Welcome to Jam Session

I woke up last Sunday morning (err, afternoon) with a severe All-Star Saturday Night hangover. No, not from the amount of beer I consumed (roughly six), but from the lack of excitement that the evening’s events provided. Indeed, I needed something to get me into a good basketball mindset, if I was going to have any chance of having interest once the game rolled around at 8:30. So as I flipped through the channels (enjoying a frosty Coors Light at around 1 p.m.) I stopped at ESPN Classic, figuring they would have some All-Star themed programming for me to partake in. And what they had in store fore me was quite glorious…six straight hours of three back-to-back vintage Michael Jordan era All-Star games! It was one of those television discoveries when you think to yourself, “well I’m not doing anything else for the next six hours,” and then realize how sad that is shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, I was all set to take a trip back to early nineties basketball nostalgia. An era when Ahmad Rashad’s Inside Stuff was my SportsCenter, when NBA mascots actually qualified as C-list celebrities, and above everything else, when the talent of today was paired with the fundamentals of yesterday; all before the 96 draft came around and officially changed everything.

The 1993 All-Star Game:
East Squad Starting Lineup-
Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Larry Johnson, Scottie Pippen
Reserves-
Patrick Ewing, Dominique Williams, Joe Dumars, Detlef Schrempf, Larry Nance, Mark Price, Brad Daugherty
West Squad Starting Lineup-
John Stockton, Clyde Drexler, David Robinson, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley
Reserves-
Hakeem Olajuwon, Shawn Kemp, Dan Majerle, Tim Hardaway, Terry Porter, Danny Manning, Sean Elliot


This game took place at the pinnacle of the Jordan Era, when he was fresh of two straight titles, and was dominating a league filled with future Hall of Famers. At the same time, it started to feel like the other players began to hate Jordan for his global domination, and his ball hogging (he took a game high 24 shots). Nonetheless, this was a great All-Game show. In the opening minutes, Jordan got the ball and was defended one-on-one by his West Coast nemesis Drexler, and the crowd went nuts (suffice to say, Kobe getting guarded by LeBron does not create the same response today). The game went into overtime, with the West edging out a victory 135-132. This was the year the game was played in Salt Lake City, and Malone and Stockton “conveniently” won co-MVP honors (alright, they deserved it). The best part about watching these games is seeing all the old players who were once considered All-Stars, and then comparing that to where they are at now. An interesting case is Larry Johnson, who started for the East. This was during his grandmamma phase, a Converse ad campaign in which he dressed up like an old woman, and schooled players on the court (at least that’s how I remember it). It even landed him a gig on Family Matters, solidifying LJ as one of the most popular players in the league. Looking back at the grandmamma phenomenon…it really didn’t make too much sense. If anything it provided an early inspiration for the movie Big Mamma’s House. Also in this game was “Thunder” Dan Majerle, another very popular player in the era. Does anyone remember that this guy made four straight All-Star teams? Neither did I.

The 1998 All-Star Game:
East Squad Starting Lineup-
Penny Hardaway, Michael Jordan, Dikembe Mutombo, Shawn Kemp, Grant Hill
Reserves-
Tim Hardaway, Glen Rice, Reggie Miller, Rick Smits, Antoine Walker, Steve Smith, Jayson Williams
West Squad Starting Lineup-Gary Payton, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett
Reserves-
Vin Baker, Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, David Robinson, Mitch Richmond, Jason Kidd, Tim Duncan


