Tuesday, December 30, 2014

HAPPY TEN THOUSANDTH BIRTHDAY LEBRON JAMES!

Wow, has it really been ten thousand years? It feels like we were watching “The King” play in his St. Vincent uniform just 12 years ago. But calendars don’t lie, and Lebron has been since nearly  8000 BCE. Here are some of his best moments, which I have seen in deep in the eyes of my time chrystal after breathing in an instance made of lavender grown in a powerful lava flow which contains the secrets of the past.


Here are his best moments:


5986 BCE: Lebron is born. The shack where he emerged is immediately struck by lightning. Historians say this was the Gods’ last minute attempt to kill him before he became too powerful to handle.


5973 BCE: A teenage Lebron becomes the leader of a pride of lions when he defeats their leader in single combat. His two year stint with the pride gives him the ability to communicate with any animal, and to manipulate more weak willed creatures.


5950 BCE: LeBron builds a crude canoe from an ancient tree that was befallen by a small meteor strike. He uses his animal handling powers to manipulate a dolphin into dragging him across the ocean.


5949 BCE: He floats down the Ohio River and founds ancient Akron.


5807 BCE: Lebron founds the first Christmas tree farm in Northern California. This tree farm will someday be christened “Redwood National and State Parks.”


4017 BCE: Lebron picks up a ball for the first time. He invents the crossover dribble and the fadeaway, but since basketball doesn’t exist yet, his innovations languish more nearly 6,000 years.


3997 BCE: Lebron having lived a very long time, decides that it is time to die. He walks into the ocean, but right before he drowns, a vision of light appears to him: “IT IS NOT TIME.” Lebron swims back to the shore and continues his wandering, burdened, as are we all, with the curse of life.


3506 BCE: Lebron climbs a mountain and meditates there for 507 years.


2999 BCE: Lebron’s Great Meditation is over. In this time, he has communed with the deepest depths of the atom and the vastness of planets. He is also very hungry, so he eats for ten years straight.


2989 BCE Lebron’s Great Feast is over. In this time he has eaten nearly every plant and animal on Earth, and perfected a method of growing beans from seed in five minutes by planting them in a live whale. This method is never utilized by agrarians.


2955 BCE: Lebron obsesses over visiting the moon. He spends fifty years chasing this pursuit, only to be met with failure after failure. It is the low point of his life thus far, until he can’t win a title in Cleveland.


2041 BCE: Lebron crossbreeds some plants in his ancient greenhouse and invents sweet, sweet cannabis. He holds the sweet smoke in his lungs for the first time in history. The Gods descend. “We knew this day would come. You have beaten us. We accept our fate.” Lebron exhaled right in their faces. They exploded, and their fiery guts got in the plants, fertilizing them with the power of the Gods. Whenever you partake of the kind plant, you are become one with the power of the ancient powers.


1955 BCE: Overwhelmed by the constant noise of human civilization, Lebron swims to the bottom of the ocean and lives inside a giant clam for ten years.


1754 BCE: Present at the unveiling of the Code of Hammurabi. He yells “MORE LIKE THE CODE OF HAMMUSHITTY!” with his hand over his mouth. Everyone else in the crowd laughs. They are summarily executed.


1361 BCE: Daps Moses.


850 BCE: Shadow funds the Assyrian Empire out of boredom.


700 BCE: Trains the she-wolf that raises Romulus and Remus.


320 BCE: Is present when Alexander the Great weeps and mourns that there are no worlds left to conquer. He taps on Alexander’s shoulder. “Uhh, Alex, there’s like, a whole giant world you haven’t conquered yet. There are four continents you don’t even know about.”


224 BCE: Goes to China. An excerpt about his trip from his diary: “Hey, this is pretty cool. People should get to know more about this place.” This passage inspired Marco Polo AND Richard Nixon.


