On Andrea Bargnani

Andrea Bargnani hasn’t performed like a number one pick.

That isn’t news for anyone. The Italian big man, while showing flashes of All-Star scoring potential, has also shown flashes of D-League worthy defense. His rebounding has been just as bad. All in all, he hasn’t lived up to his top billing. But honestly, he didn’t have top billing. Yes, he was drafted #1 overall, but was there a talent available in that year who was a slam dunk? Brandon Roy was a walking injury risk, LaMarcus Aldridge was still unproven, JJ Redick was thought to be a shorter Adam Morrison, both great college players who would be unable to translate their success to the NBA. Rajon Rondo was a huge project. We can say with relative certainty that the Raptors front office wasn’t necessarily wrong when they picked a 7 foot big man with shot blocking ability and 3 point range.

But that’s all in the past. Right now, we know that Bargnani can’t be the centerpiece of a successful team. So what to do with him? He’s probably best suited for a team with a strong team defense around him, to protect and cover up his own defensive liabilities. He would also be most helpful on a team that struggles to score. One team fits the bill to a T: The Milwaukee Bucks. They’re one of the best defenses (and worst offenses) in the league. That’s good because Il Mago is one of the best offensive (and worst defensive) big men in the league. He would have the second best defensive center in the league protecting the rim for him in Andrew Bogut, and he’d have all the offensive touches he can handle. It’s a perfect fit.

So what can the Raptors expect in return? That’s tough. They would probably want some young guys, either Luc Richard Mbah a Moute or Chris Douglas Roberts (Larry Sanders is basically out of the question). However, in order to make salaries match, they’d need to take on someone like Corey Maggette, whose contract is two years shorter than Bargnani’s, but slightly more expensive per year.

That said, the Raptors would probably jump on this deal. It’d allow them to rid themselves of Bargnani’s bad contract and get a promising young player. If picks are thrown in, that’s just icing on the cake. For the Bucks, they’d get someone who can instantly step in and score 20+ a game, something they sorely need. They’d also move Maggette’s contract for someone with their prime in front of them. They’d probably want to keep Mbah a Moute, a talented young defender who started more than 50 games this last year for them. They’d also probably be hesitant to throw in picks. It depends on what they believe Bargnani is worth.

This wouldn’t be a trade where both teams get better. Toronto would, on paper at least, get worse, and Milwaukee would be making a huge gamble. However, Toronto would also get salary relief and the start of a proper rebuilding, and if the gamble pays off for Milwaukee, it could propel them back into the playoffs.

Dr. Balllove, or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love March Madness

*I’m starting to have serious doubts about that title. But I really wanted to use the “Dr. Strangelove” subtitle, and I can’t think of anything else that fits for the actual title. Crucify me if you must.

For a long time, I mocked college basketball. To be honest, I mocked all of college sports. It was easy. You could see that it was obviously inferior to the pro game, be it basketball, football, or baseball (I didn’t actually watch college, or pro, baseball, I’m just assuming this). And in the case of college football, I still do mock them, although this has more to do with the BCS, which is another article altogether. But I learned something about college basketball last year. I still do believe it’s inferior to the pro game. But I’ve learned not to judge it so harshly.
The fact that college basketball is, at it’s core, a lesser offering then the NBA should be obvious. It has to be. Only the best of the best college basketball players actually manage to make it to the NBA, where they’re blessed with teams that have more money and resources at their disposal, solely to train these players, and the players themselves have more time to train and mature into their bodies. So it’s nothing to be ashamed of, NCAA. It’s just a fact of life. No big deal.
Notice I said that college basketball was inferior at it’s core. The reasoning for that wording is, college basketball isn’t meant to be taken as is. There’s a certain beauty to watching two .500 teams battle it out in mid-February with, in all honesty, nothing on the line. You’ve still got amazing athletes making amazing plays with regularity. The NCAA’s focus is elsewhere. It’s true, every once in a while, you’ll see athletic plays on par with the NBA, but on the whole, college basketball is theater framed as sport. A lot of it is by design. By making their postseason in a one-and-done format, college basketball officials are embracing the theatricality of their sport. If they truly cared about making sure the best team won the trophy at the end of the year, they would play series, be they best of 3 or best of 7. But they don’t. Why? Because the essence of college basketball is the upset. That is the magical word that defines March Madness for the casual fan. That is what the NCAA has embraced by making a one-and-done postseason tournament. That is why college basketball is theater, not sport. And that’s why I love it, despite myself.

A Letter to Mr. Ebert

A long time ago, Roger Ebert wrote that he believed video games could never be art. He later changed his view, and eventually arrived at the conclusion that he should have never brought it up. Unfortunately, he did, and because I'm in touch with the zeitgeist, I've written a letter to Mr. Ebert, explaining just what I think of him and his taste in art. 