Wow, where do I start with this one. For those of you who don’t know, this game took place in the world’s most famous arena, Madison Square Garden, and pinned an aging Jordan against an emerging young Kobe. The Lakers had four All-Stars in this game, with Shaq being the only deserving candidate. Regardless, this game epitomized the dawn of the NBA’s Hip Hop era (minus Iverson, who didn’t start making All-Star teams until his fourth year). The contrasting style of old school vs. new school was pretty apparent when Marv Albert commentated on Garnett’s first bucket. “That’s third year player Kevin Garnett - they call him Da Kid,” said Albert, in one of the worst slang attempts by a middle-aged white man in televised history. At the same time, the game was still “nineties alternative rock era” enough that when a timeout was called, they played the “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm” song by Crash Test Dummies over the speakers, which I guess was used to capture the downtime of play calling. Nonetheless, it was a pretty eerie changing of the guard. But the thing that got me buzzing the most was the East’s bench. Antoine Walker was a young, cocky second year overachiever who also embodied the new NBA star (he even had his little shimmy back then that he would do after hitting a shot). Then you have Tim Hardaway inserted into the game, which would have been totally normal 15 days ago, when his anti-gay feelings weren’t exposed. Now watching it, I can only imagine how uncomfortable he was playing in New York, what with all the gays. If a homophobic point guard wasn’t enough, the East also had Jayson Williams come off the bench, who kind of, sort of…killed a guy. It was pretty surreal to watch both guys on the court, while buzzed and a tad bit stoned. But aside from the interesting sub-plots of the bench players, the game was just damn good. Sure the East had a washed-up Kemp starting, and a dark foreshadow in Penny (Marv commented “Penny whose stayed healthy most of his career, missing most of the first half of the season with an injury. Penny got re-injured after the break, missed the rest of the season and was never the same again). Jordan still dominated a game in which young players like Kobe (impressive but sloppy) and Eddie Jones (taking way too many shots) were trying to make their marks. It kind of made this specific timeframe all the more intriguing, knowing that all Jordan could do was school them in his waning hours (final score, East 135-114), win one more title in the spring, and leave the hip-hoppers the reigns when he retired. And that’s exactly what happened until….

The 2003 All-Star Game:
East Squad Starting Lineup-
Allen Iverson, Michael Jordan, Ben Wallace, Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal
Reserves-
Brad Miller, Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, Zydrunas Ilgauskus
West Starting Lineup-
Steve Francis, Kobe Bryant, Yao Ming, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan
Reserves-
Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal, Shawn Marion, Stephon Marbury, Gary Payton, Peja Stojakovic


Pretty interesting All-Star game for many reasons. For starters, there was a huge voting controversy in which a still developing, rookie Yao was voted in over a still dominating, veteran Shaq, because more Chinese people voted for him than Americans do in the general election. The Diesel kept his cool, but was obviously not thrilled about coming off the bench for the rest of his All-Star career (does anyone else consider that have something to do with his bolt to the East?) Another interesting thing of note (especially for Knicks fans) was the West’s starting point guard, Steve Francis. That’s right - Francis was once popular and “just” good enough to start All-Star games. Watching him only four years ago, it’s like looking at a totally different player. The guy used to be really toned and ripped - an athletic freak. He literally bounced around the court with a series of explosive dunks in the first quarter of this game. What in god’s name happened to him? Lately he looks about as toned as Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid, and I don’t think I’ve even seen him dunk once this year. It’s a pretty sad development for a guy who started his career of very similarly to another slashing guard, Dwayne Wade, who should really take everything into consideration, considering his recent injury. As for the game, Jordan took A LOT of shots (27) for an All-Star game, and only made nine of them. But of course, MJ managed to make a 33 percent night look legendary, considering most of those makes were crucial baskets down the stretch, sending the game to overtime (in fact, his last shot put the East up wit a few ticks left, but an ill-advised foul by O’Neal gave the West an opportunity to tie). In overtime, KG took over the game, and gave the West a victory they should have had a lot easier. I mean, this was when the West Coast dominance of bigs really began to take hold, so the fact that the score was so close is a true testament to what MJ meant to these games. Later that year, the LeBron draft took place, ushering in a new era of young stars comparable to the 96 draft. We’re still waiting for either class to produce the next MJ - doesn’t look like it’s happening.

All-Star Weekend Recap

This past weekend, the NBA All-Star game made its much-hyped debut in Las Vegas – a city without a team, but apparently dying for one. The underlying storyline of the whole weekend was how David Stern and Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman have been talking about possibly bringing a franchise to Sin City, with obvious gambling and gaming clauses. (I must add that Goodman has a horribly gigantic Jew shnoz, which makes him look a lot like one of the Juzamek aliens from South Park. I can only imagine Stern and Goodman getting really loaded one night this weekend on blechh and hookers with big hekmahs, only to wake up the next day and say “I can’t believed I sucked you’re jagon." I apologize to all non South Park fans).

