Hornets Hype

Quoth Mr. West: "Rrraawwwrr!"

Of  the week, that is.

David West was just named the Western Conference Player of the Week after averaging 30-11 in his last three games. D-West has been all-around beasting in many scary, dangerous ways since the All Star break. We know Chris Paul gets these kind of awards all the time, but I can’t recall West getting one and seeing him get recognition makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

So, just a friendly warning, you might want to step out of his way. He’s kind of a big deal right now. He has many leatherbound books… as well as an attitude, lotsa tats, and a chip the size of the state of Arizona on his shoulder.

Yes, Arizona. Exactly that size.

The Hype is taking a much-needed vacation.

A little warm weather relaxation,  a little All Star watching, maybe a little site redesign, but mostly hitting the streets of Uptown with a dash of Bring Your Own Beverage for the first big parade weekend.

But before you head out there, you should totally check out At the Hive’s excellent post on the State of the New Orleans Hornets. I can say this stuff a hundred times, but at the end of the day it’s based on love, not stats, and no offense, love ain’t gonna get you many rebounds and second chance points. But numbers don’t lie, and the post has a numerical breakdown of what’s gone wrong for the Hornets this season so far, and what needs to happen for it to go right in the final 32 games.

So, go forth, friends, and remember to rep the Hornets in your teal & stripes at the parades this weekend! ‘Cause there’s a lot of basketball yet to be played. And no one gets drunk or laid at a pity party.

See you on the flipside of the season.

P.S. I would like to thank the Great NBA Love of My Life Paul Pierce, who singlehandedly dropped Dallas in the 4th quarter last night to put the Mavs below the Hornets in the standings heading into the All Star break. Forgiven!

He made the team!

West Reserves:

Shaq, Gasol, West, Nowitzki, Parker, Billups, and Roy

I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, obviously, we’re happy. But Gasol averaging 17/9, West 20/7, Shaq 18/9…. Al Jefferson 23/10. Let’s not quibble over who’s a forward and who’s a center. Let’s not say who out of those three guys should have been left off. But um… yeah.

There are two other equally on-the-bubble bigs, but you know the haters are totally gonna pick David West to hate on. “David Who?” Sigh. STFU.

But this time, it’s a good thing!

Chris Paul is an All Star starter. Thank you, David Stern. Thank you. And yes, I am thanking David Stern. You cannot tell me CP made up 158,000 votes, or whatever it was the last time we saw the numbers, in like a week. The more everyone cried out that McGrady starting the All Star Game over him was utterly indefensible, the wider the gap grew. So you can’t tell me that the trend suddenly, magically reversed just like that. I flat out won’t believe it. And yet, they’re saying Chris got 1.1 million votes in the last two weeks!

But hey, it’s totally like the Shaq Scrabble ad. “How did you…?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

It’s all good, Mr. Stern. We won’t. CONGRATULATIONS, CHRIS!!

Update: Hornets 247 disagrees. But then, that’s the difference between us and 247. Next thing you know, they’re going to be trying to tell us The X-Files wasn’t a documentary about the 1990s…

Byron Scott: “It should be him and Kobe starting… There’s just no way in hell that Chris Paul should not be starting on the All Star team.”
David West: “Now that’s ridiculous… Someone like myself (shrug), it really doesn’t matter, but for someone like CP, who undeniably is the top point guard out here, that’s ridiculous.” (That’s such a D West thing to say, by the way. P.S. We got a glimpse last night of the D West bobblehead they’re giving away on MLK Day. It doesn’t really look like him, but it does look bald and mad… so really, maybe it does look like him after all.)

Oh, and shout out to the Times Picayune/NOLA.com for the vid. I rag on their blah coverage a lot, but they included a couple of video clips in their coverage yesterday. It’s a step in a good direction, and I shall acknowledge.

You know what else makes children cry? Chris Paul not getting to start the All Star Game.

Let me repeat that, in all caps, in case you didn’t get it the first time. CHRIS PAUL MIGHT NOT START THE NBA ALL-STAR GAME.

Yes, we are talking about the man who is widely regarded as the best point guard in the game and the future of the point guard position. At the moment, in the vote count for guards in the Western Conference, Chris Paul is in third place, trailing Kobe Bryant (1 million and whatever) and Tracy McGrady (746,098).

