Yeeesssssss! We Can

The deadpan humor here is top-notch on both sides and you know Obama didn't need any prepping for this interview; he is so at ease talking about basketball. But mostly, I just love hearing our president say "the league" and be talking about our league.

If You See Something, Say Something

IYSSSS is our semi-regular Internet intelligence report, a liberal arts approach to following the NBA on the Web. E-mail us at jewsforjesusshuttlesworth@gmail.com if you've got any suggestions.

FreeDarko: Photographic proof that there is more to Kobe than any of us know.

DraftExpress on YouTube: Let's all just remember to revisit these draft prospect interviews five years from now. Someone in Cousins' camp obviously told him he needs to act mature, but seems like he mixed up maturity with somberness; dude looks plain sad. But biggest lesson here: THESE GUYS ARE KIDS (except John Wall).

Robin Lopez Twitter: If you're wondering if Fropez had anything to say about his strong playoff performance on Twitter, I'll save you the time: He didn't. But reading his most recent tweet, from March 24, is well worth your time.

Slam Magazine: Z's thoughts on Mike Brown's exit just reinforce his stigma as the kindest man in the world. And Stan Van Gundy is also what he always is: Saucy and a little misguided.

True Hoop: [Affects Hubie Brown voice] Henry Abbott is the best NBA journalist we have in this game, and Greg Oden is the most heartbreaking player. Watching him talk about Durant is debilitating.

The Element of Surprise

Of course it can be said that any basketball team will be at a disadvantage if they go into a matchup having to face a team they were not expecting. This just makes sense. What I can't help but to wonder now, as the Orlando Magic hobble back home after narrowly avoiding a sweep, is whether there is a special kind of disadvantage when a team wrongly expects to face the best player in the world.

To think of the kind of psychological buildup necessary to prepare for LeBron James is to understand what it means to pit yourself up against the weight of the world. It must go beyond merely assigning yourself the self-inspiring underdog status and become the sort of feeling that allows a complete sense of freedom from external pressures. Think about it. If, as I had predicted, the Magic were playing the Cavs in these Eastern Conference Finals, they would have been going in as the team that no one would expect to win, even though they had been on a tremendous tear leading up to the point.

Instead, they have gone into this series with the Celtics as perhaps favorites, and if not that, a team without any real psychological footing. The Celtics do not offer the sort of drama off of which a team like the Magic could feed. Despite their success over the past few years, they do not give a team like the Magic those performance-enhancing butterflies. They never gave Orlando a chance to shock the world, because no matter what happened this series, it likely wouldn't have really shocked very many people.

The pragmatic way of looking at this is to say, "The Celtics offer tougher all-around matchups than the Cavs would have," or "Rondo is a caliber of point guard Orlando had not yet faced these playoffs, nor would they have faced in Mo Williams," or "Boston is just such an experienced team!" These are the things people are saying, no?

But, really, it seems just as likely to me that this performance by Orlando--which, I promise, has been far more disappointing than what it would have been against Cleveland--may have an explanation that lies in something less tangible: the tragedy of broken promises, the burden of misplaced expectations, and the robbery of the all-too valuable role as giant-killer.

Dumpster Divin'

We here at No Regard love Photoshop. We love it so much that occasionally in the process of cooking up a hot jpeg we forget to put in the words. (A picture is worth a bunch of those, right?) Here is a glimpse at what might have been, assuming we weren't such lazy assholes.

No matter how many times my Texan roommate told me this first round series was going to be great, I just couldn't do it.

You Can't Win If You Don't Play

Tuesday night in Brooklyn, I could hear the distant groans of at least six other writers from this blog. Being a Knicks fan, I had nothing at stake in the draft lottery. But for most of my compatriots here, that evening's festivities must have held a certain amount of nervous optimism.

So what went wrong? Well, the problem here is this: the only thing that went wrong is shitty luck and unfriendly gravity. And whereas one might think a practice that relies solely on chance would inherently be filled with suspense, the lottery, even for those with something at stake, always feels so underwhelming.

Please don't get me wrong. I love the NBA Draft. In fact, it might be my favorite night of sports programming of the whole year. Therefore, I should love the lottery for its role as a lead-in, no? Maybe in some years. But sure as shit not in a year when the 1-2-3 order is insanely predictable and the rest of the draft is occupied by even more no-names than any year I can remember.

