Hornets Hype

In person, this looked like he was hugging him around the waist. It was heart-warming and stuff.

Besides this picture.

• Aaron “BIG NASTY” Gray and his random yet masterful D-ing up of Dwight Howard in the Hornets win over the Magic on Friday
• The Hornets giving away a prize a day this month, which you’re eligible for if you renew your season tickets (oh all right, fine, the reason this is on this list is because I won something…)
• Marcus Thornton’s game-icing three on Friday. Everyone had already risen to their feet before he took the shot. It was a moment! It was fun!
• D West’s 40-10 game. Mr. West is in the building! (for people who don’t come to home games, this is the sound clip that plays after every D West bucket… this is its first season. At first I didn’t like it but it’s sort of grown on me. His prior clip was “Wake up, Mr. West-est-est!” Good thing we have Kanye around to provide D West with all his nice beats.)
• Darren Collison’s last 5 games: 24.2 pts/7.6 ast in 43 minutes (43! Oof… CP! Come back!)
• Marcus Thornton’s last 5 games: 22.6 pts/4.8 reb/shooting 49% from the field (seriously) and 43% from three in 32 minutes. Can we please please please put more emphasis on per minutes stats instead of points per game? The Buckets Monster is crazy good at what he does (get buckets) and his stats still look like crap from all those games early in the year when he got 5 minutes of garbage time. Boo.
• Crazy comebacks! This team doesn’t die.
• Myself and mW went to a Hornets season ticketholder dinner on Thursday and Jeff Bower told us that CP is “one to three weeks” away from returning. He’s shooting and riding the bike right now and progressing well in his therapy. Chris Paul himself, when interviewed by ESPN last night, said he doesn’t plan to come back until he’s “110%, because of the style of ball I play.” Let’s hope he’s smart about this!
• THE MARDI GRAS BABY IS GONE! It wasn’t at the game Friday.
• Last night I had a totally weird dream that was probably the result of playing Mass Effect 2 all afternoon and then watching basketball: I dreamed that, while scanning a planet, we unlocked an upgrade that would turn Darren Collison into Chris Paul. Now I’m all fascinated by what kind of an upgrade that would be… “Sticky Gloves — your Shepard holds onto the ball better for 30% less turnovers.” “Prothean Visor– plus 15% to court vision.” “Mental Quickness Implant– you are now a veteran, working the refs in a craftier manner for a 10% free throw bonus to your entire team.” Oh, the possibilities! (Wow, I need to stop gaming… just kidding, no I don’t…)

My non-favorite thing about this week/weekend was the losing. Boo losing. It ruins everyone’s fun. Let’s not do it anymore.

Is this too blunt?

I just don’t.

Recently a lot of Hornets fans and other people around the internet seem to have an opinion about Chris Paul’s knee surgery. Or, specifically, Chris Paul’s knee surgery coupled with Darren Collison’s solid play in his absence, and what this could mean for the future of the franchise. This discussion usually occurs with melodramatic hyperbole, ie: “Chris Paul is never going to be the same again!”

We’ve actually heard this before, last season, when the Hornets tried to trade Tyson Chandler at the deadline and the trade was rescinded because he failed his physical in Oklahoma City. The internet was rife with speculation and presumption: “The Hornets must know something we don’t.” “Anyway we all know Tyson Chandler will never play at that level again.” “His career is over, it’s good we got rid of him.” And then the worst thing that could have happened in the world happened: Tyson Chandler actually has missed 22 games in Charlotte due to the same two injuries in the same foot. From the reaction from some quarters of the Hornets internet, you’d think this had spontaneously given people medical degrees. Because THEY WERE RIGHT.

Let me tell you a story. A couple weeks ago, I was reading a blog, and some sanctimonious douche in the comment thread took it upon himself to critique the grammar of the original poster, rather than respond to the content of the post. I read the comment and was left baffled and slightly embarrassed for the person. See, I majored in English, specifically writing, and I’ve taught English in the past. What the person had spent two paragraphs laying out– in pretentious and condescending language, of course– was not an actual grammatical term. It just wasn’t a real thing. The person clearly thought it was a real thing… but it just wasn’t.

