Annnnd, we’re back!
Annnnd – heyyyyyy – we’re the Champs!!!
Super-fired up for the new season, which begins Tuesday at home against Boston
1) New
Guys: We got Walter Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, and, probably, Jorts. Who?
Jorts is Josh Harrelson, your stereotypical big, dorky, white dude who
takes up space, fouls at an alarming rate because he is too slow to move his feet
defensively, wears jean shorts (hence the mash-it-up’d nickname “Jorts”) and
knocks down triples like I knocked down Cucumber Martinis all summer! Wait…what?
He knocks down triples? Yeah, man
– he can knock down a triple, and it looks like he is going to make the team,
even with a non-guaranteed contract.
Look, in the NBA you can never have too many bigs, especially if he can
knock down a triple, and especially if he can knock down a triple and is playing with Dwyane Wade and
LeBron James – a big guy who can space the floor is worth his weight in
cucumbers, mixologically-speaking…Though he was obviously horrendously coached
in college (Kentucky, head coach: Satan), Jorts looked a little frisky in
limited minutes with the Knicks last year, and at a minimum, will provide Heat fans
with a dude to root for at the end of blowouts – he’s going to get a defensive
rebound some Tuesday night against Detroit with the Heat leading by 30 and the
crowd is instantly going to scream for him to launch a three from 80 feet away. Let’s hope he complies. Overall, I’m a big Jorts guy, if only because
I love saying “Jorts.” By the way, if he
gets released over the weekend in favor of Terrell Harris and Garrett Temple,
forget I wrote any of this (editor's note: Jorts made the team!)…As for the other guys, if healthy, Ray Allen is
going to make about a thousand threes, and Rashard Lewis’ impact on the
championship chase is ultimately going to fall somewhere between “none” and
“absolutely none.” No legs anymore for
Rashard…In related news, M.Minutos has delivered on a new notepad for the
season (to avoid me writing game notes on scraps on paper which I leave around
the house in perpetuity, and then see like 7 months later – “Hey, I just found
this old note – remember the time Mario Chalmers dribbled the ball off the shot
clock?”). The notepad was a new strategy
last year, and we won the title, so you’re welcome. Here’s this season’s notepad:
2) Dwayne Wade and Udonis Haslem: I’ve watched about 10 minutes total of the preseason, and none of those minutes have included Dwyane Wade. However, more dedicated fans than I have reported that he is looking spry, quick, on balance in the air, and generally more athletic after post-season knee surgery. I don’t know if it can last all season, but it’s good to know his rehab is slightly ahead of schedule – he wasn’t necessarily scheduled to be ready to begin the season. I’m hoping that the depth of the roster (along with a guy named KJ James) will allow Dwyane (and Allen) to take nights off during the season to keep the legs as fresh as possible. One thing about Dwyane: if you go back and watch that Oklahoma City series, which I have done about 300 times over the summer, he played incredibly well, other than two mind-numbing, late-game turnovers (both of which they survived). Because KJ controlled the offense, and anchored the defense, it allowed Dwyane to run all over the court like a maniac, making “home run” plays: a back cut for a dunk here, a blocked shot at the rim there, and a steal and finish on the reprehensible Russell Westbrook, which was the signature play of the championship. This is the perfect role for him as he gets older (and older). He doesn’t have to carry the team anymore – that’s all KJ. All he has to do is roam around and use his basketball intelligence, and still-considerable athleticism, to make plays. That’s what the playoffs are all about, by the way: bad things happen from time-to-time; you just have to continue to make plays…As for Udonis Haslem: uh-oh. He missed most of preseason with a strained hamstring. He played really, really poorly last season coming off of foot surgery. Uh-oh. Love him anyways…Reminder: when Dwyane and UD are both gone, I’m gone. We came up together, we've won this franchise two championships (so far), and we’re all going out together. Enjoy us while you can,
