Monday, July 13, 2009
Clandestine
As I mentioned last week, I missed the FHM 100 show to go out-of-town for work. The result is this report about the communities in Tanay, Rizal affected by the Laiban Dam project. It was a follow-up on a previous report by the PCIJ on the San Miguel Corporation's clandestine deal for the P52-billion dam project with the MWSS.Coincidentally, I spent the weekend bitching about another San Miguel clandestine deal, this time about the Beermen acquiring superstar forward Arwind Santos from Burger King in exchange for a plate of roasted highland legumes.
Labels: basketball, pcij, work
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Fire Quinito
I have a new blog that's all about sports, and it's up now. It's called Fire Quinito, and it's a different, fun look at Pinoy sports.I don't ask for much, even though a lot of you have been reading my blog for years now, so go there. Read it. Bookmark it. Subscribe to the RSS feed. Share it on Facebook.
(Also, as Frances Ellen points out, if all the sports stuff from this blog [which she and most of you skip through anyway] move to that blog, there'll be more girly stuff left on this blog.)
If you're not a sports fan, I'd still highly recommend taking a look at this post about Chris Tiu and Joseph Casio's brewing bromance. And there's this insane story about a star Fil-am basketball player that's all kinds of crazy.
And if you're hooked, check out the ongoing primer on the amateur Philippine Basketball League, which contains, among other things, an anecdote about Melanie Marquez and a discussion of the state of generic drugs in the Philippines.
Labels: basketball, firequinito, sports
Friday, March 06, 2009
Baller-in-Chief
This is a couple of days late (I've been busy, you know, working), but this is just all kinds of awesome and really needs to be shared.The Washington Wizards earlier this week played host to the Chicago Bulls, so Chicago native Barack Obama took the opportunity to watch his home town team in the nation's capital. And instead of sitting in a luxury box, he actually sat courtside and mixed it up with die-hard Wizznuts, including this little Tuff Juice fan:
And the President even started to enjoy a cold one:
Then things started heating up on the court, and a Wizards fan started talking trash to Obama, who was rooting for the visiting team:
[Wizards fan Miles Rawls] told the President that if he was rooting for the visitors, he was "gonna have to keep it to a low roar, because we're cheering for the Wizards over here." Obama, in turn, repeatedly needled Rawls about the Wizards' habit of letting leads evaporate, especially when the Bulls made a run.
"We was just going back and forth," Rawls said. "Once Chicago started coming back, he told me, 'Now I think you need to sit down.' When Tyrus Thomas dunked on somebody, he turned around, was talking smack. Then JaVale McGee had that alley-oop, and he gave me the high five. We was just supporting each others' team, having a good time."
Labels: barack obama, basketball
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Quick hits
Just checking in. Haven't had the chance to blog much with so many things going on... hopefully everything gets sorted out next week so I can tell everyone about the plans.Anyway, some things I liked over the past couple of days:
- The new Vanity Fair has an article about all the trouble the filmmakers went through for the first Godfather film. Awesome, awesome read. My favorite part was Frank Sinatra's intense antipathy towards the film getting made. The character Johnny Fontane, who was allegedly based on the Chairman of the Board, was marginalized in the movie even it was featured very prominently in the book. Francis Ford Coppola disputed that Sinatra had much to do with it, stating that the actor who played Fontane just sucked. Also, it was interesting to note that Marlon Brando was only 47 when he played Don Vito--and he was totally washed up in Hollywood eyes at the time. Isn't that crazy? For reference, Robert De Niro, who played the young Vito Corleone in the sequel, was also 47 when he did "Goodfellas". Oh, and Tom Cruise turns 47 this year.
- Here's a Slate piece about a guy who tries to apply the lessons from the Michael Lewis basketball article. The moral would resonate with every guy of marginal athletic talent who plays pick-up basketball.
- Speaking of number-crunching, analyst Nate Silver gives a roundup of his Oscar predictions after the fact, where he discusses the model he used and possible changes.