And the thing is, grammar is the kind of thing you can look up on a wiki. You can’t look up how to operate on people’s body parts with FRICKIN LASER BEAMS on a wiki. This is all a long-winded way of saying that the point you may think you are making, when you expound on something about which you have no expertise, you might not really be making at all. You may even– I know, gasp!– be saying things that an actual medical professional is sitting in her chair giggling at on coffee break.

So when you offer comments such as “CHRIS PAUL IS NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AGAIN AFTER THIS SURGERY EVERYONE KNOWS IT THE HORNETS ARE JUST HIDING IT TRADE HIM NOW,” my first question is, Are you in the medical field? My second question is, Are you a doctor? My third question is, Are you an orthopedic surgeon? My fourth question is, Are you one of the top orthopedic surgeons in sports medicine in the United States? My fifth question is, Have you been sent back in time from the future using Skynet technology? If the answer to none of those questions is yes, you can be quite comfortable in assuming that I don’t care about your medical opinion.

I might be persuaded to make an exception, if you can convince me you have in fact had surgery on your own meniscus at least 2+ years ago, and would like to offer your personal experience with the level of pain, recovery time, etc. But I would still take it with a huge grain of salt, because there is a wide range of difference in how people recover from injuries and surgeries, and (no offense to your health insurance) the level of therapy and care an NBA player receives is probably higher than the level you got. Grant Hill almost died in 2003, yet is still in the NBA at age 37. Dejuan Blair has no freakin’ ACLs. It is pointless to sit and judge what an injury will or will not do to a player until the surgery is over, rehab is completed, and he’s been back playing for about 6 months to a year.

So, you may want to try and tell me these things, things like “Darren Collison is going to be a starting caliber point guard so the Hornets need to trade Chris Paul RIGHT NOW while his value is high.” But I will just refer you to the title of this post, which, in case you forgot, is “I Don’t Care About Your Pretend Medical Opinion.” The reason I titled it that… is because I don’t care. I’m not against free speech. I’m not against you having an opinion that is different from mine. I’m just letting you know that, on this topic at least, it is quite impossible for you to make me care about it, unless your answers to questions 2 through 5, as listed above, are yes. (And on #5, it really is going to depend on if you’re a terminator or not, because I am not sure I trust anything terminators say, no offense.) So you should not waste your time.

Just for gits and shiggles, here are some other things I don’t care about, so you can not bother talking to me about them either:

• reality TV
• major league baseball
• Tracy McGrady

Thank you for your time and have a good day.

While you’re sitting around waiting for the Super Bowl to start (WHO DAT!), check out Chris Paul’s bowling event, which airs on ESPN today at 2 PM EST/1 PM CST. Here’s a preview:

From this article posted yesterday, detailing the following exchange between Chris Paul and a Portland locker room attendant:

CP: There’s cheese on this chicken sandwich. I’m allergic to cheese.

PLRA: You didn’t say no cheese.

CP: I didn’t think I had to say no cheese. It’s a chicken sandwich.

PLRA: (Picks up menu) It says right here it comes with cheese. Wouldn’t you expect cheese on a hamburger?

CP: No, I would expect cheese on a cheeseburger. A hamburger shouldn’t have cheese. Neither should a chicken sandwich. I’ve been dealing with this my whole life.

PLRA: Do you want to order something else?

CP: Do you have chicken strips?

PLRA: Yeah.

CP: Can you make sure I get them without cheese?

It’s the only explanation for last night (38-9-6) … Shout out to @artgarcia_nba for the link.

Oh and HEY, if you didn’t know, the Hornets are in the playoffs! If the season ended today they’d be the #8 seed, after stringing together an 11-4 January with a pretty tough schedule.

This CP3 Mardi Gras bobblehead NEEDS to be in my life. Seriously. It’s not optional. They’re giving away 10,000 on Feb. 5 against the Sixers.

I am even going to bust out the rarely used “Dead Sexy” mood, just for this. Because this bobblehead is dead sexy.

CP3 Mardi Gras Bobblehead

The Hornets May Have Won the Battle But Lost the War– a post on the Dime blog about the Hornets salary moves. With input from me, Hornets 247, and At the Hive. Oh, and Bonus!Ranty Comments by me, I guess. Sorry about that. This is one of my very favorite topics for ranting, as you well know. But props to Dime. Noticed how they went and actually asked Hornets media & blogs. Amazing concept, that.

