It's taken me a while to muster enough courage to revisit one of the saddest moments in my life, but I think I may have finally come to grips with my trauma. Let me frame the event for you: I am sitting with a group of friends as our fantasy basketball draft begins. I have the third pick, and I am excited, yet nervous.
(Side note: For the draft in my other league, earlier in the week, I had overslept and had the first 8 rounds autodrafted by the time I rolled out of bed. I had the fifth pick, and the friendly Yahoo draft machine chose Shawn Marion, which was ok by me.)
Back to the draft at hand.
My buddies choose KG and Kobe, with the 1st and 2nd pick, respectively. I'm on the clock with 1:30 to choose, and I start sweating. Now, I know you two or three faithful readers out there are screaming "LEBRON! PICK HIM! HE'S RANKED FIRST OVERALL IN MANY MOCK DRAFTS! CHOOSE THE KING." But for some reason, whether it was the subconscious memory of my previous draft result, or the instructive whisper in my left ear (since denied by the culprit by the way), I chose the Matrix.
And promptly uppercutted myself in the face with seething remorse and fury.
Why did I do it? I guess at the time I didn't believe all the Lebron hype for the upcoming season. His TOs aren't great, his FT% is crappy, his FG% is average, and he doesn't shoot that many 3s or play too much defense. Now imagine my growing agony as LBJ proceeds to put up 31-8-8 in November, with 2 steals, 1.5 blocks and 1.5 3s per game. All while Marion puts up worse numbers across the board except for a few more rebounds and fewer TOs. To boot, someone apparently starts guarding Shawn very aggressively at the charity stripe, causing him to actually shoot worse than the oft maligned Lebron. What utter Godcockery.
But on the last, fateful day of November (close enough). The Chosen One goes down with a sprained finger than inexplicably sidelines him for about 6 games (which is, oh, 7% of the season). And the Matrix starts doing Matrix-y things. He starts shooting .880 from the line and averaging 2+ steals and 2.5 blocks a game. All while Lebron's team, which is ironically named "the Matrixxx," falls to last in the standings (and I move into second).
Sweet vengeance! Well more like vindication, but I just wanted to show you all that last video. Anyway, I know that I'll have to recant this post in a few days when Lebron drops 50, but at least I get to gloat in the meantime...
- WAW
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Playoffs? PLAYOFFS?
So His Excellency John Hollinger unveiled his NBA 2K8 playoff odds about a week ago.
According to his formulae, the Knicks have a 0 percent chance of making the playoffs right now, and have a "best possible record" of 35-47 based on 5 trillion different projections or something. I imagine that will only get worse (the projected record, that is), after their inevitable loss to the Mavericks tonight.
C'mon now Johnny. The Knicks are terrible yes, and will not make the playoffs unless Marbury and Isiah perform some sort of unholy midnight ritual in which Stephon transmogrifies into his coach circa 1985. But 0%? I mean, not to be a homer, but if the Hawks go on a 4 game losing streak, Lebron doesn't come back for a while, and the Knicks string together a few wins, NY is not too far out. The odds of this are small, but not nil.
I'm not faulting Hollinger's system, which is probably correct, but I'm faulting the fact that many people (including J-Holl) are taking stock in such nonsense when we're only 1/4 of the way into the season. There's still a crapload of basketball left to be played.
Erm, there any way you think the Celtics are going to win 70 games? That's ridiculous, but as of now Holly's system indicates that there's a fair chance the Sell-Tix will best the Bulls' 72-10 record. Get outta here with that nonsense.
- WAW
According to his formulae, the Knicks have a 0 percent chance of making the playoffs right now, and have a "best possible record" of 35-47 based on 5 trillion different projections or something. I imagine that will only get worse (the projected record, that is), after their inevitable loss to the Mavericks tonight.
C'mon now Johnny. The Knicks are terrible yes, and will not make the playoffs unless Marbury and Isiah perform some sort of unholy midnight ritual in which Stephon transmogrifies into his coach circa 1985. But 0%? I mean, not to be a homer, but if the Hawks go on a 4 game losing streak, Lebron doesn't come back for a while, and the Knicks string together a few wins, NY is not too far out. The odds of this are small, but not nil.
I'm not faulting Hollinger's system, which is probably correct, but I'm faulting the fact that many people (including J-Holl) are taking stock in such nonsense when we're only 1/4 of the way into the season. There's still a crapload of basketball left to be played.
