To be fair, trampoline dunking isn’t part of any basic training programs, since it’s a novelty basketball maneuver. They usually get to that in advanced individualized training, right after t-shirt cannon operation and crowd pump up-ing.
In fact, rumor has it that Hooper from the Pistons was nearly discharged due to lack of dunk skills. That’s supposed to be confidential information though, so you didn’t hear it from me.
Being an NBA coach is hard, especially if you’re in the first week of your first head coaching job at any level, just like Orlando Magic head guy Jacque Vaughn. That’s why, I’m guessing, the Magic’s official website took to the internet to poll their fans on who should be the team’s primary backup point guard. Because really, why else does this exist?
Sure, neither E’Twaun Moore nor Ish Smith have really established themselves in the league, so I can see why the team might like a little outside influence. However — and call me crazy if you want to — but I’m of the opinion that the head coach should be the guy who picks the backup point guard. And furthermore, you would think the website would support them and not try to tell them what to do and/or not create dissent among the organization and its fans.
Let’s say Jacque Vaughn picks Ish Smith as his backup PG and the fans pick E’Twaun Moore on this poll (he’s winning right now, with 59 percent of a whopping 709 votes). I’m sure Vaughn will completely ignore this poll, which he should, but isn’t it weird that the Magic themselves would be encouraging and supporting their fans to disagree with their coach? I certainly think so.
Whatever though — it’s the Magic backup point guard position, so who cares? I just voted for Moore because he grew up near my mom’s hometown and we share a birthday month. When you’re picking a backup point guard for one of the league’s worst teams, any reason to pick a player is a good one. At least there’s no write-ins, otherwise I’m sure Jeremy Lin would be on his way to Orlando to spell Jameer Nelson.
(via SportsGrid)
As far as I’m concerned, Kendrick Lamar is on the very short list of rappers who could be considered to be the best who’s doing it right now. He’s great and his major label debut, “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” may have just leaked a few days prior to its October 22 release date and it is also great.
And on that record sits a peculiar bonus track titled “Black Boy Fly” that contains an entire verse about Orlando Magic shooting guard Arron Afflalo and how good he was in high school. Here’s a partial transcription of the verse, courtesy of Rap Genius:
I used to be jealous of Arron Afflalo
He was the one to follow
He was the only leader for seeing brighter tomorrows
He would live in the gym
We was living in sorrow
Total envy of him
He made a dream become a reality
Actually making it possible to swim
He way out of Compton with further more to accomplish
Graduate with honors, a sponsor of basketball scholars
It’s 2004 and I’m watching him score 30
Remember vividly how them victory points had hurt me
Cause every basket was a reaction or a reminder
That we was just moving backwards
In a year where 2 Chainz declares he has “money tall like Jordan” even though MJ is only about an inch taller than the rapper rapping about him and Kanye West can’t come up with anything more clever to say about Derrick Rose than that he’s “nice” in the good at basketball way, an entire verse dedicated to the high school exploits of a fairly minor NBA shooting guard is kind of amazing. No offense to Arron Afflalo, but he’s just not the type of guy you expect to show up in rap songs.
I mean, if you’d have asked Arron Afflalo in 2011 if he’d be traded for Dwight Howard and lionized for winning a high school state championship on the highly-anticipated debut from a rapper from back home in the same year, he’d probably think you’re crazy. And not just because he knows that time travel isn’t possible yet. This might be the lowest PER extended rap reference in the long and storied history of NBA raps, but we’d have to get John Hollinger to look in to it.
What’s next, a Dorell Wright concept record? One can dream.
Join me as I count down my predictions of the regular season finishes for the 2012-13 NBA season, at a rate of three teams per day. Tell me why I’m wrong in the comments.
30. Orlando Magic
If you’re a Magic fan, you should not be upset by my forecast that your team will finish with the worst record in the NBA next season. When your best player is Arron Afflalo and your second-best player is a toss-up between Al Harrington and Gustavo Ayon, you have to know you’re going to be terrible. So why not go completely in the tank and root for your team to put itself in the best possible position to win the 2013 draft lottery?
Typically, a team this bad is populated with young players still trying to find their way in the pros, but the Magic roster consists mostly of veterans who would be useful pieces on a good team if they were required to play roughly half as many minutes as they’ll be expected to play this season. As for Hedo Turkoglu, this is the last fully guaranteed year on his contract so I expect he’ll head back to Turkey after this season to play out his remaining basketball days smoking Marlboro Reds as a player/coach for Anadolu Efes S.K.
29. Charlotte Bobcats
Why do I think the Bobcats will finish ahead of the Magic in the standings? Because it’s a potential contract year for Ben Gordon (next season is a player option), that’s why. It’s going to be fun to try to figure out which GM is going to witness Gordon scoring 18 points per game off the bench this season and subsequently talk himself into signing Gordon to a four-year, $40 million deal.
I expect Michael Kidd-Gilchrist to be a boxscore slut and I assume Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo will make noticeable improvements in their sophomore seasons. Underrated Bobcats storyline: Will DeSagana Diop’s 12th NBA season be his last? With the expiration of his contract, he will have earned $47 million while averaging around two points per game over his career. Size matters, y’all.
