USA Basketball Jacket

Of Course this was directed by the FreeDarko guys which is probably why I paid attention to Stalley's hipster-rapper beard talk to me about respecting the jersey. Kobe can verbally battle with MJ on if 2012 would beat 1992 and also bitch slap Czar Stern about a Team USA age restriction.  But it's all about the Red, White, and Blue, yo!

Anyone know how much this jacket costs? I tried to find it in the Nike Store.com but it took more than 3 minutes so I gave up.  Me googles no good.

The Boy Scouts -- OKC Thunder

The NBA World is not going well right now.  The lockout looms on with lawspeak and verbal ninja warfare that I don't care to interpret.  I understand the NBA writers need to write about something aside from the Lockout but breaking down Slovenia's offense for EuroBasket is just taking it too damn far.  I can't justify spending 40 minutes learning the minutia of their incredible motion offense.  20 minutes is my limit.

And then I realize that Free Darko doesn't post any more and I get even more sad/mad.  I mean, we will never again see great interpretations like this:

Always Be Prepared

This is such great art and I can't even buy it for my mancave anymore! Damnit! What the heck is happening to basketball land!  What did I do wrong as a fan to deserve this!?

Thankfully, I can get my anger out during my mini hoop game later this evening.  Those bastard Suns are going down!  From Vermont, it's the OG Cammish Nextian signing off.

GQ Magazine goes all FreeDarko on Our Asses

GQ Magazine decided to hop on the hottness that is NBA Bandwagon (BlakeGriffin) and highlight some of The Association's stars who are under 25 years old. 25 sounds pretty young until you realize that someone can be a six year vet when they turn 25.

The best part on these pieces are the Free Darko art of Jacob Weinstein who has his art plastered all up in Free Darko Book #1, Free Darko Book #2, and a billboard in LA.

Everything else is pretty basic so that the neandrathals who read GQ can understand good.

Charles Barkley on the Abusrdly Explosive Blake Griffin
Blake Griffin is everything a number one pick should be. He's come in and immediately improved the team and energized the franchise. He brings a certain amount of intensity from his college days that guys in the NBA aren't used to seeing. He's still out there like he's playing Texas on a Friday night, even if he's playing Golden State. The one thing he has to watch, and this comes with that competitive nature, is the technical fouls. There's no reason for him to be staring down Mario Chalmers. He can't get sucked into that. The real question is, can he do for the Clippers what LeBron did for the Cavs? Blake is definitely doing his part; he's made the Clippers popular again. Now it's up to the Clippers to do their part. We'll see if they can.

Reggie Miller on the Sweet-shooting Stephen Curry

Everybody's different when it comes to jump shooting—it's almost like fingerprints. People talk about his quick release: Stephen was pretty much born with it. Dell, his dad, probably had the quickest release of anybody I ever played against. It's nice to have good genes, but it also helps, when you're 5 or 6, to go to a shootaround with your dad or sit on his lap while he's watching game film. Steph has probably seen more drills and more situations than most players ever will. So I don't think a lot rattles him, which is very unusual in a young player. Not many three-point shooters can create their own shot without running off a series of screens: Ray Allen can, Kobe can, and Steph can.

Isiah Thomas on the Pint-size, Crazy-quick Brandon Jennings
Brandon sets the league on fire with his ability to shoot the three-ball, stretch the defense, pass off the dribble, and penetrate into the lane. His first year out of high school, he played in Europe instead of in college, which turned out to be a great decision: By the time he came back, he was able to combine European qualities with his American game. The rules have changed to favor the point guard, and guys like Brandon are fully exploiting them. He's got an incredible personality, too, and that flair puts people in the stands. But I think to win championships, he has to decide—like LeBron did—do you want to win, or do you want to be liked? He's going to have to do some things that make people a little upset before he can get there.

