Filling the Void … 7/12/04

Bringing That Mess Up (Part 1 in a series of 5)

I know, I know. It's been 2 weeks since I threw up on this website and you are all worried about me. Well guess what children? Here's comes the chum train. 5 days. 5 postings. What's that? Yep, a new posting everyday. You see, 5 days with 5 postings means that you, my adorable fuzzy little readers, get the extreme pleasure of reading something completely asinine every day this week. Does anyone really care? Of course not. Do I? F no. But I figured why not. I owe these good people something for being a lazy uninspired jackass for the past 2 weeks. And so here it is. A week of sheer stupidity. Will these 5 days of writings have a theme? Nope. Will they have anything to do with sports? Depends. Will they be coherent? Barely. How awesome does that sound? Horrendous. Game on.

First thing first. I know I didn't write about the NBA Draft. I watched it. I humiliated it. I hated it. And then I went out and drank beers. And then I flew to Nashville with 9 buddies and had one of the best weekends I've had in a while. (If my Mom and some of her friends didn't read this every now and then, I'd pop the top on a few unstoppable stories. But I can't. Too nutty. Well, maybe I will later in the week.) Anyway, now I don't feel like writing about the Draft. It happened too long ago, and no cares anymore. You all know how I feel about the NBA. The Colonel put the whole damn process in perspective… "Once these kids go to the NBA, they are dead to me." Well they aren't actually dead to me, but they are close. Call them the living dead if you will. So there it is. For the record, here are some quick thoughts from the 2004 Theft. Steven A. Smith grew on me, Tom Tolbert should be put out of his misery, Jay Bilas was the voice of reason and Dickie V was, well, beautiful. He bashed the NBA. He bashed the kids leaving early. He bashed Steven A. He bashed David Stern. He gored Doc Rivers. "Doc, you CAN'T win in Boston. You have a bunch of no-name 19 year olds. You CAN'T win! You should have stayed at ABC. You and Michaels were beautiful together. Ohhhhh, you blew it, Doctor." It was Vitale doing Adrian in Rocky IV. It was electrifying. A few more quick points…Okafor should have been #1, Jameer Nelson was the steal of the night, Shaun Livingston weighs as much as a Ho-Ho, Andre Iguodala got away with armed robbery as the 9th overall pick (he sucks), when Devin Harris is the 5th overall pick you know that the Draft pool eats, and I respect the braces look from Dwight Howard. Stern should rock braces…and a Bosworth cut. That way when you see him you'd think of a guy named Travis who is either 1) a racetruck driver with 8 kids via 5 wives who all live together in Murfreesboro, TN or 2) a south Baltimorean headed to the clink for 6-12 months for indecent exposure. What's the point? The NBA Draft would be so much more enjoyable if we got a Travis sighting every 5 minutes instead of a Stern sighting.

While we are on the topic of the NBA stealing children from high school and college, let's talk about the Lakers attempt to jack Coach K. (Although he is far from a child. He's more like a little elf. Actually, he looks a lot like the Blue Devil. I know I've said this before. But it's so true.) Everyone on the planet knew he wasn't going to LA, right? Right? Nope. I gotta admit I had a sick little feeling in my gut that K was gonna go LA. Why? I thought that there was a part of K that had had it with the college game. I thought that maybe the college game had changed enough in the last 20 years it was time for a new challenge. And the dough was sick. $40 large. Are you kidding me? But K stayed. And I'm an idiot for even thinking for a second that he would go. K is Duke. Period. Some kids, who were kind enough to email me, had some questions about the possible K move. I'm going to answer them now. Here they are…

1) How long would K have lasted in LA?

A long time. Honestly, I think K would have done well with the Lakers. Why? 1) It's the Lakers, not the Bulls. Remember, they are already damn good. The talking heads keep mentioning Pitino, Calipari, Carlisimo and Tim Floyd as past NCAA-to-NBA coaching busts. Yea, sure they were, but they also coached horrendous teams: Celtics, Nets, Warriors, and Bulls. No comparison. 2) Not much rebuilding would have been needed. It wasn't like K was going to have to put on his hardcore NBA helmet having to deal with the team, the front office and all the other crap that goes on. He'd have one objective. Motivate. The rest is easy: surround Kobe with some complementary players and put in a new "offense" (not that offenses really exist in the NBA). And then motivate the crap out of the team. And K can motivate the piss out of some kids if he needs to. 3) He would have had Kobe (assumed innocent for arguments sake). Period. He's not exactly a bad guy to team up with for an initial stab at the NBA. My guess is he'd have done OK. 4) If the Lakers failed to deliver, more fault would have fallen on Kobe rather than K. Kobe asked for K. K was Kobe's man. As long as Kobe and K got along, all blame for lack of success would have gone Kobe's way.

