And you thought soccer flopping was bad

November 6th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

Here’s Baron Davis and Mehmet Okur. Can you guess which one flopped worse than an Serie A Italian soccer club player? I’ll give you a hint, it’s the dude with the beard and white jersey.

{Via Ballhype.}

Case of the Mondays: Farewell, sweet Warriors

May 14th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

On Friday night, in the midst of the Warriors’ dunk-fest blowout win over Utah, I got this exact text message from commenter PMK:

Dear ESPN … We know it’s loud in Oakland. Put away the stupid decibel meter … NOW! Love, PMK

At the time, I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Leave it to ESPN to bring us an annoying, overdone feature trying to hype up a team and a venue that didn’t need any hyping. This isn’t ARCO Arena; everyone knows how loud it is in Oakland! Can’t we just watch the game and appreciate the crowd organically?

Perhaps I spoke too soon. Because if the Warriors lose to Utah at Utah, and we see this run come to an end, I’ll realize the bad karma I’ve created. Here’s my pledge, Golden State: if you keep winning, I’ll keep tolerating the decibel meter. Screw it: I’ll let them run the decibel meter all the time if it means you guys will pull this off in seven. Do we have a deal? OK — don’t let me down.

As for the actual basketball on the court, the Jazz proved a lot by winning in Golden State last night, and have sealed themselves as winners of this series. Decibel meter or not, that crowd is no joke, and Golden State seemed like a different team there Friday night. For Utah to take the punches and keep coming back out — led by incredible performances from Carlos Boozer, who is suddenly a Top-15 player — is really impressive stuff. You never know: maybe the Jazz can take the winner of Phoenix-San Antonio. Crazier things have happened, even within the past two weeks.

Speaking of the Suns-Spurs, I’m ready to agree with MJD: there’s no reason this series shouldn’t be better than Warriors-Jazz in the long run. The teams are better, they seem to genuinely hate each other (fuck Bruce Bowen), and, thanks to aging stars, both should be playing with a certain level of desperation. Duncan and Nash aren’t exactly retiring next year, but the window is closing quickly for both. No reason this shouldn’t go seven games, and be totally worth it the whole way. But the Suns have to find their balls first.

Finally, one more note about Warriors-Jazz. Huge cheers to TNT for televising the conversations between Jason Richardson, Mehmet Okur, and Derek Fisher after Richardson’s hard foul on Okur in garbage time last night. If you didn’t see it, with about a minute left and the game sealed, Okur drove the ball hard to the glass and rose up for a big, both-arms-extended dunk. It would have been the sort of “Screw you” slam that is basically just for show, and Richardson was having none of it. He fouled Okur hard, got a flagrant-2, and was ejected, but before he left TNT zoomed in just enough to see him yelling at an incensed Okur: “Stop being a pussy, that’s a hard foul! Stop being a pussy! It’s a hard foul, stop being a pussy!”

I nearly fell off the couch laughing. These are the kinds of things that make me smile about competitive basketball — despite huge chasms in skill, you can hear the same banter in the NBA Playoffs as you can at your collegiate rec gym, and everyone understands it on the same level. Fantastic.