3) KJ James (King James James – Hubeism!) and Chris Bosh: KJ James is going to kill people this season. He was so good by the end of last season that the gap between him and the next best player was probably bigger than the gap between the second best player, whoever that is (probably Mario Chalmers), and me. His mid-post game is ridiculously good now, and he’s got so many shooters surrounding him this season to space the floor. Here’s the list of guys on the Heat who can efficiently knock down threes: Chalmers, Mike Mil-lar (healthy…for the moment), Shane Battier, Chris Bosh, Walter Ray Allen (the best shooter in the history of the NBA), Rashard Lewis, James Jones, and Jorts. That’s crazy. It doesn’t even include Dwyane Wade, who threw in a few huge threes in the playoffs. Also, KJ can make them himself. KJ is going to freaking kill people – he’ll be the MVP easily. I don’t know if the writers will vote for him, but no one is going to be remotely as good. In the ten minutes of preseason I saw, he had about 15 dunks…The other dude who is going to kill people is Chris Bosh. For almost two entire seasons, Chris Bosh got the brunt of the ire of every Heat fan who was worried that we were never going to win a title – the reasoning went that spending near-max dollars on a big who rebounded like his feet were asleep, and defended the rim like a statue, killed the flexibility to bring in other interior players who could supply those skills. Not in this blog, of course – I always believed in Chris Bosh more than I have ever believed in anybody, except Mike Bibby, and my mom…Then, suddenly, in the Finals, Bosh started making all the plays everyone always imagined that he could make – he rebounded the ball out of his area; he tried to identify when and where an offensive player might try to shoot the ball, and attempted to deter him; he finished plays in traffic. He was tremendous. And, from the little I’ve seen so far in the preseason, it seems like he has picked right back up where he finished. He looks leaner and more muscular, and his full-time move to the center spot makes him an incredibly tough cover. I saw 10 minutes of him against
4) Mario Chalmers: Listen, I didn’t think I would ever love a point guard as much as I loved Mike Bibby. And I won’t. But this Mario “Emcee” Chalmers is getting awfully close. He is stealing my heart. What doesn’t this kid do? Last season he: returned to his role as the starting point guard; made a bunch of triples, often in key moments; threw approximately 300 alley-oop passes, with a success rate somewhere between 35 and 0 percent; had more times where he drove under the rim and tried to dance along the baseline, only to just dribble the ball directly out of bounds, than any guard in history; got yelled at so much by KJ James that it started to become uncomfortable tv viewing, yet never once changed expression, nor gave any indication, either in his demeanor or his subsequent play on the court, that he even one time heard one thing that KJ said; single-handedly won Game 4 of the Finals, the KJ James cramp game, to put the Heat up 3-1, and then became (even more) legendary when Dwyane Wade was captured by tv cameras in the locker room tunnel immediately after the game coming off the court screaming at him “Mario Motherfucking Chalmers…you motherfucker!!!” What a season! Oh yeah, then one game later, he became a championship point guard! Oh yeah, then over the offseason, young Golden State Warrior point guard Stephon Curry said in an interview, “Every night you play a great point guard in this league – Derrick Rose, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Mario Chalmers!” Oh yeah, then when asked about Curry’s comments, and asked where he ranked himself amongst NBA point guards, Emcee offered, “Towards the top of the top ten!” What doesn’t this kid do to entertain us? Answer: nothing! He missed most of preseason with bad wheels, but that can’t affect him too much – already so slow for a guard! He’ll be back out there to do all the things that it is that Mario Chalmers do soon enough, cuz that's what he do. Love this boy! Forever!
5) People always want us to make predictions. That’s not really what I do, but let’s give it a go. I predict that at some point during the season Mike Mil-lar will get injured. I predict Bosh will make more than 50 threes. I predict that Rashard Lewis and Udonis Haslem will be non-factors, but that Jorts will play a lot of regular season minutes (ouch – kills me to write that about UD). KJ is going to kill people. Bosh is going to kill people. The Heat will win 61 games (why exert themselves any harder than that?), and beat the Celtics in the Eastern Finals. We’ll all think Doucheball is dead (again). We’ll all be wrong (again). Heat over the Lakers in 6 in The Finals. Let’s Go, and Let’s Go Get It. Also, in the words of the immortal Chauncey Billups (when, exactly, is he getting to come down here to play – seems like we’ve all been planning on that forever): Let’s Get It On!
