People Complaining About Sports Trying To Come Back Are Tiring

In the past week, more and more leagues have been making progress on a return to action and live games.

ESPN Sources: Attendees left Board of Governors call w/ Adam Silver today feeling positive about momentum toward an NBA return to play this season. Discussion included how league/players will need to get comfortable w/ some positive tests for virus not shutting down a resumption

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 13, 2020

The MLB owners have approved a proposal to present to players, as @Ken_Rosenthal reported. They plan to meet tomorrow to discuss it.

Now is when it starts to get serious. And we'll know soon enough if baseball is actually coming back in 2020.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 11, 2020

Nothing about MLB and the MLBPA’s talks Tuesday changed the calculus in any negotiation right now: Both parties have far too much to lose to allow something as solvable as money to wreck a season. Talked more about it with @Espngreeny on @GetUpESPN this morning. pic.twitter.com/YvrDcoVsMA

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 13, 2020 

Adam Silver told those on the NBA’s Board of Governors call Tuesday that if a positive test would "shut us down, we probably shouldn't go down this path,” sources said. https://t.co/tkbh9poiQD

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 13, 2020

This is all good news!!! Reason for celebration, even....For the past 60 days all we've have done is complain about boredom and talk about how much we miss sports....aaaannndd, now that they may come back, it's turned into a social commentary about the safety and morality of coming back?

Here's the thing,,,we, as in the general public, have ab-so-lutely no control at all. The leagues are going to do what they do and whether you fall on the side of "don't come back, wait until there's a vaccine" or "I just want entertainment"...it sincerely, doesn't matter what you think... 

This isn't to say that players, coaches and teams should feel pressure or an objectivity to come back either. But, if both players unions, owners, leagues annnd state officials are going to agree to let sports come back....complaining on Twitter is tiring and nonsensical. 

Instead of being skeptical, down and using it as a time for social commentary... why not just exhale, realize it's out of your control and rejoice that something we all love may be returning soon and bringing just a bit of normalcy with it. 

Michael Jordan Was A Damn Maniac and It's Still Hilarious

Michael Jordan Reportedly Wouldn't Allow Horace Grant To Eat After Bad Gameshttps://t.co/cKL9jUqaqL

— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) May 7, 2020

When I saw this shit I laughed for a good 3 minutes, do you know how much of a psychopath you have to be, to LITERALLY STARVE another grown man??? WITH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF HIS OWN? 

The average NBA player burns about 1,000 Calories in a game and probably doesn't eat for at least an hour before the game. Horace was probably hungry as shit just sittin' on that plane, birdman rubbin' his hands together waiting for his nice juicy steak. When suddenly, Mike Jong-Un tells the waitress HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO EAT. 

via GIPHY
What happens when Horace got a bad first half? He's more nervous of the malnutrition he was boutta experience than the actual game. He goin' into the locker room and sneakin' honey buns out the back of his locker just in case.

Man i'd of been demanded a trade, just *shocking* that Horace looks like he's being held captive in MJ's basement. No wonder after that first contract, he threw up the deuces and hopped on the FIRST flight, as far south as he possibly could. Ain't boutta starve me no more pal. No siree.
You think Shaq ever starved Horace Grant?? Naw he was givin' that man as much Papa John's and Krispy Kreme as he wanted.

MJ fans need to start using this in their GOAT arguments. What's someone gonna say back to you? Exactly.

Episode 5 and 6 of The Last Dance was Plain Awesome Vol. 2

You know it. I had to. Just had to. One part, well that surely wasn't enough for the hours of art we all watched on Sunday night. In the first blog, I ranted and raved about MJ being a psychopath, the finesse king himself John Sniff, MJ's politics & more. Check it out if you haven't yet.

