First it was Greg Ostertag, and now this: Oliver Miller wants to make a comeback. In an article that was appropriately titled "Fat chance? Humbled Oliver Miller eyes the NBA again," Miller admitted that he has a burning desire...only this time, it has nothing to do with cheese fries or random foodstuffs covered in delicious frosting and/or gravy. Well, mostly nothing.

Said Miller: "I miss [playing in the NBA] a lot. But I hate watching. I can't watch it. The first thing you hear them talk about is the lack of a big man. Here I am a big man and I'm unemployed."

Yeah, well, there are reasons for that. Miller -- who's weight had ballooned to 415 pounds before he started watching what he eats and acting as (don't laugh...actually go ahead and laugh) his own personal trainer -- is 39 years old and a slim 330 pounds. Oh, and he hasn't set foot on an NBA court since May 31, 2004, when he submitted a 5-minute, 4-foul performance against the Lakers. (He also had 1 block, 1 turnover and 1 missed shot.)

This is the same guy who was released by the Harlem Globtrotters for having "no appreciation for what it takes mentally and physically to be a Harlem Globetrotter." If Miller isn't qualified to spin a basketball on his finger or maybe headbutt it into a hoop, he's probably not ready for NBA action. (Even if he did win an ABA title with the Arkansas RimRockers in 2005.) But don't tell him that.

"I am better than ever," Miller said. "I am in better shape than I was when I was last in the league. I am moving around quicker. I feel a lot better. I can give you 25 good minutes and a double-double. And I am a whole lot better mentally, maturity wise. ... What motivates me is that people don’t believe me," Miller said. "I love challenges. My challenge right now is to lose more weight and get back in. I ain't trying to look like Dwight Howard. I know what I need to do. I would just like to get back in the game."

Good luck with that, guy.

Labels: fat guys, improbable comebacks, Oliver Miller

calorie cap (kal'-uh-re kap) noun. A theoretical limit on how much weight a basketball player can gain before he loses the ability to compete and/or fails to reach his potential.

Usage example: Michael Sweetney was waaaaay over the calorie cap last year. And the year before that. And the year before that...

Word History: The term was coined by the 1990-91 Chicago Bulls to describe Stacy King's colossal ass. According to Steve Smith's The Jordan Rules: "[The Bulls coaching staff] felt [King's] upside remained substantial, even if his backside did, too. The players would taunt King about staying under the 'calorie cap.' 'Calorie cap problems,' someone would invariably say to him during practice." King was indeed a rampaging pork beast -- by 1991 standards. However, Oliver Miller came along a few years later and created a new Gold Standard for NBA obesity. And then he ate it.

Other notable calorie cap offenders include post-Seattle Shawn Kemp, post-Milwaukee Vin Baker, Robert "Tractor" Traylor, Jerome James, and Shaq.

Update: How could I forget William Bedford (thanks Josh), Eddy Curry, and Zach Randolph (thanks anonymous)?

Oliver Miller remains the GoldStandard for fat basketball players.

Labels: Chicago Bulls, fat guys, Stacy King, Word of the Day

Allan Houston. Charles Oakley. Penny Hardaway. Reggie Miller. These and other former All-Stars are either making a comeback or are thinking about making a comeback. Even Greg "Dancing Queen" Ostertag is contemplating a return to the NBA, and he wasn't any good to begin with.

Nostalgia is fun. It's why we hang on to old toys and watch ESPN Classic. Spiderman #300 is a collector's item, but that's not why I keep it sealed in a plastic bag and stored inside a moisture-protected box. I do all that so I can see Spiderman punch Green Goblin* in the face any time I want. Reliving our happiest memories is one of the highlights of human existence, so it's totally natural to get excited when a living legend crawls out of the mothballs. Although he retired in 1973, Wilt Chamberlain made an annual "I just might come back someday" announcement up through the late 80s...and people would wet themselves every single time. Seriously, stock prices for adult diapers would skyrocket whenever Wilt did a television interview.

We all want to see the great ones play again, but once the initial nostalgic blitz fades, we're left with one incontrovertible fact: Comebacks never end well. Not for George Mikan (who averaged 10 PPG and lasted half a season), or Bob Cousy (who scored 0.7 PPG and lasted only seven games), or Dave Cowens (who averaged 8 PPG in 40 games), or even Michael Jordan** (who compiled a 74-90 record and zero playoff appearances in two seasons with the Wizards).