6) So, okay, people are always like, "What do you do in the offseason? Do you like, break down game tape of Heat games?" Answer: I don't 'break down' game tape - I'm just watching the old games over and over for my own enjoyment. "Do you read other blogs for ideas on how to improve Dos Minutos?" Answer: Have you ever seen an improvement in this blog? Okay, there you go!...So what do I do? Go on the road with 1990s alternative rock gods The Afghan Whigs! Yeahhh, boyyy! Great Friend of the Blog (GFOB) Thor and I went on a road trip to Atlanta to watch them play! This story isn't about that, though - this story is about what happened on the Saturday afternoon before the show...So GFOB Thor and I were walking around an ill, relaxed part of dowtown Atlanta on Saturday, early afternoon. We'd had brunch, including maybe a Mimosa here, a Bloody Mary there, we were checking out a store that sells eco-friendly gifts, we were shopping for vintage t-shirts...You know - we were gaying it up, in the most non-perjorative manner humanly possible. So all of a sudden, GFOB Thor goes, "Hey, I forgot - my friend said we should check out The Claremont Hotel, have a drink there." We google it up, and I'm like, "Gosh, it seems kind of out of our way, but alright, let's give it a shot." So we headed out east, and we walk, and we walk, and we walk. We walked so far out of the city that we got to a neighborhood that was gentrifying, kind of, but kind of not. It's like, Thor had to drop a deuce out there, so we happened upon a Whole Foods, and we're like, "Oh, that will be a clean wash room," but then we get in there, and the store was Whole Foods, but the wash room was Albertson's, you feel me? Ick...Anyways, he felt better, and we are both like, "Damn, are we ever going to get there?" So Thor googles it again - realize we didn't really know what The Claremont was, we weren't smart enough to think about that - someone told us to go there, we go...So now on this google, Thor goes, "Uh-oh," and I'm like, "what," and he starts reading from a review of The Claremont, and it's like, "Atlanta's oldest, continually-running gentleman's club, known for its strippers who don't necessarily conform to generally-accepted standards of beauty." Dude - I am super, super uncomfortable in strip clubs where the strippers do conform to generally-accepted standards of beauty. The whole transaction is super-creeepy to me. So Thor is like, "Well, we can go back," but really, we had walked so far by this point, and this blog needs material. So we went for it. Like 5 minutes later we were there. It's on the outskirts of East Atlanta - not a nice neighborhood - and it's in the basement of a four story motor lodge, which is abandoned - if you're looking to buy a seedy hotel, I've got a super-hot lead for you. We walk down behind the hotel to the entrance - I was making a noise like, "uhhhooohhhuuuhhhooohhh," to calm my nerves, and Thor's like, "Stop that, you're making me more nervous" but I really couldn't. By the way, yes, we are adults; no, I don't know what the hell is wrong with us...Down at the entrance there was a dude sitting on a stool with a- well, basically he looked like a carny with a high school dance cash box. And next to him was a, ummm, I'd guess you'd call her a stripper (exotic dancer? there was nothing exotic about her) wearing hot pants and a bikini. Thor has since described her as "the ugliest woman I have ever seen, assuming that she is actually a woman." I think that's inaccurate - I've seen way uglier - but nowhere close to a strip club. She was a pasty, mannish looking woman with a body like a refrigerator. I assumed the guy was charging a cover - I mean, he had a cash box with him - and I was so nervous I essentially just grabbed a wad of bills out of my pocket, like $200, and shoved it at him, but he's like, "no, no cover, just go on in," and the stripper smiled, and coos (echhh), "I'll be right in to see you boys." Uhhhooohhhuuuhhh...So we go in, What the hell, what choice did we have? So the club is this tiny little room with a small oval bar, and a 10 foot dance runaway jutting out into the middle of the bar, so that basically the dancers are sweating on to the alcohol. At one end of the room there are like 2 other dancers sitting there, and a ghostly old bleached-blond behind the bar, and they are all like, "Heyyy, y'all, welcome, have a seat!!!" THERE ARE NO OTHER CUSTOMERS IN THE BAR!!! We sit down, as far away from the girls as possible, which isn't that far because the place is so tiny. Immediately, this young stripper comes over and says to me, "Mind if I sit with you," and I'm like, "Great!" She was probably 19, 5'6' 210 pounds. Listen, one thing about me: I am not necessarily a nice person, or considerate, or thoughtful, or anything like that - just ask M.Minutos, or, alternately, anyone else on Earth who knows me at all. But nothing - nothing - is more important to me than strangers thinking that I am polite. So I put all my unease and