Shaqintosh (via NBA Offseason)
Not a whole lot of games going on tonight, but luckily for all you lactationers and fans of ye olde bawful, there are a pair which promise a virtual cornucopia of crap hoops - more on that below. But first...
Luckily Vince was looking the other way, otherwise Medusa there might have turned him to stone

I bet you they're not thinking about how much they miss Allen Iverson

Steve Nash reveals why he's so good at basketball: he's actually a magical leprechaun

Pau Gasofa gets the YMCA chant going
Nationally Televised Game:
Bulls at Trail Blazers - Dan B. will be none too thrilled to find out that yet again the nationally televised game is on NBATV, so he probably won't be watching this one. That's OK though, cause you probably won't be watching either. If you do tune in though, you may want to go check out the Daily Dime chat over at ESPN just in case Mr. Bawful puts in an appearance. He is the ESPN Bulls blogger after all. We thought about turning the Oden Watch into a drinking game (one drink for every Oden foul), but we thought better of it when we realized that six drinks in under 15 minutes could probably lead to alcohol poisoning.

All the other games:

Bucks at Spurs - Who would have thought that the Bucks would be three games up on San Antonio after almost a month into the season? Probably the same people who would have predicted the Spurs would be under .500 just days before Thanksgiving while still searching for that first road win, while also predicting that the Bucks would be setting the world on fire with fewer losses than the Celtics at this point in the year. In other words, nobody. Tune in tonight to see if the Spurs restore the natural order of things.

Kings at Grizzlies - On many nights, this would be the Basksetbawful Game of the Night, but not tonight because there's a special treat on the schedule (see below). The Kings have been on something of a tear since losing Kevin Martin, and understandably the Grizzlies have improved since Allen Iverson's dark cloud has moved away from their franchise. Still, two sub-.500 teams meeting like this should provide plenty of fodder for chris's lacktion report tomorrow.

Timberwolves at Clippers - You know, it almost doesn't get any better than this. After all, this is without question the Basketbawful Game of the Night. If you are one of the rare few who tune in, try to keep from being mesmerized by all the empty seats and actually pay attention to the lacktion going on on the court. And also, please don't rat on the announcers if they go off script for a minute or two on the wise presumption that nobody's watching anyway.

Labels: Bawful After Dark, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trailblazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs

Labels: Dwyane Wade, Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trailblazers, Sacramento Kings, Toronto Raptors

The Wounded Tiger is on the prowl.
Wounded Tiger Theory (woond'-ud ti'-ger thir'-e) noun. The theory that a basketball team (or any other sports team) tends to play harder and (at times) perform better despite the loss of one or more key players.

Usage example: The Phoenix Suns did everything they could Wednesday night to validate Dick Motta's old Wounded Tiger Theory. They came within a couple possessions of the fairy tale that the NBA's justice department was secretly -- but surely -- wishing for as much as the fuming locals waving those "Dirtier Than Dirt" signs, wearing "Stu Sucks" T-shirts and fully blaming the league for this predicament. [From Marc Stein's article For Suns, everything but a W.]

Word history: The term was coined (for use in basketball-related commentary) by Dick Motta. According to this Jimmy Burch article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Dick Motta, former coach of the Dallas Mavericks, loved to invoke the Wounded Tiger theory any time his team suffered a key injury or played an opponent missing a pivotal starter. Motta's theory, in a nutshell, suggests that the wounded tiger fights hardest, making it the most difficult jungle cat to subdue."

You say tomato, I say zucchini: Bill Simmons' Ewing Theory is probably an offshoot of Motta's Wounded Tiger Theory. The basic tenets of the Ewing Theory are identical to the Wounded Tiger, and it was created several years after Motta first explicated his doctrine (and it seems improbable that Simmons, a diehard sports zealot, would have been totally unaware of it). The main divergence in the two theories is that Motta believed that the team played better despite the missing player(s), while Simmons' theory seems to hold that the team improved because the missing player(s) received too much media attention, ruined team chemistry, or were vastly overrated to begin with.