How stupid do you think Adidas execs felt throughout the country watching this? "God mike we love ya and all but, a shoe? We can't make those for you! A lowly rookie, kick rocks pal." By this time Adidas had been established with Run DMC money, they were bigger than Nike for crying out loud. Converse was the preeminent hooping shoe, but it wasn't like Adidas was a start up out of the garage. MJ wanted to go with Adidas, just pleaded and begged to poor Mrs. Deloris to go to Adidas. Lucky for MJ, mom knows best and when they sat down in that room with Nike, there wasn't no lettin' up....250k a year, bam...own signature shoe, off the rip. In the days where the best players were getting 100k a year that seemed risky for Nike, yeah no. First year, 126 MILLION in sales from Air Jordan. Seems like a good investment, no?

Concord 11 release line- NYC

The legend of Jordans just never stopped growing from there, they've only gotten more and more popular. Decades after his airness was the dominant scorer rockin' 2-3 in the Windy City, there are still lines around the corners for releases and online orders that sell out in seconds. Jordan carried Nike farther on his back than he did the Bulls, let's keep it real.

Wearing Jordan’s is the guy equivalent of girls wearing heels

— Joey (@JoeyMulinaro) May 4, 2020

Much like the actual documentary, we're going to randomly jump to another topic now! The Olympics, and just how fuckin' petty and unforgiving MJ was and still is. Between covering up the Reebok logo with an American flag, because fuck Harvey Schiller...or perhaps the fact that he just willed his power and kept Isiah off the dream team because he fucking hates 'em... and well he's MJ, what he says, goes.

Can we also just talk about how absurdly fuckin' good that team was? THEY DIDN'T TAKE A SINGLE TIMEOUT ALL OLYMPICS. Do you realize how bananas that is, not once did coach Chuck Daly feel it was necessary to say a single word to the team about how they were playing or maybe just give 'em some pointers, a little bit of a breather? Noope........NOT ONCE!! Those Olympics did so much for the sport of basketball, taking it to an international level and growing the game that we sometimes forget....CHRISTIAN LAETTNER was on the team over SHAQUILLE O'NEAL. I guess they overcame that adversity and were able to scrape by. What a display of fortitude and triumph.  

Sunday it seems like they're going to get into MJ's dad's tragic passing and his first retirement. Hopefully we get some unseen dingers. 

pic.twitter.com/vepL1v33Qi

— rone’s gamblin corner (@_rone) May 4, 2020

Episode 5 and 6 of The Last Dance was Plain Awesome Vol. 1

In a time of no sports and very little in terms of entertainment on TV right now, America is desperate for sports in the WORST ways. Going back and watching old games, watching highlights, shiiitt even playing a video game feels more and more realistic right now. The Last Dance really does satisfy that sports nut inside of you more than anything though, whether a lot of this is new to you or you're reliving incredible memories. I can't remember something having this much of a universal approval rating especially in today's climate of wanting to have a contrarian take for attention or whatever it may be. 

The timeline of events and jumping back and forth is pretty strange, but it does make it so you have to be watching at all times and can't be mindlessly scrolling your phone at any given time. These two episodes might have been my favorite two thus far just for the amount of sheer comedic value that came out of them. MJ was such a maniacally psychotic competitor that, no matter what, something was going to put a chip on his shoulder. He was able to get compared to a HALL OF FAMER in Clyde Drexler and see it as a slight, which quite frankly it was and that just goes to show what an absurdly unattainable level he was at. 

The gambling with the Sniff brothers, who just might be the coolest security guards to have ever walked this earth, Thomas Jefferson was just robbing MJ blind. Smoothest talker you could imagine, just a gem of a man. Rest in peace to Mr. Wozniak, our life is better for having met ya.

RIP John Michael Wozniak. He passed in January and I’m sure he has a front seat watching this from heaven! https://t.co/Vrftv1G5ly

— Estee Portnoy (@esteep) May 4, 2020

No one has ever gotten away with being a straight up dick as much as MJ did. For good reason too, 99% of the time the shit he said was just true. He knew just how fuckin' cool he was, how no one was even close to his level and that he could get away with saying just about anything. 