That said, there are a few things that could really enliven draft night, besides drinking boilermakers all night with my fellow No Regarders:

-The Wizards or Sixers dropping jaws by selecting Derrick Favors. There is about a 1% chance that this will happen, as John Wall and Evan Turner are pretty much already looking for homes in the Washington DC and Philadelphia metro areas. But honestly, I don't see either one of them making as much of an impact in the East as Favors. Dude has got that kind of rawness and born-for-the-league athleticism that could make a team a contender now. Or he's a bust with a huge injury risk. How should I know? I am not Zoltar.

-Stanley Robinson falling to the Knicks in the second round. He can jump out the gym, and I think he's one of the more physically mature guys in the whole draft. Plus, with a nickname like "Sticks", I get the feeling he and Wilson Chandler might have some things in common.

-Tiny Gallon's name being repeated as often as possible and inspiring a conversation on the relationship between hyperbole and irony.

Bibby's World: In Regards to Being Touched

Don't know how we locked this down, but we'd like to introduce you to No Regard's newest blogging sensation... Mike Bibby! He'll be checking in whenever he can, just to remind us: It's Bibby's World, we just live in it!

Today, I would like to discuss the very serious topic of personal space. By now, I'm sure many of you have seen this video that involves the mistreatment of my personal space:

A lot of my fans have asked me, "Mike, what is your problem? Are you homophobic? Do you hate Josh Smith? Do you have a shoulder problem? Is the back of your head as soft as that of a baby?" My initial response is usually, "Ha Ha Ha." As in SARCASM.

But I'm here to put all the speculation to rest.

My problem isn't with male-on-male physical contact. Heck, me and Coach's backyard Airsoft battles usually turn into heated wrestling matches in the tall grass by day's end. And I'll be the first one to say that you're not friends with someone unless you're comfortable with being touched by them. So that's not my problem.

My problem is with rubbing. I don't like being rubbed. I didn't like being rubbed as a baby, I didn't like being rubbed in summer camp, and I certainly don't like being rubbed by Josh Smith and that god forsaken Zaza Pachulia.

So to all you incredible fans out there who got the wrong idea:

Relax - I don't think that Josh is gay or that being gay is wrong. I just think that rubbing is gay.

Six-Foot Turkey

Rajon Rondo can smell fear, of this I am certain. As a Nets fan it's tough to grapple with success. (We don't get to see it often.) It is especially tough to watch a man in green ascend to the upper-echelons of the League. For four years now the young Celtic has been making his case for greatness. My denial has been deep and my defense mechanisms numerous, but no longer can I contain the harrowing thought that the short kid with the beady-eyes might actually be the Harbinger of Doom.

I ignored his rookie year, writing him off as another punk guard prone to scowling and flopping. I scorned the little bastard for lucking into the only open spot on a historic starting roster, an unworthy fourth banana living in the shadow of three towers. I scoffed at his first attempts to take a leadership role on a team with Kevin Garnett. Mostly I've watched him and giggled at his curious resemblance to a baby dinosaur. The problem of course with baby dinosaurs is that they get big. And damn is Rondo growing.

The decision to write off the aging Celtics as a playoff threat this year was nearly unanimous. I myself was certain that the team would be about as healthy as a Bill Walton foot by the time the post season rolled around. The assumption was that the fossils would crumble and Ubuntu would be no more. Sure Garnett, Pierce, Allen and Wallace are not the players they were five years ago, but there's new blood in the pack. He's sharp and fast and mean and quite possibly telekinetic, like those velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3.

What is so impressive about Rondo is not just that he's good, but that he's so good. Let's face it, Rondo beat LeBron. I know, I know, it wasn't just Rondo. Doc's Green Machine beat the perennially uncoached LeBron and Sidekicks, but Rondo was the life force, the battery, the pacemaker keeping that incredible, experienced, occasionally senile organization running.