0 CE: Is one of the Kings present for the birth of Jesus. He gives him a gift of the finest cannabis oil. “Woah, woah,” said Joseph, who was extremely lame, “You can’t give drugs to a baby.” The Christchild arose from the manger. “Woah, woah J-man. The sweetest of all sweet plants is not a DRUG. Is it a magic carpet that takes you on a consequence-free journey where you touch my father’s beautiful face. It is the greatest of all plants, and the best gift I have received today.” Christbaby looked at the other kings. “You guys did what you could, but this, this is the good shit.” Then he took some of the oil, stuck it between his fingers, lit it up by making a tiny fire in his hands, and smoked it till it was gone. “Oh man. Lebron, you are truly the best king.” Then they high fived so hard it split the clouds in half.


400 CE: The King of the Huns asks Lebron what the name of his heir should be. He suggests “Atrilla the Hun.” The name is workshopped, but they keep the basic structure.


573 CE: Celebrity guest at the opening of the Hagia Sophia.


621 CE: After a petty argument over tree removal with a local priest, Lebron funds the operations of the Prophet Muhammed.


1000 CE: Is very briefly named the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Abdicates the throne to Otto the Great because he “Doesn’t like all this paperwork.”


1153 CE: Speaks to the Pope about the Crusades. “This is pretty silly, seriously. Silly and insane. YOu should stop.” “We will agree to disagree.” “Ehh, I don’t think we should. You should change your mind.”


1320 CE: Present at the birth of The Renaissance, when famous Frieze Sculptor Antonio De Blurzzi pooped in a bucket in front of gathered museum patrons.


1400-1750 CE: Lived in Sweden.


1784 CE: Published “A General Treatise on the Theoretical Sporting of Ring Ball” a pamphlet that proposed a crude version of basketball.


1814 CE: An estate he owned in Melba served as the location of Napoleon's first exile. His shoddy landlording compelled Napoleon to return to France and declare war on all of Europe once more.


1893 CE: First reads about basketball in a newspaper.


1943: Spends 50 Years training in a pressurized chamber in a bid to become the ultimate basketball player.


1993: Plays in his first AAU game.


1999: Accepted a scholarship to attend St. Vincent-St. Mary’s in Akron Ohio, the city he founded more than 7,000 years ago.


2002: Appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time. His games are shown on ESPN.


2003: Drafted first overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers.


2007: Appears in his first NBA Finals, losing to the Spurs 4 games to 0.


2010: Leaves the Cavs to play for the Miami Heat. Appears in four straight NBA Finals and wins two titles, in 2012 and 2013. 

2013: Dunks on Jason Terry.



2014: Leaves the Heat to return to Cleveland.

WHAT A LIFE! What is next for Lebron James!? WIll he win another title with the Cavs, or LEAVE and play somewhere else!? KEEP WATCHING TO FIND OUT!

ANDREW BOGUT'S INNERMOST THOUGHTS, VOL 1. (there will be no volume 2)

DEC 25th, 2014

DIARY:

We lost to the Clippers today, and I have never been more affronted in my life.

Before the game, instead of engineering a single minded focus in their hearts, zeroing in on the target so they can kill deal with their opponents like professionals, the Golden State Warriors were spending  time with their families, who were all flown out to Los Angeles so they could be distractions before the big matchup.

All this mushy minded garbage didn’t do anything to my performance today. This senti-mentality, that’s a sentimental mentality, could not be more foreign to me. I don’t celebrate Christmas, because I don’t believe in Jesus Christ or whatever. It’s just a re-appropriated pagan ritual. And I ESPECIALLY don’t celebrate ANY holidays with my family. I don’t talk to them. It ruins my focus. I had a wife for a week, but I left her when I realized it was going to be a distraction.

Also, I was injured, so I couldn’t play. This loss wasn’t my fault, by body betrayed me, it is laden with weakness. I am sure that weakness comes from distractions buried deep in my bones from when I was a child. My mother’s love wedging its way into my foot bones and sitting there, until it hardens into glass and breaks my bones.

It was everyone else getting distracted by their wives and children. It was downright unprofessional. One guy talked to his kid during warm ups. Totally inappropriate. Your kid should be at boarding school, so he can learn to become an engineer. I consider myself a basketball engineer, I have a very scientific approach to the game. I masturbate once a week, as a way of satisfying biological urges, the same way I poop. This is all anyone needs. Anything more would detract from my single minded focus on beating the Los Angeles Clippers, who are my hated enemy. They bounced me from the playoffs last year, a defeat that burns in my eyes and heart every day. I despise them almost as much as I despise my mother, whose impulsive decision to love me when I was a child continues to microfracture my bones to this day.

