In a recent interview, Charles Barkley was questioned about his former team, the 76ers’ coaching search. He was pretty forthcoming about his opinion, calling it a “joke.”
I’m not sure how Hinkie feels about this, but I have to imagine he’s going to have some sort of diss track on his next mixtape.
I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the NBA broadcast on TNT. It’s the playoffs, so I feel it’s appropriate to assess and discuss the sort of program TNT is presenting during these primetime moments.
The crew, which includes Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny “The Jet” Smith, provide coverage and analysis throughout the game, which is about as incoherent as television could get.
Honestly, it’s probably the most entertaining sports coverage on television today, but make no mistake, sports are rarely covered. Most of the programming involves 4 middle-aged men incoherently babbling and insulting each other for sometimes 20 minutes straight. It’s a lot of chuckling, a lot of shameless promotion, and a whole lot of confusion.
Seriously, the producers must be biting their fingernails during every broadcast.
The Knicks and Pacers Game 5 highlights went something along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing… terribly…):
Ernie Johnson : And the Knicks lead by 2 at halftime…. Kenny your thoughts?
Kenny The Jet : The Knicks look alright. It really just comes down to the effort of your players and-
Charles Barkley : Aye, lemme tell you something… if Melo come out on fire like he’s s’posed to be doing, they gon’ be alright…. (immediate transition of subjects) Craig Sager suit look like the damn emergency broadcast system done went offffff.
Shaq : I like that suit. He dressed sharp. (Then Shaq makes a poor joke to emulate Charles Barkley, no one laughs, there’s an awkward silence, and Ernie chimes back in to move the segment along)
Then that process is repeated for about 30 minutes before, during, and after the game. It’s high comedy. Please, allow me to demonstrate:
Last night was pretty epic. Blake Griffin “stunned” the world by jumping over a damn Kia, something only, I’d say, 75% of male athletes could accomplish. Still, with the choir singing, and the hype that went along with it, it turned out pretty sick. Here it is if you missed it:
They said he won with 68% of the vote. I’m gonna go ahead and guess that probably 50% of the votes were in before the two even dunked. It’s a popularity contest, (see Iguodala, 2006,) so I properly predicted the victor two days ago. Hooray for me.
It was priceless how the soloist from the Crenshaw Choir basically got dunked on during his singing, because he made it 2 lines and then they were like “Yea, time to stop singing now, your solo is over, he’s done.” Was that planned?
The other guy in the finals, Javale Mcghee, was not only the most intelligent sounding man I’ve ever heard speak (even Charles Barkley was laughing at him) but it seemed like he didn’t plan this out as well as he should have. His dunks were sick. The two dunks at the same time dunk was gross, the full circle flying away from the rim dunk was super gross, but at the end, it looked like his finale was poorly planned, even switching after a few failed attempts. That’s not gonna get you beyond star power. You weren’t gonna win anyway, oh well.
Also gotta point out that on live TV Charles Barkley said “Hey man, that ain’t the best dunk I’ve ever seen, but it’s like a pretty girl. She may be dumb, but if she pretty, it don’t matter.” Well said Mr. Barkley.
I also have to mention this, simply because I’m blown away with how behind the curve I am sometimes with modern technology. I’m a web designer, but I don’t even own a smart phone, and just recently got a twitter account (thanks to Adam’s reminders.) Twitter if friggin’ awesome. Following Spencer Hawes and Lou Williams (TeamLou23) on Twitter is awesome. It just reminds me how uncool and unsuccessful I truly am. lol.
The coolest thing though is seeing how many girls follow Lou Williams, and how many girls are absolutely on his shit. It’s amazing. The man threw a party last night, and I’ve probably seen 20 hot half-naked women retweet his party as the best they’ve ever been to. And I’m talking dimes. The man is a party animal, props to Lou for making the All-Star Break everything it can be. (In the picture he’s actually pointing to a ho he plans on taking home.)
Ah well. It’s a Sunday. Take it easy, enjoy the day. I leave you with the 06 Iguodala Dunk Contest video, simply because me and Adam both agree, it may very well be the nastiest dunks of the past decade.
