Some guys have all the luck. NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a statue outside the Staples Center AND a cameo role on the pilot episode of sure-to-be-long-lived sitcom “Guys with Kids” where he dunks a baby like that is a real thing that people do? Looks like everything is coming up Kareem.
(via With Leather/Guyism)
You knew it was coming and now you can’t get that song out of your head. Sorry.
Also, Mr. Bean for some reason.
It’s the middle of September and we’re mired in the deadest dead of the NBA calendar, when guys are just trying to get their last few moments of training and relaxation in before the grind of the season. If it weren’t for Twitter and guys keeping us updated with all the dumb things they’re doing, we’d have nothing but the classic “15 pounds of muscle” and “looks better than ever” to talk about around these parts. No fun. Instead, we get to giggle at guys enjoying their final weeks of partying and a basketball internet filled with completely subjective and utterly meaningless lists.
All of which is to say, I hope you enjoy this completely subjective and utterly meaningless list.
When we talk about what makes a player cool, it’s basically impossible to describe. That’s going to make this paragraph really fun to read, I know, but I think we all have a basic grasp on the concept. It’s some combination of charisma, accolades, talent, personality and mystique. On-court performance and style play in to this to, but as FreeDarko explained for years, probably not as must as you’d think. Simply put, there are just some guys in the league that are cooler than others. You know who the coolest guys in the league are even if you can’t explain it.
For instance, LeBron James was at his coolest when he was coming in to the NBA, before he took so much criticism and (more importantly) responded to that criticism. It’s hard for the best player in the league to be the coolest player in the league, since there is so much spotlight on them that it’s hard to be anything other than a superstar. Shaquille O’Neal was never the coolest player in the league and neither was Kobe Bryant. Michael Jordan was, even though Sam Perkins was a pretty close second. The sometimes unfair demands of being the top player in the NBA — mass marketability, grace in the media, not outwardly being a jerk or goofball — make it basically impossible for that guy to double as the coolest player in the league.
Trying to be the coolest player in the league doesn’t help either, which is why Amar’e Stoudemire isn’t at the top of this list. For whatever reason, consciously courting cool just doesn’t work. To be cool, you just have to be cool (shoutout to Uma Thurman) without really trying. As Channing Tatum said in “21 Jump Street,” trying hard is for nerds, which I understand is the least cool reference that could possibly be made with the exception of that Uma Thurman/”Be Cool” one from earlier. But then again, the concept of this whole thing is pretty uncool. C’est la vie.
Nonetheless, here is one bro’s guess at who the 10 coolest players in the NBA are, with some reasons for their selection.
There’s an old saying: Old power forwards never die, they just end up on different benches. I may have just made this up right now, but if Juwan Howard has taught us anything then you know it’s true.
That doesn’t make this any less ridiculous though. From Marc J. Spears:
[Kevin Willis] turned 50 today, is in great shape & tells Y! he could play 15-20 min a game in NBA now & would return if a team is serious.
No offense to Kevin Willis, who is one half of the legendary “Did you mean Otis Thorpe?” joke and 100 percent of the even more legendary “Look how short this guy’s arms are” joke, but I have a feeling that none of the teams in the NBA are going to be serious. Maybe I am crazy and there is a market for 50-year-old journeymen power forwards who made one All-Star team literally 20 years ago and have been retired for five years, but I suspect that is not the case. If it were, Otis Thorpe would have got a job years ago. (Still works.)
That being said, if there were any retired basketball players who are not named Karl Malone who I think would stay in good enough shape to make a return to the NBA at age 50, Kevin Willis would be pretty high on the list. Even though he was always one of the sweatiest players of my childhood, he was always tremendously fit. Plus, he’s spent the last few years making clothes, which we all know fall way better if you keep trim.
And hey, there are still probably like three or four teams Willis hasn’t played for yet. I’m not sure if they’re serious, but they’re certainly out there. Might as well keep working out.
By now, you probably know that former Heat/Warriors/Magic/Nets center Rony Seikaly is a house music DJ/producer, which is even funnier now that we’ve all accepted that this is a thing that has really happened. For some reason, “Rony Seikaly is a house DJ (period)” is just more funny than “Rony Seikaly is a house DJ (question mark).”
Nonetheless, in order to keep you up to date on his club career, here’s his newest song. Not a joke, it’s called “MILF,” and it must be inspired by his 2005 divorce from Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover girl Elsa Benitez.
According to Seikdawg, the track is “number 14 in the top 100 tech house charts on @beatport @fauxent,” so that is something. Also according to Seikout’s Twitter bio, he is “allergic to haters,” so if you’re not impressed with that, then he doesn’t care and might go in to anaphylactic shock if you say it sucks. So be nice.
NEW YORK — In a move sure to delight basketball fans around the globe, the schedule for the 2012-13 season was released Thursday night. Following strict orders from the league office and commissioner David Stern, each and every NBA team was given exactly 82 games. “After last year’s shortened season, some people might have forgot,” said Stern, “but this is literally how we always do it. 82 games per team, per season. Even for the Bobcats.”
Perhaps most unsurprising is the nature of the games, which will see the league’s most noteworthy teams playing games on the season’s most important days. That includes Opening Night games for the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers as well as Christmas Day games for the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers.
Additionally, each team’s schedule will follow the same structure, with the teams playing most teams in their conference four times and each team in the opposing conference just twice. Deputy commissioner Adam Silver told reporters, “Yep, that’s how we do it every season. People should have been expecting this. It’s not a big deal.”
As expected, the league scheduled more nationally televised games for teams with larger fan bases. Shocking no one, the New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat tallied the most of these marquee games with 25 each. According to Stern, “We always give newsworthy teams more games on national TV because that’s how TV works.” Furthermore, there are indeed games on the schedule that will feature matchups between storied rivals, pit last season’s playoff teams against each other and showcase the return of since-departed players to their former teams.
Reached for comment, more than 550 bloggers tweeted links to their “10 Must-See Games of the Season.”
I’m not entirely sure why the basketball world is still fascinated with Adam Morrison, but that seems to be the case. I include myself in this generalization and I can tell you my reasons for still reading everything I see about Adam Morrison involve some combination of him being the best college player in the world and then being terrible in the NBA, often having a bad mustache, winning two championship rings and the fact that he still has the capability to dominate lesser European teams while still being young enough (28 yesterday, happy birthday) to conceivably make an NBA comeback. The fact that he consistently looks like a burnt-out replacement bassist helps too.
So just like last year, he’s your annual update on the whereabouts of Adam Morrison — he’s playing for the Clippers’ summer league team after an earlier stint with the Nets’ summer squad, trying to make it back to the NBA and says he will not completely ruin any defense that a team is trying to play. From ESPN’s Andrew McNeill:
“Everybody’s going to laugh, but I think I’ve played decent defensively,” he said. “Obviously I’m not Michael Cooper, but I’m not a complete sieve.”
This has been your annual Adam Morrison update for 2012: no facial hair and not the worst defensive player in basketball history. Supposedly. Check back next year. Thanks for reading.
