site suggesting that the Bobcats should have selected Robinson with their 2nd pick. At the time, I referred to Robinson as the most NBA ready player outside of Anthony Davis. Thanks for making me look like an asshole, big guy. What I meant to say was that Robinson is NBA ready starting November 2nd when the Kings play the Timberwolves. 

Loul Deng and Kirk Hinrich: The Bulls might have enjoyed a little more breathing room in their win against the Kings if these two didn't combine to shoot 4-20. Sure, they won, but Joakim Noah (23 points on 6-12 shooting, 10 rebounds, 5 steals, and 3 blocked shots) isn't going to wear his vintage Tim Duncan costume every night. In a separate game against the Hornets, Tim Duncan (24 pts, 11 rebounds) also wore his vintage Tim Duncan costume last night leading to some awkwardness at the NBA Halloween After-party.

Austin Rivers: Son-of-Doc (or SOD for short) only shot 1-9 on Halloween, doing little to erase fears that the Hornets only made one good decision on draft night.

George Karl: Karl gets a 2nd write-up here by comparison. Not that it's actually fair to measure other NBA coaches by Greg Popovich, but it's hard not to when I see Kawhi Leonard's line for the night, 19 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 steals in 34 minutes with a +12 Lenovo. Both are very talented sophomore forwards, but only one is getting the minutes he deserves. Coincidentally, the Spurs won again.   

The Charlotte Bobcats: It might seem strange to include a team, even the Cats, that didn't play last night. However, I couldn't help but think how much it must suck to have missed out on Anthony Davis. The Brow looked plenty NBA ready with his 21 points, 7 rebounds, no turnovers, a block, and a steal. He even went 9-9 from the line.

The Indiana Pacers: The Pacers may have won their game, but they still get a WOTN for trading red hot Darren Collison for Ian Mahinmi. I keep on staring at Collison's Wiki page thinking that sentence is going to change.

Tyrone Corbin: OK Ty, it's no longer the preseason, you might want to stop playing Jamaal Tinsley almost 20 minutes a night. Tinsley himself verified with my suspicions with 2 points on 1-4 shooting.

The Dallas Mavericks: They lost in a game where their opponent tried to squeeze 20 minutes of basketball out of Jamaal Tinsley.

David Lee: His 2-16 performance speaks for itself, but he wasn't alone.

The entire Golden State Warriors starting five: Klay Thompson was the only starter to score in double digits, scoring 16 points on 16 shots. Carl Landry was the team's high scorer with 17 points in 22 minutes off the bench.

The Phoenix Suns: Long gone are the days of run and gun. The Suns only scored 85 points and were essentially beaten by the bench of the Warriors. A Warriors Suns game where nobody scores 90 points or shoots over 40% is a terrible, terrible thing to witness. I'm glad I didn't.

Jermaine O'Neal: The Drain himself, who apparently has wandered over to the valley of the sun, looked listless in thirteen minutes without a basket. Must be that dry desert air. 

Mike Conley: Conley went 2 for 10 with more turnovers (6) than assists (5). The Clippers rivalry with the Grizzlies has become far more competetive than anybody would have ever guessed, but that didn't stop Conley from making sure that Chris Paul looked extra good all night. You see kids, this is why it's not a good idea to play the Clippers on Halloween night dressed as Chris Paul's bitch. 

Memphis D: Especially when your whole team showed up in the same costume.



They also let Jamal Crawford abuse them with 29 points. He only missed 4 shots all night. I guess that whole practicing shooting in the off-season thing really works.

Zach Randolph: Actually, one player on the Grizzles showed up in a different costume. Zach decided to be a pro-wrestler.

 

Anybody got a name suggestion for Zach's bad guy wrestler character? Amazingly, the refs ruled this incidental contact because Randolph already had one technical and they were hesitant to eject him. This isn't the first time that this has happened either.


I think it's fair to say that Zach Randolph is not a huge Blake Griffin fan. Did Kia reject Z-Bo as a spokesman or something?

Lacktion Report:
Bulls-Kings: Jimmer started the new season off with a Super Mario. It looks like Jimmer is following the path blazed by Lacktion pioneer Adam Morrison of going from the being the nation's top scorer in college to becoming a potential Lacktion All-Star.  
 76ers-Nuggets: Maalik Wayns mounted a +1 suck differential in two and a half minutes of play. His teammate Damien Wilkins chipped in with a Mario.
Rockets-Pistons: Daequan Cook upped the ante with a +3 suck differential in six minutes, +4 if you count blocked attempts towards a suck differential.
 Spurs-Hornets: Brian Roberts just made the Super Mario cutoff with his nine second performance.
Jazz-Mavs: Dominique Jones got off the Mavs bench for forty-five seconds to earn himself a Mario. 
Blazers-Lakers: Robert Sacre was all over the Lacktion map last night, picking up both a Mario and a +1 suck differential.
Clippers-Grizzlies: Ryan Hollins dug down deep and came up with a 6:5 Voskuhl. 
                                          
25 Comments:
Blogger mvkMDiva said...
Dan B and Bawful used to have minimal grammatical and spelling mistakes in their posts.

Glen, your post seems like you did it in a hurry and were trying too hard to be funny.

Please fix these so I don't just skip over every post on this wonderful blog that isn't written by Dan or Bawful.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
After last night's amazing game from Harden, how about a Worst of the Season for Sam Presti?