semi-revulsion aside and chatted her up as best I could. What I learned: her name (Bonnie? I forgot - I only have to seem polite in the moment, I don't have to remember peoples' names); she has two kids; she used to work daycare with her mom (!), but it wasn't enough money; she changed to online porn sites and sex phone lines, but she didn't like it because guys kept asking her to do things that were illegal; and that she loves working at The Claremont, it's the first place she feels "at home." Oh, also, the busiest times at the club are Friday and Saturday nights (okay, okay, that was a dumb question- I choked a bit). Meanwhile, the ghostly old woman has come over and told Thor, "They say The Claremont is where old strippers go to die - I'm living proof of that!" Wow. Then Refrigerator Woman comes over and stands behind us and starts scratching our backs, up and down, up and down, and a lil lower, and a lil lower, and a lil lower, and I'm all tense, my body is locked up and I'm paralyzed with fear thinking, "It's super-dark in here, she can't even tell I'm old, she just thinks I'm a cute little white boy!" Uhhhooohhhuuuhhh! Oh - forgot something important! It was really, really dark in there, tough to see, especially coming in from the bright Atlanta sun. I sat down and put my elbows on the edge of the bar, and I have this thought: "That feels like duct tape." A slightly closer inspection revealed: duct tape! Like the leather had ripped off the padded cushion of the bar, and over time they had just taped up the bar with duct tape. Ewwwwww!!! So, now the, ummm, chunky gal is like, "Hey, I've got my two songs coming up - want to pick the music," and I'm like, "well, I don't go to a lot of strip clubs, I don't really know what to pick," and she's like, "well what music do you like," and I'm, like, "ummm, Jay Z?" I know it's a stupid answer - I've been listening to a lot of Jay Z lately and, again, I panicked. She said they didn't have a lot of rap, but she leads me over to the juke box and I start flipping through the pages. You know how a normal juke box has CD covers so you can pick the songs? This one had those, except they were CD covers from, like, burned CDs, with sloppily handwritten titles like, "Ella's Southern Rock CD." Goodness gracious. I didn't even know most of the songs, the ones whose titles I could read through the extremely poor penmanship. Finally I see a Smashing Pumpkins song, "Zero," and I'm like, "that." Bad move - that was my favorite band ever; now the thought of them brings a bone-chilling iciness into my spine. So, she's like, "Great, see you in a minute," and goes back backstage. I come back to the bar, and Thor and I are finally alone. Refrigerator Woman is on stage doing the worst stripper dance in the history of strippers (and dancing in general), a Travolta-esque hand-roll while jolting her hips roughly side-to-side to The Who's "Squeeze Box." Thor stages-hisses, "C'mon, let's go!!!" And I grimmace, and whisper back "I can't." And he's like, "Why," and I'm like, "I picked the fat girl's song - I can't leave now, I have to see the dance - it would be rude to leave." And Thor's like, "Are you shitting me? You're not even polite!" - see what I mean - and I'm like, "No, that's just to people I know; I don't know her, I can't be rude," and he's like, "Oh, God..." So we watch her dance to Smashing Pumpkins - it's hard to describe what she was doing as dancing exactly - and then she starts her second song, and I look over at Thor and nod, and we both shoot up from the table and holler, "Bye, thanks!" and bolt. We get 100 yards out of the club, out of eyeshot and earshot, and instinctively we both suddenly kneel down as though we had been punched in the stomach and lost our winds. Then we spent the rest of day arguing about why I felt the need to be polite to the fat stripper. Thor kept saying, "She left her last job because guys kept asking her to do things that were illegal; you think you leaving before she dances is going to faze her?" I mean, now, in retrospect, I can kind of see his point. (Also, we argued about the worst places to drop a deuce - we didn't see the wash room in The Claremont, but we figured it had to be top ten. Worst? Port-O-Potty on a hot day in Afghanistan)...In summation, though, you know what? The women there were all actually very friendly, and seemed to be enjoying themselves. And they were very nice to Thor and I. They didn't have the problem; we had the problem, we expected them to be a certain way, to have a certain type of look, because they are "strippers." But you know what? That's not fair. And for that, I blame Thor. He freaked me out. The end!
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Let's have a great season! See you on Tuesday! Boston Celtics (#Doucheball) in town to watch us raise our banner! If you need me before then, I'll be, ummm, "entertaining myself" to Smashing Pumpkins' "Zero!" I love you people!
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