New Orleans rookie Marcus Thornton seizing the moment– According to the TP, there are rumors (which he denies) that Marcus Thornton told some kids at LSU over the summer he’d be starting by midseason. Ha. I said so too. Guess we’re both right.

Buckets doesn’t make the Rookie Team — kinda lame but not surprising. He’s averaging 9.7 pts-2 rebs on 43% shooting in 19 minutes, way less than the minutes some of those kids are getting to put up their numbers. I wasn’t that impressed with either Flynn or Curry (ugh, watch me say that and he goes off on us tonight, haha). I mean, you can’t really argue with any of the rookies who made it, but I will say it’s too bad Byron Scott hurt Thornton’s chances by not playing him early. I wonder, though, if it’s harder to make a team like this as a pure scorer– even a very efficient one– when you’re not putting up significant numbers in any other categories. All those point guards have numbers in the assists column too. Marcus’ stats per 36 are 18.2 pts-3.7 rebs– some of those other kids already play 36 and aren’t close to that.

But! He’s #5 in the NBA.com Rookie Rankings this week! — Go figure.

This column from Mark Monteith at SI.com fails so hard at containing real facts (especially Okafor versus Chandler) and following a chronological timeline of what actually went down that it made me weep tears of pure sarcasm. Or wait, is that not possible? Try to spot the two places he  contradicts himself. Let’s make it a fun game!

Introducing... your new Hornets backcourt

Last night was huge for TEAM THORNTON. Huge. Hornets Hype’s favorite rookie (Can we make him our mascot? We could put him in the banner… would that be weird? No, OK. It would) came crashing out of the gates in his first NBA start, putting up 9 points in the first 5 minutes of the first quarter. He would quiet down after that, finishing with 19 on 8-12 shooting, but he and Darren Collison, in that crazy fast three-headed guard lineup that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, played a huge part in 10-1 run the Hornets went on in the last three minutes to squeak out yet another close game over the Blazers.

Highlights of Lil Buckets’ big debut night included a sick alley-oop from Chris Paul and a flagrant 1 foul when he elbowed Rudy Fernandez while fighting through a screen (whoops). Portland fans, feel free to come call me a Dusche Bagel, but he totally Euro-flopped. He whipped his head back and dropped like a rock, even though the replay showed Marcus’ elbow never even touched his chin. (Not the first elbow, the second one. Leading with the elbow into the chest was a foul, though flagrant is a stretch.) But enough on the foul because it didn’t end up being an issue; it was a solid debut and my favorite part of the night was the big smile on Thornton’s face when CST interviewed him postgame. Or maybe it was the rare smile on Chris Paul’s.

These close games, wow. WOW. When was the last time the Hornets were in a game that didn’t come down to the very last possession? (I checked. It was when they lost to the Spurs five games ago. Before that it was the Clippers win. People, that’s only TWO games out of the 14 they’ve played in January that weren’t close. And neither of them were by more than 8 points either. Between this team and the Saints the other night, I’m going to develop weird hand tremors and a heart condition.)  But you know what? Don’t look now, but this team has become fun to watch. They’re coming out scrappy, and they’ve fashioned themselves into ice cold closers. With the West as crazy as it is– the Hornets are currently in a three-way tie for 9th place but are only 2 games out of 4th– they’re going to need these close games.

And finally. Chris Paul.

You know, I was going to elaborate, but what’s the point? Is there a verb that even describes what Chris Paul did last night? Or is he himself the verb? Yes. That’s what we’ll go with: The Blazers were Chris Pauled.

UPDATE: Lil Buckets shoutout on The Basketball Jones today! It’s at the very end after the Whoa Boy (which– I’m just gonna ruin it for you– is Chris Paul).

About a week and a half back, I got a ticket to attend the ESPN taping of Chris Paul’s annual celebrity bowling event. Well, here’s my big shiny recap of the day, complete with pictures. Be warned, though, since this is going to be on TV, I can’t tell you who wins. But believe me when I say the ending was about as exciting as you can get in bowling.