Dear Mr. Roger Ebert: Kindly fuck the fuck off.
A long time ago, you said you didn’t believe video games could be considered art in the foreseeable future. That may be the most pompous, idiotic thing I’ve ever heard someone say, and I’ve listened to Bill O’Reilly speak for more than 30 seconds. Do you really not believe that The Legend of Zelda is art? Do you really not believe that Final Fantasy is art? Do you really think that Mario and his friends aren’t art? And those are just the mainstream video games. There are so many more that were probably suggested to you by your readers. Jesus Fucking Christ, if you truly believe that video games can‘t be art, kindly fellate a shotgun.
You must believe literature is art. You obviously believe movies are art. You’re a movie critic for god sakes (You may refer to yourself as a film critic, but that is pure, pretentious bullshit. You write pretty about moving pictures and get paid for it. Don’t get a swelled head.)! So why is it so hard for you to believe that a video game can be art? You say that the fact that player affects the game precludes it from being art. How is that so? As you mentioned Clive Barker saying, it allows the player to experience a wider range of emotions. In the end, I’m not sure you have a reason for disliking video games. At the risk of sounding standoffish, I feel you’re being a snob. You tell us that you would gladly destroy all the video games in the world to save the works of Shakespeare. You tell us that a person who values a great video game over Huckleberry Finn is a fool. This is nothing more than cultural classism.  I assume this is how art critics, those pretentious buffoons, felt when Jackson Pollack was first dripping paint on canvas.
So I’m sorry Mr. Ebert. Until you can come up with some stronger reasoning then “they’re not Shakespeare or Twain,” I won’t be able to take you as anything more than a real life representation of Abe Simpson, afraid that a camera flash had stolen his soul. Fuck. You.
                                                                  Sincerely, Atique Virani

Ebert has been rebutted much better than this, by much better writers. My personal favorite is Michael Swaim's piece in Cracked.com. 

A Look Back At The NBA

As you can see by the above title, the NBA is making it's stretch run towards the title. Because of the NFL draft, pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, and March Madness, this all-too-important part of the NBA season is overlooked by all but the most diehard fans. This also means that the NBA season has passed it's midway point, and it's now possible to look at it with a sense of objectivity. Here, I want to frame the NBA through the prism of the end of year award races.
MVP:
In my mind, the obvious pick for MVP is Lebron James. He's still the best player in the world, whether you simply look at the stats, or actually watch the games. He's the leader of one of the best teams in the league and a legitimate contender for at least a conference title, if not a championship. What more do you need? This is one of those rare cases where the best player in the league, and the best player on one of the best teams in the league are one and the same.
However, I know the chances of James winning MVP are slim. Why? For one, he's already won it two straight times, and voters can tire of awarding MVP to the same player too many times in a row, whether he's Lebron James or Michael Jordan. He also happens to not be Derrick Rose, this season's breakout player. Rose has exploded this year, not only showing individual excellence, but also pushing his team to the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. So why is he not my pick? It's not that I believe he's not deserving. In a league without James, I would have no problem with Rose, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, or, heck, even Steve Nash winning the trophy. Strong cases can be made for all them. However, as long as a healthy Lebron James is still in his prime, the MVP trophy is his to earn, and he's certainly done that this year.
DPOY:
The Defensive Player Of The Year award is perhaps the second most coveted award in the NBA, after the MVP. To win, a player must show that he can not only put up good stats on the defensive side of the ball, but also make his team defense better as a whole. In my mind, there's one player who does that more than anyone: Dwight Howard. This is an obvious pick, yes, but for good reason. Even though the Magic traded away their best perimeter defender, Mickael Pietrus, and a solid interior defender, Marcin Gortat away to acquire defensive liability Hedo Turkoglu and defensive neutrality Jason Richardson, he's kept them on pace to finish with the third-best Defensive Efficiency (a measure of points allowed per 100 possessions) in the league at 99.0. Kevin Garnett and Joakim Noah also deserve consideration for their respective team successes, but they have the luxury of excellent team defense. Howard has been forced to cover for the mistakes of his wings, as well as handle his man, and he's excelled.
ROY:
Blake Griffin. End of story. I look stupid for picking Demarcus Cousins, but there's nothing I can do about it.
6TH MAN:
My pick for 6th Man goes to Glen Davis, under the assumption the Celtics pick up a bought out center, and Davis continues to come off the bench to anchor a suddenly fearsome Celtics 2nd squad, after the addition of Jeff Green and return of Delonte West. Davis has been one of the better help defenders in the league for years now, and his ability to move his feet, cut off angles to the basket, and draw charges is almost unparalleled. Ryan Anderson's offensive contributions were also considered.
MIP:
This year's Most Improved Player has to be Derrick Rose. His improvement from last year is simply amazing. He managed to significantly increase his usage without sacrificing efficiency, and he was able to do this by becoming a deadly long-range shooter and getting to the FT line at an increased rate, where he also hit a higher percentage. It's not just the scoring though. He managed to increase his TRB, AST, STL, and BLK % while bettering his Offensive and Defensive Ratings and almost doubling his Win Shares per 48 minutes. I'm starting to feel unsure about not naming him MVP, in fact, so I'll stop there. Suffice it to say, Derrick Rose is your MIP.
COY:
Your Coach of the Year this year has been Gregg Popovich. Yes, he's been blessed with great talent, but he's also done an amazing job of integrating his veteran core with younger role players, and transitioning from the greatest power forward of all time leading the squad, to one of the best international players and 6th men of all time leading it. Through it all, he's masterfully managed his rotations, saved his important players for the playoffs, somehow extricated the best record in the league by far from his team, and, perhaps most surprisingly, is objectively liked by almost all NBA fans. That, my friends, is a difficult task.