Famous Wounded Tigers: You can read Simmons' Ewing Theory article for an expansive list of teams that qualify for Wounded Tiger status. But his list has one glaring omission, a team I would rank as the greatest ever example of the Wounded Tiger Theory: The 1993-94 Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan retired (for the first time anyway), but the Bulls inserted Pete Myers into the lineup and barely missed a step. That team won 55 games -- only two fewer games than the previous championship season -- and they were a couple questionable calls away from heading to the Eastern Conference Finals. And the team that beat them, the New York Knicks, eventually made it all the way to the NBA Finals, where they lost a tough seven-game series to the Houston Rockets. When you think about it, it's not a huge stretch of the imagination to say that that Bulls team could have made it to the Finals, and could have competed with the Rockets, and even could have won it all (since they wouldn't have had to overcome John Starks' dreadful 2-for-18 shooting performance in Game 7). Nobody, and I mean nobody, expected that much from a team that replaced Michael Jordan with Pete Myers. And all the idiots who claim that Jordan did won all by himself -- yes, I'm talking to you, Chris Broussard -- really need to go back and review that season.

Wounded Tigers of Today: Take note, my friends. There are some Wounded Tigers roaming the NBA this season. Take the Portland Trailblazers, for example. They're missing Darius Miles. Sorry, I couldn't resist. But seriously, most people (myself included) wrote them off after Greg Oden's knee injury, but now they're breathing fire and leading their division (ahead of favorites like the Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets). The Wizards of Washington have also shown a lot of spunk, and some seriously determined defensive intensity, in winning without Agent Zero. And make no mistake, at 22-17 they're nipping at the Magic's heels for the divisional lead. And if last night's dismantling of the Nuggets was any indication, I think there might be a Wounded Tiger on the prowl in L.A.

Labels: Bill Simmons, Chicago Bulls, Dick Motta, Portland Trailblazers, Washington Wizards

Kris Humphries: The former Golden Gopher notched a one trillion in Toronto's 91-82 victory over Cleveland.

Fun fact: Lebron James' injury has cracked a hole in the Cav's lineup, and Eric Snow has responded with his best two games of the season: 2 points (0-1), 2 rebounds, and zero assists against the Raptors and 5 points (1-2), 2 rebounds, and 2 assists against the Celtics. Those 7 points give Snow 7 points on the season. The sky's the limit for this grizzled veteran.

Philly's three-point shooting: The 76ers managed to eke out an 85-84 win over the Wizards, but the backboards paid a terrible, terrible price: Philly shot 0-14 from beyond the arc. Andre Iguodala -- who shot 3-19 -- was 0-6 from three.

Milwaukee Bucks: The Knicks were coming off a beating of historic proportions in which they had all given up on their coach and themselves. The Bucks were coming off a full day's rest and promptly built a 17-point lead. I'm sure you know where this is going: New York edged Milwaukee 91-88 by outscoring the Bucks 26-11 in the fourth quarter. "The ceiling fell in," moaned Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak. "I'm speechless," said Michael Redd, who nonetheless continued talking. "I'm more speechless about us losing three in a row, not that we lost to the Knicks. The Knicks are a talented team. We knew they would come back and fight hard. When you have a lead like that, you've got to be able to defend and put your foot down and take advantage of the situation, and we didn't do that tonight." That's further proof, if you even needed it, that "speechless" athletes don't really understand how to use that word. Anyway, the Bucks bounced back from that loss to lose even worse the next night, losing by 25 at home to the Pistons. "We're kind of in the middle of a downturn, no doubt," said Krystkowiak. Uh, you think?

Fun fact: Four games ago, the Bucks (7-8) were leading the Central Division. Now they're fourth, and they're only that high because they share the division with the Bulls (4-10).

Peja Stojakovic: This guy is a human Dow Jones chart: Up one day, down the next, then up, then down, then up. Earlier in the week, he followed a 3-point game in which he shot 1-6 with 22 points (7-12). On Friday night, he contributed 4 points (2-12) in the Hornets' 92-86 win over the Hawks, then rebounded to score 22 points (7-14) in 112-108 victory over the Mavericks.