I’m just going to cut to the chase here. I hope no one minds. And here is the message I’ve come to you here today to deliver: If you voted for Tracy McGrady, you are a douchebag. I don’t care what country you are from. You’re still douchebags. Let’s just skip the PC bullshit and say it: This is China’s fault. And we all know it. Clearly there is no other explanation for 762,162 people thinking Yi Jianlian is better than Chris Bosh, Paul Pierce, and Danny Granger. Or how about the 211,017 people who think that Rafer Alston (Houston!) is better than Brandon Roy?

09p823pohifglskjhfiug137`p20592y5ilafkhslk…. ggggg… rr. bl

Oh, excuse me. I spontaneously died on my keyboard while typing the previous sentence. You know how I feel about Brandon Roy.

Come on, China. What happened to loving the game of basketball? What happened to a sincere appreciation for the sport and those who excel at it? Chris Paul even visited your country this summer! And I bet he was nice to people while he was there. Because that is the kind of person he is. Well, you know what? Tracy McGrady wasn’t nice to the place where I live. As a matter of fact, he was outright goddamn ignorant. Maybe you should all stop for a minute and think about that.

Or don’t. Stop instead and think about the numbers.

Chris Paul

• leads the NBA in assists (11.3)
• leads the NBA in steals (3.0)
• 20.1 ppg
• 5.2 rebounds, which is hard to do when you are LESS THAN SIX FEET TALL
• widely regarded as the best point guard in the league and one of the top 4-5 players
• team is currently 18-9

Tracy McGrady

• leads the NBA in nothing
• leads his team in nothing
• 15.9 ppg, 4.7 apg, 4.8 rpg (despite having 8 inches on, well hello, what a coincidence… Chris Paul)
• widely regarded as an aging supertalented player who gets injured all the time and has never won a playoff series
• team is currently 20-11
• has only played in 23 of those games because of injury

If those stats weren’t enough for you, consider the following summary of what happened during the final 3:35 of the fourth quarter in tonight’s game against the Indiana Pacers, as brought to you by our friends At the Hive:

• 3:35 Chris Paul makes driving lay up
• 3:11 Chris Paul makes 11 foot jumper
• 2:42 Chris Paul makes driving lay up
• 2:42 Chris Paul makes free throw
• 2:23 Chris Paul steals ball
• 1:45 Chris Paul makes jumper
• 0:30 Chris Paul makes 15 foot jumper
• 0:02 Chris Paul assists on David West’s 17 foot jumper (Hornets win 105-103)

11 points in three minutes to utterly decimate the Pacers’ souls and take over the game, and this man is not an All Star starter.

Do you require more analysis? No. You don’t. I am telling you you don’t. The statistics say you don’t. Common sense says you don’t. OK, forget about Chris Paul for a second. Yes, really. Let’s just forget about the stats I just cited and pause for a moment… and think about the fact that, the way the All Star balloting is set up (it’s stupid, you know it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, but we must operate with concise guerilla voting tactics within the confines of its stupidity here), if voting ended today, the West would start Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady. The West– home to the likes of Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Steve Nash, and Jason Kidd– would not start a point guard. That is just disgraceful. It’s a travesty. It’s a joke.

What is the logical conclusion to be drawn here? If you are one of the 746,098 people who voted for Tracy McGrady, then you can give yourself an extra special pat on your own back, because you, my friend, are a douchebag. Douche. Bag. If you think you can live with that, fine. But just remember… at the end of the day, a douchebag doesn’t have a brain. It’s just a somewhat archaic feminine hygiene product.

So if you are reading this post thinking, “Wow, did this person just imply that the citizens of an entire nation are douchebags?” then you have it right. Yes. Yes, I did. I want us to be perfectly clear on that point. And I didn’t imply it. I flat out said it. (OK, you got me. Obviously they can’t all be douchebags, since there are way more than 700K people in China. But these voters are.)

What can we all do about it? I don’t know. How do you compete with a nation of All Star-voting douchebags, when that nation is bigger than America? That is a question I am not sure how to answer. And as a small-market team, it’s already hard enough to compete with the douchebags in larger American cities with crappier players than CP. (And don’t think you’re off the hook, America. The 200,000 people who voted for Gilbert Arenas, despite the fact that he hasn’t played a minute all year? You douchebags deserve a special shout out.) But there’s one thing I know how to do. And that is check the friggin’ checky box. Check it next to CHRIS. PAUL. I urge you all to do the same. Don’t do it for me. Do it for the sport of basketball.

And so we’re not all really, really embarrassed come the All Star break.

THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE. BROUGHT TO YOU BY HORNETSHYPE.COM. THANK YOU FOR READING. AND HAVING A BRAIN.

Seriously. No questions. Or I will have to kill people.