BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #16: THE ORLANDO MAGIC

ORLANDO, FL. Magic Franchisee Rich DeVos announced that his team would be making an exciting change today. “For more than 25 years, the Orlando Magic have been a pillar in the community. But we have decided that “The Magic is Over.’ It is time for a name that represents something more tangible and athletic than “Magic” which is the product of Wizards, who are lazy, unathletic guys who chill in robes all day and worship Satan. It is time for THE ORLANDO DRAGIC.

Mr. DeVos, this is certainly a bold new step for the franchise. Is the team trying to woo Goran Dragic to the franchise?

“No, no, no, we are committed to Elfrid Payton’s development. We think he has a bright future with the club. But do we want him, and EVERYONE on the team, to emulate his hard edged, cerebral style of play? Absolutely. We hold Goran AND Zoran in very high esteem here at the Amway Center.”

I am just having trouble grasping… I could MAYBE understand naming the team the “Jordans” or the “Shaqs,” because they are retired players who are both surefire Hall-of-Famers. But Goran Dragic is a. NOT retired and b. uhh, a very good player, but not a Hall-of-Fame type guy…

“Well we all have opinions about who belongs in the hall. All I will say is that I think Goran has been deprived a Hall-Of-Fame type situation in the NBA thus far, but his strong season last year proved that he certainly has the talent and drive to be enshrined in Springfield’s hallowed halls.”

Are you SURE you don’t want Dragic to be on the team, because it sounds…

“You guys are over focusing on Goran here. There are  Lot of notable Dragics. Zoran, You guys know about, he is… he is a special player. But you probably DON’T know about famous soccer player Dalibor Dragic, because unlike me, you are not a follower of the Malaysian Premier League, one of the best soccer leagues in the world by some measurements. Not to MENTION the recently deceased Serbian writer and Poet Predrag Dragic, the author of seminal works like ‘A Poem About the Goat,’ ‘The Battle of Kosovo,’ and ‘The Little Legacy.’”

Didn't you say this was about, athleticism or something? What does a writer have to do with the spirit of sport?

“I’ll have you know that Predrag was a FIERCE pickup basketball player. Maybe do a little research…”

Mr. DeVos, do you speak or read Serbian?

“No, why?”

It’s just… I can’t seem to find any, uh, English translations of Predrag Dragic’s work? How did you find out about him exactly?

“Yeah, the literary world is, uh. Grave injustice about Predrag’s work. We were friends, good enough friends that I call him Predrag like that. My wife, she speaks Serbian, and she read his books to me and I liked them so much that I went to Serbia in my jet and met him personally. It’s the kind of thing rich people do all the time, and I am VERY rich.”

So, what about his discourses on Dostoevsky, what are your feelings on those?

“I’m not answering ‘Gotcha’ questions, okay? Who’s next? Rick?”

Hey, Rich. Level with me, this can be off the record if you want. Was there a printing error, and you guys are just overcompensating?

“WHAT? No, we wouldn’t… make a printing error! We’re a professional basketball team!”

And if you did, you are probably well capitalized enough that you could just buy new uniforms and stuff.

“Yeah… absolutely. We have all kinds of money just sitting around, for sure.”

Wait, wait. Why “The Dragic?” Wouldn’t “The Dragics” make a lot more sense?

“Uh…. (Leans into PR guy) ...the name is not supposed to be, like “He is a Dragic.” It’s more like, the SPIRIT of Dragic, the unifying condition of being Dragic. Like “The Heat” or “The Thunder” or “The Magic,” one of those NBA teams. Alright, no more questions. I have to go, uh, to Pregrag Dragic’s grave, to pay my respects.  Donnie (Points at PR Guy) will fill you in on our new mascot, Growon the Dragic, who one guy said looks like an anthropomorphized, big headed cartoon Goron Dragic, but I don’t see it at ALL.”

BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #15: THE ATLANTA HAWKS

THE BISCUTBAL ATLANTA HAWKS TRIVIA PREVIEW, 2014-15!

WELCOME AND GOOD DAY, I’M AL HORFORD

AND I’M MIKE BUDENHOLZER

And this, is the ATLANTA HAWKS TRIVIA CHALLENGE!

