Predictions!

[nick]

In one night, both of The Kid's picks went down. I'm conflicted: I feel for Scharpling, but as a native San Antonian, I'm glad to see the Spurs take one step closer to continuing the dynasty. Sorry, Tom! Good luck next year.

[Tom Scharpling]

The Spurs blow and anyone who roots for them is not allowed to listen to my show. Please listen to a radio show that matches the way they play, like Tom Leykis. Something offensively boring.

I know what it's like to like a team because they're local, but the Spurs are exactly what's wrong with the NBA these days - they are such a snooze that I can't bring myself to even remotely care about these 'good guys' anymore. Tim Duncan? Bruce Bowen? Boring. I could go on and on. But the official stance of The Best Show On WFMU is that the Spurs blow.

And Horry is a punk.

Tom.

[kenkwan]

Bruce Bowen's a punk too. And Stu Jackson. I'll be back, I gotta go call Sportstalk 980.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yes, Bowen is a big time punk. Those hustle guys are so annoying after awhile - out on the floor to provoke the other team's star. Screw that. I love nothing more than when they leave Bowen open for the three and he clanks them time and time again. And going after Steve Nash's private zone? He's just the worst.

Tom.

[johnfgillson]

The Jazz are in the same mold though. It's fun to watch Kirilenko play D though because he actually is amazing playing D instead of scrappy. Scrappy D=No fun.

But, the Jazz are very similar to the Spurs. Boozer and Deron Williams are a poor man's Duncan/Parker. Both teams have the playoff veteran with Fisher and Horry although you can't really compare those two in likability because that's a blowout. Both have their defensive specialist and each team has a bunch of European role players and a couple foreign semi-stars (Hopefully Okur doesn't call in and complain about being dubbed a semi-star).

Somehow though the Jazz are more intriguing. I'm going with the Pistons. Even Flip Saunders can't stop them. It's destiny!

[kenkwan]

Also, with the Jazz, I like to imagine Kirilenko saying to his opponent, "I must break you." Then I laugh.

[buffcoat]

Maybe this goes in the Apologist thread...

I'm from and in the Triangle area of North Carolina (along with that drummer from Superchunk), and I'm a UNC grad.  College basketball is the religion down here.  I have to disagree with Tom's long-ago assessment that pro basketball is superior.

The NCAA Tournament is hands down the best event in sports, year after year - even with its being overhyped by CBS.  The regular season games actually MEAN something.  Those kids actually give a damn.  Watch the small college tourneys on ESPN during championship week - the whole conference knows that the only way to get to the playoffs is to win 3 straight games against teams with the same goal.

Contrast it with the endless drudgery of the NBA season, with teams sometimes getting in with .500 records, and the absurdity of a playoff process that is almost as long and dull as the 82 (!) game regular seasons - do they really need to play a best-of-seven in every round?

Of course the players in the NBA are technically more proficient than college players (although, Jesus, can't these guys learn to shoot free throws?). 

There are musicians who are much better players than any of the bands played on the Best Show.  (In fact, I believe the whole "Angry Mr. Bungle Fan" calls established this very point).  But there's no soul and no excitement.  And that's what I see from the NBA.

I got into the Warriors when they started their winning streak (mostly because I wanted to see the Duke-heavy Clippers go down).  It was fun to watch them humiliate the Mavs.  But who on earth wants to watch another Spurs-Pistons final (or Jazz-Cavs, for that matter)?

Honestly, Bruce Bowen kneeing everybody in the nuts is the most exciting thing left in this season.

[johnfgillson]

College basketball is all about coaches and tradition rather than focusing on the people actually playing the game. I don't care about Roy Williams career record or how good a recruiter Billy Donovan is. I care about the players that excel at playing the game not the suits who excel at drawing up plays and sweet talking 17 year olds.

But the absolute worst thing about college hoops is that there are maybe 5 teams that have a chance to win every year, and about 3-4 teams per year that got lucky enough to get a player to be up there with the big boys. The regular season only matters for those teams. The rest just have to be good enough to be the top 30-35 teams in the nation so they get the chance to lose sooner or later to the big dogs. I'm a Minnesota alum and I doubt I'll ever see the Gophers win a national title (although Tubby Smith does make it intriguing). 95 percent of college hoops fans will probably never see their team win a title. I know you didn't bring up football, but that's worse. College basketball and football are worse than Major League Baseball in terms of balance.