- The New York Times looked for a washed-up wrestler who didn't end up screwing up his whole life, and they found Tito Santana, who's now living comfortably as a high school teacher and basketball coach. Oddly enough, like Randy "The Ram" Robinson, he still spends weekends wrestling men who are half his age.
- Studios are bidding for the new buddy cop movie "The B Team", which would star Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. It's kind of amazing that Ferrell hasn't played a cop in any of his movies yet, right? Seems like a natural fit. I just hope there's a scene where Marky Mark starts talking to animals.
- While we're on the subject, Ferrell shakes and bakes with Nate Robinson! Haha, and Nate scored a season-high 41 points too. Not a bad month for Krypto-Nate.
Labels: basketball, hehehe, movies, wrestling
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Love and basketball
A few years ago, I spent way too many evenings staying up way too late, and drinking way too much. Fortunately, most of my friends also spent their evenings the same way, and quite often I would spend the wee hours of the morning chatting with a friend about, well, life. Quarter-life funks were all the rage back then (perhaps it still is), and our conversations would invariably turn to issues at work. After a particularly rough evening, I found myself trying to find words to make her feel better about the job she was doing, which isn't really a good idea after six (or seven, or eight) beers."In basketball," I told her, "there's the glue guy. There's this guy on the Rockets, Shane Battier, who's the reason for their resurgence. He's not a superstar, he doesn't score the most points, he doesn't hit any fancy shots, no dunks, no highlights for him on ESPN. And yet, anyone who knew anything about basketball would know just how important he is to the team; they don't win without him. To the team, he's just as essential as the superstars who grab the headlines."
"Do you have a point?"
"My point is, on your team, you're the glue guy. You might not get any of the headlines, but you're the one makes things happen. You're the one who always knows what to do when issues come up. You're the one everyone could turn to when they hit a snag. And you never lose your cool at the heat of the moment; you remain calm and everyone else draws from that. And I guess you just let it all out when we go out drinking afterwards, like, you know, now."
She took a puff, and sighed. I wasn't sure at that point if she was still listening to me. She probably wasn't. I continued.
"See, the thing is, you're just as important as anyone else on your team. And everyone who knows about what you do would--should--know how much you mean to everyone. And I'm sure everyone appreciates you. Everyone sees that. I see that."
Obviously, there are a couple of things to take away from this: (1) alcohol really does kill your brain cells; and, (2) comparing women to 6-8 NBA forwards with weird hairlines is never a good idea.
But I was reminded of this episode in my life because of an article about Battier in this weekend's New York Times magazine. The lengthy piece was written by Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, which chronicled one team's use of statistical tools to run a baseball team, and which ended up revolutionizing how most teams in Major League Baseball are run.
The story examines Battier's impact on the Rockets, whose GM Daryl Morey is one of the proponents of the use of objective metrics for basketball analysis. Why is Battier, with his marginal stats and limited offensive game, just as important to his team as an all-world superstar like Yao Ming?
Before the 2006-7 season, Battier was traded to the Houston Rockets, who had just finished 34-48. In his first season with the Rockets, they finished 52-30, and then, last year, went 55-27 — including one stretch of 22 wins in a row. Only the 1971-2 Los Angeles Lakers have won more games consecutively in the N.B.A. And because of injuries, the Rockets played 11 of those 22 games without their two acknowledged stars, Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, on the court at the same time; the Rockets player who spent the most time actually playing for the Rockets during the streak was Shane Battier. This year Battier, recovering from off-season surgery to remove bone spurs from an ankle, has played in just over half of the Rockets’ games. That has only highlighted his importance. “This year,” Morey says, “we have been a championship team with him and a bubble playoff team without him.”
Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.
Of course, this is part of my original thesis in the tragic comparison I mentioned above. Any smart basketball fan of course would know just how important players like Battier are. (Dumb basketball fans, on the other hand, just root for Kobe Bryant.)
But anyway, you should read the Michael Lewis article if you are: (a) any kind of basketball fan, because it details not just why, but how, Battier makes himself so important to his team (i.e. while guarding a bad rebounder, he gravitates to Lakers' center Pau Gasol to help his teammates block out, a move that is never reflected on the box score); (b) you're the girl mentioned in the anecdote above, if you still read this blog; or, (c) you have friends who are prone to bring up basketball analogies in the wee hours of the morning after late night drinking sessions.
