Its Familiar

So the NBA is back.

We here at Dogfight are looking forward to highlighting the afterlife of a "just past" NBA era; what's happening to those thuggish, defense-oriented, ball-hogging, pre- or simply non- Lebron/dwade/amare stars with the huge, untradeable contracts that nouveau-NBA fans and talk-radio hosts are going to tell you are arrogant, overrated, overpaid, "not exciting," and should be traded? We got it here 4 cheap, so keep watching.

Besides the former stars, we are also excited about some young, unpolished, or simply hated teams: the Magic, the Bulls, the Knicks, the Lakers.

Oh and this guy:


Mr. Get Familiar Himself

But first, did you know that vacationers from Michigan were 275% more likely to drive to Florida than to fly in 1976?

We'll be back on this shit like flies on shut your mouth.


Lemme call you back

Patron Saints

Recently, a bunch of kids asked Artest about the brawl at the Palace. He said, "Someone started something and I finished it." These were 8 year olds. Let me just take this moment to confirm that I love Ron Artest. By the way, this is the definition of folk hero.

only in the nhl

seriously, would this happen in any other sport?

I wish it were this guy appointed to the new GM position instead of Garth Snow


I'm talking about Gorton up there.

Meanwhile, in the NBA, the Sonics were sold to an Oklahoma City investment group. YAYSport's funny post sort of misses the true impact of this decision... Oklahoma City could be only the second city to become home to TWO NBA franchises. Think of the rivaly possibilities. The panhandle series. Channeling Darryl Dawkins, Rashard Lewis will begin naming his dunks, starting with "The Thresher," and then begin practicing interplanetary funkmanship, not only because somebody in the NBA should be doing that at all times, but also, it would be real freedarko of him to transform his on-court style into some crop circles, metaphorically demonstrating his cyclonic wind action. He will have many chances to do this, as there are many fields in Oklahoma. Actually, the arena could be nicknamed too, something catchy like, "Fields of Screams/Dreams/Teams". Any of those are appropriate because the emphasis in this case would be on "fields." In case you forgot, here's the Hornet's current stadium:



I am saying the place is RURAL!


Well, at the very least, Saer Sene might find the topography familiar, easing his transition from 7'6" skill-less foreigner/"project" to his telos as another typical 7'6" NBA stiff that someone will inevitably and yet somehow also spectacularly, dunk over. I think that's freedarko too. Anyway, I hope one team gets renamed the "Okies" and the other something clever and unexpected like...the "Dusted Bowlers". Maybe the "Bombers." Oof, did I cross a line? OK, I'm out.

Zidane is GULLY!!!

Haha no shit, that's the way to fucking END YOUR ENTIRE CAREER. The best part about it is that it was totally ruthless. Zidane looked like he did it when nobody would see what he was doing (in front of 200,000 people--1 billion if you both count tv and believe tv) so he could act like it didn't happen if the ref didn't directly see it. Soccer has some ridiculous rules.


"You cannot be serious!"

So, basically, what I learned today about soccer, or Euro's, or whichever is more precise, is: do not talk shit on Zidane. He will pop ya top like champagne bottles that chill!! We gon' clap those things, dunny!!


I WILL touch you

Seriously, what on earth could dude have said? That must have been some INTERDIMENSIONAL-CLASS shit talking by Marco Materazzi. He must have been like, "Yo, best player on the other team: ÜøπÍÎÎÏ´ ˘¿◊ǯ˘Õfi‰ÎÏ, Ò˜¶§¢¢Ä–≠« §n¶›◊◊ π¬iû¥∏Øer! If you think I'm wrong, headbutt me, and I swear I'll take it back."


In other words, he came at him with some Sam Cassell shit.


This whole affair adds another dimension to Bill Simmon's musings about which NBA player would make good soccer players. I think. I mean, I hope.

