Ainge Stole The Draft!! Ainge Stole The Draft!!!

This NBA Draft Review is brought to you by Yinka Dare, Nikolos Tskitishvili, J.R. Reid, Dennis Hopson, Kwame Brown and all the rest of the guys who 'didn't quite work out'.

Screw Indiana. Screw Charlotte and screw Memphis (even though they did get my man Hakim Warrick using some sort of voodoo at 19). The big, big, BIG winners last night were The Boston Celtics.

Not only did they get a guy who will be putting holes in the roof of the FleetCenter for 20 years in Gerald Green, they also got the steal of the second round in Ryan Gomes, a player that Jim Calhoun of UConn once apologized for not signing after Providence kicked the crap out of the Huskies a couple of years ago. Mind you, he meant that he wished he had signed him instead of some guy named Emeka Okafor. A freaking steal at 50 (are you listening Seattle Supersonics? Or are you not interested if he's not from France? ...dicks.).

And the Coup de goddamn Gras? I just heard today that the Celtics signed undrafted big white guy and personal man-crush of mine TAYLOR COPPENRATH. Now this team has everything, ridiculously athletic kids (Allen, Jefferson and Green), thuggish idiots (Ricky Davis and Mark Blount), big goofy lookin' white guys (LaFrentz and Coppenrath), and seasoned superstars (Payton, Walker and Pierce). What's not to like?

As for the big loser of the night? Aside from the Seattle Super-Croissants, the 'we need more stringy high schoolers' LA Clippers and the'trade down to 6 to take a player you could've gotten at 16' Portland Trial-babies, it's got to be a toss up between Mitch Kupchak's ongoing trainwreck formerly known as the Los Angeles Lakers and the Toronto power forwards, er, uh, Raptors. Charlie Villanueva? Dude was 4th best player on his team last year, and they weren't that good.

And lastly, evaluating which teams will actually improve as a result of their picks, I gotta go with Utah getting into the playoffs next year. If everyone on their team hadn't missed about 50 games each last season, they would've made it then. Now they've got a legit point guard and a big pissed off Russian in the middle. Make way for them and Golden State (I'm looking at you Sacramento and Seattle).

Dammit, why can't they start the next season now?

NBA Draft Preview

Time once again to prove to the world that I missed my calling as an NBA scout by sizing up the first 10 or so picks in this year's auditions for the next season of MTV Cribs. Past brilliant predictions of mine include Walt Williams becoming a superstar, Marcus Fizer being much better than Kenyon Martin and Jonathan Bender being the best straight from high school player ever.

1. Andrew Bogut - Bucks - Screw anyone who says this guy's the next Vlade Divac. This guy's the total package. He passes bullets with either hand, has a 7'4" wingspan and can shoot from outside. If Milwaukee passes him up, they're bigger fools than I thought.

2. Marvin Williams - Hawks - Most overrated #2 overall since Keith Van Horn. Might wind up being as good as Mike Sweetney.

3. Deron Williams - Jazz - Instantly makes Utah an exciting team to watch. Seeing Williams and AK-47 together will be a blast.

4. Chris Paul - Hornets - Head case. Remember, this is the guy who blasts people in the package when things don't go his way. If the Hornets couldn't win with Baron Davis, they can't win with this dope.

5. Raymond Felton - Bobcats - UNC's forgotten player. He'll be average and a good role player to slowly build with Okafor.

6. Martell Webster - Blazers - Not even the best high schooler coming out. The Blazers once again lay an egg and will lose this guy like Jermaine O'Neal just as he's about to get good.

7. Danny Granger - Raptors - No matter how good he is, will anyone notice while he's playing in Toronto? He'll be a great addition to Chris Bosh, but no one will care.

8. Channing Frye - Knicks - Everyone will go on and on about what a steal this pick is. He's not. Too skinny and will get pushed around in the low blocks.

9. Ike Diogu - Warriors - Best name in the draft since Pops Mensa-Bonsu dropped out. The addition of this beast makes the Warriors a top 6 team in the west. They will be next year's Phoenix Suns, run and gun and fun to watch.

10. Gerald Green - Lakers - Unfortunately for me and everyone else who hates the Lakers, this is the steal of the draft. Dude can jump through the roof of any gym in the country.

So there you have it. Reports later about how wrong I was about the order and reports in a few years about how Marvin Williams is the next Michael Jordan and how I'm the only person in the world that ever referred to him as overrated.