Labels: basketball
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The year in Steve Nash videos
2008 was the year that Steve Nash finally lost the mantle of "Best Point Guard in the World" to Chris Paul, and it saw the demise of the "Seven Seconds or Less" era in Phoenix as well. The team looks like a shell of its former self, and the effect is most apparent in Nash.But 2008 also marked Nash's stake as the funniest NBA player, like, ever. Things started off promisingly this summer with his Stepbrothers spoof alongside Baron Davis:
Then there was this fall campaign for Vitamin Water featuring Nash in an odd series of videos. The first is a take on his awesome Training Day commercial last year. The worm at the 28-second mark made me laugh out loud:
Next on tap is a photo shoot, with Nash channeling his inner Zoolander. "It's like people say, Hey, don't swim with sharks... but I'm faster than sharks, so it's not a big deal."
Finally, there's Nash visiting the Vitamin Water offices to motivate the staff, and does his best David Brent/Michael Scott. "Excuse me, while I'm here... does anybody need an autograph?"
Labels: basketball, sports
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Baby-faced assassin
Awesome line about New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul over at True Hoop:Off the court, Paul is the prince who guest stars on a NPR's precious weekend game show. On the court, he's the nastiest point guard since Gary Payton's prime, and shouldn't be defended without a tetanus shot.
The post then segues into a story about Paul's competitiveness, basically willing his team to win after getting annoyed at a heckling Pacers fan. Fun stuff.
Just last week, True Hoop also had an entry about how Paul basically cheated in a jump ball situation to save the game for his team, and he punked no less than Manu Ginobili.
This all reminds me of that Charles Barkley quote about the NBA's original baby-faced assassin, and the guy to whom Chris Paul is compared by everyone, Isiah Thomas. Thomas was so competitive, Barkley said, that he "would cut your balls off to win."
Too bad everyone knows him now as the guy who ran the Knicks into the ground. And then OD'd on sleeping pills afterwards. And tried to pin the whole mess to his daughter.
He used to be so much more, and here's video to prove it. Check out the putback dunk over Kevin McHale at around the 45-second mark. Man, Zeke was a bad motherfucker.
Labels: basketball, sports
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Heh
Just a couple of hours after the last post, Purefoods got eliminated from the ongoing Philippine Cup after laying a big fat egg against, ironically, Air 21. It got so ugly that during a timeout midway through 4th quarter, James Yap got into a shouting match against Purefoods assistant coach Koy Banal, after Banal chewed out Yap for a missed defensive assignment. Yap then threw a towel at Banal, who had to be restrained by the other guys on the bench from going at Yap.Yeah, it was as bad as it sounds. At that point, the team was down by something like 20 points, and Yap had been carrying the team, scoring
Now, I never root against any of my favorite teams, and there was no excuse for what Yap did, but I hope this is the last straw against the Purefoods coaching staff. They're the worst offensive team in the league (something that shouldn't happen with Yap and Kerby Raymundo in the lineup), they don't have any offensive structure, their defensive rotations are lousy, the in-game coaching is horrible, and they never seem to execute off timeouts. The body language by the players are terrible, and everyone looks like they'd rather be someplace else.
Meanwhile, the whole coaching staff is just full of it. Head coach Ryan Gregorio is quick to make excuses, while Banal, the team's "defensive coordinator" has been ineffective all conference. In fact, it was odd that Banal started going at Yap for the missed assignment when Raymundo and Peter June Simon were missing assignments all game long, and the defensive gameplan coming into the game was just horrible.
The whole coaching staff really needs to go. Man, I hope they finally pull the trigger on it. National team coach Yeng Guiao might be available.
Meanwhile, the second conference of the PBA won't be on until March. I need to find something else to get into until then.
UPDATE: GMANews.TV reports that Yap and Banal have patched things up. Gregorio still needs to be fired though. I hope they get Yeng Guiao.