2) If K couldn't handle the egos of the NBA any longer, where would he have gone after the Lakers?

Back to Duke. Not as head coach, but as assistant AD / President / Pope of the University. He IS Duke. He would have basically come back and been the Godfather of Duke.

3) Who would Duke have hired had Coach K gone?

Johnny Dawkins. No doubt in my mind. In fact, I'll bet anyone that Johnny D is the next Duke coach after K. K is preparing D like a 50-course dinner. That cat is going to be delicious when it is his time to take the reigns. (Real quick, help a brother out…what is the max on courses for a multiple course dinner? Can you have a max? I went with 50 because that seemed like a lot of preparation. And delicious because at 50 you can pretty much have a taste of everything. For the record, I will never write that Johnny Dawkins is "delicious" ever again. Not good.)

4) Without Coach K, would Maryland have surpassed Duke as the dominant team in the ACC?

I'll make this easy. Maryland will NEVER surpass Duke on the dominance scale in the ACC with or without Coach K. The Terps would have to go on the sickest Final Four run since, well, Duke in the last 20 years. That ain't happening. And anyway in 2-3 years, not only will the Turtles be looking up at Duke, they'll be looking up at UNC too. This is fact, not fiction.

Since this has turned into an all NBA column, let me address 2 more exhilarating issues…

First, my boy, Kobe.

I think Kobe Bryant opened the New York Stock Exchange last Tuesday. Seriously. No, I'm not but he easily could have. That bastard is all over the place. The word "Kobe" is said at least once every 7 seconds on ESPN News. It's true. I've been counting. It's disgusting. If I hear anything more about Kobe and his GD free agency, I'm going to start lighting things on fire starting with myself. I find it funny that every clown on TV from the Food Network to E! to ESPN 2 talks about Kobe's free agency without giving serious consideration to the fact that the dude might be living in the clink in a year. If the Clippers sign him, and then he is convicted, is it plausible for Kobe to arrange to do his time Pablo Escobar-style? You know - jailed in a lavish mansion with a chef, hookers and a pool? Hell, maybe Kobe can play games via video conferencing. "Kobe for 3? Good. That was deep. He hit that one from the clink in Colorado. Literally. It's amazing what they can do with video conferencing these days." But it has to be the Clippers. It just wont feel the same if it is another team. "The Clippers offer Kobe Bryant the largest sign-and-jail contract in NBA history." The Clippers. God bless them.

Was the Lakers front office chasing the dragon when they decided it would be a good idea to let Kobe run the team? Am I missing something here? Did they think it would be a good move to get rid of Phil Jackson, make Shaq feel unwanted, and give the key to the team to a guy who is up on rape charges? Yep, definitely the dragon involved. Buss and Kupchak were chasing that damn dragon like a 3-year old chases a dog. All I want to know is which guy (Buss or Kupchak) needed an adrenaline shot to the heart to revive his lifeless body after cooking up the biggest dose of his life. Now that is interesting stuff. Kobe? F him. He's a little bitch. He'll see. No Shaq = no rings.

Second, NBA money.

When did it become cool to give a guy that averages 3 points, 3 boards and 1 block per game a $41.6 million dollar contract over 6 years? And at what point did it become totally awesome to give an 8th man $48 million? I can keep going, but I'm not going to. Adonal Foyle, Mehmet Okur, Rafer Alston, Mark Blount and now Carlos Boozer? The grand total? A mere $228 million. Yep. 3 quick questions: Who are the 5 players I just mentioned? Why are they getting paid enormous sums of money? And sweet Jesus, where the hell is this money coming from? Answer to all 3: I don't know and I don't care. The NBA is an incomprehensible circus. No wonder all those high school kids rolled into the draft. If Carlos Boozer is getting $68 mill over 8, and Skip to my Lou is getting $29 large over 6, why the hell can't Todd Todderson from Todd High School get some biggin coin too?

There's only one solution to this GD mess…I'm forfeiting the rest of my eligibility and going pro.

See you all in the penthouse, bitches.

Tune in manana. More holler for your dollar…