Rondo's trajectory thus far is nothing short of meteoric. Perhaps he's a product of his environment. Working out with all-stars everyday, apprenticing with some of the game's best minds, constantly curbing monolithic hubris to fit in, there could be no better situation for a promising young player to grow into a greatness. Talk about the Big Three all you like, but as of this past week, Rondo has stolen the heart of this team, or perhaps he's inherited it. Either way, he keeps it beating.

Watching Rondo traipse down the yellow brick road makes me hurt for the young players who aren't so lucky, who are picked apart by the flying monkeys and left for dead. It makes me wonder what will become of John Wall, a once-in-a-decade talent likely to be sentenced to serve on the 2011 Washington Wizards, a team so toxic it might prove barren to life for decades. More than anything Rondo's waltz toward the Emerald City puts a knot in my stomach. For long after this nightmare of the Big Three has fossilized, the monster they call Rage will be lurking right up the road in Boston. And he'll be hungry.

Anyone down for a friendly game of horse?

I assure you, the horses are real, the players are real and yes, that man's moustache is the really real deal.



I can provide you with little to no actual information about these photographs. So instead, I'm just going to present a bunch of statements that may or may not be (but definitely are) true facts.

• These photos were taken in 1908. FACT
• Horseketball was a real sport. FACT
• Letting go of your horse's reigns while going after the ball was considered traveling. FACT
• That man has a better moustache than you or Phil Jackson could ever even dream of growing. FACT
• Horseketball is one thousand times more badass than polo. FACT
• Both teams wore identical outfits, so sides were determined by horse color. FACT
• Like in chess, white goes first. FACT

• A ghostly white aura appeared, invisible to the naked eye, but captured here on film, around each player who scored a point in Horseketball. FACT
• John Stossel's beloved "20/20" segment "Give Me a Break" was regularly filmed in the same exact space nearly 100 years after these photographs were taken. FACT
• Horsketball referees were so formidable they didn't even need whistles. Instead, they brought gameplay to a screeching halt with only their lofty pointer fingers. FACT
• Breaches in the rules were not fouls, but foals. FACT
• That was punny. FACT
  
• Horses smell bad. FACT

Precipice of Whatever

We at No Regard love the New Jersey Nets: About 1/3 of us grew up in NJ and/or live there now, and the rest have adopted the state as their spirit animal. We consider the 2007-2008 season magical because one of us had season tickets and we got to watch J-Kidd give up in person. Anyway, we're close to New Jersey's lost children, so we know what we're talking about. And believe me when I say:

This was the best season ever to be a Nets fan. Oh just relax. I have my reasons.

Each Win Was Euphoric.
Yes, those first 18 losses in 18 games weren't easy to sit through, but after win number one? Kiki's Delivery Service (trademark) took the notion of "no expectations/no pressure" to an entirely new place. Once they secured that worst out-the-gate record, every loss was a familiar face and each win was delicious gravy. That Saturday afternoon Celtics win was New Year's Eve, the first bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Flaming Lips concert rolled into one smorgasbord of happy. In all the years since those two Jason Kidd-led finals runs, Nets fans have been faced with constant underachieving and disappointment. This year, though, we reverted back to what Nets fans are supposed to be: Sad people with a very measured expectation of our team's limits.

The Kidd-Jefferson-Vinsanity era was a painful purgatory; this year the four horsemen of the apocalypse were played by Kiki, Devin Harris, Bruce Ratner and the ghost of Lawrence Frank; and next year is said to be the rapture.

The Promise of Next Season.
Each loss carried with it the largest of all caveats: Next year will bring a high draft pick, a savior free agent and a tall Russian man with $8 billion ushering in a future filled with gold toilets and championship rings. For this one season, all Nets fans got to ignore the probable reality of next season: Overpaying for Rudy Gay or Joe Johnson, Demarcus Cousins' starring role as Derrick Coleman 2.0 and Prokorov pissing off every tangible coaching candidate by offering the mirage of Coach K $12 million... then $15 million, then $17 million.

So yes, I'm worried about next season. As established, I'm a Nets fan: Optimism has no place in my psyche and disappointment could start tonight with the draft lottery. Do I worry that tonight will be the first of many instances when Nets beat writers are forced to write those dreaded "Yeah, this isn't what we wanted, but there's a silver lining" stories? Absolutely. Derrick Favors means nothing to me.