Fun fact: Peja has five games this season in which he scored 5 points or less. He also has five games in which he scored 20 or more points. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

Miami Heat: It's like this team has just rolled over and died or something. They dropped to 4-12 after going 0-for-the-weekend. On Friday night, they were down by as many as 28 points against the Celtics and used a 34-12 fourth quarter surge (after Boston totally fell asleep) to make the final score look respectable. Then, on Sunday, the Nuggets put them into a 20-point hole in the first quarter and the Heat never really challenged after that. Even worse for the Heat, Shaq and Wade were almost invisible in those two losses. There's a funerary feeling about this team right now.

Fun fact: I've always said that, even in decline, Shaq is better than, say, a Zach Randolph because he's a better passer. Well, Shaq has 17 assists and 44 turnovers on the season. Randolph has 18 and 46. Of course, Shaq's shooting 60 percent from the field and Randoph is shooting 43 percent. Wait, what?? Randolph -- an inside player -- is shooting 43 percent? Ooooh, that's bad. Okay, Shaq's still the better choice.

Indiana Pacers: They just concluded a successful 3-1 Western Conference road trip and pushed their record back to .500 in the process, so you might be wondering why they're on this list. Well, two of their wins came against the Blazers (5-12, four straight losses) and Clippers (6-9, five straight losses), so they don't really count. They lost to Seattle (3-15), which was the worst team they faced on the trip. And their next three games are against Phoenix (13-4), Orlando (15-4), and Cleveland (only 9-9, but Lebron should be back by then). So I don't think they'll be .500 for long.

Fun fact: The Pacers had won four of five games without Jermaine O'Neal -- including wins over the Hornets, Mavericks, and Nuggets -- and then lost his "return game" to a 2-win team. Coincidence? No way.

Los Angeles Clippers: Hm, 0-for-the-weekend and five losses in a row by an average of 13 PPG. Yep: They are who we thought they were.

Fun fact: The Clippers next seven opponents -- Milwaukee, Seattle, Sacramento, Miami, New Jersey, and Charlotte -- are all currently below .500. Yet the Clippers will still lose most of those games. Depressing, isn't it?

Houston Rockets: Uh, what's going on here? The Rockets are loaded with talent. Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming are playing well. But they're only 9-9 after losing seven of their last 10 games, including Saturday's embarrassing loss to the Kings (6-10). I mean, how do you lose to a crapy team when T-Mac springs for 40 and Yao gives you 29 and 11? Somebody needs to remind Rick Adelman that his teams don't start sucking until the playoffs.

Chicago Bulls: Ah, sweet relief...Chicago has finally won two games in a row. And on Saturday night, they finally looked like the Bulls again. Ben Gordon scored 34 points (13-21) and hit five three-pointers. Luol Deng scored 29 points (13-21). Kirk Hinrich shot 50 percent (3-6) and dished 7 assists. Ben Wallace grabbed 19 rebounds to go with 5 steals and 4 blocks. It just begs the question: Where were you guys? Did aliens finally return the real Bulls and take their lifeless duplicates back into the mystery of space? I guess we'll find out soon, since the Bulls have games against Dallas, Detroit, and Boston this week.

Boston Celtics: The Celtics are an NBA-best 14-2, and they won both of their games this weekend...but they didn't necessarily look good doing it. They coughed up most of a 28-point lead against the Heat on Friday and slogged their way to an 80-70 victory over the Lebron-less Cavs yesterday. I guess sometimes winning is ugly.

Fun fact: Ray Allen is second all-time in three-pointers made with 1959. Reggie Miller is first with 2560.

Portland Trailblazers: Forget the fact that they've lost four in a row and nine of their last 10 games. Last night, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, and Michael Finley combined to shoot 8-32, and Duncan only played 10 minutes because of a bruised knee and sprained ankle, and the Blazers still lost by 21. How demoralizing is that?

Fun fact: Robert Horry played his first game of the season yesterday. He was 0-1 for zero points to go along with two rebounds and zero assists.

Seattle Supersonics: They had their winning streak snapped at one game and their home record fell to 1-8 after yesterday's 109-96 loss to the suddenly unstoppable Golden State Warriors. Kevin Durant, fresh off a season-high 35 points against the Pacers, missed his first six shots, went scoreless in the first half and finished with 6 points (2-12). He even blew a dunk in the fourth quarter. That's what we call an ego-ectomy.

