Dancing With Noah

Week #3 and the NCAA Tournament is still going wacky and wild. We know for sure now that Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, Tyler Ennis, Zach LaVine (UCLA), and Kyle Anderson (UCLA) will all be joining the greatest pro basketball league in the known universe and we know they need to bulk up like most 18 and 19-year-olds who wish to duke it out with grown ass men like Blake Griffin and LeBron James. But the pros are still pro-ing it up, so enough with the talkin and let’s get on with the fightin!

• On Saturday night, the league worst 26-game Philadelphia losing streak went by the wayside as they handed the hapless Pistons a Philadelphia thrashing. Elton John must’ve been proud because as we all know so well, Saturday night’s alright for fighting and something something Philadelphia freedom. Well, the Sixers have unshackled themselves of something though I’m uncertain of what or how long. As coach Brett Brown reminded us after the game: “Our judgment day isn’t today, and it won’t be tomorrow. We are on a three-to-five year plan.” There was something of a comical spectacle to this losing streak, but now that it’s over, it’s just a pathetic blight.
• Despite Philadelphia’s handcrafted sculpture constructed of the finest feces and the shiniest garbage, the Bucks of Milwaukee still languish behind in the standings winning just 19% of their games. The Bucks are a franchise lost at sea on planet made of water with GM John Hammond peering through the wrong end of a telescope desperately hoping for sight of land. Zaza’s cooking in the galley and Larry Sanders is trying to organize a mutiny, but in the end no one really cares so they eat and sail. There’s no message, no bottle and besides, no one but the sharks to read it. Anyways, while that clump of 26 losses caught all of our attentions with its concentration, the Bucks are still the most destitute with no semblance of a future plan. This is what suckitude looks like and the only positive I can take away is the fans voting with their wallets and shunning these terrifically crusty franchises:

• Enough with pointing judgmental fingers. The writers and poets have poured enough digital ink in the name of Kevin Durant like he’s an advanced analytics good guy god-guy accepted by most. Royce Young shows us just how great this young scorer is:

Does it matter that his opponents were the lowly Jazz and lowlier Kings (or does it matter that perhaps the Jazz are the lowlier?)? If we want to qualify and contextualize it sure, but 60 points in 58 minutes while shooting 75% from the field is admirable regardless of the opposition. So unless you’re a bitter Sonics fan or prone to spiteful hating of anyone better than you, join me in a shared appreciation of Durant. After all, he may be the only thing keeping us all together.

• The buddy flick is its own sub-genre, but a sub-genre of the buddy flick is the interracial buddy flick where we’ve got a black guy and a white teaming up to win our affections, going on a rollicking rip-roarious adventure that leaves awkward white guy high-fiving and smooth black guy handshaking which of course encapsulates racial differences. Yes, there’s a lot of stereotypes and generalizations to the interracial buddy flick and because we’re nothing if not the obviousness of our skin colors, I’m clamoring for the evolution of the Goran Dragic/Eric Bledsoe relationship. Based on large sample size and statistical lift above the average, both Dragic and Bledsoe appear in the Suns’ best five-man combination. But it’s likely that’s not enough to sate the appetite because the cultural (Dragic the Slovenian-born 27-year-old and Bledsoe the 24-year-old Birmingham native) and racial dissimilarities are too powerful for a mind like mine that’s been saturated by Hollywood tales of buddies overcoming racial and cultural differences to achieve mutually beneficial goals. I’m talking Crockett & Tubbs (Miami Vice), Sidney Dean and Billy Hoyle (White Men Can’t Jump), and Murtaugh & Riggs (Lethal Weapon). For a further, more serious reading on the topic of the interracial buddy flick, check out Melvin Donaldson’s book Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film and a corresponding list that someone has created on Amazon.

• A few more blurbs:
  • Arnett Moultrie (Philly second-year player who’s been unable to crack this miserable rotation) was suspended five games for violating the league’s drug policy. Five games is the penalty for a third positive test for the herbs. Still waiting to see if and how the league updates its drug policies to reflect the progressive decriminalization and legalization in Washington and Colorado.
  • Chris Kaman’s on a playing time roller coaster in Los Angeles and Mike D’Antoni’s the mad hatter who won’t let Kaman off … no matter how much the giant expresses his nausea at the twisted never ending ride. Kaman played six minutes on Friday followed by a 28 and 17 performance on Sunday which was followed by strange comments from Mustachioed Mike about “It’s tough because Robert Sacre plays.” Ok, sure. I’ll be over here with my PCP trying to make sense of it all.
  • As prognosticated here last week, the Kings did not re-sign Royce White.
  • Don’t look now, but Amare Stoudemire’s scored in double digits in 14 straight games with three double doubles. In that time, the Knicks are 9-5 and in 9^th place, just a game behind the free-falling Tom Petty and the Atlanta Hawks. Not to get all weird and headline grabby, but what if we ended up with a Knicks-Pacers first round?
  • Speaking of the Pacers, their post All-Star break swoon continues as a victory over the Heat was sandwiched on one side by a pair of double digit losses to Memphis and Chicago and on the other side with double digit defeats to the Wizards and Cavs. Their post All-Star splits are real shitty. I wouldn’t start using that $120 Paul George jersey to clean up baby slobber, but maybe take a breath, build a little shrine dedicated to Chuck Person, Vern Fleming, and LaSalle Thompson and dabble in some of those medibles your buddy gave you.
  • Patrick Beverly was out with a meniscus tear, but now it sounds like he won’t require surgery and will return this season. Can’t say I’m surprised given his guttery griminess. I could see him having an ear hanging off the side of his head from a freak run-in with David West and Beverly going all Ronnie Lott, demanding that the trainer cut it off. Digressions aside, I hope this doesn’t have a lasting impact. I’m not a Beverly fan, but I’d encourage all players sacrifice one today for a thousand tomorrows.
• Finally, the Spurs are on that, “And we won’t stop, cause we can’t stop” like Diddy. This past week saw wins over Philly (22pts), Denver (5pts), Denver again (31pts), and New Orleans (16pts). As if a 17-game win streak wasn’t enough to make a statement, San Antonio’s leading scorers ran the gamut from the recently acquired and still malnourished Austin Daye to all-timer Tim Duncan to Italian Stallion Marco Belinelli (2x). The Spurs genuinely don’t seem to care what happens in that 48 minutes as long as they walk out with the victory. This week the schedule makers are throwing some major obstacles in their way: at Indiana tonight, Golden State on Wednesday, at OKC on Thursday and at home Sunday against the Grizzlies. If I’m still writing about this streak next Monday, then we should all be very afraid … well, that’s probably excessive, but let’s just agree they’ve got their work cut out for themselves this week. (Side idea, Popovich seems like he’d throw a game just to keep his group grounded. After all, I’m guessing he has little use for frivolous distractions that come along with a 17-game win streak.)