Odd and Ends #12

I know, I know. No updates, sorry, but I'm working a lot at Pounding the Rock. Hobbies can kill you, did you know that?

And now, randomness.

White men can't jump?

Better Know a Cheerleader #13

Back in business

Hey! Someone there? Do you still drop by from time to time, looking for updates? I can only thank you for your patience, and offer more excuses. I've been writing about the Silver Stars, you know?

Oh, you don't know? The San Antonio Silver Stars, WNBA team extraordinaire, slayers of women and recently losers to the mighty Phoenix Mercury in a close 3-game series for the WNBA Western Conference playoffs. If you're curious, you can find my writings right here.

But honestly, I needed a break after all that hard work. I thought I'd do a simple cheerleaders post: some silly jokes, a couple of photos and presto! And then I found a video that forced me down the long and winding path of thinking, I'm afraid. You see, not too long ago I was having a discussion with Wayne, a buddy of mine who rules Pounding the Rock with an iron fist.

I basically whined about the lack of Silver Dancers-related information in PtR, considering they were after all a part of the Spurs organization. He told me that he didn't think writing about the dancers, in and of themselves, was that bad. However, he felt that most people would really only be interested in the pictures - kind of like a Playboy article.

I complained and cajoled and generally tried to put a positive spin on these articles, citing the gals' many skills (dunking anyone?) and their entertainment value, and many other things. I still believe there's more to cheerleaders than sexy bodies, and that the responses you receive aren't necessarily tied to the questions you ask - but contests like the "Hottest Heat Dancer" make it difficult to argue.

And the videos don't help, either.

TODAY: Odaymis, from the HEAT Dancers (Miami Heat)

Not that I'd let that keep me from posting it

Her name's Odaymis, and believe it or not, her ideal job would be Sports Broadcaster. I certainly would prefer her to our dear Sean Elliot. She's from Miami, FL, wants to travel the world, has a freaking black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and... Hey, this really feels like a Playboy article all of a sudden.

So, before a video of this sort, what can well all say? Should we just admit that cheerleaders are nothing buy eye candy, and that we could care less about their dancing or their dunking or whatever else you might want to bring into the equation? Why are they dancers, for that matter, instead of simply cheerleaders?

Why analyze it so much? I just know I love watching them dunk, so I'm going to stick with it. You're welcome to join me in my crusade to make Odaymis dunk.

More photos of Odaymis:

If you want to see more photos of Odaymis, go to her gallery.

Odds and Ends #11

You know those movies where a guy meets a couple of girls separately, tries to date both and then it all suddenly blows up on his face? Well, this would the representation of that, FailBlog style.

Would still be easier than this...

Yeah, I know, cheap update. Sue me.

The Admiral's Ghost

Sometimes you can tell with just a glance

Before someone complains about the title, I only picked it because David Robinson's famous nickname always reminds me of a poem of that name I first read many years ago, when I was still learning how to spell "cat". It's by Alfred Noyes, and this part in particular seems oddly fitting:

'He wasn't the man you think!
His patch was a dern disguise!
For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see,
If they looked him in both his eyes.

Anyway. The NBA has actually gotten off their high YouTube horse and they're using their incredible database of old games and important moments in the league's history to put together amazing must-watch videos. They've recently done it for Magic Johnson to commemorate his 50th birthday and I actually wrote a post with all of the videos in my blog. Then came John Stockton's videos, which I embedded in last week's TWSS over at Pounding the Rock.

Well, it's finally David Robinson's turn, ladies and gentleman. ...And there was much rejoicing.

This post's goals are humble: inform you of these videos' existence and put them a mere click away. If you want to reminisce about a time when CDs were a novelty, the Wall was still upright, Argentina had just won the World Cup and the Spurs were banner-less, join me.

Spurs win the 1987 Draft Lottery
"we've waited 14 years - what's two more?" said Bob Bass. If you ever think that Lady Luck hasn't been fair to the Spurs, consider that David Robinson could've been a Suns player.

Highlights of a Young David Robinson (Or as the NBA calls them, "Highlites")
As the description reads: "This man was Dwight Howard, before there was Dwight Howard." And the truth is, he was much better than Dwight is and probably ever will be, but we all have short memories.

David Robinson wins the 1995 MVP
A good moment in David's career. Too bad about what came next. By the way, is it me or does Stern never age?

Spurs win the 1999 NBA Title
Tim, AJ's tiny voice, Elliott, and the Admiral at the center of it all. Good team, good year. I think this is when I first paid attention to the team in black and white.

David Robinson Talks about His Career
How can he be so nice? Stop making us look bad, dammit. He really had the perfect ending.

That's it for the NBA.com material. I'm just going to add a video about one of Robinson's most amazing games - the ones that's probably already on your minds.