I will say one thing about bringing a franchise to Vegas. While I don’t know all the logistics, I’m pretty sure that Stern and team owners don’t want basketball betting to go down in the arena. At the same time, it’s almost impossible to open such a venue in Vegas without slot machines lining the lobby (trust me, it will kill attendance and revenue for that place if those sick gambling addicts can't blow 20 bucks on video poker at half time). I also assume there would have to be some type of a sports book in there. So my compromise is simple. Open up an arena, with some slots, maybe a few tables and a sports book – only one that doesn’t include NBA games to bet. Makes sense right? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a good start if you ask me. On to the weekend, recapped event by horribly executed event.

All-Star Friday Night


McDonalds NBA All-Star Celebrity Game: Always a total train-wreck, this year’s celebrity game took the term to new heights. The proof is pretty much in the final score – 40 to 21. The game MVP you ask? Access Hollywood reporter Tony Potts, who edged out Bill Simmons in a celebrity go-kart race at the Super Bowl, putting him on a good pace for the Grand Slam of celebrity/fundraising sporting events. Honestly, the game had so many “what the fuck am I watching” moments that I almost had to change the channel. The saddest part was the fact that the two WNBA players participating were trying hard to score, and just failed miserably (It was pretty clear from the game that Tony Potts would be an eight time league MVP if he played in the ladies league). But the part that almost made me choke on my brisket (I was enjoying a nice Sabbath dinner at my grandma’s house) was when Reggie Bush rolled his ankle and had to go to the locker room. Honestly, even though he is OK, I don’t know if there would have been a worse moment in sports history than having the NFL’s brightest young star suffer a serious injury in a game more meaningless than Carrot Top’s life (he participated) itself. And since when did Carrot Top get so jacked? It looks like he's been working out with Barry Bonds on weekends. And another thing, this game needs better celebrity players! Where’s Brian McKnight when you need him? Dude’s got game!


Las Vegas NBA All-Star Dance Team: 30 NBA team dancers (one from each team) are voted by fans to perform for a few minutes, in what they think is the big-break of reality TV careers. Sadly I voted for this ridiculous contest on NBA.com, and may I air my disappointment on Crystal from the Dallas Mavericks not being selected (http://www.nba.com/mavericks/dance/Crystal.html). The girl has got ass up from the calf up.


The T-Mobile Rookie Challenge: I didn’t get to see much of the weekend’s first blowout, as I was getting ready for a night out at some rock bar in Long Island (Think Comrades from Wayne’s World 2 minus Del Preston. Actually, it was nothing like Comrades). Obviously the sophomores crushed the rookie team 155-114, which I already pointed out as being an awful class in my mid-season column. Game MVP was David Lee who managed to go a perfect 14-14 for 30 points, a feat even impressive in an exhibition game. Makes you wonder if this will finally convince Isiah Thomas to start him already. (Interesting side note: For everyone who tolerates Isiah’s patience with Lee because he was wise enough to draft him, my buddy Ian informed me last night that Zeke was ready to trade our most promising star last season for Theo Ratliff and Ruben “I chase my baby sitter down the hall naked” Patterson. So we may need to stop singing his praises).

All-Star Saturday Night


Haier Shooting Stars: Yikes…where do I start. First off, what the fuck is Haier and why is it sponsoring this event? And secondly, why does this event even exist anymore. I’d hate to use the word train-wreck again, so I’ll dub Haier Shooting Stars as a clusterfuck. Aside from the fact that it’s boring as hell (pretty much a team version of around the world), it was executed horribly. Each team was supposed to get two minutes to finish, but the shot clock kept stopping at one, and apparently nobody knew how to change it (and why would a professionally trained team of scoreboard operators know how to add one minute to a clock?) On top of that, whoever was in charge of it picked the worst possible old-timers for a shooting competition. Michael Cooper…your confidence is shattered. Good luck finding a head coaching job now. And I’m pretty sure Bill Laimbeer went his whole career hiding how fugly his shot looked, but after taking several attempts to hit a three-pointer, the secret is out. Pretty awful all the way around. It even gave the WNBA athletes confidence for hitting most of the half-court shots, which is the sports equivalent of winning a 50 dollar lottery ticket. Congratulations ladies.