Blogger Evil Ted said...
See how quickly people can turn on you, Glenn? And Mr. Grammar-slash-Spelling didn't even spell your name right.

Keep it up. You're doing fine.

Blogger Glenn said...
No worries. I appreciate the constructive criticism. I think mvkMDiva saw a rough draft of this that I accidentally posted, so that was my bad. MmkMDiva, I hope you give me a chance to change your mind with the next one, but if not I'm sure others will soon post some hilarity you can enjoy.

Blogger Raza said...
Glenn your posts are comedy gold man. Keep it up!

As for the Raptors, I know that being in Canada probably forces them to overpay for mid tier players, but DeRozan flat out sucks.

I was shocked that they have a guard with no passing or shooting skills 40 million dollars.

Good thing we had a lockout to remedy situations like these.

Anonymous Gus said...
I so much enjoy reading this blog. Thank you, guys. That Harden trade: butterfingers!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
glenn you're doing great posting up on this blog...

Anonymous Stockton said...
Hey Glenn, don't TRY to be funny...
just let the fun go out by itself... like Kobe doesn't TRY to shoot... the ball just releases from his hands towards the basket in a natural way.

Good work, by the way. Hope Bawfull gives you the max contract you deserve (just don´t break your writing hand making push-ups).

Anonymous JJ said...
Glenn, I regularly refer to this site for grammatical and spelling guidance. So, I cannot tell you how disappointed I am at your latest post.

Haha, seriously though. Don't worry about the critics. Yes, grammer/spelling errors can be annoying to read, especially if they change the meaning. But, it's really not a big deal and everyone does it from time to time. Keep up the great work. I appreciate it.

Anonymous RipTheJacker said...
Really enjoy seeing these Worst of the Nights again!

Blogger mvkMDiva said...
Wow. Y'all need to STFU.

Glenn, thank you for taking my comments in the light that I meant them. You're probably right that I saw a draft, because Reader imports posts immediately. I look forward to reading your next posts, especially with such a great response to my feedback.

The rest of y'all can shove it. I love this blog. I want to see it be great forever.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
As always great Glenn

Man , a Lowry/Harden backcourt would have been so much meaner than a Lin/Harden one.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Glenn,
Keep it up.

Blogger Fishy said...
Glad to have both a real basketball season and the real basketbawful website back!

Blogger Evil Ted said...
mvkMDiva

Glad to hear you're back on board.

Your comment seems like you did it in a hurry and weren't trying very hard to properly convey tone.

Please fix this so I don't just skip over every comment on this wonderful comment page that isn't written by Dan, JJ, Stockton, or Raza.

And thank you for taking these comments in the light that I mean them.

Blogger Glenn said...
Wow, thanks for all the comments everyone. MvkMDiva, sorry to put you on the spot by publishing a rough draft that you were assumably the only one to see, but the fact that you even saw it shows what a dedicated fan you are and how much you love this site. I do too. I'm glad you'll give my future posts a try, in fact I'm going to start one right now...well, maybe after breakfast.

Anonymous JJ said...
Glenn,

I don't know if what you're saying is like tongue-in-cheek, but if you're serious, holy shit. You're taking the high road, waaaaaaaay high road. I can't believe how diplomatic you're. Certainly a better man than I.

Anonymous tjr said...
Everyone,

Posting in this mock sarcastic tone is both passive agressive and passé.

Also JJ, you mispelt grammar the first time you messaged.

Zach "The Gazebo" Randolph

And for the record, this was done in a hurry.

Anonymous tjr said...
Alternatively:
"Suprise Attack Zach"- Bit too rapey sounding for my liking...

"Dental Plaque Zach"- Cause no one likes poor oral hygiene.

"Stand back or you'll need an ice pack Zach"- Who am I trying to kid?

"Back, crack and sack Zach"- It sounds painful I guess...?


Yeah, I've got nothing.

Plus nothing really rhymes well with Randolph.

Also, Dragic is overated.

Anonymous Czernobog said...
Harden was obviously unhappy with his Role, and OKC got excellent value for him while still allowing themselves to continue to surround Durant with competent role-players.

If you really think Prsti deserves WotY for this, you're a fucking moron.

And what's with all the weeping and hair pulling about players you like not getting any burn? I may be in a minority, but I prefer that you keep that shit to yourself until you can demonstrate that they can really produce at this level.

Blogger Wormboy said...
I just figured out Nash's outfit from the last post. Remember the show "queer Eye for the Straight Guy?" Next year they are making a "Straight Eye for the Queer Guy" show and Nash plans to be on it after he retires at the end of the season.

Keep it up, Glenn. Remember, all rookies hit a wall where they realize how long an 82 game season really is! ;)

Blogger Evil Ted said...
I can attest with 100% certainty that Glenn is not using any mock sarcasm. The high road is his SOP.

Which is why people rally around him.




Anonymous Anonymous said...
evil ted has been a douche hammer for years mvkm don't take it personally when he takes out his rage and frustration at having an awful life out on you

Blogger Evil Ted said...
What do you use with a douche hammer? Maxi-pad nails?


Blogger Glenn said...
Thanks for trying to come up with some wrestling nicknames tjr. It's difficult. I've got nothing at the moment too. Czernobog, it's not easy for a player to demonstrate they can produce if they're not getting any burn. It's kind of a catch-22.