“I am God” - Michael Jordan pic.twitter.com/SCduBiyiup

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) May 4, 2020

Anyone else says this? Their teammates report it to some media outlet the second they get back to their locker. But MJ really was the closest thing to God at this point in time and Randy Brown was stumped like you wouldn't BELIEVE. 

That's been my favorite part of seeing the behind the scenes footage from the '98 season, the small stuff. From seeing MJ lace his own damn shoes to choppin' it up with Scottie postgame about 4th quarter dreams of an ice cold beer. In the chaos and attention that came with being Michael Jordan, the small glimpses into him as a real human are enlightening. He didn't sign up to be a role model or a public figure but that's what came with the life of luxury, fame and oh yeah millions upon millions of dollars. He did it well for the most part and never blew up at a media member or choked someone out when lesser men might've, it's me, me I am the lesser man. 

Exceppppt, for when it came to the portion of the episode about politics. This might be Jordan's biggest media blunder of his career, but people were mad for the wrong reasons in my mind. Let me elaborate, the "Republicans wear sneakers too" comment has long been the quote you hear but many have said that it was said in jest while he was on a bus joking around. That wouldn't have made me mad with proper context, but man that election of Gantt vs Helms for the North Carolina seat on the Senate had almost nothing to do with politics. Jesse Helms was quite literally the definition of fucking racist, among other things, the man wanted to segregate schools again, get rid of MLK day and used the most uncoded slurs imaginable. 

Defeating “Liberal BLACK” lmao uhh excuse me

— Angela Rockford (@angie_goodwood) May 4, 2020

There’s no joy in Mudville tonight Jesus Christ

— Trill Withers (@TylerIAm) May 4, 2020

All in all, the two episodes gave the internet as a collective a break from the crazy ass reality that we're living in and some memes that will live on for years. See ya next Sunday for 7&8 pals. 

Injured NBA Players I'm Just Fuckin' Pumped to see Play Again, Vol. 2

Absolutely nothing is happening in sports, surprise surprise. Thank the heavens for The Last Dance once a week. However that doesn't mean we can't still have some good old fashioned fun reminiscing about the days of better. Let us look back at some absolute studs who have been battered and bruised, put through the ringer some may say. 

BOL BOL

Now while he wasn't technically injured, and he has yet to ever play an actual NBA game.....there's still good reason to look at the specimen Bol is and think of what he could be. The dude is 7 foot 2 inches with a fake looking 92 INCH WINGSPAN. His arms nearly go down to his fucking knees. He's a 2k MyPlayer, plain and simple. With that being said, he's also had foot injuries at that height which will always be worrisome but the path that Durant has laid gives me more confidence Bol will get past 'em. 

His weight, in my eyes, is what it is. When you look at his pops, expecting him to ever have the body type of an Embiid or Drummond is looney tunes. So, he'll never be an intimidating rebounder and might hover around the 60-70 games played range early in his career while getting used to the NBA conditions. That's also preeetty normal in the NBA today.

His potential in the Pick n' Roll, Pick n' Pop game? Now that? That's something fun to think about. His jumper has been money at every level that he's played and it is quite literally shot from maybe the highest release point the world has ever seen. Not a single reason I can think of that it won't work at the NBA level. With the Nuggets having three really solid PnR guards between Murray, Barton and Morris, he landed in the perfect spot. Whether starting or off the bench, they'll have him set up for success. 

Starting you say? Are you fucking stupid? Well maybe, however I've been thinking for a while that while it would certainly look weird as hell...both Bol and Jokic cover for each others defensive deficiencies almost seamlessly.  Jokic struggles the most on switches against quicker guards and on the perimeter, while that's what Bol adds the most on D. Bol struggles the most against stronger, more burly boys down low....there's not a burlier boy than Nikola Jokic friends. With Power Forward becoming nearly an extinct position in the modern NBA, it'd be a worthwhile experiment playing Jokic and Bol together with Millsap soon to be out of the equation. 

Health willing....could you imagine a Murray-Harris-Porter Jr.-Bol-Jokic end of game lineup? I'm sure the Nuggets, in their best case scenario are. 