Tell the people what they could win, Mike:

Well Al, our winner today will be the PROUD RECIPIENT of A BOX OF JOSH SMITH HAWKS JERSEYS we found in a STORAGE LOCKER MERIWETHER, GA!

The best prize yet, Coach Bud!

Haha, yes, absolutely!

QUESTION ONE:

WHAT WAS THE HAWKS WINNINGEST SEASON IN ATLANTA?

1. 1993-94
2. 1979-80
3. 1968-69
4. 1986-87

ANSWER:

It was A. and D. If you thought it was just one, you were wrong. I didn’t say it was just one answer. Life isn’t a game, sometimes there is more than one solution to a problem. If you didnt answer this right, you already don’t get the box of jerseys. No one said this would be easy.

QUESTION TWO:

WHO IS THE HAWKS ALL TIME LEADER IN BLOCKED SHOTS?

1. Josh Smith
2. Tree Rollins
3. Dikembe Mutombo
4. Theo Ratliff

ANSWER:

Tree Rollins. You thought it was Mutombo, didn’t you? You would. Going for the name player, you always pick the name player. He didn’t even have as many blocks as an Atlanta Hawks as Josh Smith. Every player from the nineties was overrated. THe talent pool was diluted by expansion and not restocked by European migration yet. I mean, seriously. You just KNEW it was Mutumbo, I’ll bet, without even thinking, “Oh, shit, this guy’s name was TREE, I’ll bet it was him.” They didn’t call him “Tree” because he COULDN’T block shots! Imagine if you played basketball against an actual tree: You would basically live to get stuffed. That was what Tree Rollins was like. Stuff happened before 1992. But you didn’t know that, and it cost you a boxfull of Josh Smith jerseys.

QUESTION THREE:

WHO IS THE HAWKS ALL TIME LEADER IN THREE POINT PERCENTAGE?

1. 
   
2. Kyle Korver

ANSWER

I’m not even coming up with more options on this one. Too easy. Second is Willie Green.

QUESTION FOUR

WHO WAS THE HAWKS SCORING LEADER LAST YEAR?

1. Paul Milsap
2. Jeff Teague
3. Al Horford
4. DeMare Caroll

The answer is B. It was Jeff Teague. What? Oh, “Horford scored more points per…” yeah well I don’t care. You don’t win a race if you start out fast and then tear your tricep. You win a race if you are fast all season, then end the race with the most points. And if you said Milsap, God Have Mercy on Your Soul is a book I recommend, because you have committed a sin against Jeff Teague. Beg for Jeff’s forgiveness. Here, do it:

You know what that body language says to me? “Nahh. No forgiveness. You’re in Jeff Teague’s doghouse now. I NEED something from you for forgiveness. I NEED 20 Josh Smith jerseys, in my hands, right now, THEN I’ll forgive you. Oh, there was a way to get those jerseys and still have ten left over, but you fucked it up? Wow, that’s a real shame. Better go post up in the doghouse, because you live there now, you filthy, stinking, dog.”

(Send your answers and your address to AtlantaHawksGameShow@gmail.com . I’ll know if you’re lying, I can smell it over the internet, that’s how developed my nose for the truth is, I can smell lies in copper 300 miles away.)

BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #14: CHARLOTTE HORNETS

A REAL LIFE BOBCAT PREVIEWS THE HORNETS’ UPCOMING SEASON!

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BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #13: WASHINGTON WIZARDS

The Basketball Players on the Washington Wizards: what Wizard, Mage, Witch, or other user of Magik does every member of the Wizards most resemble?

BRADLEY BEAL: Clara Marx, an 18th century German Woods Witch who took her power from the spirit of the wind and the trees. Didn’t eat children, but valued her privacy enough that she didn’t go out of her way to dismiss village rumors that she did.

DEJUAN BLAIR: 19th Century Louisiana Voopooo Priest Clarence King. Might have murdered Huey Long’s grandfather in a dispute over a card game.