Fun fact: The NBA is now tracking something that's called The Lenovo +/- Stat. It looks at the point differential when players are both in and out of the game, to see how the team performs with various combinations. Ray Allen currently leads the league with a score of +198. Kevin Durant, on the other hand, is the worst in the league at -187...worse than Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry combined. Yikes.

Labels: Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Peja Stojakovic, Portland Trailblazers, Seattle Supersonics, Worst of the Weekend

Detroit Pistons: The Pistons went 0-for-the-weekend after losing back-to-back games against the Lakers and Kings. That means Detroit has lost three of their last four games. Why? Simple: They've lost their defensive focus. After holding their first five opponents to 87.8 PPG, the Pistons have given up scores of 103, 102, 104, 103, and 105 to their last five opponents -- and that's including games against Seattle (99.4 PPG), Portland (93.7 PPG), and Sacramento (99.4). I'm not a mathematologist, but even I know that a team averaging just under 100 PPG can't give up more than that and win on a consistent basis.

New York Knicks: Speaking of teams that went o-for-the-weekend and can't play defense, the Knicks gave up 238 points in back-to-back losses to the Kings and Nuggets. The Knicks defense was so bad that even Allen Iverson shot better than 50 percent against them (7-13). New York now has a nice six-game losing streak going -- tops in the NBA!

Portland Trailblazers: After two exciting, hope-lifting wins against Dallas and Detroit, the Blazers have lost three in a row, including both weekend games against the 76ers (3-6) and Wizards (4-5). They're a young team, and all three losses were on the road, but that doesn't change the fact that they just didn't play well and are currently 0-6 away from home this season.

Utah Jazz: Yet another 0-for-the-weekend team. And while I can sort of understand Friday Night's 99-94 loss to the Cavaliers -- Lebron James blitzkrieged the Jazz with a 40/10/9 performance -- Saturday night's 117-97 loss to the Pacers was totally unforgivable. Utah played the role of Jesus to the Pacers' Lazarus, resurrecting both Mike Dunleavy Jr. (25 points), Jamaal Tinsley (13 assists), and a team that had lost six straight games. Oh, and the Jazz let the Pacers shoot 58 percent. Man, the Pacers couldn't shoot 58 percent in an empty gym full of Nerf hoops.

Houston Rockets: They also went 0-for-the-weekend and are stuck in a four-game losing streak. Mind you, Tracy McGrady has missed the last two-and-a-half games with his annual semi-serious injury, and the Rockets lost three of the four to hot teams (Lakers, Spurs, and Suns). But still, the Rockets have been losing and looking bad while doing so. The only bright spot has been the play of their 40-year-old rookie, Luis Scola. Speaking of which...

Doubters: Some people have been wondering whether Luis Scola is going to be an NBA bust. Scola responded to this criticism (of which I'm sure he was completely unaware) with two very good games: 20 points (10-11), and 4 rebounds against the Spurs, and 20 points (10-19), 11 rebounds, and 4 assists against the Suns. He also was Houston's best player in both games. Not bad.

Rashard Lewis: I know I'm always ragging on Rashard for his poor rebounding skills, but seriously, he deserves it. He's an athletic, 6'10" forward and he got outrebounded 24-7 by opposing point guards this weekend. That's just sad.

Los Angeles Clippers: The Clips teased us all by starting the season 5-2 and then lost consecutive games to the Warriors (2-6) and Bulls (2-7). Yep: They are who we thought they were.

Kevin Durant: The kid shot 3-12 in the Soncis' 100-84 loss to the Bobcats. But I'm used to his sour shooting by now. What really concerned me was the fact that he had only one rebound. Maybe it's only a coincidence, but Seattle got pounded on the boards, 60-38. I know Durant is thin, but he's tall and athletic enough to grab more than one rebound in 30 minutes of action. I mean, according to the box score Jermareo Davidson played exactly zero minutes and even he had one rebound. Rebounding is all about effort, Kevin. Let's see some.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Just how bad are the Wolves? Antoine Walker -- 14 points (5-9), 5 rebounds, 2 assists -- was listed as their top performer in Friday night's 105-89 loss to the Wizards. If Antoine Walker is ever your top performer, you are a bad, bad, bad team.