Labels: basketball, purefoods, sports
The year in James Yap videos
As a Purefoods fan, I've learned how to live with James Yap as my team's MVP. Well, lifelong Purefoods fans have had plenty of practice; for starters, we've spent most of our days not just rooting for the Hotdogs, but the Tender Juicy Hotdogs. They renamed the team, but it hasn't gotten marginally better. The team was renamed the Purefoods Chunkee Giants, to promote the company's corned beef brand, and when it was time to go back to promoting hotdogs, management apparently liked the Giants moniker so much that the team is now known as the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants.That wasn't the end of it though. We still had to deal with stupid crap about Alvin Patrimonio (usually from the ignorant, unwashed masses), his being an overpaid crybaby, and his offcourt dealings, like his short-lived showbiz career (and even more short-lived affair with Kris Aquino) and insinuations about Nap Gutierrez being his boyfriend.
So yeah, you kinda let all that crap (Kris, Baby James, Hope, the whole K-Pop metrosexual thing) and concentrate on the basketball. And because I do spend an ungodly amount thinking about things like when the Giants' moronic coach Ryan Gregorio will finally be fired (I did a Google search for 'Ryan Gregorio sucks' and found an article that I wrote for Peyups.com four years ago) and wondering whether backup point guard Chico Lanete is mildly retarded (especially after he airballs another fadeaway 3-pointer with 18 seconds left on the shot clock, the 294th of his career).
Anyway.
The first video was a from a game against Red Bull last conference, as James Yap hits a fadeaway jumper from the top of the key with 0.7 seconds to go:
I remember watching this at my old apartment while my housemate Urk was having dinner. Even he let out a yell when Yap hit the shot. And because of the awesomeness of YouTube, here's a fan video of the play:
It's been an infamous year for Yap. He was in the middle of the controversy during the Philippine Cup finals against Sta. Lucia for being suspended for a game in the Finals after smacking Joseph Yeo in the face. Although, to be fair to Yap, wouldn't you like a chance to smack that smug look off Yeo's face too? Purefoods lost the game wherein Yap was suspended, and ultimately lost the series in seven games.
But no, Yap's craziest moment came during a brawl against Talk N Text during the last conference. He wasn't involved in the initial altercation, but he gave a sucker kick to Talk N Text's import Terrence Leather, which led to Leather chasing Yap all over the court:
Good thing he wasn't caught, because Leather was just about ready to take his head off. Leather got ejected, and Yap escaped with a mere technical foul.
It wasn't all bad though, because just recently, Yap had a highlight for the ages during their first game against Air 21 in the current Philippine Cup. Purefoods was down by three with the ball, and Kerby Raymundo had just missed a shot in the dying seconds. So Yap beat Arwind Santos for the offensive rebound, chased the ball to the corner, tiptoed the baseline and the sideline, and launched a turnaround, fadeaway three-pointer from behind the backboard to tie the game.
Read that paragraph again.
Yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds:
Labels: basketball, purefoods, sports, video
Monday, December 08, 2008
Wala lang, ulit
The finals of the Philippine Collegiate Championship between Ateneo and La Salle has been sloppy. La Salle's leading late in the fourth, and if they win, this would be the first time they beat Ateneo this season in five tries. The highlight of the game? Sharon Yu's doing sideline reporting again.(Tapos wala lang, ipo-post ko lang ulit yung picture niya.)
Earlier, Letran won against San Beda in the battle for third, which was nice, and almost makes up for the one-point heartbreaker against Ateneo the other day.
Labels: babes, basketball, sports
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Wala lang
Was watching the Philippine Collegiate Championship tournament game between Letran and FEU earlier, and I just wanted to share that (former La Salle and current Solar Sports) sideline reporter Sharon Yu totally floats my boat.
Also, Letran won! Up next for the Knights are the big bad Ateneo Blue Eagles (minus Chris Tiu) in the Final Four.