The trophy

Upon my arrival at Harrah’s Hotel to catch the shuttle to the event, I immediately see Ludacris wander out (on the phone) and stand right next to where I am. He’s wearing sunglasses and a red leather jacket with his name stitched on it. (I tweet: “Ten minutes ago I was standing right beside Ludacris. He DEFINITELY is not tall. He may be shorter than me.”) Jack Del Rio, coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, was also there to bowl, as well as LaMarr Woodley and Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Tweet: “Am standing beside Hines Ward and LaMarr Woodley. I guess they are football ppl or something. They’re not very tall.”) I’m not sure what my strange obsession with celebrity height is. It just seems that every time I meet someone I expect them to be tall, and they’re not. Haha.

Everyone was waiting around for Chris Paul to arrive. Which he did, quite ironically, as I was leaning on a column in the hotel lobby tweeting on my Blackberry about how none of the celebrities were tall. He literally strolled through my field of vision about two feet away. It will probably not come as a shock to you that he is not tall, either. Chris Paul is wearing a Yankees cap and a pair of navy and orange Nikes. I immediately decide to start an obnoxious Twitter rumor about him signing with the Knicks.

We hopped on the shuttles to the event (I was on the one with the Hornets people and PBA people, not the celebrities), which was held on the Belle Chase Naval Base. The audience was basically all servicemen and women, in uniform, and some of them brought their kids. The minute we got there I realized A) the place was really, really small, and B) I was sitting in the front row. I was definitely going to be on TV at some point. Yuck. I pulled my stuff out of my bag and began to furtively tackily do my makeup. Meanwhile, the celebrities and the PBA bowlers they were matched up with started to warm up, as the ESPN crew gave instructions to the crowd.

Jason Belmonte, Pete Weber, and Ludacris

This was the first TV taping of anything I’ve ever been to. I can tell you that it was mostly three things: 1) Hot, 2) Long, and 3) Late. Everything was late. It started late. It ended late. Mostly this was due to the “commercial breaks” they built into it, even though it wasn’t live. So the guy would get on the loudspeaker and tell people they had ten minutes to get food or go to the bathroom. And whenever he did this, the entire audience would– you guessed it– get up. And then it took forever to get everyone back in their seats and continue with the tournament. The event started with a play-in round between Jack Del Rio and LaMarr Woodley to see which of them would be on the fourth team in the main tournament. (I’m not sure that part is going to be televised.) But after that, we didn’t get to take any more pictures, so as not to spoil how it all turns out. Yes, I know who wins, BUT I’M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU. Muahahaha… Chris Paul, however, has never won his own tournament, which, considering the supercompetitor that he is, must really really irk him, so I can tell you he was gunning for it.

Chris & Ludacris

One of my favorite moments involved little CP, Chris Paul’s baby son who was sitting with his parents two rows behind me. At one point, Chris was about to bowl, and little CP starts loudly going, “Da-da! Da-da!” The whole place was silent, so everyone heard him. Chris turned around and gave him a smile and a little wave. Then he bowled a strike. It was super, super cute. My other favorite moment was when Hines Ward dived down the lane on his stomach after making a really big shot. The guys were being goofy and making it fun to watch.

The only other Hornet who made an appearance was Peja, who came for a bit with his five-year-old son. He actually sat right behind me, which is a nice way of saying his knees were in my back because it is really hard to sit on bleachers when you’re 6-10. This is the point in the broadcast where you will definitely see me, because they do a close-up of Peja and put his name up on the screen. And lo, there I will be, trying to look like I’m not looking at myself on the screen across the way. Chris Paul came up and sat behind me and talked to Peja for a bit. Peja was mentioning a present CP had gotten his son for Christmas, I think, and saying his son wasn’t really into basketball (he knows that his dad plays but that’s about it) but ever since then he talks about Chris Paul. Aw. Peja and his son, by the way, do not speak in English to each other.

I did get introduced to and shake hands with both of them. Chris Paul was his usual polite self. I mentioned I had met him before when I won a video contest, and he said, “Oh, that’s right, the MVP video.” (I think this is more a function of there being only one video contest in the last 3 years than Chris Paul having an OMG AMAZING MEMORY, so don’t get too excited. Haha.) I was sitting right in front of the whole Paul family and friends contingent, and they were all very nice.