Luol Deng: The Bulls crappy offense got even crappier in the second half of their 106-78 loss to the Lakers, and I found myself thinking, "Boy, they could sure use Luol Deng right about now." Unfortunately, Deng sat out with what he's desribing as a "bruised ligament" in his back. A whatted what? You can bruise a ligament? I'm not a doctor, but it sounds to me like he has a case of Big Vaginaitis. You know, Larry Bird used to suffer back pain so bad that he couldn't feel his legs or even wiggle his toes. Sometimes he'd have to go to the hospital and be put in traction between games. Do you think that Bird would have abandoned his team, especially if it had been struggling as bad as the Bulls have been, with a "bruised ligament"? Yeah, me either. But the Bulls wouldn't trade Deng for Kobe. I'm just sayin'.

Boston Celtics: The C's lost more games this weekend than they had lost all season. Okay, it was only one game, but still. Anyway, their 104-102 loss to the Magic raises an interesting question: How does a team shoot 53 percent and outrebound their opponent 41-28 and still lose? Hmm, I would guess that Orlando's 44 freethrow attempts (to Boston's 26) had a little something to do with that. Mmmmm...smells like a little home cookin' to me. Of course, the Celtics kind of shot themselves in the foot a little bit too, committing 19 turnovers and falling into a 20-point hole in the first half. And Pierce's last-second shot, an off-balance jumper from 26 feet, was that really the best shot the Celtics could have gotten?

Labels: Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets, Kevin Durant, luol deng, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Portland Trailblazers, Rashard Lewis, Utah Jazz

An artist's interpretation of our interview with Henry.
ESPN's TrueHoop is as routinely awesome as a Tim Duncan bankshot or a Phoenix Suns fast break. TrueHoop's founder and man of fortune is Henry Abbott. Fair-minded and well-spoken, Henry provides a continuing commentary not about the game of basketball, but about the essence of basketball: Its players, events, and culture. Yesterday, he was kind enough to answer a series of questions that were designed to delve into his heretofore untapped dark side. Unfortunately, the interview didn't lead to Henry choking people with his mind or executing order 66. But we did learn -- among other things -- that he loves t-shirt cannons, watches HBO serial dramas, knows what solipsism means and can use it in a sentence, and thinks that Larry Bird is...not pretty. Read on to find out more about the things Henry doesn't like about basketball, and a few things he does.

Basketbawful: You love hoops. That much is obvious. But there must be something you hate about basketball. A pet peeve. An annoyance. A perturbation, if you will. What is it?

Henry Abbott: Oh, I sound like an old man with this I'm sure, but I get so tired of going to an NBA game, and being directed by the Game-Ops people to be UP AND INTO IT at every stupid moment there's a dead ball. I think events need to have a certain pace -- exciting times, and more restful times. Times you stand up, and times you sit down. Times you talk to your friend, and times you scream your guts out. I'd rather have the wild and exciting parts coincide with the most exciting parts of the basketball game -- not the timeouts.

Basketbawful: Red Auerbach is resting peacefully in his grave now that you've said that. I hate the manufactured excitement, too. Do you participate or tune out?

Henry Abbott: Usually I'm in the media section, where you pretty much are required to look glum. It's the code. If I'm with friends, though, I'll try to make the best of it.

I should make a side note: I love the t-shirt cannon. Don't want the t-shirt. Don't care about the hoopla. I just think the t-shirt, tumbling high as hell through the air, is beautiful, in the sense that that kid in American Beauty loved his video of a plastic shopping bag swirling around in the wind. Somebody needs to make a scene in a movie where time stops as we watch that little bundle of t-shirt make its way through stadium space. It's amazing, somehow.

I'm also kind of partial to the parachute drop.

But I will not abide people telling me to stand up during the timeout, when we were all seated during the game. If the game requires it, I'm up.

Basketbawful: What annoys you most about basketball players? This can be a generalization, or something specific regarding a particular player or group of players.

Henry Abbott: A fair percentage of all celebrities are so self-centered it hurts. Many are not, but some are. I learned the fantastic word "solipsism" in a Korean Civilization class in college, it was describing the former Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, but you could also use it on some NBA superstars.

Word-tastic Trivia: Solipsism is the theory that the self can be aware of nothing but its own experiences and states. It's the educated man's way to say that people are, by nature, selfish bastards.