Erm, there any way you think the Celtics are going to win 70 games? That's ridiculous, but as of now Holly's system indicates that there's a fair chance the Sell-Tix will best the Bulls' 72-10 record. Get outta here with that nonsense.
- WAW
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Kronosaurus, Beast of the Sea
Yo ballers.
I'm writing a few papers while watching a few football games. Gotta summarize the morphological adaptations of this scary, scary dead animal. And solve our nation's health care problems. Fook.
Just saw Troy Smith score his first NFL touchdown, which was nice. It would have been nicer if he had, say, thrown for one against the Colts first unit, versus ran for one against their second unit, but whatever.
Also, here are my two random cents on the Deron Williams - Chris Paul debate.
Paul is a better point guard. That's it. Better overall player? I don't know about that. Big-time player? Ditto, dunno until Paul can get his team to the playoffs. But who would I trust more to hit me in stride for an alley-oop dunk on my way to smacking my nuts into Brian Scalabrine's face? CP3.
- WAW
I'm writing a few papers while watching a few football games. Gotta summarize the morphological adaptations of this scary, scary dead animal. And solve our nation's health care problems. Fook.
Just saw Troy Smith score his first NFL touchdown, which was nice. It would have been nicer if he had, say, thrown for one against the Colts first unit, versus ran for one against their second unit, but whatever.
Also, here are my two random cents on the Deron Williams - Chris Paul debate.
Paul is a better point guard. That's it. Better overall player? I don't know about that. Big-time player? Ditto, dunno until Paul can get his team to the playoffs. But who would I trust more to hit me in stride for an alley-oop dunk on my way to smacking my nuts into Brian Scalabrine's face? CP3.
- WAW
Saturday, December 8, 2007
The Knicks Are Really Good!
Wrong. They're horrendous. Losing twice in a row to a very crappy Philly team. Isiah did a nice job of making some adjustments, ensuring that we lost by 30 instead 10.
I was particularly struck by:
1) The return of the old Jamal during his 3-12, 7 turnover effort. We missed you!
2) David Lee absolutely pwning Sweet Lou Williams for a flagrant foul on his way to another double-double.
3) Feisty little Nate getting to the line and making it happen in garbage time.
More ramblings:
I, along with the rest of Knicks nation, think we really need to start Lee and have Zach come off the bench for either Lee or Curry depending on the matchup. Also I like that Fred Jones has started to enter the rotation a little more. He can actually play some defense unlike Jamal/Marbury. Also, he can be a nice complement to Wee Nate (who, by the way, I wish would not shoot 11 threes in 20 minutes of burn).
Just a heads up that I'm staying in again to "do work," but am actually checking box scores and making some fantasy basketball trades. This is the level to which I have sunk.
- WAW
I was particularly struck by:
1) The return of the old Jamal during his 3-12, 7 turnover effort. We missed you!
2) David Lee absolutely pwning Sweet Lou Williams for a flagrant foul on his way to another double-double.
3) Feisty little Nate getting to the line and making it happen in garbage time.
More ramblings:
I, along with the rest of Knicks nation, think we really need to start Lee and have Zach come off the bench for either Lee or Curry depending on the matchup. Also I like that Fred Jones has started to enter the rotation a little more. He can actually play some defense unlike Jamal/Marbury. Also, he can be a nice complement to Wee Nate (who, by the way, I wish would not shoot 11 threes in 20 minutes of burn).
Just a heads up that I'm staying in again to "do work," but am actually checking box scores and making some fantasy basketball trades. This is the level to which I have sunk.
- WAW
POSTERIZED!
Our story begins on a Saturday afternoon. Woke up at 12:30 after having stayed in to "do work" on a Friday night. Lies. All lies.
In an effort to avoid doing anything productive this year, I have created a blog to diary the last few months of my college experience. I think it'll be some sort of creative space where I can comment on things I find funny, tragic or awesome.
In general I'll chat with you (the internets) about some sports stuff, some musics and hopefully some batshit-insane happenings in this fine world of ours. I'll try to avoid writing masturbatory posts like this one from now.
It would be phenomenal if someone stumbles upon this accidentally...
- WAW
In an effort to avoid doing anything productive this year, I have created a blog to diary the last few months of my college experience. I think it'll be some sort of creative space where I can comment on things I find funny, tragic or awesome.
In general I'll chat with you (the internets) about some sports stuff, some musics and hopefully some batshit-insane happenings in this fine world of ours. I'll try to avoid writing masturbatory posts like this one from now.
It would be phenomenal if someone stumbles upon this accidentally...
- WAW
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