Charles Barkley races Dick Bavetta: Yup, I bet on Bavetta. This was actually the first of two events I gambled on during the night. I had a strong feeling that Barkley would give out much quicker, but the fact is Bavetta is an old man who runs like a woman. And Barkley is no prime athlete himself, considering he was too winded to even speak after the race. Regardless, one of the more entertaining parts of the evening. There’s nothing like seeing Barkley back-tracking the final half lap, while Bavetta desperately leaps for the finishing line, perhaps taking the event a tad too seriously (he bloodied his knee for Christ sake).


Playstation Skills Challenge: It’s funny, I really thought I liked this event; yet when it came on I lost total interest fairly quickly. I think they need to add something to the relay course, or at least light those hoops on fire. I thought Chris Paul would win because of his speed, but there was a running trend in this competition. No one was trying to go remotely fast. I think LeBron James was jogging, and he made it to the second road. Um, I have nothing more to say about this event.


Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout: A pretty good field of shooters, and some pretty high scores put up. Arenas skilled the first round with a score of 23, and was looking like a favorite for the finals. Of course this was the second event I bet, and I took Nowitzki. (The only person who would bet on a Slam Dunk contest is Chevy Chase’s character from Dirty Work, who also bet Mr. T vs. Rocky. Or Krusty the Clown for that matter, who has apparently bet against the Harlem Globetrotters on numerous occasions. But once again, I’m rambling) Nowitzki did make it to the second round, but so did Jason Kapono, who until this season, looked like another white shooter from the West Coast who will never get burn. Now he’s leading the league in three point percentage, and is the Three-Point Shootout winner. He has a title as well, not a bad career for the UCLA grad so far. Unfortunately, Arenas could not match his first round performance, and decided it would be appropriate to shoot his last rack of basketballs with one hand. I actually saw him do this on a YouTube video, in which he challenges Deshawn Stevenson to a shooting contest. It makes his All-Star stunt look like nothing, as he rolls on the gym floor, yelling at Stevenson to distract his shots. He really is psychotic.


Sprite Slam Dunk: Finally, the highlight of All-Star weekend (at least 10 years ago), the slam dunk contest - which is now just called Slam dunk apparently. Anyway, the crop of guys they get for this thing lately, all four of them, never really build up too much excitement for the contest. This year, the judge panel literally consisted of the best dunkers of all time, Jordan, Dr. J, Wilkins, Kobe and Vince. And of course, Jordan stuck out the most, not because he’s Jordan, but for the Morpheus from The Matrix outfit he was sporting. He seriously looked like he was judging a dunking contest in 2028, after being cryogenically frozen. The event actually started out with some dunks. Gerald Green got a good assist from Paul Pierce off the edge of the backboard which he slammed down with authority. Nate Robinson had a nice assist to himself, bouncing it off the ground and finishing with a one-handed stuff. Note that they nailed these dunks on first attempt, which is very crucial in these contests.


Dwight Howard poked fun at not being allowed to dunk on a 12 foot basket, by slapping a sticker he plastered on the backboard at the same height mark. The sticker was a picture of his face smiling, and really showed his comedic side more than his dunking. In fact, Howard appears to be a pretty funny guy, from that and some other instances this weekend. But in the final round, Green and Robinson went head to head, in what seemed like a clear repeat for the Knicks volatile midget hitman. Only this year, his relentless attempt to nail a final dunk did not earn him a win. Instead, Robinson failed miserable over and over at a self assisted 360, only to hit after receiving two clearly illegal extra attempts. Green won with a dunk that looks a lot nicer the more you see it, a near free-throw line leap over a scorers table. All in all, I’m still on the fence about Slam Dunk contests this day and age. I think we need Mprpheus back.

