Katie Smith Katie Smith Katie Smith!
And her back is better apparently!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699
The Suns
Earl Clark has been sent to the D-League. This is really good because he'll get more playing time there. Hopefully he'll come back with more awesomeocity. It's also cool, because my Earl Clark-fan friend can see him play online, if she wants to.
New JMZ video! I'd like to find video of his dunk. But so far I've come up empty.
I did find this though:
And speaking of video, I'm waiting on video from this.
Other NBA news
It appears that his PR team finally got through to Gilbert Arenas.
WNBA
I never thought of stats as something that were exclusively the providence of men's basketball. Apparently I'm not alone on that, but I am in a very small group of people.
Today marks two months until the start of the WNBA season. It's also 24 days before the draft. So here are two mock WNBA drafts. They both have the Mystics taking a big post presence, which I think would be a great thing. They don't agree on which on, so I guess we'll see.
The Mystics
Last year the Mystics gave a lot of lip service to "creating a culture of winning." I think they got a great start on it, but in case you were wondering what it meant, Swish Appeal is here to help.
The DC Basketcases posted an entry on Saturday that was mostly about the Shock signing Marion Jones but also talked about tomorrow's press conference.
They seem to agree with my theory of it being Katie Smith. My favorite reason is that this picture:
is an awful lot like this one:
Earl Clark has been sent to the D-League. This is really good because he'll get more playing time there. Hopefully he'll come back with more awesomeocity. It's also cool, because my Earl Clark-fan friend can see him play online, if she wants to.
New JMZ video! I'd like to find video of his dunk. But so far I've come up empty.
I did find this though:
And speaking of video, I'm waiting on video from this.
Other NBA news
It appears that his PR team finally got through to Gilbert Arenas.
WNBA
I never thought of stats as something that were exclusively the providence of men's basketball. Apparently I'm not alone on that, but I am in a very small group of people.
Today marks two months until the start of the WNBA season. It's also 24 days before the draft. So here are two mock WNBA drafts. They both have the Mystics taking a big post presence, which I think would be a great thing. They don't agree on which on, so I guess we'll see.
The Mystics
Last year the Mystics gave a lot of lip service to "creating a culture of winning." I think they got a great start on it, but in case you were wondering what it meant, Swish Appeal is here to help.
The DC Basketcases posted an entry on Saturday that was mostly about the Shock signing Marion Jones but also talked about tomorrow's press conference.
They seem to agree with my theory of it being Katie Smith. My favorite reason is that this picture:
is an awful lot like this one:
Friday, March 12, 2010
You and me could write a bad romance.
The Suns
First off, the (kinda old) video that brought me back to the blog:
First off, the (kinda old) video that brought me back to the blog:
As this person says, the Phoenix Suns are probably the most fun-loving team in the NBA. Hence, my love for them.
Amare on kids radio!
Maybe Goran can be the Point Guard of the Future!
Lakers v Suns
Tonight is making me hate the Lakers even more. Fouling Grant Hill so hard that he loses his contact and requires stitches. Lou Amundson getting flagrently fouled and not getting the call, causing Alvin Gentry to be ejected. Evil usually wins, I guess.
As a pick me up, have a picture of a napping Earl Clark:
(Courtesy of Jared Dudley's twitter account.)
Mystics News
It's not actually news yet, but on Tuesday the Mystics are having a press conference to announce an apparently awesome new signing. My guess is Katie Smith, which would be super good, but I'm also holding out hope that it's Deanna Nolan (even if she's not a free agent). I don't think it could possibly be Penny Taylor, and she's the only other option of this magnitude.
So I guess we'll see...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
I'm not internationally known
WNBA
I think I helped break the internet a little. Thank you to Henry Abbott for adding to the respectful discourse about the WNBA.
With her eyes on Olympic Gold, Lauren Jackson plans to not play for the WNBA in 2012.
The Suns
Barbosa is back in Phoenix. He may see playing time this week, but don't bet on it. He did apparently have a nice no look pass in practice though. Yay for seeing the court (or not seeing it) well! Also, it looks like his mother is still sick, but on the upswing from a very bad lung infection.
Amare is back at practice and still wearing his goggles. Barnes is playing with the starters in scrimmages in place of Hill. And Alando is having trouble with his hamstring. Before that though, he was performing at a high level.