So, that was a look at the important awards of this NBA season. With the exception of MVP, I think these will turn out correct. Regardless, I'm excited as hell to see these playoffs. We should be in for some great matchups. The NBA truly is faaaaaaantastic.

What To Do About The Raptors?

So, you may not know this, but I'm a Toronto sports fan, in the sports where Toronto has a team. Unfortunately, this means I'm also a Raptors fan, and therefore subject to all the heartache we Raptors fans know so well. This team is a little different. In the beginning of the season, they showed promise as a squad of youngsters who were willing to go all out every night and overachieve. This effort seemed to fall by the wayside, however, when Reggie Evans got hurt (Evans was, not coincidentally, the best rebounder in the league according to advanced metrics, and an integral part of this Raptors team. Jay Triano has seemed unable to coax consistent effort from this squad ever since the injury, and the Raptor's defense has suffered. I'm not sure if Triano deserves to keep his job, and it's bad form for me to call him out based on the injuries the Raptors have suffered, but one thing's for sure. At times this season, this team has looked downright uninterested, and for a respected coach like Triano, that's unacceptable.
However, life in the last two months hasn't been all bad. We've seen DeMar Derozan mature seemingly before our eyes, as, since the New Year, he's been averaging over 20 ppg, while also showing flashes of aggressiveness and dominance. He's still got a long way to go, but for a sophomore, he's performed admirably given the situation around him. Andrea Bargnani has proven that he can be a legitimate scorer in the NBA, provided he has a banger (like Reggie Evans) to take the punishment down low. Jose Calderon has rebounded from his terrible season last year, and while he's still not back to his All Star worthy form from three years ago, he's proven he can be a solid veteran PG. Ed Davis has been perhaps the most pleasant surprise for the Raps, as his per-minute stats place him at 12th in the league in TRR and 5th in the league in blocks per game in blocks per game among PFs, according to Hoopdata. Jerryd Bayless has also shown flashes of what made him a high draft pick, and while he is still very much a project, Raptors fans should have hope.
This organization and it's fans are obviously looking forward to the future. With a high lottery pick looming, let's hope the Raptors can find someone to complement Bargnani inside, without being the offensive liability Evans has been. The top candidates seem to be Enes Kanter or, if the lottery balls bounce the right way, Jared Sullinger. Those links will take you to the DraftExpress profiles on both those players, where you can see that they're both seen as guys with strong inside games, which is something the Raptors definitely need. For now, we're not sure where the Raptors will fall in the lottery, so all we can hope for is continued improvement from the young guys, and, hopefully, a better showing from the coach.

The State of Hip-Hop Today

So as I was leaving the gym the other day, I ran into a friend from high school. Now, this guy claims to be a "hip-hop head", and he seems pretty knowledgeable about rap music today. Eventually, the talk turned to music, and I offhandedly referred to Illmatic. What happened next left my flabbergasted. He said to me: "Oh yeah, Illmatic, I've heard of that album, it's pretty good, isn't it?" Now, those of you who are reading this blog and have any knowledge of music whatsoever should know that Illmatic is, bar none, the greatest album in rap history. Someone who purports to love rap music should listen to it at least once a month, if not once a week. What struck is me that this is a guy who passes for a fan of rap music among today's youth, of which I am a sad member. That spoke to the sad state of hip-hop music today. I'm not sure how to fix it, all I know is that when kids can quote Drake, and yet have no knowledge of Illmatic, humanity as a whole needs to worry. So I implore you: find someone who hasn't listened to the classic albums from rap's Golden Age, sit them down, and play some of them, one after another. Be a shepherd to these poor sheep.

The New Kanye Album

I definitely need to devote more time to this blog. Sorry, but finals have messed my schedule up. I wanted to post today, because a couple of weeks ago, Kanye West released his latest album, and it was hailed by just about every magazine and website in existence as a masterpiece. Well I disagree. I'm not saying Kanye didn't make a great sounding piece of music, though. What he didn't do, is come through on the promise that this album could have been.
Kanye's recent behavior led us to believe that he was going to the lab to create the greatest, most mindblowing album we had ever seen. This...was not close. I won't disagree with those who say the production and sound is top notch; this is certainly the best sounding music money can buy. I will disagree with those who say that this album said anything. To me, this was nothing more than the rap equivalent of Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, a pretty sounding album with absolutely no depth behind it.
And that's what frustrates me. This is, to me, more of a disappointment than Drake's putrid full length, if only because I had believed that Kanye would be able to deliver something more. I've already been pilloried by my friends for knocking this album, but I could care less. It is, in my opinion, nothing more than a glossy mantelpiece.