But then, as if the Russian could read minds, owner Mikhail Prokhorov showed up at either my grandmother's old house or the clubhouse at Augusta National Golf Club to record this message:




He may be magic. Let's hope so.

Bibby's World: The Best Thing Ever by Mike Bibby

Don't know how we locked this down, but we'd like to introduce you to No Regard's newest blogging sensation... Mike Bibby! He'll be checking in whenever he can, just to remind us: It's Bibby's World, we just live in it!





Hey Internet World! It's me, Mike Bibby, making my very first blog entry!

To first address the 500 lb gorilla in the room, I would like to say that getting swept by the Orlando Magic in Round 2 of the playoffs was unfortunate. Not so much in the way of me personally wanting to win the Championship, but the loss has been quite tough on my teammates, so that's no fun. Actually, to be quite honest, I was getting kind of tired of all the games. In my opinion, each game of the playoffs should have a different variation on the sport. So, like, Game 1 is just normal basketball BUT Game 2 is like a round of Horse or Around The World or even Bowling or whatever. If that were the case, I think it'd be a lot less boring. But people are afraid of change, so what's the point in even getting heated about it.

Anyway, since the 'ousting' of my team, as the news media likes to call it, I've had a lot of free time on my hands. Not only that, but since the laying off of our coach Mike Woodson, he and I have had the chance to spend more time together as friends. He's a guy that I've wanted to hang out with for some time now, and let me just say, it's been sensational. Since our game 4 defeat, we've been on a week-long bender of quality time: drinking mojitos in our pajamas, frisbee scrimmages, and playing the Starcraft 2 Beta for literally 16 hours straight. We've let absolutely nothing get in the way of our happiness and have found wonder and amazement in even the smallest of places. Which brings me to the point of this post: The New Dominos Pizza Recipe!



Wow!

To bring back what I said before about people being afraid of change, I would like to say to those people, "GET OVER IT!" Between The New Dominos Pizza Recipe, touch screen phones and Barack Obama, I think we've proven that change is good! A garlic-herb seasoning, mozzarella with a hint of provolone, and a bolder tomato sauce with a red pepper kick?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Coach and I have eaten, like, a billion of these things in the past 6 days alone. They go great with EVERYTHING, from fishing to just hanging out on a Saturday morning to Ryan Reynolds movie marathons (Van Wilder + X-Men Origins: Wolverine + Smokin' Aces BACK TO BACK TO BACK! I dare you to beat that!).


Excellent.

I know some of you are thinking to yourselves, "Mike, are you crazy? It's just pizza!" But I'm not crazy. I'm passionate about a lot of things in my life (break dancing movies, Mr. Pibb, my Zune - THEY'RE BETTER THAN IPODS, PEOPLE!!!, castles, pre-washed jeans, etc.) but the thing that takes the number one spot for me is pizza, and Dominos has found a way to make that thing absolutely perfect. It's not just better, it's PERFECT. Don't take my word for it; try it for yourself! Oh, and uh... You're welcome, World!

I leave you folks with this saying I just came up with:

If you can't enjoy the little things, then there's something wrong with your big picture. Don't be afraid to dream big. But just remember, your dreams will come true if they are small enough!

- Mike

And now, the funniest thing I've ever seen:

CLICK ME

Morning After Pill

There are days I wake up knowing things are not as they were. The curtain is pulled away and I'm able to see something as it really is for the first time. That which I had accepted as fact, is suddenly and instantly false.

LeBron James will not be competing for the 2009-2010 NBA Championship.

That thought hit me like a Jermaine O'neal shot to the face this morning. I staggered out of bed, couldn't remember how to put my pants on. (Was it left foot first?) I'll admit it, I was depressed. Not because a I'm a diehard 'Bron fan, (though I sorta am) nor because the lack of ring on Mike Brown's finger effected my day-to-day life, just depressed because I was wrong.

Days like today make me realize that I am young, arrogant, and not as informed as I think I am. They also make me realize that I watch too many movies. Someone tells me the set-up of a story and I know exactly where it's going. I don't think I know where it's going, I don't make an educated guess, I just know. Well congratulations League, last night you showed me Sixth Sense.