RASUL BUTLER: “Rasul” is a very common name for Wizards and Mages, and it’s very possible that Butler himself is a reincarnation of one of these myriad practitioners of the dark arts. My money is on Count Rasul Marinovich, a 19th century Croatian landowner who semi-openly performed blood majik rituals with sheep. The best he could manage was a marginal, control over weather patterns over his estate. The sample size was marginal, at best, but he still wrote nearly 10,000 pages of journal entries to justify both his own efforts and the income he lost from killing perfectly good sheep.

DREW GOODEN: Union Civil War Platoon Commander Bartholomew Garfield was said to be a crystal healer who practiced his art on his own soldiers. Killed when he took pity on a wounded enemy, who bayoneted him right in the throat him not three seconds after the crystal was lifted from his healed wound.

MARCIN GORTAT: CLEARLY Sir Willelmus the Large, an English Lord who carried around a giant staff that he supposedly used to burn Frenchmen alive. Historians looking through his papers discovered a crude Vitruvian Man precursor drawing made from ash.

KRIS HUMPHRIES: Claire McDriscol, 19th Century Irish immigrant to America who sold love charms to girls in Brookyln to help feed her family Many have argued that she was the first “Teen Witch.”

DAMION JAMES: Michael Dooley was a 9-Year old boy who lost his mind when he asked a Ouija Board to give him hints on how to beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

ANDRE MILLER: Andre Miller is a user of magiks himself, primarily as a means of managing his digestive system.

NENE: “Rere” was a marginal beat poet who spent the last forty years of his life trying to use colored light to create the seed of a new plant that would grow in any soil and provide “Complete, light based nutrition” to anyone who grew it. It didn’t work, of course, but he did come up with some interesting heirloom tomatoes in the process.

DANIEL ORTON: Sarah Isaacs, 12th Century Russian Jewish Witch whose only refined art was levitating slightly. She used it to scare the shit out of village children, almost exclusively. Sort of a proto-prank-comedian. (If you doubt me, look at this pictures and tell me this fella ain’t harmlessly scaring children with magic)

PAUL PIERCE: “Soul Devouring” Mick Mcgee was a very dangerous prisoner who was sent to Prison Colony Australia from England. Bent the wills of men with only his mind. Met his end while trying to extract poison from a platypus. His face was frozen with horror; most say that the poison taking root in his mind gave him his first glimpse of hell.

OTTO PORTER: “Father Paul” (No last name noted in the historical record) a kindly 17th Century German Catholic priest who was chased out of his parish over an incident where he seemed to be speaking in a strange tongue while preparing a slaughtered goat for dinner. A colleague of pre-nailing-theses Martin Luther. The Catholic Church claimed they were friends: a distinct possibility, but probably an arbitrary slander.

GLEN RICE: Katie Mitchell, a troubled 12-year old girl who carves fake runes into her desk with a razorblade she took out of her hand sharpener with a par of her dad’s pliers. Once inadvertently gave her Spanish teacher a heart attack and didn’t realize it.

KEVIN SERAPHIN: Albertine Allaire, a 19th century French Sleight of Hand Artist who was rumored to have a “Darker” side. Napoleon was a fan, and took him on during his exile in Elba. Rumors persist about his job during this time.

XAVIER SILAS: Humbertopoulos, a Byzantine court scholar who did demonstrations with fire he claimed were magic, but were likely just optical trickery. They have similar facial hair.

GARRETT TEMPLE: Marie Jefferson is a Omaha, Nebraska office worker who heats her frozen lunches with magic heat from her hands. She is not an ambitious person.

JOHN WALL: During the rise of the Whaling Industry, tales were told of a humble sailor who could kill whales with bolts of electricity he shot from his hands. These claims were mocked for nearly 200 years, until the 200-Year old bones of a whale with electricity runes carved into them were discovered in Nantucket in 1944.

MARTELL WEBSTER: Plato (No relation), an ancient roman wizard who walked into the ocean in a big to become king of fish. He drowned.

BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #12: CHICAGO BULLS

“Good afternoon. I am Jerry Rinsdorf, the owner of the Chicago Bulls. I have a very important announcement, for you, the gathered media, to tell everyone. I have decided that basketball is far too sexy, unlike baseball, and needs to be taken down a few notches. That is why, from here on out, The Chicago Bulls, six-time NBA champion and one of the premier franchises, will be the world’s first celibate basketball team. Any players caught having sex will have their contracts waived. They will have to play in China, because no one in Christian America or Catholic Europe will have them because of their shameful behavior. No masterbation eiter, and we have tests, so we will find out if someone masterbates. We’re also on the lookout for the desire to have sex, and if we find it, there will be a fine. The CBA says I can do this, and I am rich, so I can do pretty much anything. Any player who is looking to complain should bathe in money instead, hot watery money, like me. Also Comiskey was right to be a cheapskate, The World Series getting rigged was 100% not his fault.”

“Am I happy with The Dorf’s decision? No, absolutely not. Sex has been a big part of my life for a really long time, I really enjoy it. But we have a shot at the title this year, and I don’t want to get my contract invalidated, so I guess I am going to not have sex for a year, even though it’s probably the most fun thing I can think of off the top of my head. Maybe roller coasters, but I can’t just install a roller coaster in my house. I could try to replace them with video games, I guess, that seems to work for some people.”

“I don’t think Jerry’s decision will make it harder to attract free agents, no. Most of these guys are waiting till retirement to have sex anyway, or that’s what my scouts are telling me. It messes up their focus.”

“I’m not surprised at all. There was always pressure to not have sex. Unnerving pamphlets on your hotel pillow. The coaches asked leading questions. I think one of the trainers stole my condoms once. I’m happy to be with the Heat now, an organization encourages you to have sex all the time.”

“We almost never have sex in Europe, only for procreation. In some rich countries, like Luxembourg, they exclusively use in vitro. Very progressive. Europe is a very progressive place, where the future is now.”

“I agree with Nikola! I am very excited to not have sex!”

“We’re going to compete for a championship. It’s about the team. I love Chicago. I am feeling good. My knee feels better than ever. Working on my floater. They’re good shoes.”

“I was a little upset at first, but then Jerry told me Morrisey was asexual, so I’ve come around. I definitely like Morrissey a lot, and seek to emulate him in a lot of ways. I think of Creighton as the Smiths, and the Bulls as my solo career. I wrote a book about it, if you guys want to read it.”

"It's a good book of honest stories. You can have it for free if you approach me on the street."

“SAY WHAT!? OH MAN, THIS SUCKS, I’M A PRETTY BIG LOVE MAKING ENTHUSIAST! WAIT, YOU’RE RIGHT! I AM ON THE LAKERS NOW! HAHAHA YES! CARLOS BOOZER GETS OUT JUST IN TIME YET AGAIN, LIKE WHEN I ROBBED THAT BANK BACK AT DUKE! WE GAVE BATTIER THE MONEY TO INVEST, BUT HE LOST IT ALL, BUT I CASHED OUT AND BOUGHT A SKI LODGE I AM GOING TO MANAGE FULL TIME WHEN I RETIRE! HAHA! CARLOS BOOZER OUT!” (Mr. Boozer was then airlifted out of the house where he was giving the interview. He was attached to a harness and broke through the roof of the Lakers’ practice facility where he was giving the interview, while laughing and eating a bowl of Cream of Wheat.)

(Ryland Duncan pitched the core idea of this, so blame him)

BISCUTBALL PREVIEW #11: CLEVELAND CAVILERS

LEBRON WINE: THE GREATEST WINE RIGHT NOW

This is a bottle of Lebron wine. It’s a product of Klutch Wine, a vineyard owned by Rich Paul. They also make Norris Cole Wine, Tristan Thompson Wine, Eric Bledsodawine (a sparkling wine with some extra sugar) and are the primary American distributors of imported Kevin Seraphin wine.

These are all good as hell wines. But LeBron wine is the best wine on the whole planet. It’s a red wine, made from red grapes.

LeBron wine grapes are grown in the desert. They dry farm the grapes to make sure they don’t get any extra water or comfort. The harshest conditions make for the sweetest grapes.