More on the Suns' new identity. I'm still holding my breath.
The Suns played an outdoor game last Saturday night against the Nuggets in Indian Wells, California. The result? It was cold and windy. Oh, you mean you want to know the score? 77-72, Denver. Honestly, which team did you think would win a cold outdoor game?
The only really exciting thing was a pair of blocks by Lopez that almost literally knocked my socks off. Well, those were the only notable moments unless you like watching Raja Bell walking around with his arms completely inside his jersey in order to keep warm.
Other NBA
Looking for work? Don't knock on Stern's door.
I think I helped break the internet a little. Thank you to Henry Abbott for adding to the respectful discourse about the WNBA.
With her eyes on Olympic Gold, Lauren Jackson plans to not play for the WNBA in 2012.
The Suns
Barbosa is back in Phoenix. He may see playing time this week, but don't bet on it. He did apparently have a nice no look pass in practice though. Yay for seeing the court (or not seeing it) well! Also, it looks like his mother is still sick, but on the upswing from a very bad lung infection.
Amare is back at practice and still wearing his goggles. Barnes is playing with the starters in scrimmages in place of Hill. And Alando is having trouble with his hamstring. Before that though, he was performing at a high level.
More on the Suns' new identity. I'm still holding my breath.
The Suns played an outdoor game last Saturday night against the Nuggets in Indian Wells, California. The result? It was cold and windy. Oh, you mean you want to know the score? 77-72, Denver. Honestly, which team did you think would win a cold outdoor game?
The only really exciting thing was a pair of blocks by Lopez that almost literally knocked my socks off. Well, those were the only notable moments unless you like watching Raja Bell walking around with his arms completely inside his jersey in order to keep warm.
Other NBA
Looking for work? Don't knock on Stern's door.
Friday, October 3, 2008
I got more records than the KGB
The Suns
10 questions about this Suns' season: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune
Insight into Porter's playbook (now with muddled metaphors!)
“I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.”
The Suns spent an hour ironing out the wrinkles on one such play in Wednesday’s morning session.
So are wrinkles good? Or bad?
Also from that article:
When the Suns broke the huddle under former coach Mike D’Antoni, they chanted "Suns!" Under Porter, that mantra has changed to "Defense!"
I'm cautiously excited about seeing how they do with this defense oriented approach.
More on Porter's defense and how players are adapting to it.
Nash is in favor of fewer minutes, but not fewer games.
"If I could miss 10 or 12 games and go to the Bahamas, that sounds good," Nash said. "If I have to stay here, I might as well play. But to shift the minutes around a little more and change our style just a little bit to preserve guys' legs ... I think that's possible."
I'm just ridiculously in favor of there being backups for Nash that might let Barbosa return to his natural position. The man just doesn't see the floor well, and that's ok. You'd never ask Nash to post-up, or Shaq to start jacking up threes, so why is it a problem if LB is a (really good) undersized shooting guard?
Speaking of Barbosa, he left training camp to be with his very ill mother in Brazil. My thoughts are with them.
Also in that article:
The players [ran] gassers for every missed free throw.... "I have to change that around because they didn’t run that many," [Porter] said. "There were too many free throws made."
Diaw poked STAT in the eye and now Amare may wear goggles for the rest of his career. It isn't serious, but he's just a cautious guy.
Also in that article: Barbosa hasn't set a date to come back from Brazil yet. The Suns do not expect him back before next week, at the earliest.
A fairly nay-saying look at the upcoming season. Some positive bits, but also featuring many phrases in the vein of as if his feet are nailed to the floor and collection of dinosaurs.
Other NBA
Photo from the Plain Dealer
Information about Anderson Varejao, his off season, and his ankle injury.
The injury also prevented Varejao from playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifier. Surprisingly, he received criticism in his own country for sitting out the qualifier and rehabbing his ankle.
How is this surprising?
"What was tougher for me is the media in Brazil didn’t know what was going on," Varejao said. "I didn’t know why. Everybody started talking like I didn’t want to play for the national team. That was tough. Brazil is a soccer country. Basketball is not that big, so they didn’t really know what was going on."