When I first got in the league, I wasn’t competitive enough, and I knew it. So I locked myself in a coffin. If I leaned over, I would be cut by the swords. I stood perfectly still. I was in mortal combat with those blades. Now, every time I get on the court, I imagine that my opponent  is one of those razor sharp Katanas, threatening my life, and I seek to bend them in the way I could not bend the tempered steel I faced for five days in that coffin.

I wish I had defeated the swords or died in the coffin, but my mother let me out and fed me instead of letting me face the challenge on my own. Her attempt to make me weak was the water poured on the molten steel of my heart. It hardened me forever. Now I only stare forward, looking to plow through my goals. It is the only way it can be.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

A BISCUTBALL GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS DECORATION


These Christmas decorations are KILLING YOU! Reindeer, Santas, Jesus; that ain’t your scene! You love the NBA! Your love for the NBA boils over in your heart! You need to spice up your decorations with NBATTITUDE, and BISCUTBALL is here to help!

Look at this tree:
Bulbs, Snowflakes. This tree STINKS. I need some NBATTITUDE! There’s only one solution!
NBA CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT!
First, punch a hole into a card, as I have done with Sarunas here.
THEN, tie a ribbon through the hole!

NOW, hang your NEW ORNAMENT on the tree!
LOOK AT THAT. That’s a tree with WITH REAL NBATTITUDE!
My mom made this snowflake out of tongue depressors, white paint and glitter. It might be a tasteful, homemade wall decoration, perfect for the season, but I am not a tasteful guy who like to park my ass in front of a TV and watch homemade decorations: I like to zone out in front of THE WORLD’S GREATEST ATHLETES competing AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF COMPETITION, with the sort of NBATTITUDE you can only get from the PRESSURE COOKER of the ASSOCIATION. So I decided to SPICE THIS GUY UP!
Yeah, that’s a Wes Unseld Coaching card! I stuck a piece of take to the back, stick side facing towards the room…
...so I could stick it to the snowflake, giving it REAL NBATTITUDE!!!!!! THAT’S A HALL OF FAME SNOWFLAKE, DISHING OUTLETS AND SETTING SCREENS WITH THE BEST OF THEM!
Charming village my family inherited from my grandmother when she passed!? WHO WANTS THAT BULLSHIT!?
YEAH THAT’S ONE CALIENTE (hot) VILLAGE! CAN’T GOVERN THIS CITY, BECAUSE THE RESIDENTS LIVE BY THE CODE OF NBATTITUDE!GO to work!? HELL NO, WE’RE HERE TO DUNK A BASKETBALL! Pay taxes to maintain roads? SHUT UP, LIBS, WE’RE HERE TO CROSS SOME DUDES OVER! ONE TWO BANG BANG, SWISH.
Schools? AINT NOTHING WORTH KNOWING YOU CAN’T LEARN PLAYING BASKETBALL, SO SAYS ME, THE NEW KINGMAYOR, MICHAEL JORDAN.
WELCOME TO BASKETTOWN, WHERE PEOPLE WHO ARE BAD AT BASKETBALL GET THEIR HEADS CHOPPED OFF AND TURNED INTO BASKETBALLS!
Oh, look, picture of me sitting on and standing near various Mall Santas! Probably conjours good memories of my childhood long passed in the hearts and minds of SOME PEOPLE, but NOT ME, MAN. I am just looking at this thing and thinking “GET THAT TUBSTER OUT OF HERE, HE CAN’T EVEN TOUCH RIM, I need to see some guys with real NBATTITUDE to get in the HOOPSMAS SPIRIT!