We Use Words Like Upski

I was worried that the last blog I wrote may have suggested some casual racism with the ben wallace/mike tyson/black-man-beast-rapist connection. Unrelatedly, as I was talking to famous rapper from Tokyo Mike Joyce this morning, he brought up Upski while we were discussing the popularity of petty larceny in graffiti culture. I poked around and I found an old, but berry interesting article Upski wrote on race, whiteness and hip hop authenticity from the Source. While articles like this usually resort to bankrupt conceptions of race and culture that telegraph a different sort of casual racism, and even more frequently, rather stiffly drawn color lines, I appreciated Upski's playfulness, although not his heavy-handed and rather accusatory final paragraph. But, for whatever reason, this snippet struck me:

When Holly Poopster (whatever her name is. Somethin' like that) from the Chicago suburb of Evanston attended her first hip-hop party a year ago, she and her friend told me that they didn't feel accepted at the party because they were white. "We come from a very, very integrated community," she told me (Evanston is seventy-one percent white), as if to say, "It's not our fault they don't like us."

It has been a big year for Polly Shmooster! But don't call her Golly anymore. Her name is "Sista PA," and though she can't quite dance yet, she has befriended a bunch of dredlock b-boys, and feels welcome at parties. She writes passionately about breakdancing and stopping violence for Dry-Paper, a Chicago rap publication.

The Sista even uses words like "phunkyphatphresh" and plays black-than-thou with another white writer, me, saying that I'm not hardcore. (Thought I'd return the favor, Hopsy. Next time you play that shit we're gonna battle.) Topsy has learned what all of us know, that most blacks will accept anyone who makes the slightest effort not to be a typical white asshole - or maybe Popsy's still back in the "I must be special" stage.

Was this about Jessica Hopper?! If it wasn't, to me it sure seems like it, but the connection is sort of absurd. I don't know Jessica, haven't read much of her writing, but I was aware of her role in the recent Slate controversy about whiteness and rap fandom. Perhaps the connection I made hinged too much on the negative reputation internet message board posters foist upon her, but I couldn't imagine her not writing something like "phunkyphatphresh" if she did her current zine in 1993. But anyways, was Upski trying to imply that the embrace "Holly Poopster" made of black culture was exploitative? That she herself was being casually racist?


If you hate me and my writing so much why do you read my blog?

There are obviously boundaries, and, as a white middle-class male, I of course stand to benefit most from the continuation of white male patriarchal society (justifiably, a fact whose resonance might overpower what I have to say; empowered by the blogsphere, i continue), but I've thought about this sort of thing for a while. I still wonder if its the most worthwhile or least worthwhile thing to police the usuage of cultural artifacts with concerns about casual racism. A lot of this confusion on my part stems from an uncertainty over which is more "racist": a concern that usage of "black" cultural tropes by middle-class whites is "degrading" (in the words of Sabrina Williams, quoted in Upski's article) to black culture, because it violates what is essential to "blackness," the idea that their culture is born and enacted from suffering that whites would largely be unaware. This idea of hinges, rather questionably in my opinion, on conceiving of black culture as somewhat monolithic and everlasting. But on the other hand, playing with these (or any) cultural forms casually, as some are apt to do, is problematic because all of these types of play are open to interpretation since they don't make a simple or direct statement that can be addressed, contradicted or supported. In the hands of a bad historian, for instance, or cultural pundits in general, whatever ambiguity that is there can easily be lost, especially from a broad perspective. But is that what matters? The broad trans-historical perspective, or the day-to-day pleasure you can find in the things you consume?



One will transform the other.

Call it Operation: Lockdown

Ben Wallace signing with the Bulls just about makes my year. Ben to the Bulls pretty much defines that team as the apotheosis of this blog... and I am just getting it off the ground. You're so psyched, I know. Lucky for all that I'm a Chicago fan, living in Chicago (just not right now). The only possible thing better than this for this blog would be if the 93 Knicks got back together. And challenged this team of defensive supermen in the Eastern conference finals. Or perhaps if Anthony Mason started playing again, anywhere.


We hate the law so we break it


I don't know what the NBA record for team shot blocks per game is, but this season I'm guessing the Bulls' average will hover around 200. On the other hand, with Ben Wallace and Tyson Chandler as their starting frontline, can the Bulls muster enough offense to score more than 45 points a game?


Don't throw it to Stone Hands!