Basketbawful: Same question, but replace "players" with "coaches."

Henry Abbott: Some coaches feel emboldened to scream at people and demean them. I accept that happens sometimes, but I think it's good if we agree that is not the best part of sports, and is worth avoiding.

Basketbawful: On the flipside, how can certain coaches deal with players who won't listen? Particularly players who you know are going to play? (Like when Chris Ford tried to put the clamps on Allen Iverson.)

Henry Abbott: That's the deal, right? They won't listen. I'll tell you that right now, before you take your coaching job. None of them will, unless you have something special to tell them. They don't have to. You make x and have a non-guaranteed contract. They make 10x and have guaranteed contracts. Ergo, you can lead them only as far as you can entice them. They are mice. Your coaching plans better smell like cheese.

Honestly, though, I was thinking more of, say, Gregg Popovich ripping some foreign reporter a new one.

Basketbawful: Random question: Favorite superhero?

Henry Abbott: Terry Porter. Don't even tell me he's not a superhero.

Basketbawful: I wouldn't dream of it. I loved Terry on those late 80s / early 90s Blazers teams. But what was up with that scar on his arm?

Henry Abbott: I asked him about that! I always assumed he was in some fearsome Wisconsin street gang. (That was always faulty logic.) The truth, he says, is that he was "a Curious George" one time when his mother was cooking, and a huge pot of boiling water dumped on his arm. Terrifying moment of his life -- and he says he's still a little wary approaching hot things on stoves.

Basketbawful: Okay, what annoys you about team owners / general managers / etc.

Henry Abbott: Owners are typically billionaires living out their dreams. Many are great, obviously. But that unrestrained, bigger than life feeling can lead to the same kinds of harassment, DUI, and sexual weirdness stories that dog superstar athletes. Thrown in some obscure transactions starring taxpayer dollars, and I'm sure there's plenty of reason for concern.
Basketbawful: What kinds of things do basketball fans do or say that gets you riled up?

Henry Abbott: Drunk idiots yelling, in any environment, can be annoying. It doesn't bother me much, but I imagine it will start to as my kids get older and I start taking them to games.

Basketbawful: What about fans in non-game situations? Particularly the increasing scads of bloggers and commenters. They / we can be pretty reactionary at times.

Henry Abbott: Oh, yeah, but what did you expect? I have low expectations for the level of discourse, and have pleasant surprises day in and day out.

Basketbawful: I know you're a Portland Trailblazers fan. What's been your worst, or most painful moment (or moments) following the Blazers?

Henry Abbott: Probably that moment when Shaquille O'Neal threw down that monster alley-oop, all but assuring Portland would not make the 2000 Finals. That collapse was dreadful to watch. That team didn't deserve it, but I had defended Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire and the like in stupid sports discussions for years. Then they just lost their minds. And if they had held on to their massive fourth-quarter lead, they would have won a title. A title!

Basketbawful: Hey now, hey now! Don't go disrespecting my Pacers. They may have lost to L.A. in the Finals that year, but they matched up better against the Blazers (if only because Rik Smits' corpse was trying, and failing, to defend Shaq) and in fact swept the season series against them. I don't think the Blazers winning the title was a foregone conclusion.

Henry Abbott: Must you take that from me, too?

Basketbawful: Right. Sorry. Uh, moving on then...what has been your overall worst moment as a basketball aficionado, period?

Henry Abbott: Times 1-100 that I have been stood up by some big shot who promised to meet or call at a certain time. A lot of people in the NBA work on their own schedule, and if they're famous, that's something you just have to kind of roll with.

Basketbawful: Random question: Favorite movie?

Henry Abbott: Does The Wire count as a movie? I was raised on stuff like The Life of Brian, Apocalypse Now, The Fugitive, and The Empire Strike Back. I have seen a million better movies since those days, but nothing has nestled so deeply in my soul.

Basketbawful: No, The Wire doesn't count. It's great drama, though. Speaking of drama, have you ever felt the glorious power of hatred toward a particular player or team? Even if that hatred didn't last. Like maybe an old Trailblazer rival?