Stinking Hypocrites!

I know the season's been over for days now, so why would anyone want to hear anything about basketball, right? C'mon, you know there's nothing else to talk about. Baseball? It's not even July yet. There's no Olympics, no World Cup, no Euro Championships. About the only thing left to look forward to is football, which should be holding the Hall of Fame game any time now.

But anyway, back to basketball. I'm here today to defend one Timothy Duncan and call all the nay-sayers who rip him up a bunch of stupid hypocrites. We've all heard the chant, "Duncan's soft. He's boring, he doesn't play with enough passion.".

Most of this is bullshit. If you watched the finals, Duncan many times got his own rebound and putback, against Ben Wallace! He scrapped, he fought, he generally kicked ass against the best defensive team in the league whose main goal was to stop Tim Duncan. So let's just lay all that stuff to rest.

The only thing Duncan IS guilty of is being boring. He's an awful interview. Mainly because there's no anticipation that he's going to say something incredibly stupid like when you interview Allen Iverson or Rasheed Wallace. You also won't get the dreadful 'comedy stylings' that you get when you interview Shaq O'Neal. Nope, he just answers your questions. No 'N'-word, no shout outs to his baby's mamas, just simple boring answers to the boring questions you're asking.

Sportswriters are like sharks, if they stop circling around the bloodbath swallowing everything in sight, they die. Given the choice, it's much easier to write a trash piece about Ron Artest punching some dude than it is to write how polite Mr. Duncan answered all your questions to your satisfaction. That doesn't mean he's a rotten player, however, or that his reputation is tarnished, it just means that someone finally listened to sportswriters who spent their entire career talking about what assholes athletes are.

Wow! Did You See That Guy I've Never Heard Of Hit That Home Run Off Of That Other Guy You'll Never Hear Of Again?

As anyone who Tivos Pardon The Interruption knows, ESPN has totally dicked their schedule around the last couple of days to accomodate the sucking black hole of sports entertainment known as the College World Series. Now let me be as clear as I can on this topic as my opinion is very nuanced and could be misconstrued;

NO ONE CARES

OK, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little. I'm sure at least half of the players immediate families care (or at least has to pretend to in case the guy makes the majors and becomes rich). But outside that, nobody, no one, nada people, zero, zilch, Squa-doosh.

Honestly, have you tried to watch any of this crap? Between the aluminum bats and the college players who all look older than Kevin Costner, it's simply intolerable. Isn't there a Scrabble tournament or Geography Bee that ESPN could be covering instead?

If ESPN switched one of these games over to the Duece, the Classic, or even that new one that no one gets, the 'U' or whatever, would anyone care? How much hatemail would they get? My guess is they might get two or three illegible screeds on a cocktail napkin that just say "Git-R-Done" over and over.

Don't screw with the franchise ESPN. The day I start caring about college baseball is the day I've ordered my wife to have me mercifully euthanized.

Epic Sports Day

Every once in awhile, you get a pretty good overall sports day. Between yesterday's finish at the US Open and game 5 between the Spurs and Pistons, that was some good stuff. I'm not even that into golf, but seeing it come down to a seemingly nice Kiwi of Maori descent and man of many races Tiger Woods was great. Good dramatic stuff.

And as for the NBA finals, finally a good game. In the end, Detroit just doesn't have a go-to player like Horry when they need the big shot. That, and Rasheed Wallace (sorry to continue to pick on him) missed becoming the biggest NBA finals goat in league history by .01 seconds. If they had seen the non-existent timeout he was trying to call, it would've made Chris Webber look like nothing.

I'll be pulling for Detroit in game 6 just to see a 7 game series.

A Home For Kellerman

Actually, more like a sublet, because I can't imagine that this particular gig will last very long.

Yup, one of the best sports commentators in the country, unceremoniously cancelled by the geniuses at FoxSports so that they can fill his time slot with another Summer Sanders list show or something, is back. Of course, he's no longer talking about sports and is forced to suck up to one of the world's most repulsive human beings, but hey, work's work, right?

The Situation with Tucker Carlson debuted this week and, thanks probably in large part to former 'I, Max' producer Bill Wolff, looks like a political version of Kellerman's old show. There's a list of topics, rapid fire exchange. All it needs is Michael Holley cracking back on Tucker's Momma and it'd be lawsuit time.