Moses Malone on the Ball-hawking Kevin Love
Everybody wants to shoot three-pointers. But getting the rebound? That's a man's world, baby. Kevin Love is a tough guy, and he wants the rebound. That's what I like about him. You got guys that are afraid of rebounds; we should kill them. Put 'em in prison. Come on, man! How many centers do you even figure they got in the league now? When I played, we had about twenty-eight, twenty-nine centers. Now they got three or four. The way I look at it, when you're a great rebounder, you're doing a lot more than a great scorer. Without the ball, them little bitty guys that want to shoot it ain't got an opportunity. Kevin also shoots the three, opens up the floor. He's got a nice jump shot; he's a great passer. And the main thing is: He's still learning.

Gary Payton on the Terrifingly Unstoppable Derrick Rose

He's scoring at will; no one can stop him. He jumps so well at six three that he can dunk over you. His first year, I didn't really think that he played very well. But he's learning: getting to the free-throw line and hitting the midrange jumper—if he didn't, he'd be mediocre to me—and sometimes hitting the three-point shot. Is he relying too much on his natural athletic abilities? He's doing that because he can do that. I would love for him to distribute the ball more and play lockdown defense; that would make him more complete. I think he can be like a Steve Nash. He's a young guy, a hardworking, smart kid, and he hasn't gotten to his full potential. If anybody thinks he's gotten to his full potential, they don't know nothing about basketball.

The Jupiters: All Star Raps over the Years

Inspired by The Ultramagnetics 1989 homage to the NBA All-Star Team (peep it here), a little group called The Jupiters put forth their own efforts.  These tunes are usually mentioned every year on this here blog but now I've had a chance to compile all their efforts into one post.  At first I was frustrated because FreeDarko used to host these songs. Thankfully, The Jupiters have them stored elsewhere on the interwebs.

I wish I had time to do my own Ultramagnetics All-Star themes as that is what I would deem "happiness" in life.  Here's to hoping The Jupiters are hard at work on 2011's theme as the reserves were just announced yesterday.

2010 The Jupiters All Star Rap
NBA All Star Jam 2010 by dwschrashun

2009 The Jupiters All Star Rap

	The Jupiters - All Star Jam 2009 .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

2008 The Jupiters All Star Rap

	The Jupiters - NBA All Stars 2008 .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

2007 The Jupiters All Star Rap

	The Jupiters - NBA All Stars 2007 .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Love For Hakeem

It's kind of sad that lame post move attempts by Dwight Howard got me thinking more of Hakeem Olajuwon these days.  That video on this here blog last week of Hakeem trying to teach Dwight something (...anything!) regarding post moves is stuck in my mind as I've probably viewed it 8 times in it's entirety so far.  And I'm not watching it because I want to see Dwight Howard shoot with a bent right arm and try to make jokes.  It's all because I can't get over how incredible The Dream still is and was.

So peep this video of Hakeem talking about, no, laughing about how he schooled everyone with the Dream Shake:



Also enjoy the recent Free Darko post on Dream Week (an apparent week of writing dedicated to The Dream).  This post really got me thinking about the what-if's of the Jordan era and that is something very fun to ponder....at least for me.

2010 All Star Rap

The NBA knew early that rap was cool and should be used as a synergistic marketing tool to promote it's product. So in 1989, they hired the Ultramagnetic MC's to put together this 9:15 rap video intro. Simply incredible. (Just so you know, this has been posted to this site before)



This simple video inspired some dudes who call themselves The Jupiters to continue the Ultramag tradition. What started out as a joke has morphed into 5 years worth of The Jupiters All Star hip hop compilation mp3's posted on Freedarko.com.

The 2010 effort is more tech, hip hoppie, and even more white (yes!) than past efforts. Press play on the player in THIS LINK RIGHT HERE to blow your fucking mind. Thank you, Free Darko, for bringing us the poetic mastery of these geniuses.

Crash Wallace's Rebounding

Fantasy NBA owners of Gerald Wallace have noticed his league leading rebounding thoroughly helping their squads. This uptick in board bounds could not have been predicted. But then The Sports Guy twatted about this jump being the biggest NBA stat abberation of "all time" (kind of how he wrote the greatest book of all time in his humble opinion) and Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus got all over the historical data. This is something you fellow NBA Nerds most definitely must peep to the extreme:

BEGIN EXTREME PEEPING

Why The Warriors Matter

Here's an interesting read for us Warriors fans. Bethlehem Shoals works his magical prose over at The Baseline and trys to explain how the Warriors matter to everyone beyond just their record.........which we all know won't be very impressive this year.