I couldn't love it more.

All season I have known LeBron would be in the Finals. I snorted at the off-season moves Orlando made, ignored Rondo's ascension to Jedi-status, and yawned at Nash's season-long, Sisyphean struggle to push his boulder of a team up the hill to the playoffs. And now, after six months of ignorant assumptions that Delonte West would fill his guitar case with the O'Brien trophy instead of his sawed-off, I realize what I've been missing. Without my LeBron blinders on, I can see that there is an awful lot of cool shit in this league.

The next two weeks are wide open. How fucking cool is that?

Shadows and Dust

LeBron got two new tattoos before these playoffs. One on the right arm says, "What we do in life," while the one on the left arm completes the phrase with, "Echoes in eternity." Well, game five definitely will at least.

Since that quote is from Gladiator, here are a slew of other quotes from Gladiator that would also be fitting right now:

"You have a great name. You must kill your name before he kills you."
Yes, this is the question we have to ask following that loss: What does "LeBron" mean right now? Since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary's, he has existed as potential personified; the name "LeBron" standing for the coming roundball epoch when he would raze the league then rebuild it in his image without letting any of the crumbs touch the ground. But a game like he played in game five is nowhere to be found in the scriptures.

Of course we're judging him harshly; that's what you do to supposed saviors. So no, this was not just another bad game. That cannot happen with this man. If he wants to fulfill the prophecy, he has to always be the best, always. And he needs to do this all the time, and never not do this. Additionally, he can never not be the best. He was way not the best in game five.

And if it happens in game six, the name "LeBron" may start to stand for something else.

"The frost, it sometimes makes the blade stick."
This Angry LeBron thing? I don't know if that's his jam. Seems like he just saw that Kobe does the angry face, so figured he should do the angry face. Nah. This is Lebron:



Or this:



"I may die here in this cell or in the arena tomorrow. What possible difference can I make?"
I know LeBron, it must be hard to have your impact pretty much negated by Mike Brown's choice of lineups. Because Mike Brown doesn't seem all that good at choosing the most effective lineups, does he? How about Delonte or Varejao or Hickson? But most importantly, Mike Brown needs to remember that the better team is the one who is supposed to impose their style and character on the game. But who knows who the better team is here.

"He sleeps so well because he is loved."
This is the dude who dressed like this after getting bounced from the playoffs last year:



Losing needs to start mattering to him if he wants whatever legendary basketball players are supposed to want.

"I don't pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people."
I don't speak for each writer on this Website when I say that LeBron James will never be in my Fave Five (and, actually, I know I kind of am speaking for the other writers on this Website, but we all have our own reasons).

But: I love watching him when he asserts, I love that he can turn every muscle twitch into an event and, as a life-long fan of this semi-niche professional league, I love his importance. I love that he developed his own calling-card dunk (you know, his arm juts out perpendicular to his body, his legs just about cross and he freezes for like a minute before putting it through), because I love dunks. I love that he's the first true NBA icon that I've been able to watch from day one and truly digest every nuance of his sprawling narrative as it happens (although I was there for Kobe and Iverson's entrance, I was a touch young to really grasp the meaning).

"He will bring them death, and they will love him for it."
I don't want to get into what this means for free agency too much, but those catty comments in the post-game press conference—"I spoil a lot of people with my play. When you have a bad game here or there, you've had three bad games in a seven-year career, then it's easy to point that out."—are really helping his bid for league supervillain if he does decide to go to the Knicks.

"Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how, but what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered as men."
A win in game six does not wash this performance away. The only mouthwash for this is a championship.

How Seriously Should we Take Orlando? Part II: Electric Boogaloo

I was going to post this in the comments of Adam's post, but we don't have enough readers for that type of behavior yet. Anyway, while we were both three stories above sea level this past weekend, JoaquinPhoenixSuns told me that this blog needed less words, more turds (well he said "videos" instead of "turds"), so 'ere you go:



Yeah, so many things. Clearly, the slo-mo Jason Williams is the winner here, but also: That bouncy line dancing, Gortat's between-the-legs Euro dunk contest entry, J.J. Redick's very very earnest double-clutch and, most epically, Matt Barnes attempting the low-percentage pass to Mini Sly (he's got stone hands). Just in case you weren't sure how much you liked this team.

