NBA Power Rankings, February 10 2010

Full disclosure -- I missed a couple of weeks of these things for the ever-popular 'personal reasons' (some good, some bad, you know), and I'd really love to come back with a bullet, but I honestly just haven't been paying as much attention as usual lately. That, and with a lack of overtly newsworthy happenstances (unless yer a big fan of naked cell phone pics of athletes) means that I might just go a little off the rails with this one. You know, have some fun.

1. Cleveland Cavaliers – Now that they’re on this kind of roll, Shaq thinks LeBron should get his own movie where he comes out of a lamp. He should also be Dr. Manhattan-blue in it, but for the love of god, keep your pants on.

2. Los Angeles Lakers – Kobe Bryant has been forced – forced! – to miss some playing time due to injuries. He will spend every second until his next game meditating in a hyperbaric chamber, while the books-on-tape version of “A Million Little Pieces” is playing in the background.

3. Utah Jazz – I like seeing this team way up here. Jerry Sloan don’t care a fig.

4. Denver Nuggets – Effective April 1st, this team will officially change its name to “The Denver ButCanTheyBeatTheLakersInThePlayoffs.” That will be one bitchin’ jersey, lemme tell ya.

5. Orlando Magic – Charlie Villanueva once scored 48 points in an NBA game, and is now regarded rather wistfully as a quite talented player who lacks the drive to reach his full potential. Just sayin’.

6. Atlanta Hawks – Shaving your eyebrows. Thus far, pretty much the only new motivational tactic that Phil Jackson hadn’t already tried. Bravo, good sir.

7. Oklahoma City Thunder – One fish, two fish, young fish…

8. Boston Celtics – … old fish.

9. Phoenix Suns – I like to pronounce it, “Foh-ennix.” That has nothing to do with anything, except to advertise that there is obviously something wrong with me.

10. San Antonio Spurs – The Rodeo Trip has started, but no-one is scared.

11. Dallas Mavericks – Here is a list of words that rhyme with Dirk. Work. Perk. Berserk.

12. Toronto Raptors –You know, I’m kinda almost more interested in the psychology of the folks compiling these lists. Toronto is all over the map in terms of how people rate them, from a high of 8 on one list to a low of 16 on another. That’s a difference of 8 ranks, and only one other team is that hard to peg.

13. Portland Trail Blazers – I’m making no more Juwan-Howard-is-old jokes. Not only are they played out, and not only is he too close to my own age that the jokes sting a little, but I just found out he is exactly one year older than Steve Nash. One year older than a guy who is arguably playing better than he did when he won consecutive MVP awards. I don’t think 6 points, 5 boards and sound defence should be all that surprising.

14. Memphis Grizzlies – You know, I’ve wondered this for a while – why the heck is he called Z-Bo? What is that short for? Bonus side note – try googling “z-bo”. He’s getting better press than he used to, that’s for sure, exhibits A and B.

15. Houston Rockets – I would really like if this team made the playoffs. That said, I would really like this team to have at least one lottery pick on the roster. Tough decisions.

16. Charlotte Bobcats – This is the other team with an 8-point spread in the ranks, reinforcing my belief that this team is the anti-Raptors. Interesting to note is that in both cases, Hollinger is the outlier, and his no-bias numbers like Charlotte way better than the Raptors. Defence is overlooked, offence is sexy. I don’t trust this team, but I wouldn’t want to play against them, either.

17. Chicago Bulls – An historic five-game road win streak, followed by the traditional foot-shooting party at home. They’re probably gonna make the playoffs. Hooray for all of us?

18. Milwaukee Bucks – What is it with foreign-born 7-foot former number one draft picks with the initials AB this season? Are either one of them the number one pick if you do it all over again today? Nope. Are both of them finally starting to live up to their potential? Seems like yes. Especially the Aussie.

19. New Orleans Hornets – I’ve seen one pro football game live in my life, and it was a post-Katrina tilt in the Superdome. It was packed. That same week, I saw a Hornets game live, and the place was about five-eighths full. I’m not saying the Cajuns don’t love their roundball, but maybe, for this next week or two, they don’t miss Chris Paul as much as they might have.

20. Miami Heat – South Florida is a lovely place to work, but really, it’ll take a whole lot of free agents to fix this team. This better be one heck of a summer.