No, really, I think that even if they had known why he didn't play for Brazil, they would have been disappointed. Especially b/c he played in the playoffs even with the sprain. And claiming that basketball fans around the world don't know about it when their favorite player is injured? Is shortsighted in the age of the internet.
Varejao said the ankle is still swelled a little, but not as bad as it was.
Which, aside from some questionable grammar, is both good and bad. Obviously.
The Spurs count their blessings and come up with three.
Lawrence Pedowitz's review of the NBA's referees has been completed. He found that Donaghy was the only ref who acted illegally. But, as Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, points out: "If this had been an independent investigation we would have gladly cooperated," Lauro told ESPN.com's Mike Fish. "But we knew this was going to be a PR effort. ... It is a way that David Stern can say, 'I put nice little ribbon on this whole case and the only person that has ever done anything incorrect is Tim Donaghy.' That really was the whole purpose of the report."
I gotta say, I agree. I'm on the fence about if there are other refs who were fixing games or doing things that were worse than favoritism, but I don't trust Stern at all.
The Warriors' mascot is named Thunder. The new OKC team is the Thunder. Conflict!
"For the sake of not making things confusing, we're going to do something. We just have to figure out a good exit strategy."
He just might have one -- leave Thunder in China during the team's upcoming trip to Asia.
"He might get lost in the crowd over in China," Rowell said. "There are 1.3 billion people there."
General WNBA
Lauren Jackson will be a free agent and the Storm are bound and determined to keep her. Also, no matter what the title of the article says, she doesn't want to think about the issue yet.
WNBA Finals
You may be able to stop Nolan, but the Shock have more options than that. For instance, they have Taj McWilliams-Franklin. And other veterans like Katie Smith. Also, the awesomeness of Bill Laimbeer. But mostly, they have Taj.
Doris Burke's diatribes about how the Mystics are eeeeevil for trading Taj to a contender have been bothering me a lot during ESPN's coverage of the Playoffs. I'm glad that someone else put it into words. If I had tried, it might have come out as *keyboardsmash*
I would also add that the Mystics picking up a 8.3ppg/3.7rpg 22 year-old rookie center (in Humphrey) is a lot better for rebuilding than the Grizzlies picking up a 4.8ppg/4.9rpg 26 year-old center who has been playing professionally for 7 years (in Kwame Brown). So please don't even begin to compare this to the Gasol trade, Ms. Burke. Thank you.
10 questions about this Suns' season: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune
Insight into Porter's playbook (now with muddled metaphors!)
“I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.”
The Suns spent an hour ironing out the wrinkles on one such play in Wednesday’s morning session.
So are wrinkles good? Or bad?
Also from that article:
When the Suns broke the huddle under former coach Mike D’Antoni, they chanted "Suns!" Under Porter, that mantra has changed to "Defense!"
I'm cautiously excited about seeing how they do with this defense oriented approach.
More on Porter's defense and how players are adapting to it.
Nash is in favor of fewer minutes, but not fewer games.
"If I could miss 10 or 12 games and go to the Bahamas, that sounds good," Nash said. "If I have to stay here, I might as well play. But to shift the minutes around a little more and change our style just a little bit to preserve guys' legs ... I think that's possible."
I'm just ridiculously in favor of there being backups for Nash that might let Barbosa return to his natural position. The man just doesn't see the floor well, and that's ok. You'd never ask Nash to post-up, or Shaq to start jacking up threes, so why is it a problem if LB is a (really good) undersized shooting guard?
Speaking of Barbosa, he left training camp to be with his very ill mother in Brazil. My thoughts are with them.
Also in that article:
The players [ran] gassers for every missed free throw.... "I have to change that around because they didn’t run that many," [Porter] said. "There were too many free throws made."
Diaw poked STAT in the eye and now Amare may wear goggles for the rest of his career. It isn't serious, but he's just a cautious guy.
Also in that article: Barbosa hasn't set a date to come back from Brazil yet. The Suns do not expect him back before next week, at the earliest.
A fairly nay-saying look at the upcoming season. Some positive bits, but also featuring many phrases in the vein of as if his feet are nailed to the floor and collection of dinosaurs.
Other NBA
Photo from the Plain Dealer
Information about Anderson Varejao, his off season, and his ankle injury.The injury also prevented Varejao from playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifier. Surprisingly, he received criticism in his own country for sitting out the qualifier and rehabbing his ankle.