Me and Hines Ward after he tried to cut me off. Haha

Afterward there was a reception at Harrah’s Hotel. We chatted with some fans, random people, and Hornets employees. I had an entertaining conversation with one of the biggest name-droppers I have ever met (seriously, this guy deserved an award). Hines Ward and LaMarr Woodley amusingly parked themselves at the bar and made themselves the center of the party, chatting and taking pictures with just about everyone who came up to get a drink. They also kept pushing pineapple juice and vodka (ew!) on people. I have one funny celebrity story from that night, and here it is: I went up to the bar to grab myself a drink. After declining the pineapple and vodka, I mentioned that I was going to have one drink, because I had to work the next day. It was only 9:30 at that point. Hines asked me what I did for a living, that I had to be up at 6:30 AM for. I told him, and he informed me he was going to order the perfect drink for me. He turned away for a second, and then turned back to me with…. a bottle of water. I said, “Wait, did you just cut me off?” Him: “Yup.” Other appearances at the party included local artist Amanda Shaw and Danny Glover, who strolled in in a long trench coat and had everyone excited, even Chris Paul.

The event will air on ESPN on Super Bowl Sunday. I recommend watching or DVR-ing if you like:

• actual PBA bowling
• Chris Paul
• glimpses of Ticktock6 looking goofy on national TV
• exciting endings that go down to the very last frame

Below the cut, a gallery of pictures from the event (they’re big, so Scary Loading Time Warning). Huge thanks to Matt of Storm Surge Photography. Please contact him and not me if you’d like to use any of them on your site:

[More]

Well played, Hornets. Well played.

Unstoppable (Adjective): 1) Incapable of being stopped.

Chris Paul could not be stopped tonight. He had 30 points, 19 assists, and 9 rebounds. He was 7-7 in the third quarter. He was inside, he was outside, he was in the lane (finally, yes, we can all exhale a bit to see him dominating from there for the first time since his ankle injury), at the line. There was a stretch of the third to fourth quarters in which he had 22 out of the Hornets 24 points. There was a point when the Nuggets made a mini-run to close the gap, and Chris Paul checked back into the game, and his very presence, solely by being on the floor, was magic.

And there it was, in the building tonight, the Thing We Don’t Talk About. The players knew it. The fans knew it. And then in the fourth quarter I noticed something. Namely that Darius Songaila and Emeka Okafor weren’t on the floor, which was a little unusual. And that Devin Brown was, which was also a little unusual (but unsurprising considering neither Collison nor Thornton had a good showing tonight). The Hornets went with a crunch time lineup of Paul/West/Posey/Stojakovic/Brown. I think it is not coincidental that those five guys were all there last April, and were playing inspired and scrappy ball tonight. I think they wanted to close this out. And I think they deserved to.

If you’ve ever seen the movie The Sting, it’s about two con men who get revenge on a big mob boss by running an elaborate con and cheating him out of a quarter million dollars. But, the one character warns the other, taking the boss’s money isn’t going to be enough– it’s not going to change the past. And at the end, the other guy turns to the first guy and says, “You’re right. It’s not enough…. But it’s close.”

All nicknames for CP3 in China.  Keep that in mind, China.  Oh, yeah, you too Houston.  There’s also this guy in Phoenix called Steve Nash.  Don’t know what his nickname is in China, but I can tell you this much: he’s better this year than Tracy McGrady.  For those of you that don’t already know, the NBA released the first tallies of All-Star votes.  Naturally, Kobe was the highest rated Western Guard.  But second?  Tracy McGrady.  Tracy fucking McGrady.

People, Steve Nash is having a stellar year; and Chris Paul, provided he is healthy from here out, is still CP3, the best point guard in the League (who after having a miserable 15-14 night in Minnesota, is hailed by box-score watchers as having a great night.  Um, I guess.  I mean, he hit the game winner, but other than that, was not his usual brilliant self; but even half of CP is better than your point guard).  Point?

STOP VOTING FOR TRACY MCGRADY.

Maybe it’s ignorant to blame China, but really, are people in Houston that insane to actually vote for a guy who has yet to play a fucking game all year?  It’s not that the Chinese are natually not as with it, but at least they are a half a world away and more likely to vote for the few players they have national ties to.  Plus if only 10% of people in each country are dumb enough to think McGrady should be even on the ballot, well, there are at least four times as many of such idiots in China, based on population figures.

So listen, did I say it yet?  STOP VOTING FOR TRACY MCGRADY.  Seriously, I’m going to go all “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” on people and track you down by your votes and beat your head in.