21. Philadelphia 76ers – And in one last bit of ranking psychology trivia, the 76ers are the most consistently ranked team on the list – unless you count the unanimous dead last spot for the Nets, but everybody discounts the Nets, it’s just a given. They were ranked 21 across the board except for one daring leap to 20. It was almost like everybody said, “Okay, I’ve taken care of every team that has a remote chance of making the playoffs in either conference. Who’s next? Huh, a four game winning streak. Sure, what the hell, put Philly here. It’s not like anyone cares.”

22. Los Angeles Clippers – Dunleavy waited until Super Bowl week to drop the coaching duties to concentrate on being a GM. It’s like he was specifically trying to avoid being the topic of another Simmons column.

23. Indiana Pacers – Alas, no-one cares.

24. New York Knicks – Alas, people care.

25. Washington Wizards – Gilbert Arenas will play for the Wizards next year. I feel it in my bones.

26. Minnesota Timberwolves – No trades. Add a pick, see what develops in the post-McHale era.

27. Detroit Pistons – I almost gotta start doubting Joe Dumars – especially when I figure, if he got fired tomorrow, his successor would have a hell of a time digging out from under this last few years.

28. Sacramento Kings – No trades. Add a pick, see what develops in the wow-they-have-a-lot-of-rookies era.

29. Golden State Warriors – I really want them to use their injury troubles as a marketing tool. Like, could you convince Charles Barkley to sign a 10-day contract? He wouldn’t be able to play a lick, and Monta would just keep racking up complete games, but it would definitely fill seats. And it’s not like it’ll screw up chemistry or hurt their record. Seriously, even with Marbury off the continent, you could go Sprewell, Francis, Bill Walton’s out of work lately. Stern would have your children kidnapped, but damn it would be funny.

30. New Jersey Nets – I am not a rapper.

Do not go gentle

This one has been knocking around in my head since before Christmas, but I hadn't figured out how to write it down. I still haven't, so this may be a bit more slipshod than I'd like it to be, but I've started now, so what the heck.

Around Christmas and New Year's time, I was feeling old, and it was really pissing me off. I'd like to chock it up to holiday depression, but there are a couple of things that have stuck with me. First -- my Mom's huge extended family is too big for normal Christmas Dinner at somebody's house, so every Boxing Day we rent a hall. This hall is conveniently located above an ice rink, which we also rent for a couple of hours of spirited over-30 versus under-30 shinny. We've been doing this for 20 years or so, and in that time you get pretty well acquainted with what people can do on the ice. That uncle doesn't know how to pass, that cousin doesn't know how to skate, that sort of thing. I have one cousin who's probably about 25 who has always had better skills than me (although he only passes to the open man if it's his brother or his father, so he's usually pretty easy to neutralize), but even if he was able to dipsy-doodle around me, I never had any problem keeping up on the speed side of things. This year, however -- there were problems. He was just that little bit faster and I was just that little bit slower, and I found myself starting to play like it was a real game, like just kinda bumping him or trying to wrap him up a little as he went by. In short, I was using all the old guy tricks that my Dad uses, except that I'm 34 and he's 61 and he's been dragging the middle-aged gut of success around for at least a decade and a half by now. (Side note -- I use all those old guy tricks at lacrosse all the time, but because I hadn't grown up playing against these guys, it feels more like a general lack of talent as opposed to any erosion of my skills, which is somehow easier to take.) It pissed me off that I could neither keep up, nor accept the aging process with equanimity. Damn.

Episode two -- which actually happened first chronologically, but I like the flow of the story better if I talk about this second -- was at a White Cowbell Oklahoma concert. I've seen these guys a buncha times, and they have a well-earned reputation as a no-holds-barred live show. In the shows I've been to, I've seen a man dressed as Santa Claus pull a watergun disguised as a two-foot penis out of his pants and baptise as much of the front row as he could manage. I've seen a Christmas show where two, uh, exotic dancers dressed up as presents appeared on stage, and proceeded to unwrap each other down to outfits more suited for birthdays, if you catch my drift. I've also seen a show where the lead guitarist dropped trou, placed a shot glass over his lead singer, and played a solo on a slide guitar held just south of waist level by four lovely volunteers from the audience; and then later on watched as the band shelled out hundreds of dollars to convince young ladies in the audience to part with articles of clothing. They go out of their way to be a capital R Rock'N'Roll Band, with all the sex, drugs and cocoa puffs you can cram into an evening's entertainment.