How is this surprising?
"What was tougher for me is the media in Brazil didn’t know what was going on," Varejao said. "I didn’t know why. Everybody started talking like I didn’t want to play for the national team. That was tough. Brazil is a soccer country. Basketball is not that big, so they didn’t really know what was going on."
No, really, I think that even if they had known why he didn't play for Brazil, they would have been disappointed. Especially b/c he played in the playoffs even with the sprain. And claiming that basketball fans around the world don't know about it when their favorite player is injured? Is shortsighted in the age of the internet.
Varejao said the ankle is still swelled a little, but not as bad as it was.
Which, aside from some questionable grammar, is both good and bad. Obviously.
The Spurs count their blessings and come up with three.
Lawrence Pedowitz's review of the NBA's referees has been completed. He found that Donaghy was the only ref who acted illegally. But, as Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, points out: "If this had been an independent investigation we would have gladly cooperated," Lauro told ESPN.com's Mike Fish. "But we knew this was going to be a PR effort. ... It is a way that David Stern can say, 'I put nice little ribbon on this whole case and the only person that has ever done anything incorrect is Tim Donaghy.' That really was the whole purpose of the report."
I gotta say, I agree. I'm on the fence about if there are other refs who were fixing games or doing things that were worse than favoritism, but I don't trust Stern at all.
The Warriors' mascot is named Thunder. The new OKC team is the Thunder. Conflict!
"For the sake of not making things confusing, we're going to do something. We just have to figure out a good exit strategy."
He just might have one -- leave Thunder in China during the team's upcoming trip to Asia.
"He might get lost in the crowd over in China," Rowell said. "There are 1.3 billion people there."
General WNBA
Lauren Jackson will be a free agent and the Storm are bound and determined to keep her. Also, no matter what the title of the article says, she doesn't want to think about the issue yet.
WNBA Finals
You may be able to stop Nolan, but the Shock have more options than that. For instance, they have Taj McWilliams-Franklin. And other veterans like Katie Smith. Also, the awesomeness of Bill Laimbeer. But mostly, they have Taj.
Doris Burke's diatribes about how the Mystics are eeeeevil for trading Taj to a contender have been bothering me a lot during ESPN's coverage of the Playoffs. I'm glad that someone else put it into words. If I had tried, it might have come out as *keyboardsmash*
I would also add that the Mystics picking up a 8.3ppg/3.7rpg 22 year-old rookie center (in Humphrey) is a lot better for rebuilding than the Grizzlies picking up a 4.8ppg/4.9rpg 26 year-old center who has been playing professionally for 7 years (in Kwame Brown). So please don't even begin to compare this to the Gasol trade, Ms. Burke. Thank you.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Them young girls they do get weary, wearing that same old shaggy dress
In the aftermath of the second and third dunks in a WNBA regular season game, I've been thinking about the reaction of (most of) the (male dominated) media a bunch. So I wrote up (what turned out to be) an angry rant, and thought I'd post it.
First of all, if you watch a basketball game without any dunks and don't enjoy it *because* of the lack of dunking, you don't actually like basketball at all. You should be watching And 1, or better yet, nothing but dunk contests.
If you are among those complaining that the league sucks because they don't dunk? You have no place complaining that they should treat Candace Parker's dunks as a matter of course. That dunking regularly "is how it should be, and shouldn't be celebrated." I have two things to say about this pattern of complaint: a) you will never be happy with women playing pro-ball, and b) people who claim that dunks=enjoyable basketball are *the main reason* that the WNBA and its fans celebrated these dunks (and in part Candace Parker's presence in the league) as a milestone.
You helped set the bar. Many of you are members of the media, and you used that power to help put forth the opinion that basketball needs dunks to be exciting and worth watching. Never mind that this opinion shows a lack of interest in the game itself (regardless of gender). If that's what it apparently takes to make the game more interesting to watch, *of course* the WNBA is going to celebrate Candace Parker's recent dunks.
You can't have it both ways.
First of all, if you watch a basketball game without any dunks and don't enjoy it *because* of the lack of dunking, you don't actually like basketball at all. You should be watching And 1, or better yet, nothing but dunk contests.