Every grape is individually inspected. If it’s not good enough, it does not go into LeBron Wine. They put reject grapes in a crummier, but still really good wine, like Corey Joseph Wine. Even a flaw imperceptible to normal human eyes will get a grape tossed into the CoJo bucket. Every grape inspector wears a jeweler's eye and teflon gloves, to keep Lebron Wine grapes from collecting extra dust or human filth. ONLY THE BEST GRAPES ON EARTH GO INTO LEBRON WINE.

The vines are grown in harsh desert soil augmented by a nutrient rich compost that comes from three sources:

1. Lebron’s personal food compost.
2. Dust from underneath Lebron’s bed, and only LeBron’s side of the bed. THey take great care and consideration that Savannah’s skin cells not end up in the compost. Savannah seems like a lovely women, but her skin is not up to the nutrient standards that her husband’s is. LeBron’s dead skin cells are the best wine vine nutrient source on planet Earth.
3. Keep this on the D/l but they have bribed doctors for blood and urine samples. Maybe a little “Under code” by FDA standards but what do those fascists know about making the best wine on Earth
4. Lebron’s toenails and his shit, like his dookie. I know this makes four and not three, but I kinda assumed you already knew Lebron’s shit was involved. It’s so nitrogen rich that the second it hits air little clovers sprout and start growing. It makes weeding a pretty intense activity but they live for making the world’s greatest wine and when you live for that you do whatever it takes to be the best.

When the grapes have been harvested, they get stuck into a giant barrel with LeBron’s personal magik runes carved into the wood. Then the man himself flies in and spends three hours stomping the grapes with feet he hasn’t washed for a week during the middle of the NBA season. The mix of his foot excellence and the wine grapes, which contain the essence of his body deep in their cells, makes for the world’s purest drinkable  essence of LeBron, besides drinking his blood, which is very, very illegal. Obviously, the man can’t be there to do all the grape crushing; he is a famous and successful basketball player. But he does provide the winery with several months worth of his socks, which the subsequent crushers use to emulate LeBron’s feet.

Lebron wine is then aged in barrels crafted with timberline wood, trees so cold they hold in the air from when they were planted 10,000 years ago. This air contains prehistoric, knife shaped molecules that super-filter the grape juice and removes any excess chemicals, leaving only the purest essence of LeBron after 2 years of aging on the top of a mountain. We will not say which mountain, as to deter thieves, but trust that it is one of the major, important mountains that people are often talking about.

How do you describe actual perfection? LeBron Wine’s bouquet is like roses and turpentine. It smells as good as a rose, but it invades your nose like turpentine. If you are having a cold and you smell LeBron Wine, your sinuses will clear. I am not saying LeBron Wine cures colds. But it does stimulate your body’s ability to process Zinc and Vitamin C, which are essential nutrients in fighting a cold.

A TESTIMONIAL FROM MY FRIEND LAURA:

“I sprained my ankle while I was running and it really sucked. My husband had to pick me up in his car. When we got home, I opened a bottle of LeBron wine to relax, and accidently spilled. The swelling went down immediately. Since then, I have used it for all my scratches and scrapes. If you pour it on a mid-sized gash, you can actually sit and watch the gash close, like a door.”

I am not saying LeBron Wine could cure cancer. But if someone has a needlefull of it, and offered to shoot it into your tumors, would you really say no?

When you drink LeBron Wine, you don’t poop for a week afterwards because your body uses all your food, 100%.

If you have a glass made out of energy transference crystals and you pour LeBron Wine into it, then shine a light through the glass and into your own eyes, they will become super eyes. You can see shit on the moon. You can see stuff moving on the moon. If there is a person on the moon, plotting against someone, you will see them and you can report them to the Army, so they can shoot moonbullets at that person and stop their scheme.

Whenever you get drunk on LeBron Wine, you can write up to 3 languages you didn’t know before. Sometimes it’s a language you know exists, like French, but sometimes it is an extinct language, or a computer programming language, or the language plants use to communicate, or the language of pure pain and love and loss, which can cut apart a person’s innermost thoughts and feelings and make them love you forever with only a look. Please use this language responsibility, if your bottle contains it.

LeBron Wine retails for $50 and is available at artisanal wine shops across Ohio.