How Seriously Should we Take Orlando?

Up until this point, I have refused to answer the above question with anything along the lines of "very". It's THE year for LeBron, right? And knowing that, I have simply refused to acknowledge the idea that any team in the East could pose any sort of threat to the Cavs.

But that might have to change. As Andrew Abides has pointed out, the Hawks are the worst. I know. But they are still a group of breathing men, and the Magic have been making it appear otherwise during this series. And it's hard to listen to Stan Van Gundy or Vince Carter talk about the selflessness of this team without believing that could legitimately give them an edge. I don't give a fuck how much we hear about how badly the rest of the Cleveland team wants to get LeBron his ring. I call bullshit. Yes, they all want to win a title. I want to win a title. You want to win a title, too. But wanting to win a title for an individual--whether it is yourself or someone else--is different from wanting to win a title with the specific group of people with whom you have been placed.

This Magic team seems to be comprised out of players who all genuinely like each other. And, I should mention, it seems to be comprised out of players who have been assembled with the idea of a well-functioning team, not a "supporting cast". I think this is important. They want to win because they would like to share a moment of congratulatory joy with each other, right? They're having fun.

Can you say the Cavs all like each other? Do they like anything? Okay, Z likes adopting kids and Shaq likes yoga, but come on. I don't see any affection. I don't see any fun. I see fear about the future that would come after losing to Orlando, a fear that as of today, I'm not sure can be avoided.

Round 2 Coming Attractions: Lakers-Jazz

We here at No Regard love our stories. And the playoffs are where each narrative strand that was teased in the regular season is shredded or affirmed. So, here are the second round series as we see them. Some of them are late; so was Kanye's second album, and you used to love his blog. Thank you.

Alright, so Pau Gasol is a superstar. Applaud my lethargic realization if you must, but it is finally unanimously true. No longer is he Diet Dirk, nor Kobe's Snuggly Tauntaun. He is Pau, strange man from a foreign land, 29 years old and incapable of shaving, yet still the real deal, the funk and the noise if you will. Trust me, I hate it. I hate it more than mayonnaise, and I hate mayonnaise, Oz. I wish Pau would just go to hell. Or Spain. Or Memphis. Or really anywhere that would let him work to make a good team great, and not a great team unstoppable. Alas, he lays his head in the City of Angels and plays world class basketball with world class people.

Pau is far from the first of his kind. Phil Jackson finds a poster boy every few years, a young buck plucked from obscurity to help add hardware to his collection and depth to his pool of money. If we're going to make a comparison... SPIEEEEEELBERRRRRRG.

Now if you're trying to figure out how Pau is Tom Hanks, stop. I love Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks makes movie tickets worth money. Pau's basketball style is like watching someone euthanize puppies. As I said before, I want Pau to go to hell. (Perhaps hell is extreme. I would settle for convincing his fame, talent, and good fortune to stop drinking, sit down, and quit blocking my view of the rest of the league.)

As the Lakers go through the motions of beating the Jazz, as I watch four tedious games, I can only ask: Why is this the lopsided matchup we've been left with? How are the Jazz ever supposed to pretend that they will stop Pau without Memo? What is Carlos Boozer supposed to do? Should he block Pau's fadeaway like Customs denied Viktor Navorski's passport? SPOILER ALERT: That didn't work. (Although Stanley Tucci is always fun to watch.)

If you have yet to catch on, The Terminal bored the shit out of me. How was this infinite pool of talent poured into such a shallow well? Why was that the story we were watching? No way this makes for an interesting series. Wake me up when it's over.

Defining Quote:

"Buddy, I think you been spending too much time inhaling them cleaning products."

Lakers in 4.

Round 2 Coming Attractions: Orlando-Atlanta

We here at No Regard love our stories. And the playoffs are where each narrative strand that was teased in the regular season is shredded or affirmed. So, here are the second round series as we see them. Some of them are late; so was Kanye's second album, and you used to love his blog. Thank you.