The Game
71 points and a scoring title. This video has only audio of the fans cheering and the game sounds, and it's 100 times better because of it. Enjoy.

Robinson's draft started two decades of great Spurs basketball. Here's to many more years of black, white and silver dominance.

A Potpourri of Amazing Moments #1

Now those were basketballs

I've been busy blogging at Pounding the Rock lately. The Silver Stars are doing their best to make the WNBA playoffs (yes, I'm watching WNBA games - sue me) and it seems I'm the only one interested. It's keeping me busy, too busy to write more often in my blog that no one reads because I still haven't asked people to link to me...

This is something I decided to try to keep up with the many, many interesting videos released every day in YouTube: I'll make lists every so often with my favorites and hopefully I'll be able to make you waste entire hours of your lives on random videos. What do you say? Let's jump right into it.

Legendary Halfcourt Game Winner by Pearl Washington

Pearl Washington is described so: "One of the most electrifying players in Syracuse basketball history. He possessed amazing ball handling skills, an uncanny court sense, and the ability to pull off unbelievable plays. He made the first mark of his legend on January 24, 1984 , in the game against Boston College. 30.293 fans and amazing winning shot."

After watching that shot, I'm inclined to agree.

DR J posterizing Buck Williams, December 1984

If you read this blog from time to time, you know how I feel about Julius Erving. This is just one of hundred of timeless dunks, but it's still worth seeing Dr J run down the court on a fast break and slam it right on Buck Williams' face. Erving was still in his prime during the 1984/1985 regular season, and in fact he had 31 points that night.

Buck was one the toughest players of the time, and credits goes to him for contesting the shot instead of getting out of the way as many do these days.

Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson Wearing the Same Shoes vs.Pistons (Game 1-'89 ECFs)

That's Jordan for you - he's a giver.

1956, '59 to '69 (except for '65) & 1971 NBA All Star Games

This one features all the NBA All-Star Games from the 50's through the 60's, including the 1971 which hadn't been seen around YouTube yet. Some real gems there, even though I recognized only 5% of the players.

One of the YouTube comments tells us about a deal we just can't miss: "In case you have $25,000, you may be able to win an auction for Wilt Chamberlain's Western Conference All-Star Game-used uniform. On Sept. 12, 2009, Grey Flannel will conduct a 250-lot auction of vintage basketball-related memorabilia at the Mohegan Sun casino and resort in Uncasville, Conn., approximately 70 miles from Springfield. This is during the weekend of the basketball Hall of Fame inductions."

Have $25,000 to spare?

Michael Jordan & The Bulls 1997 - Ring Ceremony

I might be a Spurs fans, but I grew up watching the Jordan Bulls. Here's a video of the 1997 championship ring ceremony where they celebrated their 5th title. There are so many great tidbits I noticed:

• Johnny Red Kerr.
• The Jurassic Park theme music for the banner presentation? Yes please.
• Remember Jason Caffey? No?
• Dennis the Airplane.
• MJ dunking on Mutombo and then finger-wagging. That's going to be a Classic Dunk post one of these days.
  

1988 Short Private Slam Dunk Contest

This is another video that probably merited a post of its own. A classic battle between two NBA HoFers: Clyde Drexler vs Karl Malone. The Mailman had 39 points, Stockton had 26 assists (whoa), the Glide 42 points and Terry Porter 19 assists. I don't even care about who won. Basketball won.

1985 NBA All-Star Game Pre game NBA on CBS

More vintage material for you people. The game itself has been uploaded by michalus, and you can find it here. In the intro you can see highlights of the players at the airport in Indianapolis, and preparations for the event.

I recommend watching the game itself, because I hadn't seem so many members of the top 50 players in NBA history in a long time. Quick summary:

• Olajuwon's rookie season
  
• Gervin as the have-been-there veteran, cool as ever
• Abdul-Jabbar's record-setting 14th appearance
• Bill Laimbeer and Isaiah Thomas' comedic duo
• Magic Johnson looking fit and solid
• A rookie Michael Jordan, already a star
  
• Dr J, who else
  
• Larry Bird with the biggest ovation of the night

Among many others. Go see for yourselves.

That's it for today. Now let's go check what the Stars are up to... (Up to no good, I bet.)

Spencer Haywood Is Classy

Stairway to Heaven

Spencer Haywood? you ask. Who's that? Well, truth be told, I had no idea either until a week ago. But then WiltatKansas, one of the premier basketball video upload in YouTube, put up an interesting mix about him and I feel in love just a little. It motivated me to do some research, and find out who Spencer was and what he had done.