Henry Abbott: No, honestly, the Blazers are the best entertainment I know of, but they're still only entertainment. In a world with wars and shootings, I can't bother to hate someone for how they play basketball.

Basketbawful: Okay, okay. Maybe you've never hated anybody. But has there ever been a team or player that just got under your skin, and that, on some level, you enjoyed seeing them be defeated (fairly, in a good game)?

Henry Abbott: I grew up in Portland! So the only real answer is the Lakers. But I don't really dislike any of the Laker players, and at this point they're not so terrible to me.

Basketbawful: That was a beautiful answer. Down with the Lakers! Uh, anyway. On the subject of Trailblazer rivals...everybody knows how Michael Jordan tormented Portland in the '92 Finals. But Larry Bird tormented Portland throughout his entire career. He averaged over 30 PPG a game against them. There was one four-year stretch (1984 through 1988) that he averaged over 40 PPG against them. He had two games against them in which he had over 40 points and a triple double (47 points, 14 rebounds, and 11 assists on February 14, 1986; and 49 points -- the record for most points scored while recording a triple double -- 14 rebounds, and 12 assists on March 15, 1992). He beat the Blazers with buzzer beaters in '85 and '86 (in the '86 game, he hit buzzer-beaters in both regulation to tie it and overtime to win it). He also had the famous buzzer-beater in '92 that you see in almost every Bird highlight reel. Were you aware of this? Do you have any idea why Bird hated the Blazers so much? Did rampaging Trailblazers attack his hometown when he was growing up or something?

Henry Abbott: In basketball terms, consistently playing your best against a certain opponent is not hatred. That's respect. That means he circled those games on his calendar.

Basketbawful: Back in middle school, I could not beat the first Mega Man game on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. I got so mad that I put the game away and swore I'd never play it again. Of course, I played it again later that same day. Have you ever felt that way about basketball? Like you didn't want to watch it anymore? Or maybe you didn't want to watch a particular team or player anymore?

Henry Abbott: Honestly, no. There are moments I'm dissatisfied with this or that thing about basketball. But I know not how to quit it. Never occurred to me.

Basketbawful: Who, in your opinion, is the worst player in the NBA today? In your lifetime? In NBA history?

Henry Abbott: Honestly, I don't even know how you judge that. Presumably it's some lumbering center -- seven-footers have the fast-track to NBA contracts -- who almost never saw the court.

Basketbawful: I'll translate that answer to "Greg Ostertag," then. How about this. Who was the worst player you remember for a team you actively rooted for? Somebody you prayed wouldn't get any PT, and who made you cringe any time he touched the ball.

Henry Abbott: It made me cringe to watch Patrick Ewing shooting all those jumpers against smaller defenders. But he's not close, obviously, to terrible. If I had a functioning memory I could probably give you a better answer.

Basketbawful: Name the top five ugliest basketball players you've ever seen.

Henry Abbott: Larry Bird. Larry Bird. Larry Bird. Larry Bird. And Larry Bird.

Basketbawful: Ouch. Was that really necessary? Okay, look, I'll admit that Larry was not an attractive man. Yes, his face would melt cheese. But is he really uglier than Gheorghe Muresan? Or Popeye Jones? Jake Tsakalidis? Mengke Bateer? Chris Kaman? Admit it. You're still bitter about how Bird used to scorch the Blazers.

Henry Abbott: I'm not trying to be mean. In fact, I feel bad. Bird never did anything to me. An Eastern team you see twice a year, max, on TV? They barely even touch your season record. If you're a kid who loves the Blazers and the NBA, you hope to see a big show from the Birds of the world. It's not like we saw him in the playoffs. That's when enemies are made. So, to clarify, he really is that ugly. I hate to say it, but that is my belief.

Basketbawful: You know we all love you, Henry. But occasionally someone disagrees with you. Sometimes strongly. What's the worst e-mail / comment / response from a fan you've ever received?

Henry Abbott: Oh, just about every day I get something from some nut job teenager calling me the worst names said teenager can possibly imagine. Teenagers are pretty imaginative these days!

Labels: Henry Abbott, Larry Bird, Portland Trailblazers, Terry Porter, TrueHoop, Worst of

Thanks, Red.
I know this sounds strange, but Greg Oden's season-ending injury isn't just a heaping helping of poop gumbo for the Portland Trailblazers. It's a clear sign from God that the Boston Celtics' Curse has been lifted.