I guess Magic Johnson did "okay" in '96 -- 14 PPG, 7 APG, 6 RPG, 32 games, and a first round playoff exit -- but he came back fat and sassy; his once-slender body was covered in 40 pounds of excess blubber, he feuded with his younger teammates, and he even got suspended for chest-bumping an official. Watching the greatest point guard of all time play power forward and waddle up and down the court -- leading my college roommate to quip "Hey, the Lakers are running the FAT BREAK!!" -- ruined about 50 percent of my childhood memories. (The other half were ruined when I accidentally walked in on my grandparents playing "Queen of Pain." Don't ask).

Which brings me to my next point. I don't know what's more depressing: Watching formerly great players come back and fail, or watching them transmogrify into disgusting fatties. What exactly happens when NBA players retire? Do they invest their entire pension on Twinkies and Moon Pies? According to sports-nutrition and weight-loss experts, the answer is obvious: Active athletes need more calories than they get, while retired athletes gobble up more calories than they need. Ex-pros transform into lumbering ham monsters the same way the rest of us do: Too much food, not enough exercise.

Magic and Charles Barkley are prime examples of this. If you ever watch the TNT Pregame Show and Halftime Report, you'll notice those guys are always on opposite ends of the broadcasting table. That's to keep the studio from tipping over. Even Michael Jordan's getting into the fat act; last season he was spotted in a skybox at a nationally televised Bulls game sporting a tragic yellow turtleneck and a jiggly paunch. And let's not forget Larry Legend. This picture was taken at a Celtics/Pacers game last November.

Why, Larry? Oh god, why?
Brett over at The Association thought it was a fat guy in a Larry Bird costume. I can only wish that was true. It's all there: The turtleneck (which people apparently think is some sort of "fat camouflage"), the double-chin, the 12-pack abs. Holy god, his head is so bulbous his hair doesn't even fit on it anymore. I didn't know that was even possible. WTF??

There's a simple answer. Larry's a junk food junkie. This is obvious from the products he endorses. Take this old commercial for Lay's brand Potato Chips. The premise is that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar bets Larry that he can't eat only one lard-soaked grease chip. And of course he can't. This commercial also introduces us to the nameless horror of Larry Bird's bald head.


There are others, but my personal favorite is a McDonald's clip for the "Big 33" burger. The commercial opens with Bird citing his height and what we must assume was his playing weight, and explaining that he's a "big guy" and an "awful big eater." Next, Larry confides that he loves "hambuggers," which is why he typically eats six regular burgers and/or three Quarter Pounders in a single sitting. He then introduces us to his personalized burger: A Quarter Pounder with Cheese that's wrapped in bacon and soaked in barbeque sauce. Finally, we're treated to a montage of Larry stuffing his face full of Big 33 burgers, followed by glowing praise delivered in his trademark Midwestern drawl: "Purty tastee."


The burger, or bugger, actually doesn't look half bad. I'm sure that it is, as Bird helpfully pointed out, pretty tasty. But that doesn't mean you have to eat a plateful of them. I don't know. The greats ones are always described as having a burning hunger for winning. Maybe it's just a burning hunger, period. I can only hope that Larry, Magic, and the others hook up with the NutriSystem Diet. Hey, it worked for Dan Marino.

* Spiderman actually punched Venom in the face in issue 300. I just wanted to say Green Goblin.

** Let's get something straight: I don't count Jordan's first comeback as a true "comeback." Mike took a year off in his prime and came back in his prime. That's not a comeback, it's a vacation.

Labels: Charles Barkley, comebacks, fat guys, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller, Wilt Chamberlain

"Oh the humanity!"
Much like high school Geometry, Game 1 of the Bulls/Heat playoff series taught us several valuable lessons, many of which we won't remember past the end of the week. But as with my old math classes, I'm going to jot down a few notes that I most likely won't be able to understand when I reread them ten years from now.

