Case of the Mondays: Michael is the Russian judge

February 19th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

Never has such a fantastic example of athleticism received so little due. Usually, it’s the other way around; athletes are oftentimes collectively praised as “bigger, stronger and faster” than their predecessors even when the charge shouldn’t stick. Usually the modern athlete, through the power of hyperbole, gets the benefit of the doubt - and it’s usually warranted.

Dwight Howard’s brilliant sticker-dunk, unfortunately, received none of that treatment.

The best dunk in a somewhat lethargic dunk contest went unrecognized, as Recluse at FreeDarko says: “by some of the sport’s foremost disciples of the leaping arts.” Without the benefit of a replay or at least a camera, that panel didn’t get the chance to see Dwight’s smiling face 12 feet, six inches high, and the big fella got screwed.

Props to Gerald Green for creativity. The Dee Brown throwback dunk had like eight different premeditated elements going for it. Impressive, sure, but no way anyone cares about that dunk in a year. It’ll be all sticker-dunk, all the time.

All Star Roundup:

– The West won a relatively slow-paced All Star game, 153-132, and Kobe Bryant was the MVP. Yes, I just called a game in which 285 combined points were scored “slow-paced.” It’s true - don’t confuse a lack of defense with pace or energy. Only Amare and Kobe, and sometimes LeBron, seemed to care all that much. Still entertaining, though, that’s for sure.

– Jason Kapono. Yawn.

– Dwayne Wade. Yawnnnn.

– Charles Barkley! I love Charles a lot - he’s easily my favorite analyst/talking head/degenerate gambler on TV - and he and Kenny Smith absolutely owned the entire All Star Weekend. Barkley’s race with Dick Bavetta was great, but Barkley’s line afterward - “We raised a ton of money for charity … (looks at $50,000 check) … we raised two blackjack hands for charity!” - was completely brilliant.

Oh, and some sort of race happened yesterday. Not sure what that’s about.

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Case of the Mondays: Dwight Howard ends games with one handed dunks. He can eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast to the chest. To Dwight Howard!

February 12th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

So football’s gone. Football? What’s football? As if we needed another reason to fully cast our glare on basketball, both professional and collegiate, Dwight Howard comes along and does something utterly … well, ridiculous doesn’t even begin to describe it.

You’ve likely seen the highlight a couple times by now (though my roommates hadn’t as of early Sunday); here’s the video anyway.

Ugh. Nasty. Play of the year, not just in the NBA, but across all of sport. It’s that good.

In other NBA news, our Bulls played considerably better than they have on their entire West road trip (they were 1-6 coming into Sunday night’s game) en route to a 116-103 win over the Suns last night. That core of the future - Kirk Heinrich, Ben Gordon, and Luol Deng - scored 29, 27, and 29 respectively. These guys are untouchable in any Gasol trade, if you ask me. Of course, John Paxson doesn’t.

Also, Kobe strong-armed LeBron and Co. last night for 36, but the Cavs came away with the 99-90 win. Oh, and D-Wade buried the Spurs in the 4th quarter. How’s that for leadership, Mr. Cuban? (I totally should have asked Cuban about this whole leadership thing when I had the chance.)

Oh, and Gil? I love you and all, but if you’re going to make ridiculous guarantees, at least get a fifth of the point total you promised. Yeesh.

A great deal of college basketball was played over the weekend as well, lest we forget. Let’s see if I can sum this up as concisely as possible: Duke sucks, Kentucky’s not enough, IU-Illinois is officially a rivalry, and Georgia Tech stays alive. That was actually kinda easy.

Oh, and thanks to those of you who either e-mailed or left a comment (I’m nodding in your direction, brosallman) about my LSAT Saturday morning. I feel pretty good about it. And after all, the test is mostly just logical reasoning, and I learned from the best:

I ain’t been rhymin like Common since
When your sense got that much in common
And you been hustlin since
Your inception
Fuck perception
Go with what makes sense

See? It’s easy!

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