Note: toilet paper rolls should not be used as a substitute for a menorah. You’ll just have one crazy night, and the fire department will likely be involved. Not a Hanukkah miracle.
Fuck You, Pelicans are Awesome: A Defense of the NBA’s Best New Team Name
Barry Petchesky
Deadspin
The big news of last week (in what was, really, a very slow NBA news week) was that the New Orleans Hornets were likely going to change their name to something more Louisiana-related. They chose the state bird, the Louisiana Brown Pelican, thus making the team the New Orleans Pelicans. As expected, people tore apart the name change, mostly because pelicans don’t inspire visions of dominance and fearsomeness. That’s why Barry Petchesky is here to throw a bunch of cuss words at you, and convince you that pelicans, actually, are pretty sweet. If his research is correct, he’s onto something. According to Petchesky, Pelicans are hypercarnivores, dive in the water for prey, and work well as a team when it comes to hunting and migration. There you go. Come for the humor, stay for the video of a brown pelican swooping down and eating a live, screaming pigeon in front of horrified, screaming children. Nice find, Petchesky.
- JG
Stephen Jackson Talks Rap, Loyalty and Life
Chris Palmer
ESPN
To his credit, and his coaches’ eternal chagrin, there is nothing Stephen Jackson shies away from. Contact, violence, controversy, and certainly not the truth. Two answers worth of words from Stephen Jackson contain more truth than the entirety of interviews with most players. Chris Palmer seems to be somebody that Jackson trusts, because this interview is even more candid than most. Come for the hilarious self-promotion of his rap career, stay for Jackson’s revelation of how it felt to beat in a fan’s face during the Malice in the Palace.
- KD
The Curious Case Study of Brooklyn Nets Big Man Andray Blatche
Zach Harper
CBS Sports
We’ve seen many wonderful offensive talents fail in the NBA. There’s a myriad of names we can choose from: Al Thornton, Ryan Gomes, Rashard McCants and Michael Beasley (wait, he’s still in the league?) are but a few. Most of these times we go all que sera sera on these unfortunate individuals, but even the most grizzled NBA nerds were surprised when it seemed that Andray Blatche was on his way out of the bigs after failing a number of performance and character tests after signing a 5-year, $35 Washington Wizards. But then, as Zach Harper details, something amazing happened: Blatche got smarter. In this short discourse analysis, Harper looks closely at the statements Blatche, who is now with the Brooklyn Nets, and considered to be one of the best backup pivots in the league, and a candidate for both sixth man and MIP, issued in a recent radio interview. Blatche is more than willing to accept the blame for the things he could control, like his conditioning and his maturity. But he also points to the Wizards and other professional organizations, who throw around terms like “brotherhood” and “family” lightly, but then fail to provide the necessary medical, coaching and counseling supports needed to succeed at a tough job. He says things are better now with a better, well-run organization. And if team records and individual records are to be trusted, it’s hard to disagree.
- JG
Money Ballsy
Chris Ballard
SI.com
“At the end of the day, the NBA is a business.” That’s the line players parrot when they’ve been traded, or the line the owners trot out to justify taking a larger percentage of basketball revenue. But it’s a line you’ll never hear Leslie Alexander, owner of the Houston Rockets, and especially not Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets. As Chris Ballard makes abundantly clear, Morey’s goal, one and only goal, is to win an NBA championship, moral victories and profits be damned. In telling the story of how Morey came to be this way, Ballard gives us a humanizing portrait of a man likened more often to a computer than an emotional being.
- KD
The Kobe Question
Bill Simmons
Grantland
Well, it’s another Bill Simmons piece on Kobe. Which means, of course, the Celtics are involved. But wait just a minute, this is Good Bill Simmons — using sound historical research, drawing reasonable conclusions, and keeping the reader engaged and entertained throughout — and not Bad, name-dropping, superlative-issuing, unaware-of-his-own-privilege-when-discussing-race-ing, Bill Simmons. This piece uses Simmons’ recent conversation with Celtics great Bill Russell about his book to tackle a compelling question for star players: “how do you challenge your teammates without undermining them?”. In this case, Bill Russell serves as a useful comparison to Kobe, in that both players are hell-bent on winning, and don’t care too much about who they insult on their way to a championship. But as Simmons points out, there’s different ways to motivate your teammates to perform and improve, and that Kobe could learn a thing or two from the greatest defensive center ever to play the game. This is good stuff from the Artist Formerly Known as the Sports Guy.
- JG