(On top of that, I need to add that when Nate takes so long to execute his dunks in these contests, it definitely takes all the excitement out of them when he finally connects. I made a perfect analogy during the contest. If someone was trying to parallel park, and kept fucking it up while hitting both cars in the process, would you give them any credit for it once they got it right? That’s what I was thinking.)

Coming up next, my All-Star Sunday recap.

Jew-rotic Rants of the Week

(note to readers, this entry is a good one-week old, as I got lazy and forgot to post it. I am trying to update this blog a lot more now with shorter posts, so bear with me...)

With the NFL season now officially in the books (I had the pleasure of catching only one drive of the always exciting Pro-Bowl last week), the Sports Jew is literally at a loss for words. It’s definitely my favorite sport to dissect, analytically and satirically, and with a little less than two months before Mets opening day, I’m going to have to dig a little deeper for column ideas. To mediate the situation I have created a new post category for the blog called “Jew-rotic Rants of the Week,” where I will take a few of the most notable sports stories from the past seven days to argue over or make fun of respectively. I think I got some good material for my first run at it…

What’s the difference between John Amaechi and a refrigerator?


Answer…a refrigerator doesn’t fart when you take the meat out. (I heard this offensive yet hilarious joke at work on Friday, and decided it had the wheels to start off this entry). Joking aside, considering I am not nearly as homophobic as 90 percent of the current NBA roster, Amaechi’s decision to come out last week, four seasons after he retired, was totally reasonable from my point of view. His announcement, which coincided with the release of his tell-all autobiography “Man in the Middle” last Wednesday, brought up the question of whether we will ever see a professional athlete announce his gayness while still active on a pro sports roster. This kind of suggests that what Amechi and a few other guys before him did is cowardly, or in the grand scheme of things illustrates how the world isn’t ready for a gay sports star.

For starters Amaechi is and never was a star, but rather a dime a dozen big man who would never be playing basketball if he wasn’t so abnormally tall. It doesn’t downplay the fact that Amechi waited to come out after retirement because no matter who you are, whether it’s Michael Jordan or, um…John Amaechi, being openly gay in a locker room full of straight guys is currently not a comfortable situation. It’s a sad situation indeed, but it’s also human nature. The NBA and other pro leagues are filled with athletes raised on strict Christian morals, and while I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say “thou shall not shower with tall gay British men” anywhere in the Bible, the moral questioning of the scenario would be unavoidable.

The question is, is it worth it for the incredibly small percentage of gay men in pro sports (radio and TV personalities say it’s as much as one per team, I highly doubt that) to try and convince a league of guys that its OK to play with them, or just wait until after their careers when the money is already in the bank, to come out? I would have to lean towards the latter. The truth is gay prejudice is one of the hardest types to counteract, so for now, gay men deciding to venture into pro sports may have to abide by the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy until such a drastic change of perceptions in the league occurs. But I’ve realized this topic is too dense and serious to rant about, so let’s move on…

All-Star replacements, just because…

I put so much effort into making my selections, and David Stern was poised with making the same decision of who to replace the injured Yao Ming (and Boozer as well). With two spots open I thought it wouldn’t be possible for another snub to be in order, but the omission of Elton Brand shot that down. Instead, Stern decided to go with the vastly improved Josh Howard, and Carmelo Anthony. This is what I don’t get though. If you were going to snub Anthony the first time it would have to be solely be for his suspension, considering the fact that he leads the league in scoring, an automatic All-Star selection attribute. So by that rationale, it wouldn’t matter how many injury spots open up, because it was already decided by coaches that Carmelo didn’t deserve to make the original reserves exclusively because of his suspension, right?

Even weirder is the fact that Stern is the one who has given Melo a second chance at making the squad, considering his near-dictator like rule of the NBA so far this season, which included Melo’s 15 game sit. I guess the commissioner decided that Anthony had learned his lesson enough from the ordeal, and that it would take two roster injuries for the league’s top scorer to make the team, a humbling selection indeed. Still, I feel that Brand has earned enough respect over his rock solid career in the league to get the nod, at least over an emerging star like Howard, but the Mavericks better record probably played a part. Also, Brand is averaging just below 10 rebounds this year, which has a very negative effect on a player’s stat line, even if he makes up for it in other areas (field goal percentage, blocks).