CHECK IT

The Dubs: A Bethlaham Shoals Review

Bethlaham Shoals, the metaphysical watcher of all things NBA, put up his pre-season review of the GS Dubs today on The Baseline. Laugh, cry, and understand:

CHECK IT

David Stern in a Barbershop

Check out the NYT webisode of Commish Stern visiting a Babershop to answer questions about the NBA. Something tells me that FreeDarko will have some ideas about this meeting in the next few days. Looking forward to see what Shoals will say.



Thanks to Ball Don't Lie's 10 Man Rotation for the lead.

What's Your Spiritual Animal?

So, yes, I am a bit of a FreeDarko enthusiast to say the least. My journeys through the NBA begin with FD and their friends while only being peppered with Chuck Barkley thoughts and Skip Bayless "analysis". So anything where the voice of these guys become more powerful is like chocolate sauce on ice cream to me.

I don't put these Adidas commercials on The Nextians for any pimping of Adidas products (though the ankle wraps do sound cool). Frankly, I more of a Jordan Brand "baller" myself. But if you like the mythical artistic analysis in these youtubes I highly recommend purchasing the FreeDarko Macrophenomenal Basketball Almanac and changing the way that you look at our beloved NBA. These are pretty tight:

Free Darko on The '06/'07 Dubs

The dudes of FreeDarko were on a PodCast recently and explained their passion for the "We Believe" 06/07 Warriors. It's a few minutes in after the first segment:

The Sound of Young America


Looks like the embedded audio player above doesn't work. Here's the page where you can listen to this analysis:

CHECK IT

Channel Your Inner Boom Dizzle

Hey Nextians. How's it going? Good, that's good. I'm doing pretty well. Hangin' in there, you know?

Anyway, I've been reading some good shit about the NBA that I wanted to share. Many of you have probably already read the Sportsguy article in the recent ESPN Tha Mag (he's not Sportsfag when writing about the non-Celtics NBA):

CHECK IT

And my obsession with the Free Darko blog had me stumble upon Bethlehem Shaols insight into the Simmons article.

NOW CHECK THIS, BEOTCH

Since I can't link to the actual post and if you are reading this way late, please refer to the "Know Thy Mirrors" prose.

Enjoy the insight, keep it real, live in the Now.

Basketball is the new Golf

With President Elect Barak Obama set to take office, our national sport seems to be changing from stuffy old golf to baloncesta. That's "basketball" to all you american assholes who don't know a foreign language (since we're supposedly international now, thanks Tommy). In this video Senator Herb Kohl (Milwaukee Bucks owner) asks future US Attorney General Eric Holder about playing Obama in basketball:



Free Darko has a great take on this video and the whole issue in general. Free Darko also links to another pretty damn in-depth article on basketball's influence on Obama.

Pretty much, just read Free Darko as I am really adding nothing new to this topic.

Holy Crap. I need to find a way to get this.........

Many of the thousands of Nextians who read this blog probably enjoyed my "Darko Has Anger Issues" post from a few days back. Well, Mr. Milicic's game worn, ripped jersey is now up for auction at the NBA's charity site. Holy Crap!!

Currently the high bid sits at $606. If there's a more frivilous spending of greenbacks out there (aside from bailing out GM) I haven't seen it. But I am -thisclose- to saying "fcuk it" and throw down the credit card to help the needy kids of St. Jude Hospital. Dang, this would really make my life complete. Well, nearly complete. When Monta finally returns to the Dubs things would be more complete-er.

Darko has Anger Issues

First, check out this video of Darko after an Euro League 2007 Serbian defeat:



Don't worry. I translated and all of his statements were pretty much right on. Except for when he said he wanted to bang a ref's wife. The actual translation was that he wanted to have the sex with the ref's mom. But no biggie.

Now check out the video link of Darko getting mad last night for getting his 4th foul and RIPPING HIS JERSEY IN HALF!