28. Houston Rockets
After years of stagnation, Rockets GM Daryl Morey has finally put this team in a position to “bottom out” this season and try to land a future superstar in the draft. That certainly seems to be where this team is headed after shedding four of its five best 2011-12 players in Luis Scola, Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic and Samuel Dalembert. After finishing 42-40, 43-39 and 34-32 over the last three seasons, the Rockets need to break out of their cycle of mediocrity and start trying to build a real contender.
It remains to be seen how the Jeremy Lin signing will turn out, but I’m convinced that Morey’s signing of Omer Asik will pay huge dividends for this team in the future. He’s one of the best defensive and rebounding centers in the league, and if he can raise his offensive game to something approaching decent, the Rockets will be paying just over $8 million per season for a top 10 center. I expect his emergence to be a rare highlight for this team as they settle into the Western Conference basement.
Next in the countdown: 27-25
That headline tells you pretty much everything you need to know, and the fact that it was Big Baby who did it tells you all the rest. Nonetheless, here’s the story, from the Orlando Sentinel:
Last season, the Amway Center loudspeakers often played music that featured the word “baby” in it whenever Glen “Big Baby” Davis made a big play or scored a point. Davis loved it.
On Tuesday, he revealed that he has a different tune in mind for those situations this season.
Davis recently recorded a song called “Big Baby Gon’ Turn It Up,” and it’s kind of catchy. It features his voice, with some significant enhancements provided by Auto-Tune.
Davis was asked whether he’s going to release an album.
A smile crossed his face.
“No,” he said, still grinning. “I’m a one-hit wonder.”
No word yet on whether or not he’ll dance to it with Tas, but I’m guessing the answer is an emphatic “yes” followed by a few booty shakes.
(song snippet via Alexis M.)
Now that Dwight Howard has been traded away from the Orlando Magic, there may be a full-scale revisionist history that portrays all the ways Dwiggity disappointed the franchise. We can’t let that happen. Dwight was VERY good to Orlando, even if the end got more than a little messy.
Lucky for all the Dwightophiles out there, one man is doing his best to maintain Dwight’s legacy in Orlando. That man is Glen Davis and he’s talking about the most important thing Dwight did for the Magic. From the Orlando Sentinel’s Josh Robbins’ Twitter feed:
Glen Davis was asked what the
#Magic will miss most about Dwight Howard. Davis’ answer: Dwight’s flatulence. [...]“The thing we’re going to miss most about Dwight is his farting ability.” [...]
“A great farter. He can fart. He can fart loud — the loudest farts. Silent farts.”
See? Not everything Dwight Howard did in Orlando was a total disaster. Every group of people needs at least one person who is great at farting and that includes basketball teams. In fact, I’d argue that basketball teams need them the most, just to keep things light during a strenuous season. That’s the main reason DeAndre Jordan got such a big contract, after all.
Plus, if you really think about it, farting around a professional basketball team is a pretty low risk/high reward maneuver. Everybody there already stinks so you’re not really going to stand out unless it’s breathtakingly horrible, but you still get the definite benefit of some fart joke laughs, which are almost always guaranteed. If you’re the team’s best farter, you should really bring the thunder. It’ll only bring the team closer together (and then back apart once they take a big whiff).
Nonetheless, there is a big, stinky hole down in Orlando that needs to be filled. Who is going to fill that void? My money’s on Hedo Turkoglu stepping up because I know firsthand what pizza can do to a human body. It’s now or never. Let ‘em rip.
(via SB Nation)
I hope you guys like Jay Leno, because this is the exact kind of story that you can fit in his monologues, I am guessing. I haven’t seen one of his shows in ages, but I have to imagine nothing has changed because nothing ever changes with him, except which denim shirt he’s going to wear. Nonetheless, let’s “Tonight Show” it up around here.
The Orlando Magic billboard featuring Kristi Slavin’s face shouted, “BE LOUD.”
And now she is.
Slavin has sued the basketball franchise, claiming it used a photo of her face and upper body — without her permission — in a marketing campaign. The picture, taken at the Amway Center during the Magic’s 2011 playoff run, shows the fan, now 30, in a Dwight Howard jersey, her arms raised and cheering.
The image appeared on light-post banners, in a tourist magazine and, enlarged, on the back of a Lynx bus.
The lawsuit, filed last month by Winter Park attorney Hank Hornsby, contends the Magic profited from the commercial and promotional use of Slavin’s face and body, but the team neither compensated nor consulted her.
And if being outed as a Magic fan in the post-Dwight era isn’t bad enough, people even had the gall to ask her if she’s a model now.
In the lawsuit, Slavin said the ads, banners and billboard have caused “uncomfortable and embarrassing encounters and questions” from friends, family and co-workers. The document alleges her public image was altered by the unauthorized use.
“People have asked her, ‘When did you get into modeling?’ ” Hornsby said.
Slavin is seeking “more than $15,000″ in damages and her lawyer contends that she was chosen as the face of the Magic’s campaign because she was young and attractive. If she wins this lawsuit — and considering the back of every NBA ticket explicitly grants the team “‘the irrevocable and unrestricted right and license’ to use the holder’s image in ‘any medium or context’ and specifically mentions promotional purposes ‘without further authorization or compensation’,” it could be tough — then she’ll have essentially been paid 15 grand to be the world’s most visible Magic fan for a year, just because she’s pretty. There could be worse outcomes.
In response, the Magic have chosen this guy as the star of their campaign for the 2012-13 season. Seems fitting.