The Hawks. Are the worst. As (like I've mentioned and you've noticed) we're not always on time with these things, I'm writing this after game one of this series. The Hawks lost by 43 points after letting an undermanned Milwaukee team take them to seven games. Because they are the worst. I'm a Nets fan, so I know what bad is; I know what gutless looks like. And this is it. So, if they're not going to try, neither am I. Fire Mike Woodson now, before the playoffs end. Send a message. Or not. Who cares.

Round 2 Coming Attractions: Phoenix-San Antonio

We here at No Regard love our stories. And the playoffs are where each narrative strand that was teased in the regular season is shredded or affirmed. So, here are the second round series as we see them. Some of them are late; so was Kanye's second album, and you used to love his blog. Faced. Thank you.

The NBA, or any professional sports league for that matter, has never seen a pair of twins more likely to attempt a good, old-fashioned, PG-rated Twin Switcharoo than the Lopez brothers. The guys are not only well-documented goofballs, but Mouse House junkies as well. Peep this, from a 2008 Sports Illustrated piece by Ramona Shelburne:

"Their dorm rooms at Stanford are filled with Disney figurines. They know every single shred of Disney trivia. Names of obscure characters, the actors who voiced every part, Walt Disney's favorite color. And being Stanford students, they have been known to get into spirited intellectual debates on the relative merits of traditional animation versus computer generated characters."

No doubt The Parent Trap was their favorite movie for a minute. They must be downright giddy right now that they're about to pull off the coup they rambunctiously plotted many a night while riding a mean Dr. Pepper sugar high.

Robin didn't play game one of the series, but word is he'll most likely get some burn later on. How convenient: We haven't seen Brook since April 14, definitely enough time for a Stanford grad to learn the Suns' sets. During the regular season, Brook held Duncan to 13 and 14 points, so not a bad replacement for his brother, who also had some luck against the Big Fundamental this year. If the Suns' miracle training staff was able to heal Robin, they would have applied the salve before the playoffs so he was ready for round one. But they didn't, so now we all get to watch two kids stick it to all those mean grown-ups out there.

That's really all I have. We all know this is going to be great.

You honestly want analysis of the basketball at hand here? Okay. Popovich and the Spurs in the playoffs are always something something something. Steve Nash just sees the game something and at his age is still something something. You know the big guys on both teams (Ginobili, Duncan, Stoudemire, etc.) are something and something, but the the x-factors here blah blah blah. If the Suns want to win, they are going to need Jason Richardson to words, analysis and words. Also, home-court advantage really means nothing to the Spurs and Amar'e is one championship run away from making those Rec Specs iconic. Needless to say, we're looking at a donnybrook here.

The only other thing the Suns need to worry about is the original Stanford twin NBAer Jarron Collins tattling on the Lopez kids, ruining the giddy rouse for all of us.

Defining quote
Hallie: I have a brilliant beyond brilliant idea!

Suns in 7

Fire-Eyed Man

"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity."- Emile Zola

If one were to do a Google search of this blog's name, he or she would most likely encounter a video of LeBron James posterizing Kevin Garnett during the 2008 playoffs. Even though Garnett's Celtics went on to win the Finals that year, there is something about that dunk that makes me think KG did not forget about it after getting his ring.

The kind of intensity, the kind of competitiveness, that lives inside of Kevin Garnett is the kind that is not easily sated. It is the kind that makes you wonder if he ever sleeps at night, or if he is constantly plagued by visions of a late pass, a missed assignment, a shot clinked off the back of the rim. Andrew Abides and I used to wonder what it would be like to go out for a drink with Garnett. Would he race you to the bottom of each pint? Stare at you menacingly as you tried to beat his score on Big Buck Hunter? See who could slam his tip down on the bar the hardest? Is there anything the man can't turn into a chance to prove his superiority?

With these kinds of questions running through my head, I find it impossible to not think about how Garnett sees himself in this, LeBron's, NBA.

It might be worth considering whether KG could have ever been the figurehead that LeBron has become. For years, he existed as (arguably, I suppose) the best player in the NBA, a freakishly athletic big man who made everyone on his team better and just about always found a way to win, except for when it really counted. Sound familiar? But just as Garnett finally found that team success he yearned for so badly, he was no longer that best player, according to conventional wisdom. It is no secret that Kevin Garnett, in many ways, ushered in the modern era of this game, and yet, his name will not be the one mentioned as its owner. No matter how much more success his teams have than LeBron's, he will end up being remembered not as "one of the top five players of all time," but more like, "one of the best big men of all time" or "one of the fiercest competitors in history." It is hard to say exactly what KG's legacy will look like, but it is fairly easy to say what it won't look like.