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT! This shit is making me want to really sit on the ground, so hard that there is an imprint where my butt goes where I can really fucking relax and sit in front of a television and get taken to A ZONE with these NBA Games that are on tomorrow, man! “Corbin, we are opening gifts” GET OUT OF MY FACE OLD LADY, JOHN WALL HAS 12 ASSISTS IN THE THIRD QUARTER!” “Corbin, your grandma needs help with her wheelchair.” “PFFT, WHAT DO I CARE ABOUT THAT, CAN’T YOU SEE THAT LEBRON AND WADE ARE SQUARING OFF FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE LEBRON WENT HOME TO CLEVELAND!?”  Corbin we’re all taking a picture together, our whole family, we haven’t spoken in ten years but we decided to bury the hatchet and start the process of healing old wounds, so we can be whole again, and we are taking a picture together to mark the occasion.” WHAT!? FAMILY IS AN ARBITRARY CONCEPT, LADY. YOU KNOW WHAT ISN’T ARBITRARY, THOUGHT, THE CONSTRUCT OF A BASKETBALL GAME, AND THERE’S ONE ON RIGHT NOW, THE LOS. ANGELES. LAKERS AND THE CHICAGO BULLS, YOU EVER HEARD OF THESE HISTORIC TEAMS, AND THIS GAME IS SO IMPORTANT, IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE, AND I AM NOT LIFTING ONE OUNCE OF MY OWN MEAT OFF OF THIS FLOOR TO WALK OVER TO THE COMMEMORATIVE BANNER YOU ALL MADE TOGETHER AND GET MY PICTURE TAKEN FOR ANYONE, BEACUSE I HAVE TRANSCENDED ALL OF THAT BULLCRAP, I LIVE MY LIFE BY THE PRINCIPLES OF NBATTITUDE NOW AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT OR GO OUTSIDE AND SUCK ON A RAW FISH ‘MOM’ OR SHOULD I SAY ‘CLARA’ BECAUSE I KNOW THAT’S YOUR REAL NAME, LADY! AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED BY ONLY PARENT IS THE ASSOCIATION, THEY BROUGHT ME INTO THIS WORLD AND THEY WILL BE AT MY BEDSIDE AS I LEAVE IT, A FATHER, A MOTHER AND A CHILD ALL IN ONE!”

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Every Team That Has Ever Played in the NBA, From Memory:

Atlanta Hawks
Portland Trail Blazers
Mil-walk-ee Bucks
Charlotte Bobcats Hornets
Uhh, Utah Jazz?
Kentucky Kernels (it was like a popcorn thing, right?)
New Orleans Pelicans
Seattle Supersonics
OKC Thundermen
New Jersey Nets
New York Nets
Brooklyn Nets
Secaucus Nets
Pennsylvanian Appalachia Nets
Pittsburgh Black and Gold Basketball Team
The Razors
Sioux Falls Skyforce
St. Louis Hawks
Sacramento Kings
St. Louis Kings
Kansas City Kings
Las Vegas Kings
D-League Select Team
New York Basketball Yankees
CSKA Moscow
Barcelona
Harlem Globetrotters, that year Wilt was on the team
The Spirits of St. Louis
ONE: Run the Jewles
TWO: Sun Kill Moon
THREE: Shellac
FOUR: Can I be real, I didn’t listen to a lot of music this year and I am sort of using other lists to catch up. I listened to baseball podcasts instead, it was dumb
Chicago Bulls
Chicago Royals
Chicago Hornets
Chicago Nets
A side note about Wilt being on the Globetrotters: when he was on the team, was he the microphone guy, who initiated all the pranks? Or did he know that wasn’t in his wheelhouse, so he deferred to Jimmy Curls or whoeverthefuck?
Golden State Warriors
Oakland Brave Warriors
Oakland Bravemen
Oakland Braves
Oakland Sioux
Oakland Sioux Falls Skyforces
Oakland Oaks
Oakland Oaken Sioux
Oakland Oaken Sious Falls Oakforces
West
East
Rookie
Sophmore
Team Shaq
Team Webber
Team Chuck
Team, uhh, Greg Anthony?
Team Reggie Miller
Team Reggie Evans
Team Evan, Evan’s team, Evan from home room, he wears a black T-Shirt every day
Outkast
Kentucky
BearSquad
BearSquad II
BearSquad III: Now It’s Bearsonal
Los Angeles Lakers
Minneapolis Lakes
George Mikan’s Amazing Lakemen
Los Angeles Clippers
San Diego Clippers
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Coyotes
Vancouver Grizzlies
Memphis Grizzlies
Florida Magic
Miami Heat
Miami Floridians
New York Knickerbockers
Maine Craberbockers
Philadelphia 76erbokers
Boston Celterbockers
New Jersey Neterbockers
New Jersey NutterButters
Real Madriderbockers
Dallas Mavericks
Houston Rockets
Houston Ass-pros
John’s Woodens
James Naismitherbockers
Bockerbocker Bockerbockers

Saturday, November 29, 2014

AN EXCITING NEW WAY TO THINK ABOUT BASKETBALL IN SPACE!

