Superfluous Editor’s Note: Sup guys. Heading up north for a few days. Let’s get this out of the way. I’ll talk to you guys about race, whiteness and the Wolves next week. Deal? Deal.
Diss Guy: O.J. Mayo
There’s lots of ways to skin a cat. Trust me, I come from a long line of cat-skinners. There’s also lots of ways to grow a beard. I would know, I come from a long line of beard growers.
On the one hand, you can go bushy and ostentatious; allow a raccoon tail to sprout from your chin. As long as you take care of it, it’s all good. Sometimes it’s a little unruly, but the glitz provides the payoff. Just talk to James Harden, the newest certified superstar, who is 5th in the league in scoring (about 24 a game), to go along with 37% from three and 83% from the stripe. But hey, 9-8! Not bad. And not a bad beard, either.
But there’s also something to being refined and mellow with your facial hair. A beard doesn’t have to make a statement; it may just need to draw attention to other aspects of your appearance, personality, or overall performance. Beards can be silky smooth, sculpted without being man-sculpted, and almost a second skin for the confident gent. Just ask O.J. Mayo, who’ll never be considered a superstar, even though he’s 8th in the league in scoring (20 a game), to go along with 50% (!) from three, and 83% from the stripe. Though the Mavs are 9-10, they’d be a lot, lot worse without OJ Mayo, who’s as much of a star as James Harden at this point. And I, for one, like his beard.
But hey, like I said: lots of ways to skin a cat. Lots and lots of ways. Am I using that phrase correctly? I hope so.
Miss Guy: Lawrence Frank
Have you seen Andre Drummond play professional basketball yet? No? Well, boy oh boy. Get to it, man.
It’s not really your fault. There’s a few reasons you probably haven’t seen my man Dre Drummond play ball. For one, he’s out in Detroit, a nothing team that’s two or three years away from being relevant. Secondly, he’s a rookie, trying to get noticed in a surprisingly stacked class with Damian Lillard, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Dion Waiters, Harrison Barnes, and some dude named Anthony Davis who can’t get his body right (and that’s not even getting to Draymond Green, Jeff Taylor, Austin Rivers, P.J. Tucker, Festus Ezeli, Meyers Leonard, Tyler Zeller, Pablo Prigioni and so on) getting all the pub. And thirdly, we’re not quite sure what or who Dre Drummond is. I see in Dre Drummond, mostly, the idea behind the Anthony Randolph craze, trapped in an actually NBA-ready body. What’s clear is that Dre Drummond is a beast waiting to be unleashed. It’s only a matter of time. And opportunity.
That brings us to our third reason we aren’t ready for Dre Drummond, apparently: Lawrence Frank. Ol’ LoFo, he of the eternal baby face, who’s doing just enough to keep his job in the Motor City, is bogarting Dre Drummond’s minutes, and no one knows why. At least, I don’t know why. Why, LoFo? Sure, he got 31 minutes against the Warriors on Wednesday, and slammed and jammed his way to 15 and 12, on 6-8 shooting with 2 blocks. But before that? 19 minutes. 12 minutes. 25 minutes. 14 minutes. And in all of those games, he played great! Helped the team turn it around after an 0-8 start. But who knows what LoFo’s thinking these days.
But hey, you can’t fire the players. Dre Drummond is looking too good to not outlast LoFo in Detroit. And then after that? Greg Monroe and Dre Drummond, baby! And probably Mike Brown. He actually makes sense there. LoFo doesn’t. Never did. Probably never will.