The three words I hate more than anything else are…


Pitchers and Catchers. Seriously, why do so many people attribute this meaningless day as the official start of the baseball season? More importantly they try to generate excitement around it, like fans are remotely interested in what is, in all reality, warm-ups. I’m sorry, but when I hear that it’s only 12 days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, I don’t circle the date on my calendar. I don’t watch the entire evening SportsCenter in hopes of seeing Mike Pelfrey throwing curve balls to Paul LoDuca at Tradition Field in Port. St Lucie (and yes I had to google the name of the Mets spring training field). For me, it isn’t until spring training begins in about a month or so when the season officially gains my interest, and unless you’re a beat reporter for the New York Post, the same should be said for you.

(Wait a minute…I want to be a beat writer for the New York Post. Uh, scratch that thought process. Pitchers and Catchers all the way! Bring on the pitching of baseballs and subsequent catching of them! Seriously, I want to listen to live press conferences everyday in which Rick Peterson says things like, “yeah his stuff is lookin pretty good” and “still trying to get that curve to break a little earlier.” Riveting stuff.)

Say No More…Mon Amour

Manning beats Rex in Super Bowl XLI

As wonderfully witty as I am, I cannot take credit for the photo to the right. It was in fact guest Jew columnist Gaba-gooz who came up with the clever connotation of combining both Super Bowl quarterbacks (Peyton Manning, Rex Grossman) into one Rex Manning, the over-the-hill rock star from the film Empire Records. Which may I add is one of those so bad-its good-but ultimately bad again movies that make random runs on HBO. It has its moments (always been a fan of Anthony LaPaglia’s catalog), but it’s mostly filled with scenes involving either Liv Tyler or Renee Zellweger that are totally gay. Whether it’s the diet pills scene or rooftop performance of sugar high, yup, Empire Records is pretty damn homo.


On another note, the Colts won the Super Bowl yesterday. So now sports enthusiasts around the world can stop pestering Peyton Manning, who may I add looked pretty unenthused when the clock ticked down to 0:00. Overall, I wasn’t to into the game. The first quarter was filled with momentum changing plays, and hence, was very exciting. But aside from Hester’s return and Wayne’s touchdown, the rest of those plays were fumbles. I don’t know about anyone else, but usually for me fumbles are the sign of a bad game. And for the most part that’s what Super Bowl XLI was. A lot of long drives ended with three points, and midway through the fourth quarter everyone pretty much knew the Bears had no chance of coming back. It would have taken two defensive scores, because Grossman showed no signs of completing one scoring drive by game’s end, let alone two.

Aside from the mediocre game, there were some other interesting things of note from the evening, provided by my friends mostly. So instead of breaking down the game like I usually do, here are my favorite highlights from the Super Bowl.

• OK, my first isn’t a favorite, but more of an observation that had to be made. This year’s commercials sucked! No office chimps? No hipster cavemen? Not like I could hear them to well anyway, but the award for weirdest Super Bowl commercial definitely goes to that GM spot where the robot dreams of committing suicide. Hello…what the fuck was that? First off my brother brought up a great point. With all the “human beings” GM probably lays off in a give year, I don’t think making a joke about getting fired in the auto-industry is too appropriate. Aside from that, the commercial (with a protagonist that looked like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit) was just a little too eerie for my tastes. I was a tad high at the time it came on, and found myself sitting there, feeling sad for a robotic arm. In closing, General Motors really messed with my head.

• And finally, Train-Wreck of the Night goes to my good friend Brandon Mirailh, who was in rare form throughout the entire game. First off, he must have lost a combined eight seats for not calling fives when getting up for a beer, something my psychotic friends take very seriously. On top of that, he managed to kick over at least three beers while stumbling across the apartment, at one time doing so while losing a seat for not calling fives, which caused him to yell “Damn It!” in his loud Brooklyn accent. To top that off, he somehow finagled his way into several rounds of a heated halftime game of cee-lo while throwing down an unbreakable $20 bill, and in a sense, kept playing for free while all my friends yelled at him. A truly amazing performance all around. Peyton definitely robbed the MVP trophy.