But anyway, back to Max. His role on the show is called "The Outsider" and he basically comes in every day to 'defend the indefensible', in other words be a contrarian, in other words, the 'devil's advocate' portion of his old show. Except now it's not about sports and involves toad-like bowtie officianado Carlson.

Where to begin. Poor Max. What's most offensive about the whole piece is Max's contention that HE doesn't really even believe most of the stuff he's arguing. The problem is, that because he's arguing against Tucker Carlson, most of the positions that Max is arguing are left-wing liberal positions. This creates the illusion that most liberals don't REALLY believe what they're arguing but are only doing it to be a contrarian and a jerk. Kellerman's a smart guy and usually makes his point fairly well, but with that goofy grin on his face all the time and 'Hey, you never know, I might actually think that, wink wink' attitude, I find his whole persona really annoying on the show. Well, that and because he has to share the screen with Tucker 'the dick' Carlson.

Attention FOXSports, if Max Kellerman is still under contract with you, give him a SPORTS show. That's what he does. And somebody please revive Michael Holley and get him back on Around the Horn or something.

Pistons Conspiracy Theories Put To Rest

As Bill Simmons so brilliantly points out, the real conspiracy is not by the NBA officials against the Detroit Pistons, but by GOD himself FOR the Detroit Pistons:

Is there a luckier team than the Pistons? Last spring, they lucked out with Jason Kidd's knee, the Derek Fisher shot and Karl Malone's injury. Last November, the Pacers looked like the best team in the East before the Artest Melee turned everything around. Last week, Miami was about to finish them off before Wade went down. And now, they're down 2-0 and the leading candidate for Finals MVP goes down 21 seconds into Game 3. I'm not saying good luck is something that should penalize them historically – believe me, I'm a Patriots fan, I would never insinuate such a thing. But Detroit's run of good fortune is almost unprecedented, don't you think? At the rate we're going, Duncan is going to be accidentally ejected from the Spurs' charter on the way back to San Antonio.

Jeannie Buss Must Be A Hell Of A Lay

Wait a minute, is he giving us the finger?!

I've been going back and forth on this for awhile, but I've finally made up my mind about how I feel about the Lakers new/old coach.

Good for Phil Jackson. He's getting to do something that many people like me who hate the Lakers have dreamed of doing all their lives. First of all he's going to completely rob Jerry Buss of so much money that he won't be able to afford wig dye anymore, he then gets to make absolutely sure that the Lakers and Kobe Bryant take a few more steps backwards (with the generous help of Mitch Kupchak) making it even more difficult for them to 'rebuild' later on, and finally, he gets to screw the bosses daughter for another year or so. And then *poof*, like Kaiser Soze, he'll be gone.

If brilliant guys like Ricardo Montalban believe that revenge is a dish best served cold, then it's my belief that Phil Jackson is putting his revenge in the Sub-Zero for a year or so. I believe the only realization that he had while surfing with Luc Longley was that he let those pricks in L.A. off too easy, and that as satisfying as it was to write a book calling them all douchebags, it'll be even better next year when he's sitting on the bench losing 120-69 to the Warriors and turns to Jerry Buss and says, "You're daughter gave me a first class rimjob last night, and by the way, I quit again."

Way to go Zen Master, way to go.

Rasheed Wallace Is A Dick

Having said that, I think Wallace has great game, and the thing that bothers me most about him is imagining what an incredible player he would be if he removed his head from his ass long enough not to be a negative influence on his team and instead focused on what his job is supposed to be, to play friggin' basketball.

Last game contained a stretch that perfectly illustrated Rasheed's petulant, child-like asshole-ishness. Upon not getting a foul call, Wallace goes through his usual smiling, persistent homeless guy that doesn't know when to stop routine. After not getting the call reversed (as is always the case with other players), Rasheed goes into pout mode. The referee tosses him the ball to inbound. He doesn't move and the ball bounces off his chest and onto the ground. At this point, the official is getting pissed and rightfully so. What are you, Rasheed, five freaking years old? What, you don't want to wait in line at the bank, so you're just going to fall on the floor and play dead? I thought the official handled it very well. He bent down, picked the ball up and laid it at Wallace's feet and IMMEDIATELY started counting off five for him to pick it up and inbound.

Anyway, what I'm getting at with all this (other than just pointing out what a baby he is) is that if Wallace could just show officials some respect and not act like a such an ass, he would get the benefit of the doubt on calls and score more and become a top echelon superstar. What is it that's so damn hard about that?

