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