To my embarrassment, he had done quite a bit. I'm not going to rehash the articles I read (you should simply visit the great site Remember the ABA, and then go to Hoopedia) but I wanted to share some of the salient points of his career: He was the Original ABA Monster, dominating the league as a rookie in the 1969-70 season with 30 ppg and 19.5 rpg averages, leading the ABA in both categories. He of course won ROY and MVP honors for that season, and was the MVP for the All-Star game (one of the few nationally televised ABA games). One year earlier, in 1968, he had led his national team to a gold medal in the Olympics, and then moved onto professional basketball by signing a six-year contract with the Rockets for $1.9 million (a lot of money at the time).

He caused a lot of controversy in the 1970-71 season when he jumped to play for the NBA Seattle Supersonics. NBA owners argued that he wasn't eligible to play since his college class hadn't graduated, and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. It forced the NBA to settle, which "allowed a significant number of high school graduates and college attendees to make themselves eligible for the NBA Draft before completing four years in college". So that's when it all begun, fellows.

In the NBA he had a reasonably good career. He was named to the All-NBA First Team in 1972 and 1973 and the All-NBA Second Team in 1974 and 1975, and played 5 years in Seattle, where his jersey was retired in 2007. He went on to play for the Knicks, the Bullets and the Jazz, and eventually won a championship with the Lakers... but we'll go back to this later.

So anyway, guys - Spencer Haywood:

Hip hop done right

What caught my eye about Spencer is how graceful he was, how effortless he seemed to move and score. He reminds me a bit of Gervin, the Iceman, who turned scoring into a sort of ballet. It's beautiful tow watch.

In the comments section, user ddenuci had this to say about Spencer:

"A couple of things I will always admire about Haywood. In the 1968 Olympics, many of the US college starts opted not to play. Jabbar and Elvin Hayes are two stars that come to mind. So the fate of the team rested on shoulders of the 19 year old poor kid from Mississippi, and he came through in a big way. He led the US in the gold medal finals to a win against Yugoslavia. The second thing is his recovery from cocaine addiction.

"In 1968 USA Olympic team had Charlie Scott, JoJo White and Spencer Haywood, and a bunch of good players that few people have ever heard of. They went 9-0 and beat Yugo in the finals, 65-50. The 1968 team could have been comprised of some of the greatest players of all time. Lew Alcindor, Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, Big Bob Lanier and Neal Walk also choose not to play. Pete Maravich was actually cut from the team! For some bizarre reason, there were no spots for Dan Issel & Calvin Murphy.

"The way the US Olympic committee picked the team was quite different than today. In 1968, at the Olympic trials, there was an AAU team, an Armed Forces team, several NCAA university teams, an NCAA college team, a junior college team (Haywood's team) and an NAIA team. They played each other, and then the Committee picked 3 players from Armed Forces, 2 from the AAU, and 2 from the NAIA. The 4 spots from the NCAA university went to Scott, White, Bill Hosket (OSU) and Ken Spain of Houston."

Best ball ever

SI wrote a piece on Spence and told his story. It gives details of final year playing for the Lakers, when he finally won his ring but couldn't participate on the playoffs after being suspended for drug use:

As the Los Angeles Lakers and rookie Magic Johnson prepared for Julius Erving's Philadelphia 76ers in what proved to be a historic 1980 Finals, Haywood, by then a 30-year-old Lakers role player, celebrated with an epic binge of freebasing. He smoked so much cocaine that he passed out during one practice, reducing himself to a trivia question by getting kicked off the team midway through the title series. His lone run at a pro championship ended with teammates refusing to give him a playoff share until he proved himself clean. He didn't get his ring for six years.

Controversial to the end, it seems. Read the rest of that article - it's worth it. In any case, I'm glad that YouTube exists: it's a perfect way into the rich history of this league for my short-attention-span generation.

Manu’s Magical Mystery Tour

From the desks of tomasito, Hipuks and LatinD:

Ahh the summer, a time of sunshine and carefree-ness, a time to enjoy the beach, shed our clothes and immediately be ashamed of doing so. A time to promise ourselves that as soon as the summer is over, we’ll exercise for the next summer, knowing this is as much a dream as one of the beautiful people on the beach promising themselves they will finally read a book.

"But what do you do during the summer if you’re a famous person?" you clumsily ask, your putrid smell making me almost incapable of answering your barely above-retardation question. Well, if you’re one famous Emanuel Ginobili, you take it easy, you relax, you do everything in your power to just have a good time and be safe, and wait for the season to begin.

In the case of Manu, this means swimming with sharks:

From his facebook page: "Guess what lil' animal I found while snorkeling? It was a bit smaller than me, so it was very respectful. (My photo, don't disbelieve me.)"

Notice how Manu was absent from the second movie, and it sucked

After a late night call from Pop, who in an obviously drunken tirade admonished Manu for putting those sharks in danger, and went on to say how all this time he just wanted to have a pretty face and his basketball genius was an attempt to make up for that, Manu decided it was time to try something different.