Labels: babes, basketball, sports
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Big Twitter
Sittin next to steve nash, tryna get hi to join twitter about 7 hours ago from txt
Just saw the the great phil jackson, gave him a kiss on da cheek about 7 hours ago from txt
On my way 2 da arena. I feel like the main charachter n da movie 300 about 8 hours ago from txt
Ok, just had to post this: here's a link to Shaquille O'Neal hilarious Twitter feed. It's really him; he got himself an account after a fake Shaq twitter came to his attention. The impersonation was also good, but not quite as awesome as the real thing.
It's everything you would expect from the big fella, who once gave himself the nickname Osama Bin Shaq (because he terrorized Keith Van Horn under the boards during the 2002 NBA Finals).
Labels: basketball, shaquille o'neal
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Prince
Mico Halili and rookie announcer Vince Hizon were doing the Purefoods double-OT loss to Coke last night, and I caught the BTV replay in the wee hours of the morning. During a lull in the third quarter, Mico casually mentioned that the full name of litte-used Coke forward Ricky Calimag was Recarido. It led to the following exchange:Vince: "Are you serious? Do you really know all the first names and all the full names of all the players?"
Mico: (thinking) "Well, I know your middle name."
Vince: (sounding genuinely surprised) "Really?"
Mico: "Yeah. The Prince."
Mico is bar-none the best announcer on Philippine TV. It's actually the second time I caught him doing a game with Vince. A couple of weekends ago, on Vince's first broadcast, Mico kept joking that he was working with royalty. Then when they showed a shot of Chris Tiu in the stands, Mico kept ribbing Vince about how before Ateneo fangirls screamed for Chris Tiu, they used to scream for Vince the Prince, so much so that you could hear Vince blushing. Unlike Chris Tiu though, Vince never won championships for Ateneo, as he carried those crappy early '90s teams; back then, the school didn't pay their players hundreds of thousands of pesos to play for the team.
Labels: basketball
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Pop teams
I'm, like, the biggest Purefoods fan, but even I'm surprised about the results of this survey from the Social Weather Station: Purefoods and Ginebra tie as most popular in PBA.According to the article, while Ginebra is still the most popular team in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon, Purefoods is way ahead in the Visayas and in Mindanao.
A lot of it might be because Purefoods' top gun, James Yap, is from Escalante, Negros Occidental, and played high school ball in Iloilo, but two other key players on the team are hardcourt legends from their early days in the south as well. Starting point guard Roger Yap was a star in the tough Cebuano commercial basketball before his "Samboy Lim 2000" days with Shark in the PBL, while Peter June Simon was Davao basketball's favorite son, starring for the University of Mindanao before becoming the top gun for the Davao Eagles in the MBA, winning Discovery of the Year honors during his rookie season.
Labels: basketball, purefoods, sports
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Blogging
My big exam, the final comprehensive exam for my graduate school degree, is on in a few hours and I still can't sleep. I had thought of using Sleepasil, but then I was afraid of oversleeping so I didn't. I'm pretty confident about the exam actually, but I don't know how I'll hold up with the lack of sleep. I'll try to take a nap later.Anyway, interesting story: I only use my GMail (jaemark@gmail.com) account for email, because I find it unwieldy to use multiple accounts, although I do own the Yahoo (jaemark@yahoo.com) account. I check the Yahoo account very, very infrequently and earlier tonight, I decided to check into it (after something like a year, I think) to look for a message. While I didn't find the message I was looking for, I came across a very interesting email dated May 15. It was an offer for me to blog about sports, basketball in particular, for the website of one of the most popular men's magazines in the country.
D'oh, sayang! It would have been a cool forum, especially since I've been watching a lot of basketball these days. I did email the guy back, and hopefully the offer's still good; I checked their sports blog, and there aren't even posts about the UAAP or the NCAA or even the PBA Finals, and my head is swimming with (mostly useless) thoughts about these things, and I'm trying not to write about these in this blog because some people are already complaining about it as it is. Seriously, at this point I can write 3,000 words about RJ "So Cool" Jazul of the Letran Knights, whom most of you probably have never heard of.