Could the NBA's marketing machine have made Garnett into the kind of commercial, pop cultural superstar we have seen LBJ become? Probably not. His background was a little too questionable, his temper was a little too real, his body was a little too lanky, and his style was just never as smooth as LeBron's. Perhaps most importantly, he came along at a time when the NBA wasn't sure if it wanted a face, and if it did, it sure as hell didn't know what that face was supposed to look like.

So tonight, as LeBron takes home his MVP trophy and Garnett takes home the knowledge that he and his Celtics made James and his Cavs look like a JV squad in Game 2, think about the idea of motivation. Think about what is at stake for certain players as this season winds down, but more than that, think about what is at stake for certain players as their careers wind down. Think about legacies. Think about history. Think about life. Think about what it truly means to have no regard. Think about this face:

Round 2 Coming Attractions: Boston-Cleveland

We here at No Regard love our stories. And the playoffs are where each narrative strand that was teased in the regular season is shredded or affirmed. So, here are the second round series as we see them. (And if they're late? Well, we are sorry.) Thank you.

When the lucky viewer first meets Dupree in You, Me and Dupree he arrives at his best friend Carl’s wedding in great spirits; he’s ready to make a winning contribution to the celebratory festivities and re-live his glory days. On paper, Dupree’s presence in Carl’s life is advantageous for both parties. I imagine that, when their respective squads signed Rasheed Wallace and Shaquille O’Neal, Celtics fans and Cavs fans felt a lot like Carl right after Dupree showed up at his wedding. Both players seemed like the missing link in potential championship runs. Cs fans envisioned Wallace as the perfect sixth man to mimic KG’s intensity off the bench and Cavs fans salivated realizing they finally had an answer to Dwight Howard whose last name didn’t start with a Z. But once the dust settled, Carl, Bostonians and Clevelanders realized that having Dupree around is more than just shots, spicy Buffalo wings and HBO. This series begs the question, which very tall man is the real Dupree?

Ball don’t lie, but neither does Sheed’s three-point field goal percentage this season, a terrible 28.3. Additionally, Sheed scored on his own basket a few weeks ago, much like when Dupree used Carl’s private bathroom while Carl was trying to slam his new wife. In terms of basketball and friendships, it doesn’t get much worse than hitting a lay-up on your own hoop and cock-blocking. These two points alone make Sheed a serious candidate for the real Dupree. That said, Shaq has absolutely had his fair share of Dupree-like moments.

His numbers are about as low as they’ve been in his entire life; specifically, scoring 50 percent less than his career average, just 12 points a game. He’s the oldest player in the league and it shows. Watching him try to keep pace with LeBron is seriously laughable, and I’m convinced that Barkley, after a long night of drinking and analyzing on TNT, would beat him in a full-court sprint. He hasn’t burned down the Q yet, like Dupree did to Carl’s house while trying to set the mood with his new girlfriend, but he might well be on his way.

Dupree means well, but he’s a massive a jackass and ruins a great thing for Carl. Similarly, Sheed is a massive jackass, but I’m not even convinced he means well. He entered this season looking like post-strike Shawn Kemp for god’s sake (fat, for those of you who forget). And while Shaq has many failings this year, he’s brought his “I’ve won four rings and I desperately want another one so I can have more than Kobe" mentality to this Cavs team and it's clear this has infected Bron (he seems more possessed than he’s ever been, adopting Kobe's apocalyptic grimace a few years early). The real Dupree’s about to stand up, and he’ll be wearing green.

Cleveland in 7.

Defining Quote
Carl Peterson: What you did in the bathroom last night was disgusting.

Dupree: I know, I'm never eating buffalo wings again.

Editors Note: I wrote this entry before game one and understand that Sheed killed it in game 2 and Shaq was garbage. That said, one game doesn't change a season. He'll still be the real Dupree. Just watch.