Basketball.


Visualizations. They’re telling us more and more about how the game works in space.


Written and spoken language. It is the universal conduit of thought, the line human beings use to connect with each other.


Is there a gap between visualizations and language in modern NBA discourse? Let’s see:


(Via Nylon, duh)


“As you can see, Anthony was excellent shooting from the wings last year, particularly the left wing. He practically never shot from the corners, though, a result of his having the ball in his hands constantly and not having a lot of opportunities to spot up in the corners. His midrange game consumed a lot of possessions but wasn’t particularly effective, except from the right baseline, where he devastated defenders with his patented post-up turnaround jumper. Anthony could expand his game by moving off ball more, but New York has a dearth of point guard options and the Triangle Offense isn’t necessarily designed to create corner looks, at least not yet.”


(Rips off the tweed sweater they made me wear to deliver that LECTURE, takes off his old person glasses and replaces them with cool, black rimmed young person glasses, the international symbol of a cool, smart guy)


Translating symbols into language: PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE! Where is the visceral jolt of basketball’s movement, given to the reader like so many hot hamburgers straight from Bob Ryan’s grill? But what if we were to combine a bunch of contexts TOGETHER to create a NEW LANGUAGE we can use to talk about basketball in a way that is informative and universal and exciting?


Ladies and gentlemen. Today, while I was taking a shower, I created that Language. Behold:


THE EUROBOARD OF BASKETBALL DELIGHTS.
Is it complicated? Absolutely. But I will explain: take in this ABSURD Eurostep from Giannis Antetokounmpo:


Now Giannis took off from behind the free throw line on the left wing, landed right above the foul line, and took his shooting step in the middle part of the key. Are you bored yes? Me too, or I WAS before I put this bad boy together!




As you can see, with THE EUROBOARD OF BASKETBALL DELIGHTS, that boring ol’ explanation of that unreal play becomes “Giannis went from the Mediterranean to Croatia to Southern Poland on a single Eurostep, then dropped it right in the Baltic with a sweet finger roll!” So expressive. So moving. A crisp, clean visualization never worked so well with high caliber prose. Two dancers, one mighty and strong (Visualization) spinning a beautiful, lithe ballerina (Prose) and moving the jaded ballet audience to tears in their seats.





Damian Lillard loses Parsons on a Wes Matthews screen in Bulgaria, catches the ball in Spain, near the border with France, Andorra-ish, and drills the game winning three pointer.




Wade retrieves the ball on an expedition in Northern Africa, dishes to Chalmers, riding on the Black Sea, who passes to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern resident Norris Cole, who tosses it up to Lebron James, who is SPRINTING across the Former Soviet Republics and JAMS it home over Jason Terry, who foolishly decided to try and challenge him in Lithuania!





This one is a classic, a “Jet Setter’s Play” that goes to all of Europe’s hop spots. We got Manu killing some time in Turkey. Then he and Tim Duncan execute a pick and roll in the Black Sea. Manu passes to Patty Mills, chilling with a sweet drink in the Med, who passes to Tim Duncan, ROLLING across Western Ukraine, who dishes RIGHT to Boris Diaw, all alone in the BEAUTIFUL green hills of Scotland, who BEATS THE BUZZER with a corner three pointer!

So, if your strategic writing is getting “A little dry,” get on the train! Carmelo Anthony is waiting for you in Russia, posted up and ready to launch one of his PATENTED midrange turnaround bombs!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

HIGHLIGHT REVIEWS: 11/27/2014

(This is the first edition of a new daily (Really Corbin?) feature at Biscutball where I review Highlight mixes on the internet. I hope it's not too square.)