The lesson stuff

1. Keeping Luol Deng (game-high 33 points) and Ben Gordon (24 points, 11 assists) instead of trading for Pau Gasol was the best non-trade GM John Paxson ever made. The people of Chicago will continue to believe this until Deng and Gordon have a bad game and the Bulls' lack of an inside scorer comes back to haunt them.

2. When you out-shoot, out-rebound (by 13), and out-assist (by 10) your opponent, and get their two best players in foul trouble (Shaq: 26 minutes; Dwyane Wade: 33 minutes), you will usually win.

3. If all the above are true, you should probably win by more than five points.

4. And you really shouldn't allow them to rally from nine points down with less than two minutes left, nearly allowing them to steal a game they had no business winning. Just sayin'.

(I'd just like to point out that, until Wade caught fire at the end of the game, Antoine Walker and his 20 points kept the Heat within striking distance. That's right: if the Heat had come back to win this game, it would have been because of Antoine Walker. As a Bulls fan, I'm not okay with this.)

5. Shaq doesn't commit fouls. He just has big feet. No, seriously, his feet are like little, feet-shaped people.

The funny stuff

There's nothing quite like witnessing an NBA playoff game live. You get to experience things you never get to see on either local or national television broadcasts. Such as:

The Hinden-Bull Disaster: The Bulls have a blimp -- called the "Bull-imp" -- that soars majestically over the crowd during games, sometimes dropping little t-shirt patties onto the frenzied attendees. During Game 1, the blimp lost power and plummetted into the waiting arms of the fans, who grabbed onto and started hitting it. I probably don't need to mention that they sell beer at these events. Anyway, the blimp rested on top of a group of people for several minutes, undoubtedly obstructing their view of the game, before a group of maintenance workers showed up to retrieve it. But here's the thing: What can you do with a giant, powerless blimp in the middle of an NBA playoff game? The answer is: absolutely nothing. They tried to shove it into the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms, but it wouldn't fit. There must not be a way to deflate the thing, so it just sat there, stuffed halfway into a tunnel, it's big head bobbing in front of an entire section of fans who could no longer watch the game.

James Posey isn't any good: The absolute highlight of the game, aside from the Bulls' victory of course, was the Basketbawful gang leading the crowd in a chant of "PO-ZEE SUCKS, PO-ZEE SUCKS, PO-ZEE SUCKS!!" a record-setting three times (a fourth attempt fell flat). Even better: during the first chorus, they showed Posey's face on the JumboTron mid-chant. He just kind of shook his head and laughed, but you know that, deep inside, he was filled with a savage rage. Fortunately for the Bulls, this rage didn't turn into a flagrant foul or a scoring explosion. In fact, he immediately came out of the time-out and missed a three-pointer. For the record, he didn't score again after the chants. We were so totally in his head.

(Here's a little lesson in Fan Taunting 101: Never, under any circumstances, should you taunt a superstar. Chanting "KO-BEE SUCKS, KO-BEE SUCKS!!" might get a 15-point bomb dropped on your team immediately. Instead, choose a roleplayer with limited scoring ability. Bonus points will be awarded if he's overly aggressive and imminently hateable...like James Posey.)

Fat guys in party hats: The Bulls are one of the many teams who employ a group of singing/dancing fat guys to provide "entertainment" during timeouts. When the Matadors were unleashed during a break in the third-quarter action, they were met with a stunned silence from the crowd. No one seemed to know who these pork beasts were, or what it was that they wanted. Perhaps these lurching ham monsters had taken over the building in order to raid its concession stands? But...no...wait...they were here to perform the Truffle Shuffle while singing "YMCA." Remember that projectile vomiting scene from "Team America: World Police"? If so, then you can imagine how the crowd reacted when their shirts came off.

(Before you start accusing me of being insensitive toward the plight of the obese, allow me to remind you that their insatiable hunger has left them bereft of normal human emotions. In fact, their brains send out one message, and one message only, in an endless loop: "EAT NOW, ROOARRGH!!" Anyway, maybe you'll think my disgust is justified after you review this picture taken during the Bulls' St. Patrick's Day game.)

Yes. Those are shamrock-shaped pasties.

Labels: Chicago Bulls, Fan Taunting, fat guys, James Posey, Miami Heat, playoffs, Shaq