I'm saying dudes are bricklayers. Nevertheless, I feel this fact is largely irrelevant. Will scoring actually matter with this team? Perhaps John Paxson is asking us to reconsider the most basic of basketball conventional wisdoms. Now that they have Big Ben, it seems obvious that the Bulls must trade their only real gunner, the overhyped, undersized Ben "Jordan"/"Christ, WTF?!!" Gordon. Straight up for Reggie Evans or Bruce Bowen or something. Then move Noce up to PF while Ty2 gets ready. Fuck it, start Noce at 2; it doesn't matter! The Bulls are prepared to rip out their opponents stomachs and hearts. And eat their children. Nightly, dog. In Pax we trust!

Anyway, Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you your 2006-2007 Chicago Bulls:


My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious

81 seconds. Selofosha!


ps. fuck Shaq

Other bloggers won the title by default

Ahem,

Casualties of a Dice Game

I guess my predictions were off! Would the Mavs have stood a chance if they didn't bench Marquis Daniels for no good reason? freedarko debates Wade vs. Daniels on who owned game 6.

I think Daniels wasn't even playing out of his mind...

E&J Got My Mind Flippin

Game 6 is minutes from starting. Fuck shaq and all that, but there is a serious media retcon going on with this finals. While the buildup to the finals in television playoff coverage and the major sports websites alike* focused on how Shaq was to be stopped when he decided to show up. But after a couple of 45-17 games (33 FTs), suddenly the Heat are and always have been "Wade's Team"; dwade is the "next jordan," Shaq is laughed at for missing foul shots and is getting pulled out of the game in crucial minutes, presumably because he does more harm than good.



Shoot, Pass, Slam Requiem


Well, I call bullshit. The man has his flaws, and is at the end of his career, isn't quite the player you'll find on youtube highlights of his career (save for against my boy Bynum!) but I think the mavs are 1) still strategizing mainly against shaq, just like any other nba team in the finals would be and 2) because of this clouded strategizing over the fact that Shaq's dick blocks out the sun, weren't prepared for dwyane's carpe deism, and that's why they are 1) ably containing shaq, making him look like a "glorified role player" allowing all the pundits and blogs suggest he's "warshed up," and 2) getting destroyed by wade's slash-and-destroy mission. Wade's gonna come back to earth, and he'll do it soon. I maintain that the storyline still should be about the Mav's defensive job on Shaq.


Mythmaking as NBA history



Do I think Wade is incredible? Yes. Is he the next Jordan? No. The Heat still win and lose on Shaq's presence. He's just found the right role player to catch fire. I watched every game of the Chicago series and Wade is as streaky as they come; right now, he's on at the right time. The Mavs are STILL double- and even triple-teaming shaq on every possession. They have to. And it's this nagging sense in the back of every Maverick defender's head, "wait... is Shaq open?" that gives Wade tons of space to create. Which he's been great at.


When a fool try to play me, wet 'em up, then I'm Swayze

Because of Wade's recent hotstreak, it has become tiresome to read about these Finals. Everyone's so eager to annoint (or tear down) the next super-superstar/face of the NBA/GOAT because it makes for good copy, the commentators I read are allowing themselves to get swept up in reaction to perhaps the most hackeneyed storyline in basketball yet again. There are some good stories and reactions to these finals out there though. Like most of the blogosphere, Bill Simmons has found a home in his own mythology, but he is still a perceptive basketball watcher.

It's not a perfect column, but the best I've read on the finals so far. FreeDarko could have predicted his Finals-anxiety over the imminent death of the "team ball-right way" resurgence six months ago, in their sleep, on the off-mention that Wade would be playing. Simmon's recapitulation of the second most hackeneyed story in the NBA is not why I like this column. Basically, I think he's right about Marquis Daniels, and I think Avery Johnson knows it. The reason the Mavs are down in the series is because Wade's hit his stride at the right time, and Udonis Haslem (--I see you Evan; Udonis is incredibly underrated, and should be heralded as a less-crazy Ron Artest or a more-likeable Bruce Bowen, not to mention a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. After this series, consider him a lock for the award next year) is seriously frustrating Dirk whenever he gets near the top of the key. Dirk can't create, Wade's on fire, and that's why the Heat are up. But Wade is not the next Jordan and never will be playing alongside Shaq. And Shaq is still bullshit, and that's why I still like the Mavs in 7.


Now that I'm done writing this, the game started and the Mavs are up 26-12! One!

Shaq is bullshit

Back like Kirk Krack