Which reminds me, I was talking to Ellen last night on GTalk, while she was on a layover in Dubai from her flight home from Bratislava, and she was complaining that all I ever wrote about were books or sports. I would have countered that I also wrote about music too, but she was getting at the fact that I never wrote about my personal life anymore. Actually, I was telling her about this one girl (it was a long conversation), but then I realized she didn't know anything about this girl because I never wrote about that kind of thing anymore. Which is a good thing, actually, because I really shouldn't be sharing too much, really. But then we started making plans to get together for dinner just so we could catch up more (and so she could interrogate me about this), and she mentioned that we'd have to do this a couple of weeks from now since she'd be spending time home in La Union. And then, as a joke, the idea of getting together in Baguio (which is only an hour and a half away from La Union) came up, and even though my friends and I have plans to go up there at the end of September, the thought of randomly having dinner at Cafe by the Ruins next week sounded really, really good.
I should get some sleep now.
Labels: basketball, insomnia, personal
Saturday, August 09, 2008
08-09-08
I'm still having trouble sleeping. I've been glued to the television for most of the evening (and most of the morning too). Earlier, I was switching from the Air 21 massacre of Ginebra in the PBA Finals, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and Dalja's Spring (heh). The Olympics program was great, and the lighting of the torch was particularly awesome, but I missed Team Philippines on the oval because I was channel-surfing, and the nations came out in Mandarin alphabetical order, and Solar cut in and out of the program really awkwardly (both on CS/RPN and on Solar Sports). It was also odd that they used the Australian feed for the broadcast, when the American NBC feed would probably have been better. I mean, the announcer didn't even know who Manu Ginobili or Dirk Nowitzki was.There was bad news elsewhere in the world this evening, with Georgia and Russia moving closer to war. I hope they both stand down. Guess 08-08-08 isn't such a lucky day after all.
Just a few moments ago I was watching a re-run of a pre-Olympic friendly between defending Olympic basketball champions Argentina and Asian champions Iran. It was interesting because while Iran lost, they weren't completely overmatched. In fact, it wasn't until late in the third quarter until Argentina finally put them away. Granted, Argentina was probably taking it easy since the game wasn't very meaningful, but still, Iran looked like they belonged in the same court as the Olympic champions who started five NBA players. It's significant because we beat Iran in the Jones Cup last year (and narrowly lost to them in the Fiba-Asia championships because of a controversial call).
Labels: basketball, beijing olympics, insomnia, sports, television
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Agent Zero
Gilbert Arenas just got back from his trip around the world and blogged about it. The title of his post-- Everybody should visit Manila:You have to look at the Agent Zero posters they had out there. They put me in a cape at one of my last events in Manila. It was at one of their biggest malls and they were predicting it was going to be crowded. I mean, crowded to me is a Saturday afternoon at the mall where you have to wait in line for 10 minutes to pay for your jeans. Their crowded was probably four or five thousand people in the mall. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen crazy fans all over the world. It was like Golden State against the Dallas Mavericks with Game 3 back in Oakland. It was that type of atmosphere in the mall.
I was stunned.
They made me feel like an NBA star.
Any NBA players out there: If you’re having a bad day, or you’re having a bad career, go to Manila. They’ll bring your spirits up, trust me.
Tons of the usual Gil craziness there too. Wasn't able to catch but I did see him on TV during the Ateneo-La Salle game. I love his Hibachi shoes. Sana magkapera ako para makabili.
Labels: basketball, sports
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Winning Maroons
Nice 86-72 win by the UP Fighting Maroons over the NU Bulldogs. With the opening day victory under new head coach Aboy Castro, the team already eclipsed last year's 0-14 record.Some notes:
-- The frontcourt rotation isn't nearly as bad as everyone expected. It's still nowhere near the level of the elite teams, but it's been adequate so far. The line's still undersized, but it's very skilled and surprisingly deep, and the starting center Magi Sison looks like he'll be a PBA player down the line. I don't know if they'll still be adequate against the berret teams, but of the whole league, I think only Ateneo has the size to punish our big guys in the paint. We'll see.