KLAY THOMPSON

He might be the single coolest player in the NBA. You know who walks around day to day not giving a FUUUUCK what's happening outside his control? Klay is that dude. Interviews about scaffolding...signing toasters, sippin' a cold one in a postgame presser. That's what we've been missing with Klay out. Oh just that, the second best shooter in NBA history and maybe the craziest individual runs you can imagine. 37 in a quarter? Done it. 9 threes in a quarter? Done. Most 3's in a game? Yup. 60 in 29 minutes? Bet your ass he did. When he tore his ACL in the finals, he came back and made both free throws for fucks sakes. 

The best thing about his injury is, its an ACL. Now days, that's a sprained Ankle in terms of guys coming back to previous form. Before this injury, Klay really was the model for consistency. He never missed more than 9 regular season games and only 1 playoff game. Klay will be back and firing like he never left, then he'll head home, hang his goatee on the hat rack and do it all again tomorrow. 

Klay Thompson gets home after a long day of work and hangs that goatee up on his coat rack

— Trill Withers (@TylerIAm) December 14, 2014

Seeing that backcourt together again is going to be a treat for basketball fans all around. Depending on where their lottery pick ends up and what they do with it, the Warriors might pull the exact opposite of the Jaguars.

Jaguars’ record by season:
2019: 6-10
2018: 5-11
2017: 10-6
2016: 3-13
2015: 5–11
2014: 3-13
2013: 4-12
2012: 2-14
2011: 5-11

That run to the AFC Championship game in 2017 really was wild.

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) May 3, 2020

Injured NBA Players I'm Just Fuckin' Pumped to see Play Again, Vol. 1

The regular season was fun and all but it felt somewhat incomplete without some of the best in the game. 

As expected, KD ended up not playing a single game and Curry missed essentially the whole season. Arguably two of the NBA's best 5 players and most entertaining players to watch at that. There's almost no doubt in my mind that Curry will be fine considering it was mainly his hand causing him troubles and the time he missed was amplified by the Warriors being a complete and utter shit show all season. Still, I simply can not wait to see some 40 foot threes and the cocky ass shimmy when he knows he just shit down the oppositions throat and there's just not a thing they can do about it but wallow in their misery as the ball barely touches the net on the way down.

When it comes to KD, i'm hoping and praying that achilles surgeries have come a long way since Kobe had his. KD was nearly 31 when he tore his and will be 32 when he next plays, for someone who's already overcome a Jones fracture in his foot and played over 31,000 minutes in his career it sure as hell scares the shit out of me that this might warp his play. However I like to live in a world where Durant comes back and lights shit up because he's still a 7-footer with one of the cleanest jumpers these eyes have ever seen and handles like a point guard. Him having Kyrie beside him will hopefully allow him to ease back into the flow of things offensively. If and that's a biiiiig if, he can return to 90% of what he was then that's extremely promising for future Achilles injuries around the league. And I'LL say it if no one else will, I for one would like to see it. 

Now, to the good stuff. 

This blog was maiiinly just an excuse to talk about John mothafuckin' Wall. Now, take everything I just said about KD's achilles and amplify it by about 1.5x. For a player who's game was so reliant on his speed and athleticism on both sides of the court, i've been skeptical about Wall ever returning to All-Star form. *inner stephen a. smith* HOWEVA! Wall at the prime of his powers was a fuckin' freight train comin' at you and there was really not a shot in hell that you were slowing him down. He was CP3 with insane athleticism and an actual enjoyable personality. The swag and confidence he played with was second to none and exuded a feeling that his team couldn't lose (although they often did). When he was healthy Washington bombed on surrounding him and Beal with a competent supporting cast, and the bench was maybe the worst collection of talent these eyes have ever seen. There's a new regime in the front office though and some young, cost-controllable assets around. 

Let us pray these Achilles doctors have found some magic sap from a tree in Yugoslavia that keeps these stars in their primes for as long as they deserve.