The Eleventh Day of Gheorghe-mas: 11 drinks and rambling...

On the eleventh day of Gheorghe-mas, Big Gheorghe gave to me:

Eleven Drinks and Rambling
(Way More Than) Ten Highlights
Nine Clips You Tubing
Eight Men A Milking
Seven Balls A-Bouncin' (ngs)
Six Rules Worth Knowing
Five Golden Rings
Four-gone Conclusions
Three Saluki Tallies
Two Recurring Features
And a Doofus Dancing (hee, hee)

The approach of a New Year always leaves me in the mood to want to take stock of my life. To really sit down and take a look at the things I've said and done over the past year. Actually, that's not true. That's just an intro I made up for this post because I didn't have enough time to finish the post I had originally planned. Fear not, I'll get that post done at some point in the near future. However, I didn't want my busy schedule (read: alcoholism) to keep the rest of G:TB from being able to put a nice tidy bow on 2009 by finishing the 12 Days of Gheorghemas. So, with that in mind, I have decided to go ahead with a post that I was slowly working on over the holidays. It's the long awaited return of my multi-sport ramblings. These are, as always, in no particular order and are, likely, interesting to nobody but me.

- I may have mentioned this before, but I've rarely been as wrong about the NBA prospects of somebody as I was about Carl Landry. The guy's really, really good. We're talking possibly better than Paul Millsap here (which makes him the class of the suddenly effective and popular crop of scrappy, undersized PFs who currently litter the NBA landscape). Not sure how I missed so badly on him. I'm thinking its the combination of my bias against undersized power forwards and my bias against Big 10 basketball.

- While I'm talking about guys I missed on, I really really missed on Tyreke Evans. I first saw Evans play in high school and immediately hated him. He dribbled too much, he didn't involve his teammates and his jump shot was so ugly even Bill Cartwright had to look away. Even after a stellar finish to his freshman year at Memphis I remained unsold. Well, now he's putting up huge numbers for an overachieving Sacramento team and is killing it for my fantasy team to the tune of 25/5/5. Ridiculous. I was right about one thing though. He's not a PG, not even close. He's a less athletic Jerry Stackhouse with a better handle. Which,
ultimately, makes him more effective than Stack because he can create a shot for himself (or a teammate) at any time. If he can straighten out his jumpshot he could be a perennial All-Star.

- Oh, TJ wanted me to remind everyone that Joakim Noah is currently 3rd in the NBA in rebounding. TJ loves that guy.

- You who had a bold prediction that turned out great? The Wheelhome's own Jerry Flantastico. Earlier this year he tabbed Robert Meachem as a "super sleeper" in fantasy football. How right you were Jerry. If you had Meachem during the second half of this season, I'm betting he won you at least 2 games with his proclivity for multiple TD games.

- Not many people are talking about it because the Raptors are terrible (and in Canada) but Chris Bosh is having a monster season. At least Torontonians will have something to remember him by when he's averaging a double-double in Miami next season.

- I was watching those Raptors a few nights ago when I realized I had no idea who one of their players were. Now, this is extremely rare for me. I can not only pick out every player on the floor but (usually) tell you where they went to college/high school/etc. However, I couldn't figure this guy out at all. Then, he got fouled and went to the line. It was none other than Summer League legend Marco Bellinelli. Good God has that guy gotten swarthy over the last couple of years. I'd bet good money that guy has a scarf collection to rival the hat/shoe collection of any other NBA player (A roster full of guys like this is one of the many reasons the Raptors are awful).

- Fun fact: Okay, it's not really fun but it will probably blow your mind. Jerry Sloan has been coaching the Utah Jazz a year longer than the Orlando Magic franchise has been in existence. Jerry Sloan also thinks you're a no good slacker who needs a haircut, a good solid shave with a straight razor, and a second job.

- If you caught Rob's 'Year in Review' you know that he thinks I know an awful lot about professional basketball. That's good, because I think I do too. I am, after all the guy who (before the draft) told anyone who would listen that Michael Beasley was a SF in the NBA. You know, because he's 6'8" and all. Well, guess what? Yep, he's starting at SF and doing quite well these days. So, with that said, I'd like to take this time to give the Portland Trailblazers some advice:

Brandon Roy is your PG. Stop fighting it. He handles the ball exclusively in crunch time and is generally much more effective when operating with the ball in his hands. His handle, size, creativity and unselfish nature have conspired to make this the case since virtually his first day in the league (Even going back to Washington, he was often the PG especially late in games). So, stop trying to make him play with average PGs who should be coming off the bench (Steve Blake) or PGs who have to have the ball in their hands to be effective because of style of play and/or a limited offensive game (Andre Miller) and just make him your full time PG. Take Jerryd Bayless (who's been killing it since he started to garner major minutes in mid-December) and insert him at the 2. He can guard PGs and Roy can guard 2s. Now you have two young, athletic guards who can play together and you can build around them. You should've never signed Andre Miller in the first place so stop trying to justify it. He and Roy don't play well together and don't like playing with each other. This is not going to change. Accept it and move on.

- Did you know that Jonathan Bender (he of the McDonald's All-American game scoring record) was back in the NBA? I sure as hell didn't. Shit, I doubt anyone other than TR did. But there he was, suited up for the Knicks just a few days ago. This begs one question: Does Donnie Walsh have a room full of dead horses that he goes into periodically and hits with baseball bats?

- I, like many males in my generation, grew up collecting baseball cards. For a while there, I was pretty into it too. Collecting rookie cards from guys like Rickey Henderson, Mike Schmidt, Ozzie Smith, Ken Griffey and plenty of others. I also managed to acquire some very valuable cards featuring guys like Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Harmon Killebrew and others. I also happened to hear many men in my father's generation bemoan the fact that their mother's had given their cards away and how much money they'd have in those cards if they still had them. Naturally, I decided that this wouldn't be me and I would hold on to my cards as I grew older. I even stored them in a fireproof cabinet for a number of years. Well, wouldn't you know it...the bottom fell out of the sports card business a few years back and even the cards I own that are still worth money are nearly fucking impossible to sell.

Yet another in a long line of reasons why baseball fucking suck goat balls. Thanks a lot Doubleday. You syphilitic prick.

- That little rant reminded me of something I thought of earlier. Baseball is eerily similar to Whitney. Old, full of itself, prone to long, annoying stories about itself that nobody cares to hear, and completely fucking useless.

- Not to get all Bill Mahrer here but I have a new rule: Nobody is the Mariano Rivera of anything, except for Mariano Rivera. No football player, no basketball player, nothing. Unless you can show me somebody who ONLY plays the last 20-23% of a game and is brought in cold to close out said game, kindly shut the fuck up.

- One last thing: I hate hearing people bitch about their cable providers as much as anyone I know but I'd like to issue a heartfelt "Fuck you, eat my shit" to Brighthouse Networks for not renewing their contract with Fox. Yes, Fox. Not the MLB network or the NFL network or even MSNBC. No, Fox. The company who'll be broadcasting approximately 30 football games over the next two months. Am I supposed to just live in fucking bar from now on you assholes? DirecTV just got a new customer, you fucking soulless cum guzzlers.