NBA Playoffs Interrupted By NBA Preseason

Stolen from America's Finest News Source.

DETROIT—Game Six of the NBA Eastern Conference finals between the Miami Heat and the Detroit Pistons was postponed Saturday so that the Heat could play their first preseason game against the Seattle Supersonics. "It would've been great to have determined who would've been in the finals, but this exhibition game was already on the schedule," said Heat coach Stan Van Gundy. "Sonics fans have been looking forward to this game all off-season." Representatives for both teams expressed hopes that the 2005 NBA Finals would be over by the start of the 2006 All-Star Game.

Do They Not Have Men's Departments In Spain?

I'll have to take Kornheiser's word for it when he said he doesn't look good in Capri pants.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cut off my ears and rub laundry detergent into my eyes.

Congrats to Rafael Nadal for proving that you can play great tennis while promoting the new line from Ann Taylor.

.

.

.

Please Put One Of These Teams Out Of Their Misery

Thank the sweet lord that either the Detroit Pistons or Miami Heat will finally be given their walking papers tonight. If this were a best of 9 series, I don't think I could put up with much more.

If the Pistons lose, we don't have to watch Larry Brown die in front of us anymore. Every press conference looks like he just got out of chemo and realizes that he'll have to back in a couple of days for more treatment. There's no way imaginable that he comes back next year to coach this team. I'm not even sure if half of the team is even aware that he is still coaching. At this point, Larry's like a dying relative that hangs around the house while everyone else tries hard to not get too attached to him because he's definitely on the way out.

And if it's time for the Heat to go, it'll just be nice to know that Dwayne Wade's heart won't explode from trying to drag 300 pounds of Shaquille O'Neal and the entire rest of the team into the finals. Plus, it might spare us from the ridiculous egos that would be created if the Heat made it to the finals. People who have been undeservedly riding lucky streaks of getting traded to good teams like Robert Horry and Sam Cassell would look like nothing compared to the amount of self-gratification that we'd be treated to from Damon Jones and Rasual Butler. And don't even get me started on how much garbage Alonzo Mourning would start to spew.

So whoever wins tonight, I'll be alright with it. Pressed to choose, I'd probably prefer to see Miami in it because it's nice to see someone different at least make the finals, and because even though I complained about it before, getting to see Shaq take a few more pointless shots at Kobe Bryant would indeed be fun to watch.

Words Up

A 'Holla', 'shoutout', and of course DAP by the truckload to the fine folks at Bacon Strips for a kind mention. Thanks to them, our readership shot up to well over a hundred a day! This is a big improvement from the usual 3 friends of ours and 20 other people that accidentally mash our URL on their keyboard while trying to get a hacked password to unlock 'hairyteens.com'.

UPDATE: I just realized that Baconstrip's post is from mid-april! D'oh! Well, if anyone knows a reason other than our unfettered, chicken-rich brilliance that this site is suddenly 'gettin some', you best not keep it to yo' self!

Mmmmm... Bacon.

The Time Has Come To Shut Your Trap

Kazaam! Like an urban 'Bewitched'!

Now we can look forward to 2 days of "The Pistons will win it all" talk from the same people who have spent the last two days proclaiming Dwayne Wade to be akin to a unstoppable robot-killing-machine version of Oscar Robertson. I know it wouldn't make for fascinating television, but it would be nice to hear one sports pundit say, "These teams are pretty evenly matched, and since they both have a tendency to simply not show up every once in awhile, predicting who will win game by game is utterly pointless.

The person who really needs to stop, however, is Shaquille O'Neal. Yes, yes, we get it, the Lakers were idiots for letting you go, you were more dominating this year than Kobe Bryant and how dare they etc, etc. You got 5 rebounds last night! That's one less than Quentin Richardson got on Monday night.

Granted, Shaq is a ridiculous freak of nature. He changed the game and officials have never known what to do about it. But he also invented a strategy wherein you can win games by fouling him because he's so awful from the charity stripe. Can you really make the argument that the best player of all time can be the worst of his entire era in one very vital part of the game?

So Shaq, I beg you, don't give any more interviews until you win the whole thing (which you won't). Show some humility, try and pretend you're not aging gracelessly and maybe some day you can backup Darko Milicic and win your fourth ring.