Everyone's To Blame

Especially Turd Ferguson.

Check out Simmons entertaining analysis of what brought on the Nuclear Winter.

The Kings

Many of my Nextians went to UC Davis and became Kings Fans even though they weren't from the Sacramento area.  This was back in the days where Tivo didn't exist and the internet was used as an email machine and to download pictures of, well, you know what I'm talking about.  We couldn't watch our home team on TV or follow them on the internet.  For those of us from the Yay Yera, Warriors vs. Kings matchups were some of the most fun we had in front of the TV in college (aside from the OJ Trial, first season of South Park, last season of Seinfeld).  We'd sit in the Segundo Dorms or Arlington Farms Apartments with cheep beer and and watch Kings games with a passion.  My Sophomore year roommate even worked for the Kings pushing a button courtside that revolved the on-court advertisement panel.  He loved being there even though the job paid him $5.50 an hour which he spent most of in gas money just to get there and back.  The 2002 team was an incredible ride and much of our Laker hatred stems from Horry's 3 pointer and the official's screwing the Kings out of Game 6.  And even though most of us are in the Bay Area and can now be more committed Warriors fans, the Kings still have a place in all of our hearts.  They essentially were our college team.

I was trying to formulate some ideas on everything that's going on in Czar Stern's office, with the Maloof's relocation push, with Mayor Kevin Johnson's attempts to keep the Kings, with local Sacramento businesses promising more advertising money, and most importantly with the fans.  It was difficult to figure it all out.  All I know is that Sacramento really cares about their team.  Like they care as much about it as the Seattle Supersonics fans did about their hijacked franchise.



But then Sportsguy Bill Simmons wrote a great piece (finally!) on the Maloofs and said everything I didn't have the time or skill to compile.  It's not about DumbMarcus Cousins or Tyreke Evans or the inflated Beno Udrich salary.  It's about how the owners are trying to screw the city of Sacramento and are hopefully not going to be successful. It's about Czar Stern and his pandering to the owners of a franchise while giving a far less shit about the fanbase.  It's exposing the truth to what is wrong in the NBA today.  Taking a loan from the city of Sacramento and then trying to get Anaheim to pay your relocation fees while you haven't even bothered to pay back your loan to the city you're trying to abandon?  At the risk of sounding angry, I will never set foot in the Palms Casino and their new billion dollar tower again.

NBA Free Agency Summit

Even though 75% of these guys are complete d-bags, this NBA Free Agency Summit video on ESPN is pretty cool. Enjoy Sportsguy's freshly applied spray tan:



Please check out Chad Ford's cap breakdown on TrueHoop before you read any more LeBron "what-if" stories by NBA writers.

Sportsguy & Czar Stern Speak

Sportsguy and Czar Stern discuss NBA things on a podcast. LISTEN, HOLMES

Sportsguy & Chad Ford Speak

On Monday, before the "Blake Griffin Out For The Year" news, Bill Simmons and Chad Ford talked for over an hour about trade rumors and possible 2010/2011 scenarios. For those of you who like that stuff, here you go:

CHAD FORD LIVES IN MAUI

You Da Man

Hidden deep inside the Sports Guy's recent post about how he is totally the smartest guy regarding the NBA that ever lived, we find this excellent Washington Bullets video:

Phil Jackson on Kobe in 2006

Bills Simmons' "The Book of Basketball" is a shoddily written rush fest of a book with many pieces of mis-information and typos. But it still produces some good info from other writers that Sportsguy has kept in his NBA coffers for some years and is giving us now when making his points. One of the best parts of "The Book of Basketball" is the evolution of Kobe Bryant as BS ranks him the 15th best player of all time.

In April of 2006 after game 4 of the Suns Series, here is what Phil Jackson said to J.A. Adande of the LA Times:

"Somestimes his needs overwhelm the rest of the ballclub's necessity...as we get into the playoffs, that'll dissipate, because he knows that he's got to put his ego aside and conform to what we have to do if we're going to go anywhere in the playoffs. Any player that take sit on himself to do that (play for himself) knows that he's going against the basic principles of basketball. That's a selfish approach to the game. You know when you're breaking down the team or you're breaking down and doing things individualistic, you're going to have, you know, some unhappy teammates...and he knows these things...intuitively, I have to trust the fact that he's going to come back to that spot and know that the timing's right. The season's over, things have been accomplished, records have been stuck in the books, statistics are all jelled in, now let's go ahead and play basketball as we're supposed to play it."

If you remember, this was the same season that Kobe scored 81 against a washed up Jalen Rose of the Raps. This was also the same season where Kobe refused to shoot in the 4th Quarter of Game 7 vs. The Suns and lost by 25. Remember that the Lakers had a 3-1 series lead.

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

Simmons on Kimmel

On Tuesday 11/10/09 Bill Simmons was on Jimmy Kimmel pimping his 700 page Book of Basketball, which is now a NYT #1 Best Seller. Congratst to Simmons I guess. Is he the richest sports writer of all time now? Anyway, check out the clips of that interview:

Rick Barry; The Potrait of Awesome

I always wondered what the heck was up with Rick Barry. I knew he was an awesome baller and lead The Warriors to the NBA Championship in 1975, but I also had heard that he was a dick. I had a relatively blank slate on Mr. Barry when he was on KNBR 680 with Rod Brooks on the mid-day show a few years back and hadn't thought much about him since.

That is until I decided to listen to the Simmons Podcast last week where Billy Boy interviewed Tony Kornheiser of current PTI fame. Part of the discussion centered on the excellent article Kornheiser wrote in 1983 about Rick Barry. And the point of this post is to have you check out this splendid prose (thanks to SI Vault) that reveals so much about an incredible NBA player that it makes me hate the walls that these guys put up today....that is, until, Twitter hit the scene and sent Michael Beasley to rehab.

Was Rick Barry really a dick? Or was he just so competitive that he would do whatever it took to win (a-la Tiger Woods chucking his club into the bushes last week and making Steve Williams, his caddy, go get it)? Perhaps we will never know the truth.