Stephen Curry Full Highlights 2014.11.25 at Heat - 40 Pts, 7 Assists, 8 Threes, PLAYSTATION Curry!”


Steph Curry drills a lot of three pointers off the dribble. It’s a tremendous magic trick, but is it one the audience is used to? Fans of good screening should turn their eyes to 1:08, when Draymond Green takes out Shabbaz Napier with extreme screen prejudice. I’m not even one review into this project and I am obsessing over screening. I am wildly unqualified to do this.


We’ve seen Steph cover this round already. Is there something he can do to take his off the dribble three point assaults to the next level? May I suggest, and I realize the critic is endevoring to become the artist here, Steph spending a game exclusively taking three pointers a step or two out from the line? Riskier from a “Winning the game” perspective, but it would be an asthetic achievement par excellence.


“PLAYSTATION CURRY” is a silly thing to out in the title, but I am here to review highlights, not marketing.


GRADE: ONE WHALE, it’s a whale and that’s awesome, but you’ve seen a whale before. It’s time to see TWO WHALES, or, god forbid, THREE WHALES from Steph.

Wesley Matthews Full Highlights 2014.11.26 at Hornets - 28 Pts, 6 threes, SiCK Shooting!”



Workmanlike big night from Wes Matthews, who hits a lot of spot up threes. I watched this game, because it is my eternal curse to watch even the MOST average Trail Blazer games. Mike Rice said that Wes Matthews leads the league in “Three pointers made off an offensive rebound” which is the biggest nothing stat of all time because:
ONE: There’s no way that sample ever gets big enough to be stable year to year.
TWO: It’s completely dependant on his team’s offensive rebounding production, for which he accounts for like 5%.
THREE: Not pace adjusted. Let’s see those “Highest percentage of three pointers made off of the the percentage of possessions where his team got an offensive rebound,” and WE’LL TALK.
The pleasures of Wes Matthews are subtle, for refined pallets only. He makes a nice leg kick at about 1:50. If you can’t appreciate it, you’re a pedant.


GRADE: PRETTY GOOD FINE CAVIAR, FOR ONLY THOSE WITH THE FINEST TASTE IN THE WORLD




Charlotte Hornets guard Brian Roberts lit up the Blazers for the second time this year, pouring in a career-high 24 points in the loss. Unspectacular, aesthetically, a lot of spot up threes and some solid drives to the basketb. The final baskets that take him over the top occur when the game was out of Charlotte’s reach, giving them an air a deep melancholy. Most of his outburst took place in the first half. He gets that look that so-so players get when they’re on the war path, the moment when their innermost basketball soul merges with their physical being and show its face to the world:

Always an unsettling moment, when pure basketball rage flashes to the surface. This highlight package also features Michael Jordan in a black turtleneck.




GRADE: THREE GLOWERING JORDANS


VINE REVIEW: ANDREW WIGGINS SWATS JABARI PARKER




C’mon. Wiggins didn’t do hardly any of the work here. Young gets up the REAL contest and Wiggins cleans up on the weakside. Call me when is is man on man, at the rim two eyes locked, someone has to die here, winner makes the Hall-of-Fame, loser gets shipped out to Europe to spend the rest of his days getting “Where is he now?” articles written about his meager production for PBC Levski Sofia LTD.


GRADE: D-


VINE REVIEW: GERALD GREEN QUICKLY DUNKS OFF AN INBOUNDS


A good Vine, where Gerald Green catches an inbounds pass and reverse dunks at the rim. Aaron Afflalo, a basketball player with dignity, also flails in a vain attempt to disrupt the pass. Someday a player will really figure out hot to guard the inbounds and it will become something people write articles about. On a podcast, Zach Lowe will be all “We know about Dave Basketman’s savant like ability to guard an inbounds,” and you’ll nod, all “Yeah, I always thought that.”


GRADE: B+

Best Plays of the game: Grand Rapids Drive vs. Los Angeles D-Fenders, 11/26/2014



This video is 85% show dunks in an Airplane Hangar.


GRADE: TWO SMALL PILES OF COCAINE