That said -- this pre-Christmas show was kinda disappointing. It was their 10th anniversary show, and they pulled out some of the stops, in that they gave away near-ancient merch and managed to ressurect a long-rumored dead drummer, but there was still a sense of toned-down-ness about it all. I think they may have had some legality issues with their shows, because even though they still have the exotic dancers, there's no threat of 'unclad' anymore, it remains firmly in the domain of 'scantily clad'. They've downsized a couple of band members, too, including the lead singer, and while they were a large enough number to begin with that it wasn't overly noticeable, it still speaks to the fact that maybe not everybody's built to spend 10 years acting like the drinkin'-est mofo on the planet. The whole show, while rockin' enough on a musical level, just seemed tamer than it used to be, and it felt like maybe people were gonna outgrow it. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the band breaks up before they play Toronto again, and yes, that makes me feel old.

So -- I don't like being pissed off, so I've been attempting to do something about it. I could just accept it and try to be graceful about losing some abilities while gaining in experience and insight -- you know, turn turn turn and all that -- but screw that. To counteract my sporting decline, I am going against pretty much all of my instincts and trying to get into better shape. Exercising is one thing, but god help me, I've actually been reading food labels and checking the fat content. I figure I have maybe two or three more years where I can at least maintain what limited proficiency I have, and declining at 37 seems way less traumatic than declining at 34. I don't know how it'll go -- I have an embarrasing tendency towards tantrums when I think I should be better at a sport than I actually am -- but I'm giving it a shot.

And as for the other thing -- well, like I say, I don't know if WCO will ever do another Toronto show, but if they do, I will do my part to restore some of their former glory. Based on the twin pillars of audience participation and gratuitous nudity, I will steal a page from the band's playbook and offer cold hard cash to anybody who joins the band on stage and shows off an asset or two. I'm not exactly expecting a rush of people looking to take me up on the offer, but dammit, to make up for my wasted youth of responsible action and sober decisions I have to make it anyway. I'm not currently publishing rates because there's bound to be a sliding scale -- while I am duty-bound to support a Rock Out With Your Cock Out policy, it is likely to be less lucrative than a Rock Out With Your Boobs Out Policy, rhyme scheme be damned -- and in case of a Bizarro-world plethora of applicants there would be a first-come-first-served kinda limit, but suffice to say I will be open to negotiation. I am not known for being a hard-line negotiator and I could probably be convinced to reimburse the ticket price of any girl who wears a sufficiently cleavage-y shirt, so feel free to extrapolate from there.

Who dat?

The New Orleans Saints are playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday, which happens to be nine calendar days prior to the Mardi Gras celebration in that city. If you asked me to recommend a time and place to spend (just over) a week's holiday, I could definitely think of worse uses of your vacation time.

What comes to light

So, I had my email sorta hacked into recently -- some nefarious decepticon-type entity managed to send a message from my account to the first fifty names in my address book. In light of this, some things have occurred to me.


1. Of the first fifty names in my address book, 15 bounced back to me immediately because the account in question was no longer active, probably 6-8 more were merely duplicate addresses that I had for people, 4 or 5 were people I either haven't emailed directly in years or only have them in my contacts because I reply-alled to some other email, and the first 50 addresses only get me up to the D's. Perhaps it's time for me to do some Hotmail spring cleaning.

2. Not often does someone get to send his dad, his sister, his brother's girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend and a couple of ex-co-workers a link to an ad for a Viagara-like medication. And usually when it does happen, it's the basis of a reality show that airs on Showcase on Friday nights.

3. And really, if I possessed the awesome ability to hack into Hotmail, I highly doubt the best use I could come up with for this talent would be the further propagation of spam. Seriously, if it's money you're looking for, start scanning emails for credit card numbers, or advertise for a legitimate product. Conversely, if you're just enamored with the thrill of getting away with stuff (as depicted in immortal cinematic masterpieces like Sneakers and Hackers), then send everybody in a given contact list a generic suicide note. That'd get people talking.