BISCUTBALL PREVIEW 10: DETROIT PISTONS

Look at this picture:

What do you see? The name of every player the Detroit Pistons have a contracted to play basketball for them, of course. But what else do you see? Does it resemble anything? Is there a central theme? Do these colors make any sense together in this painting? What colors are these, anyway?

I was thinking about the Pistons’ roster. It is nonsensical. Last year, Drummond, Monroe and Smith all started together in the frontcourt, which makes sense because they’re all players who sit high enough on the axis of skill, size, and athleticism to be NBA starters. But none of them space the floor (No matter how much Josh tries), which was a massive tactical problem. Early reports are indicating that Stan Van Gundy, the team’s coach, is going to keep them from playing at the same time, which should salve that particular problem. But…

It won’t change the fact that all three of these players, and nearly every player on the team, is a completely unfixed quantity that makes very little sense. They are not unlike these hand warmers, for sale on Etsy. They are handwarmers, an item of clothing with a very narrow use in the first place (I need to keep my hands warm, but I absolutely cannot cover my fingers in this endeavor!). They are a winter or fall item that is primarily yellow, the summer-yst of all summer-y colors. They have stripes down the middle, the colors of which were likely arranged with a random number generator. (Brown/Pink/Blue/Orange/Pink/Sienna/Orange/Eggshell Yellow/Pink/Orange/Soup Pea Green. Huh?)

Take Andre. Andre made USA Basketball’s World Championship team this year. He did not play, and was not expected to play. But everyone was totally convinced that in two years it would be idiotic to leave him off the Olympia roster. “Oh no, he can’t play now, but he’s tremendous in the future.” A box, and everyone supposedly knows what’s inside and says it’s amazing, but why won’t anyone open the box? Drummond is already a migraine on the boards and at the rim. Insanely nimble and athletic basketball player with every tool to be a superstar NBA center. Except he shoots 41% from the line and can be taken out of a game by being intentionally fouled. But if it all works! The unknown, manifest.

Monroe, on the other hand, we know what he is. A back to the basket player, who can get you buckets against single coverage. But single coverage down low isn’t really a thing in an NBA where zone/zone hybrid defense is legal, and he doesn’t protect the rim or nuke pick and rolls. He would have been so good 15 years ago! If every NBA team is a painting, this is what Greg Monroe looks like in that painting:

Modern NBA teams are Kandinsky, experimenting with motion and openness and improvisation. You stick Ol’ Velasquez Portrait Greg Monroe in there, and it gets all gunked up. If only we could take him back to the NBA’s Baroque Period, he would be active and interesting and useful and celebrated*.

There is no player in the entire NBA messier than Josh Smith. A killer wing defender who can absolutely, never, play anything other than power forward and still be a contributing player on offense. Insanely dynamic, unlike-anyone-else-gamechanging-force with mastery of nearly every aspect of basketball…

...or a guy who lives to heave shots he doesn’t make, and has never made, and will not make, ever.

And no in-between! None! Josh Smith is either slicing his enemies to ribbons or poking himself in the eye and bleeding so much everyone slides around the hardwood and falls down. You dip the brush in the container to paint the ocean and it could be the most perfect shade of blue you ever saw or a kind of neon brown thing that makes the Pacific look like the world’s biggest diarrhea toilet.

Three point guards who might be pretty good or the shittiest players imaginable. Jerebko, Luigi and Singler could be good. Sometimes they seem good, at least. But also maybe not. Tony Mitchell’s young! KCP looked good in Summer League? What does that mean? Almost (We know what Jodie and Aaron Gray are.) everyone is an enigma, 15 enigmas together on a team whose strategic goals have been obscure in the last few years.

But Stan’s here! Stan’s Orlando rosters were order personified, Mondrianal, even. A big square in the middle and lines to give it balance. I was listening to a podcast the other day, I think it was The Podium Game, and one of the converses said that Van Gundy's previous teams crush in shot selection metrics, which reward a threes-and-rim approach that, I mean, is this team, with these players, really going to do that? What will he do with this collection of french curves, paint spatters and woodcut stamps of ballerinas?

*I regard this as an imperfect metaphor. My internal logic dictates that Hakeem was actually the Velasquez of the NBA.