Bawful After Dark: December 30, 2010

That silly Dwyane Wade... Always on the cutting edge of fashion with his crazy accessories!
If you haven't already done so, go read Bawful's stuff over at TrueHoop from today.

Quick complaint: Tomorrow is the annual rivalry grudge match between the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky basketball teams. So of course it's at noon on a weekday when I'll be at work since New Year's Eve is only a kinda sorta holiday. Great planning there, guys.

Here's an interesting NY Times piece on the "Mark Price Shooting Lab." The money quote from the article:

“I can’t think of a single guy who hasn’t improved working with us,” Kreutzer said.

Betterment cannot always be measured statistically. The season after Rondo’s graduation, his 3-point shooting declined 10 percentage points and his free-throw percentage by 2 points. His 2-point number rose by almost 2 percentage points.

This year, Rajon’s field-goal figures are improved. But his free-throw shooting has plunged to 43 percent, suggesting he may need a checkup.

So you can't measure how much better someone's shooting is by their shooting percentage? I think we need to reconsider the defintion of "better" shooting.

The best part about Tyreke the Freak's half-court buzzer beater? Check out Donte Green's reaction. He KNEW that shot was going in. What does this mean? We finally have proof that Donte Green is the real-life version of Biff Tannen. I wonder how much he wants for his copy of Gray's Sports Almanac...

Worst of the Night in Pictures:

"Don't let that beard touch me, man! It's like 180 grit sandpaper!"

"God, this is worse than watching an episode of That 80s Show"

The sadness, it is overwhelming!

Nationally Televised Games:
Knicks at Magic, TNT, 7pm: I don't know about you, but after yesterday's video, I plan on watching Stan Van Gundy's face whenever Hedo shoots a jumper. Guaranteed entertainment!

Spurs at Mavericks, 9:30pm: Dallas is one of the few teams who have cracked the code to beating the Spurs this year. Unfortunately for them, Dirk is still banged up and will not play tonight. As far as MVP talks go, doesn't Dirk need to be pretty high on that list? The Mavericks look just godawful without him most of the time.

All The Other Games:
Jazz at Frail Blazers, 10pm: File this one under "things that make no sense and threaten to destroy my brain (or at least the parts of it I still use)" -- the Utah Jazz are 6-2 on the second night of back-to-backs this season. And you could make that number 7-2 if they win tonight. DOES NOT COMPUTE. This goes against everything we've ever been taught as basketball fans.

Bawful After Dark: November 1, 2010

Dwyane Wade's Halloween costume... Yeah...
Sorry to have to cut this one a little short. Schedule didn't go quite as planned today, so I wasn't really able to include anything that wasn't written last night.

Well, except for one thing. Footbawful news of the day: The Vikings have waived Randy Moss. Aside from this being absolutely hilarious in and of itself, here's a fantastic tweet from NotJayCutler about it: "Irony: Randy Moss getting cut before Tom Brady's hair."

Worst of the Weekend in Pictures:
No caption really necessary here. Everything about this photo is amazing

Mario West may not be currently on an NBA team, but at least we have another Mario

Even when receiving NBA Mascot of the Year award, Bango looks depressed. Come on, Bango. I've been to Wisconsin. It's not that bad.

Vinny Del Negro and the Clippers... Yeah, I can see it being a good fit

See what I mean?

Our first John Kuester facepalm this season -- the Pistons season has officially begun

...Okay then.

The Prokhorov dishing out an awkward high five? Oh hell yes.

Nationally Televised Games:
Trail Blazers at Bulls, 8pm: With three wins to start the season, Portland is off to their best start in a decade. Part of the Blazers' success so far this year the Blazers have rebounded well, with LaMarcus Aldridge averaging 9.7 boards. This is spite of missing big men Joel Przbilla (right knee) and Greg Oden (left knee). Did they combine the two healthy knees from their injured big men and give them to Aldridge to create a Frankensteined super player?

All The Other Games:
Craptors at Kings, 10pm: Anyone else excited to see DeMarcus Cousins' home debut? Meanwhile, I still can't get a feel for how good this Toronto team is this year. (It's somewhere between "godawful" and "surprisingly mediocre.") Perhaps we should consult our new Craptors correspondent The Philosoraptor for his insight?


Um, okay. Thank you for the thoughtful analysis that had nothing whatsoever to do with this game, Philosoraptor.

Spurs at Clippers, 10:30pm There are, however, no doubts that the Clippers are who we thought they were. Well, for now at least. They might be able to get as far as "bad, but not embarrassingly so" thanks to Blake Griffin being, you know, really friggin' good.

Well, on second thought, they're still super Clippery, and now have the NBA's worst shooting percentage at an unfathomably bad 37.7% after three games. (Yes, I totally have the old NBA Jam announcer's voice in my head right now saying "Puts up a brick!") Considering the Spurs have won 24 of the last 25 meetings with the Clippers, I don't hold high hopes for The Other LA Team getting anything going soon.

So, D-Wade, Tell Us How You Really Feel

To nobody's surprise, there is yet another story about the Wade/LeBron/Bosh situation on an NBA website. This Tim Povtak article on NBA Fanhouse is another example of some of your generic "this Heat team will be really good" fare. However, what's this?

Editor's Note: Because of a transcription error, an earlier version of this story contained an incorrect quote from Dwyane Wade. The full and accurate version of the quote is contained in this story. We deeply regret the error.

Wait, what? What could be so bad?

Courtesy of tweet by Pete Gaines, here is a screen capture of the original story:


...Okay then. Wow. Way to be sensitive there, D-Wade. I think the national Terror Alert Level just went up from yellow to a-kinda-sorta-orangey-yellow. And I'm sure conspiracy theorists have already decided D-Wade was somehow involved in the September 11th attacks.

So, Fanhouse claimed there was a "transcription error." Not really sure how you can have a transcription error that egregious slip through the editors, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt. So what was the actual quote, NBA Fanhouse?

"Plus, there's going to be times when we lose 2-3 games in a row, and it seems like the world has crashed down. You all are going to make it seem like the World Trade is coming down again, but it's not going to be nothing but a couple basketball games."

Oh, because that's so much better without the parenthetical "(Center)."