If you are among those complaining that the league sucks because they don't dunk? You have no place complaining that they should treat Candace Parker's dunks as a matter of course. That dunking regularly "is how it should be, and shouldn't be celebrated." I have two things to say about this pattern of complaint: a) you will never be happy with women playing pro-ball, and b) people who claim that dunks=enjoyable basketball are *the main reason* that the WNBA and its fans celebrated these dunks (and in part Candace Parker's presence in the league) as a milestone.
You helped set the bar. Many of you are members of the media, and you used that power to help put forth the opinion that basketball needs dunks to be exciting and worth watching. Never mind that this opinion shows a lack of interest in the game itself (regardless of gender). If that's what it apparently takes to make the game more interesting to watch, *of course* the WNBA is going to celebrate Candace Parker's recent dunks.
You can't have it both ways.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Me like Sergei Federov
An all Suns edition in anticipation of Game Two tonight!
Nash was apparently sick with the flu in Game One, but he's better now. If it's the same strain as hit my friend L, it was the flu of near-death. I'm really impressed that he pulled off a performance like he did.
I think tonight can go really well, and will--as long as the Suns' bigs don't get in such foul trouble so early.
I know that the skills competitions on All Star Saturday aren't indicative of actual game ability, but it came as no surprise to me that Tim Duncan could make a three. Horror, yes. Surprise, no.
All season long, they've kicked butt at closing games. (46-5 when leading going into the 4th.) So what happened in Game One, and how can they avoid that kind of melt-down in the future?
The Suns have been nominated for the Professional Sports Team of the Year in the Sports Business Awards presented by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. That's a lot of words to say that a periodical (a magazine? a newspaper?) think that the Suns are a first class organization. In fact, they're the only NBA team nominated. Pretty cool.
Kurt Thomas really has joined the forces of evil, and calling a Spurs player "Dirty" is redundant. Just sayin'.
We (the Spurs) had to get through the Lakers. The Bulls had to get through Detroit, Detroit had to get through Boston. That’s always part of NBA history. If they don't get through the Spurs this year (*washes my mouth out with soap*), it won't be because of any mental block.
The best extended metaphor to describe this series in the history of ever. This made me laugh and laugh and then quote it at people. Here, let me quote it at you! A new nobleman, Steve Kerr, has armed the warriors with a new lance. Saint George's lance was named Ascalon, the Suns' lance is named Shaq.
Ok, ok--one non-Suns item. I'm rooting for the Caps tonight in their game 7 against the Flyers. How awesome would it be for them to get into round 2, when they weren't supposed to even get into the playoffs? *knocks so much wood for tonight's games*
Nash was apparently sick with the flu in Game One, but he's better now. If it's the same strain as hit my friend L, it was the flu of near-death. I'm really impressed that he pulled off a performance like he did.
I think tonight can go really well, and will--as long as the Suns' bigs don't get in such foul trouble so early.
I know that the skills competitions on All Star Saturday aren't indicative of actual game ability, but it came as no surprise to me that Tim Duncan could make a three. Horror, yes. Surprise, no.
All season long, they've kicked butt at closing games. (46-5 when leading going into the 4th.) So what happened in Game One, and how can they avoid that kind of melt-down in the future?
The Suns have been nominated for the Professional Sports Team of the Year in the Sports Business Awards presented by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. That's a lot of words to say that a periodical (a magazine? a newspaper?) think that the Suns are a first class organization. In fact, they're the only NBA team nominated. Pretty cool.
Kurt Thomas really has joined the forces of evil, and calling a Spurs player "Dirty" is redundant. Just sayin'.
We (the Spurs) had to get through the Lakers. The Bulls had to get through Detroit, Detroit had to get through Boston. That’s always part of NBA history. If they don't get through the Spurs this year (*washes my mouth out with soap*), it won't be because of any mental block.
The best extended metaphor to describe this series in the history of ever. This made me laugh and laugh and then quote it at people. Here, let me quote it at you! A new nobleman, Steve Kerr, has armed the warriors with a new lance. Saint George's lance was named Ascalon, the Suns' lance is named Shaq.
Ok, ok--one non-Suns item. I'm rooting for the Caps tonight in their game 7 against the Flyers. How awesome would it be for them to get into round 2, when they weren't supposed to even get into the playoffs? *knocks so much wood for tonight's games*
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