-- The full-court trap was surprisingly effective because the backcourt was surprisingly quick and athletic. The announcers never mentioned this, but Paul Sorongon was perfect as the disruptive, long, and pesky guard at the top of the trap.
-- Pleased with the development of Martin Reyes. He's got enough size to play the 3-spot, and he can shoot over smaller guards. If he can shoot well enough over the course of the season, he'll be the team's most important scorer.
-- On the other hand, its sad to see that Migs de Asis' game has atrophied. He used to be better than Reyes, but lack of size and athleticism looks like it has rendered him ineffective. He can still be a deadly shooter off the bench playing spot minutes, but that's about it for him.
-- Mark Lopez has good length and athleticism, and he can play multiple positions. I can't help but feel like he should be much, much better than he actually is. He looks like a star. Hopefully he'll play like one too.
-- UP didn't even shoot that well from the outside but still won going away. The defense was excellent though, forcing lots of turnovers that led to easy baskets.
-- UP's new courtside reporter is former child star Patricia Ann Roque.
-- It's cool to see UP assistant coach Jerry Codinera wearing maroon.
Labels: basketball, sports, up fighting maroons
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Boy that escalated quickly
I mean, that really got out of hand fast. I was waiting for Eddie House to stab Sasha Vujacic with a trident.The most incredible thing about the whole series for me is how Phil Jackson has been asleep on the wheel the whole time, leaving guys like Farmar, Radmanovic, and Vujacic too long, failing to get Kobe the ball in better position, looking like he's thinking about his reservations at STK after the game. It's completely perplexing, because we've been watching the guy for more than ten years now, and he's been the best coach in the league, bar none, over that period. Now he looks like he just stopped caring.
As Simmons asked:
Is anyone else starting to wonder if Jackson coaches the Lakers just because they pay him a ton of money and he's dating the owner's daughter and that's it? I mean, he can't LIKE most of these guys, right? He sure doesn't seem like he's enjoying these games, that's for sure. Do you think he goes home after every Lakers game, pours himself a glass of wine, lights up a Cuban, watches one of the old Bulls games from the '90s and just fights back tears for an hour or so thinking about how much he hates coaching Kobe? You wouldn't rule it out, right?
Labels: basketball, nba finals 2008, sports
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Classic games
A couple of hours ago, while preparing a paper for grad school, I got sucked in to the classic game playing on BTV. It was the first game of the 1997 NBA Finals, between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz. I couldn't remember the game's finish (or why it's on as a classic), so I ended up watching the whole thing. The game was tied with about 30 seconds remaining after Michael Jordan missed a free throw. The Jazz went to a pick-and-roll, but the Bulls defended it well forcing a contested 25-footer from John Stockton with the shot clock running down. The ball hit the back rim for a long rebound, but in the scramble for the loose ball, a foul was called on Dennis Rodman. Karl Malone went to the line for free throws and missed both. The Bulls rebounded the ball, called timeout, and got the ball to Jordan, who sank a twenty-footer at the buzzer for the win.By now, you've probably guessed that this was the infamous The mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays game. The story goes that prior to Malone's important free throws, Scottie Pippen went to him and whispered those words, which caused the Jazz forward to miss.
I was just about to turn in when the titles rolled and BTV was showing another classic game. I wanted to check out what game it was when Marv Albert narrated a montage of the events of the same Finals series. The clip featured the Jordan game-winner and the Bulls going up 2-0, and two home wins by the Jazz highlighted by Stockton's heroics including a steal off Jordan to tie the series. At this point, I still couldn't remember which game this was, until the camera cut to a shot of Jordan entering the arena, followed by Albert reporting that there was a lot of concern in the Chicago camp, not just because Utah had the momentum, but because Jordan had been under the weather for the past 24 hours.
This was the flu game.
So here I am, typing away while the game is on. The Bulls are getting killed in the first quarter with Jordan struggling and taking an early trip to the bench, but I suspect that they'll be alright. I think I'll stay up to finish this one. It's not like I have to go to work tomorrow.
Labels: basketball, sports