He swam from Argentina to the US, one of his routine warm-up exercises, with the intent of immersing himself in the rich, varied and fat American culture. Upon arriving in Florida, American’s dangling lower member, he learned of how this state pretty much fucked up the whole world during the 2000 elections, but also of a certain Evel Knievel, stuntman extraorxdinaire. For those of you who don’t know about Evel Knievel, search it on Google

Ladies, takes your eyes off of there, look at this face

Taking inspiration from him, and with Pop’s rant still ringing in his ears, he then and there decide to honor the great Knievel by jumping over the AT&T Center, and event that was kept from media and the public in general by Manu calling every single reporter and telling, " If you report this, I won’t love you no more". Suffice to say, this was too much to bear, and so they agreed to keep it under wraps, the only photographs to be taken by his wife, Mani. Yes, his name is Manu and his wife is Mani, no, it’s not a tradition from Argentina.

In order to be environmentally friendly, the motorcycle was powered by Manu’s workout sweat,
which is about 4 times as powerful as the sea, and used to power the Space Shuttle

Having completed the jump, which one stuntman referred to as "The most beautiful and perfect stunt jump I have seen in my life, life which I will proceed to end by ingesting a cocktail of drugs, as I have seen the face of God, and can now die in peace", Manu had to then decide where to go next.

While flipping channels on his 8 star hotel (the three extra stars being added due to his presence alone) he came upon VH1, which is now solely devoted to reliving past events. He saw Kanye West’s infamous tirade in which he said, more or less, "Bush doesn’t care about black people!", and thought, wow, what a narcissistic douchebag, but then became interested in Louisiana: its interesting mix of diverse cultures, culinary tradition, and soul sucking poverty.

While traveling around Louisiana he came upon a zoo which had an alligator exhibit, once again remembering Pop’s call, he decided it would be prudent to get up and close to those magnificent beasts. In an accident of extreme hilarity, he slipped on a banana peel and went on to land in the gator’s jaw. The stupid beast decided to bite down on Manu, a mistake of a morbidly obese person’s proportion, which caused Manu to utter a guttural, primal, fiercely vicious scream. Before the gator’s mind could process it, Manu was pretty much beating the shit out of it.

I know it looks scary, but at no moment was the gator in danger of being killed

Most onlookers though that surely the gator would become a wallet, or perhaps boots for a drug trafficker, or tacky seats for an Escalade owner with the taste of an Escalade owner. But Manu has a kind heart, and decided to have a talk with the gator, to make it see that its way of lashing out at everyone would not get him anywhere in life. And so the gator, confronted with a logic so perfect it would have made Socrates have an unintentional bowel movement, decided to change. The gator is currently working on the Peace Corp, on efforts at producing larger crop yields in Africa.

Manu then became a world expert on alligators, writing several influential scientific papers, and participating in dangerous expeditions all over the world. Then he went to McDonald’s for a burger.

Manu and a gator comparing dental work

Ready to start winding down his travel, and hearing of a certain Sarah Palin which seemed to be all the rage, Manu headed to Alaska, the last frontier, libertarian paradise, a place where No! means maybe. Disappointed that Sarah had just qui…Headed in a different direction, Manu was watching tv one day when saw Ice Road Truckers, and thought, what a wonderful way to end this trip. Unfortunately he never saw Jon & Kate plus 8.

Even thought it was Summer in Alaska everything was still frozen, because the pictures say so.

When he first arrived, dressed in full Ice Road Trucker outfit, some of the veterans lightly mocked him, which caused Manu to give them one of his competitive-game glances. To this day, some of those veterans still curl up at night in the fetal position, crying themselves to sleep.

As extremities begin losing heat faster than the rest of his body,
Manu’s nose was in constant danger during the trip

After decking out his truck with patriotic colors, Manu then headed out into the ice road, carrying fuel for a mine operation. He had made a mistake though, one of the few in his life, like for example that one time in game seven against the Mavs when EDITED OUT BY LATIN_D, as we all remember. In this case, the mistake was to underestimate his beautiful face, and dreamy eyes. The ice melted in front of him as he looked into it, powerless to resist his charm. He realized this a little too late, the truck sinking into the ice. Luckily Manu’s inner fire, that drive that makes him who he is, kept him warm during the incident, and he got out of the truck safely.

It’s a little known law that wherever Manu plants an Argentine flag, it becomes a territory of Argentina.
As of now the lake is part of Argentina. The lake’s economy has dropped dramatically
while crime is at its highest in years. Roadblocks with tires in flame were seen along several points

As for the mine operation, Manu decided to complete his job and carry thousands of gas tanks to it, walking the ice road and careful to look a little less charming.

For next year, Manu plan to continue his relaxation by taking a cruise near Somalia. Over at Pounding the Rock we're glad he's being safe, and not selfishly clowning around with his national team, unlike some people...

The French national team prepares for its next match

(Click on the pics to see their full-sized versions.)