Funny thing was that he was actually having a good game against Yao! Poor Darko.

Macrophenomenal Kobe

(Below is excerpted from Free Darko's The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac. It is about Kobe Bryant, from the chapter on "Master Builders", a group "For whom dominance has become a truism.")
---
Check the resume—it's absolutely impeccable. A 6'6" shooting guard with limitless physical tools, a hell-bent perfectionist, he works tirelessly to condition his body and enhance his game. He's fearless in the clutch, voraciously competitive, and serious to the point of bleakness.

You couldn't script a more stellar career, or offer up a stronger candidate for the league's all-around finest. And yet no superstar has cut a stormier path than Kobe Bean Bryant. Kobe may be the Great American Shooting Guard—and indeed, he has spent his whole life aspiring to this kind of abstract dignity. But just as Moby Dick defines our national literature despite its rollicking imperfections, Kobe's drives and desires have made him equal parts pristine legend and unwieldy mess of humanity.

Paired with Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe was supposed to bring on a new Lakers golden age—and he did, once Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson stepped into the scene. However, Kobe and Shaq could not have been more different, and eventually clashed because of it. The world saw the three-peat, but inside the Lakers, tensions came to a simmer, especially when Shaq's conditioning and work ethic flagged. Many read this as Kobe's ego crying out, dying to take control of the team. But it was just as likely his deep-seated sense of justice.

A certain duality has always been present in his game: Kobe is both the league's smartest player and one of its most impulsive. Once, Bryant was a propulsive slasher with an uncommon midrange game. Now, when he's met by a defender, the curtain rises on an interaction of frightening detail and determination. Only Tim Duncan is as adept at milking every single square inch of space, in a precise, Terminator-like assessment of complex obstacles. But for Duncan, the action's near the basket, and the shots—aided by Duncan's height—tend to resolve into something fairly routine. Kobe, operating all over the floor, doesn't take the simple shot, throw up prayers, or gamble on his pride. He figures out how to make the impossible shot viable, going out of his way to demonstrate his superiority.

During the Lakers' lean years, Bryant struggled with his own inability to make an inferior team into a winner. In May 2007, after being ousted in the first round of the playoffs yet again, Bryant exploded, telling any and all media outlets that he wanted out of L.A. Rumors abounded, and several important-sounding meetings took place, but that fall Kobe was still a Laker. He was chummier than ever with his teammates, and had made a point of reaching out to Bynum, who suddenly blossomed, before being waylaid by injuries. The Lakers swung a one-sided deal for Memphis big man Pau Gasol and suddenly possessed the West's most imposing line-up, taking them straight to the Finals.

What exactly had happened between spring and fall? Had Kobe lost control, let out his frustration, and then thought better of it? Was it all a Machiavellian public relations coup on the part of Bryant, who ended up getting the help he wanted? Had he set foot in camp and instantly realized that Bynum was ready to contribute? Did he actually feel betrayed by the organization, emotionally wounded, or just irritated that they'd impeded his still-vital career?

We'll never know the real answer. But most likely, there's a grain of truth in all corners. And that's why Kobe Bryant would fascinate us even if he weren't the world's best basketball player. For in addition to his mastery of basketball—the kind of catch-all supremacy that's led him to pick up Duncan's bank shot—Bryant's also a study in what happens when the drives and desires of greatness fly off the rails and exposes all of its inherent contradictions. To his detractors, Kobe Bryant is Dracula: a spooky, inhuman being that gets s**t done. Starstruck fans regard him as the epitome of glitz, glam, and accomplishment. In truth, he's that most stormy, and mortal, kind of great man. If Shaquille O'Neal always represented Superman, then Kobe's been the Dark Knight: vulnerable, but all the stronger for it.

Stephen Jackson For Mayor

Here's the excerpt on "Mayors" from the book I've been constantly touting. I'm trying to get a merchant link from Free Darko or Amazon so that I can make $4 when Jeff and Markwith buy it from The Nextians.

The Free Darko Book

Hopefully Amazon ships this thing soon because this book is going to be amazing. Here's page 1 of the Kobe excerpt: