The Inflatable Defender
The Inflatable Defender: Life-Size Ben Wallace
The best part of this -- outside of the fact that it simply exists -- is definitely the advertising photo. Real-life Ben looks startled... and maybe a little intimidated? Going with the blown-out 'fro instead of the cornrows was also an excellent choice.
Though this came out in ‘06 when Big Ben and the Pistons were at the height of their game, that doesn’t take away from the fact how amazing this is. The Inflatable Defender makes for a PERFECT gift for basketball fans or your 75-year-old grandmother. Why just imagine her excitement when she wakes up in the middle of the night to a 7-foot Ben Wallace by her nightstand!
FEATURES:
- Life-size dimensions: 84” high and 65” across at the arms when inflated.
- Thick PVC material reinforced at the bottom for durability.
- Base holds water for better stability.
- Repair Kit included.
- Equipped with 2 handles for easy movement and play value.
- Um…it’s a life-size blow-up Ben Wallace, with afro, what more features do you need???
via WAXIN' AND MILKIN'.
An NBA Team Built By Number
At the moment, my favorite NBA team to follow is the Houston Rockets.* They're not the fastest or the most athletic, but that's what I love about them. The Rockets' two big name, big money stars (Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady) have yet to play this year, yet the team has still played well all year and remained in the mix for an eventual playoff spot.
The direct inverse of my home town Warriors, the Rockets have been successful because of how they're built. Michael Lewis touched on this in his New York Times Magazine piece on Shane Battier, but really, that structure is a product of the Rockets' General Manager, Daryl Morey.
Daryl Morey’s has been an “experiment” unprecedented thus far in this league. Never before has a team predicated transactional decision-making primarily upon advanced statistical analysis. With the club exceeding all expectations, to some extent, Morey’s methods have been validated.
Due to the novelty of his approach, and the immediacy of his success, oft forgotten is it that we still lay merely in the earliest of stages in the shaping of this team. Only precious little is known of Daryl Morey’s managerial philosophy. The forethought with which he has guided the transformation of this roster would indicate some grander scheme yet to unfold. This is the subject of my intrigue.
via Discerning Morey’s Philosophy | Red 94 (hat tip to True Hoop).
* My favorite to watch? The Seattle Zombies.
Where Bobbleheads Are Born
It’s been 10 years since the first major league baseball bobblehead doll giveaway (SF Giants: Willie Mays) and the gimmick still packs fans into the stadium. The design process for most bobbleheads begins at Bensussen Deutsch & Associates in Woodinville, WA. A detailed sketch is sent to the Chinese manufacturer who ships back a hand-carved and painted proof. A few revisions later a little baseball player with an oversized nodding head is ready for manufacturing and then bobblehead day at a stadium near you.
Bobbleheads
Swap Machine’s NBA Stats
Brett Hainline’s swap machine uses a player’s offensive and defensive efficiency ratings to determine how swapping one player out for another would improve your team’s overall performance.
Once Hainline went live with it, I immediately did what any Los Angeles Clippers fan would do — nixed the uniquely inefficient Al Thornton from the starting lineup. To fill Thornton’s place at small forward, I opted for efficiency poster boy Shane Battier. I was interested in approximating how much better would the Clippers be with a player of Battier’s mold on the wing.
The results were fascinating. Queen City Hoops estimates that the Clippers would be 10 games better with Battier in Thornton’s place. Here’s QCH’s breakdown…
Clemens + A-Rod + Roids = Nice Racks
The NY Daily News reports that both Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens experienced some unwanted side effects due to chemically-enhancing their performance.
The medical term was gynecomastia, but around the clubhouse they called them "b---- t---" or "man boobs" - and heaven help the player who sprouted them in the middle of his career and then took his shirt off in the locker room," the Daily News reporters wrote in "American Icon." "Roger Clemens had man boobs, and he must have been embarrassed because he was often the first Yankee out of the shower and the first to get dressed after the game."
Want some video proof? Sure you do. The author cites this 2007 Letterman clip, brought to her attention by Jose Canseco:
Read more: "Not just A-Rod: Roger Clemens also suffered from 'man boobs', upcoming book 'American Icon' reveals"
[Tip o’ the hat to Caio for the find.]
Bulls v. Celtics
Noah celebrates after his amazing steal and dunk (and 1), forcing Game 7.
What a first round series -- almost every game has been excellent!
I love when the better team wins, rather than when one team underperforms and throws the game away. As Charles Barkley keeps saying, everyone has been fantastic.
I do find it odd, though, that little has been made of the divergent paths that allowed the teams to be dead even at this point. Boston lost KG, knocking them down into "beatable" range. Meanwhile, the Bulls lost star small forward Luol Deng for the year, almost killing Chicago's playoff chances. The Kings, however, bailed the Bulls out by taking on expiring contracts (aka a bag o' chips) in exchange for Miller and Salmons. Luckily for Chicago, the Kings are owned by the Maloof brothers, who are heavily invested in Vegas. As Vegas is hemorrhaging money right now, the brothers Maloof needed to dump salary (despite Sacramento fans' consistent dedication, leading to sellouts even in years like this one, when the team stinks). It's the equivalent of the Lakers getting Gasol last year, in exchange for the rights for to Gasol's little brother (aka another bag o' chips).
Christine's exact words, at the time of Tony Allen's foul on Ben Gordon in Game 5 (I think): "What the hell is he doing? That guy is f*****g up my s**t!" She does love her some playoff basketball. KG would be proud of her spontaneous Tourette's.
The Sports Guy wrote a nice column on Game 6 (and the whole series) today. Unfortunately for us, C and I planned an early Mother's Day dinner with her parents... for tomorrow night, at tip-off. Doh!
It Kind Of Makes Me Hate Baseball
One of the few players willing to speak honestly about his cheating. (image via deadspin)
C and I have a running dialogue regarding the terrible behavior of everyone involved in MLB's steroids scandal -- owners, players, press, agents (I know, redundant) -- everyone.
These guys are liars and cheats. They've made millions while ticket prices have skyrocketed and municipalities have raised taxes to pay for new ballparks, and even though they've been caught red-handed, all but a couple have refused to admit any wrongdoing. Who'd have thought that only Jose Canseco would be honest and forthright with the public? Disgusting.
Yet it's not a problem that is limited to baseball. Just look at the real estate industry over the last decade. Or at Wall Street. Or at how W and company sold the invasion of Iraq and then defended his decision. Or at how Republicans in Congress spent money they didn't have while they were in power, but now that they're out of power claim that spending is always morally wrong and bad for America. Changing the story, being disingenuous, refusing to take the blame -- all persist and are symptoms of a deeper social problem, a disease that is causing our society to rot from leaf to root.
I guess baseball truly is America's sport.
As always, The Sports Guy kills it in his most recent mailbag...
We always talk about the tangible effects of the Steroids Era (it screwed up the numbers historically, compromised the competitiveness of the games and tainted some of the nicer memories we had as fans from 1990 to 2007), but the underrated effect was the realization that some of our greatest players were scumbags. Should we have realized this after the Pete Rose scandal? Yeah, probably. But look at some of the greats from the past 50 years. Rose lives in Vegas and spends his days betting on horse racing. Barry Bonds seemed like a truly awful person even before he let his buddy rot in jail for him. Clemens was willing to sell everyone out, even his wife and friends, to try to keep his name clean. Mark McGwire doesn't have the decency to admit that he cheated. Neither does Sammy Sosa or Raffy Palmeiro. A-Rod lied in 2008 on national TV, then lied about the lie. There are 103 names from that 2003 random drug-test list still out there, only none have the balls to come out and say, "You know what? I'm probably on there and I'm ashamed of what I did." And when you think about how many All-Stars cheated over the past two decades -- is the number 70 percent? 75 percent? 80 percent? -- the unwillingness of the commissioner's office and the player's union to apologize publicly or admit any culpability whatsoever is really staggering. Why is Bud Selig still the commissioner? THIS HAPPENED ON HIS WATCH! Why is Gene Orza still running the players' union? THIS HAPPENED ON HIS WATCH! Everyone's collective "apology" this winter seemed to be, "Let's move on, it's spring training, the World Baseball Classic will be fun, fantasy baseball is starting up ... no use crying over spilled milk."
Ask yourself this: Do you feel like the players, union leaders, owners and executives even feel bad about what happened? Because I don't feel like they do. And it makes me kind of hate baseball. I will still follow it, and I will still love the Red Sox, and I will still do the League of Dorks ... but at the same time, when the sport flounders because of the economy this summer, part of me will be thinking, "What goes around comes around."
TrueHoop Becomes A Network
I've mentioned before that Henry Abbott's TrueHoop is one of my favorite sites for NBA reporting and news. It's more than that, though. The writing is fantastic, the stories are interesting and always on the leading edge, and the depth and breadth of his coverage is fantastic. TrueHoop is what all news agencies should be pushing to become as they (finally) enter the 21st century and migrate to the Web.
Today, TrueHoop enters a new phase, as it becomes the hub of a hoops blog and reporting network.
Starting right now, ESPN, TrueHoop, and many of the best independent basketball blogs out there are now officially working hand in hand as the TrueHoop Network.
The TrueHoop Network, as fueled by the efforts of a growing list of favorite basketball bloggers (check out that new little drop down on the right), and newly hired ESPN editor, and top-notch blogger, Kevin Arnovitz, will find and foster excellence in online basketball writing.
We will connect the best basketball blogs out there to the best readers out there -- TrueHoop readers.
Not wanting to overstate things, but I think we have an opportunity, over the next several years, to change how sports are covered. . .
Very exciting news for a hoops junkie like me. Check out the rest of the post here.
Burris' Shot Tossed Into The 12th Row
Burris and Kramer. Two men burned by their own desire.
An old high school friend (and fellow political junkie) posted on Facebook that he "couldn't believe the Senate really gave Roland Burris the Heisman (stiff arm, not the trophy)."
Senate officials this morning rejected Roland Burris's effort to be seated as the successor to President-elect Barack Obama, telling the former Illinois attorney general that he lacked the requisite approval of state officials to be sworn in with the rest of the class of 2008 in today's launch of the 111th Congress.
...
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and a bipartisan group of leaders have rejected Burris's appointment on the grounds that the criminal charges against Blagojevich, including one that he tried to sell the appointment in exchange for financial gain, make it impossible for him to pick a successor to Obama without tarnishing the decision.
The impression I got was that the party said -- in no uncertain terms -- that all Democrats were to cut the governor loose. We're talking a giant, neon Seinfeld-esque Kenny Rogers Roasters sign screaming STAY AWAY.
Still, Burris wanted the job, so took the shot while it was there... and got completely rejected. Swatted. Roofed. Denied.
That's what happens when you don't work within the team offense -- the boss says you're not professional enough for the big leagues, benches you, and tries to trade you (see Randolph, Anthony).