Think about it. Had the Celtics won the draft lottery and gotten the number one pick -- as they'd hoped, wanted, and tanked for -- Danny Ainge would have selected Oden and kept everything else pretty much the same. Which would have meant that, once Oden's knee spontaneously disintegrated, the Celtics would have fielded the same craptastic team that won only 24 games and had an 18-game losing streak last season. That would have been as catastrophic to the Celtics and their fans as Oden's health has been to Oden's career.

Speaking of which, isn't it ironic that the Trailblazers won the draft lottery and selected the one player that, while it's probably still too early to tell for sure, is starting to look like the new century's Bill Walton, the team's last number one overall pick? Seriously. Like Oden, Walton had unlimited potential and could have become one of the greatest centers ever, but injury after strange injury limited him to five and a half season's worth of games over a 10-year career. In Walton's first two seasons alone, he broke his nose, foot, wrist, and leg. He once broke his foot (for the umpteenth time) while riding an exercise bike -- which is better than breaking your knee sitting on a couch, but still. Even in his great MVP season of 1977-78, he played only 58 games due to injury (imagine how the blogosphere would erupt if something like that happened today).

Although, truth be told, Oden's case is even worse than Walton's. At least Big Bill had four reasonably healthy seasons at UCLA, during which he was one of the best college players of all time. Oden didn't have a single healthy season at Ohio State; he had wrist surgery before his freshman year even started. He still played very well for the Buckeyes (15.7 PPG and 9.6 RPG), but certainly not great (which everyone blamed on the fact that he wasn't fully recovered from his wrist injury). Then he missed most of the summer league because he had his tonsils out, and now he's not even going to play his rookie season because of microfracture surgery on his knee. And that kind of surgery means that he might not ever be as good as he possibly could have been. The final book on Oden is far from written, but...wow.

The poor Trailblazers sure have had some rotten luck over the years. You can put this tragedy right up there with their failure to defend the title in '78 (thanks, of course, to a Walton injury), drafting Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan in the '84 draft, Clyde Drexler's evisceration (by Jordan) in the '92 Finals, and of course the infamous 2000 Western Conference Finals meltdown.

Everybody's talking about how fortunate the Supersonics are for getting Durant instead of Oden. And they are. But the Celtics are the real winners here. Instead of a relatively unproven, seemingly injury-prone center with a huge question mark hanging ominously over his career, they dealt for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. Which, as I pointed out, means the curse is officially over. If it wasn't, the Celtics would have won the lottery, selected Oden, and everybody would be comparing this to Boston's many doomed draft picks (Len Bias, Michael Smith, Acie Earl, etc.). I'm telling you, Red Auerbach's ghost is behind this. He sacrificed himself to break the jinx. I will always believe that.

As a final note, Evil Ted just came by my cube and said: "I hope you're writing about Greg Oden." After I told him I was, he said, "Good. Tell everybody we were right. That dude's 40 years old if he's a day. Microfracture surgery at 19? Yeah, right. The man is middle-aged, and this is what happens to middle-aged men who play professional basketball."

Labels: Bill Walton, Boston Celtics, curses, Greg Oden, Keven Garnett, Kevin Durant, Len Bias, Portland Trailblazers, Ray Allen, Red Auerbach, Seattle Supersonics

I was going over Greg Ostertag's career stats the other day -- and that alone probably says something frightening about me -- when I noticed that he hit exacatly one three-pointer (out of 10 attempts). Ostertag hitting a three is only slightly less believable than him blocking a shot or actually grabbing a contested rebound. In other words, almost completely unimaginable.

Amazingly, this improbable moment is actually posted on YouTube. It happened during the 2001-02 season with the Jazz playing in Portland. Ostertag actually intercepts a full-court pass and hits a last-second shot from half court. The best part is the digusted reaction of the Blazers, particularly Arvydas Sabonis (who threw the intercepted pass).


And just for fun, here's a clip of Ostertag getting posterized by Amare Stoudemire.

Labels: Amare Stoudemire, Arvydas Sabonis, Greg Ostertag, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trailblazers, Utah Jazz