Pro basketball on the other hand (pro sports in general really) allows every fan to have hope for their team winning a title. The top players coming into the league don't go to the teams that win constantly, they go to the bad teams that need help. Because of this, it's exciting to even go out and see one of the worst teams in the league. Sure, there are egoists, jerks and crybabies but every sport has that, no actually every business where high amounts of money are involved has that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Buffcoat -

I knew that a college basketball fan would come in here and try to take the shine of the NBA. You guys can't help it!

I have learned not to attempt any sort of pro versus college argument with anyone from North Carolina. You were raised on that stuff, so it makes sense to you.

I cannot think of anything less interesting to me than college basketball. I like watching the players, not the coaches -that's the same reason that football doesn't do much for me at all.

I can explain why I feel the way I do. I grew up in an area with nothing but pro teams - college sports are ultimately a footnote up here. Once in awhile something non-pro sparks some temporary interest, but it's fleeting, and everybody gets back to following one of the big league teams. There are two baseball teams, two football teams, two basketball teams and four hockey teams up here - not much room for the college kids.

The NCAA tournament is a total snooze for me - I tried for years to get engaged in it, but it just doesn't click for me. I could care less about the upsets from shitty schools. The best of seven lets you see who's actually the best. If the Warriors would've beaten the Mavs in one game, nobody would be making a big deal about it. But watching them dismantle the best team in the NBA was amazing- it's no question who belonged in the Western Conference semis.

I like watching people play who belong in the game, not enthusiastic stiffs who get by on hustle and the ability to make free throws like a robot. I watched plenty of UNC games with Rasheed and Stackhouse - a bunch of them IN North Carolina - and I've gotta say, I prefer watching Wallace do what he does in the pros. He's a player amongst players, not a player amongst future insurance salesmen.

Part of my hatred of college sports is tied to my feeling that the priorities of colleges are screwed up aiming their focus on athletics rather than education, but that's a whole other argument.

And if the most exciting thing you saw this year was Bruce Bowen kneeing Nash in the Private Zone, you were watching the wrong games.

Tom.

[Omar]

I agree with everything Buffcoat said, and I respect/understand everything Tom said in his lucid rebuffcoat.  I've always preferred college ball because my introduction to the sport was the Patrick Ewing-era Georgetown teams, which were beyond belief.  Sick, hott stuff, Jack.  If my entry point was the NBA, my perspective might be different. 

Also, one of the main reasons that 'Sheed and Stack were not as exciting at UNC is because they were coached by a complete dullard named Dean Smith.  That idiot once tried to single-handedly ruin college basketball by installing a four-corners offense in an era when there was no shot clock.  Lucikily, the Al Maguire-led Marquette team blitzed his ass in the 1977 championship game.  Dean Smith was recruiting an NBA factory every year, yet Billy Donovan has as many national titles in the last two years as Dean had* in 36.

*And one of them was because Fred Brown passed the ball to Jimmy Worthy in the 1982 Title Game!  You know Eric "Sleepy" Floyd was gonna drain the game-winner!

[Dorvid Barnas]

...my introduction to the sport was the Patrick Ewing-era Georgetown teams, which were beyond belief.

Me too!  One of my earliest memories is going to Hoyas games in '82 w/ my dad.
I've remained a Hoyas fan and they're back in a big way.

I'm still enjoying the NBA playoffs, though. I had been rooting for a Cavs/Suns final; after this last series, I'm now rooting for a Cavs sweep of the Spurs, an ass-kicking so thorough that [edit: Gregg Popovich.  I blew it.] starts a brawl with his own players.

[buffcoat]

Rebuffcoat, I like that.

With regard to what Tom said:

I can see some of the New York area folks' points (there are almost as many New Yorkers as North Carolinians in the place I grew up).  I like pro sports - I've really enjoyed watching the Canes down here (hey - the Stanley Cup belongs to North Carolina for a couple more weeks) and on balance I prefer pro football to college football.  I just can't get next to the NBA for the reasons I named above.

Rasheed IS better in the NBA.  But I'd still much rather watch college basketball, even with some future insurance salesmen thrown in.  Watching the 4th quarter of the New Jersey-Cleveland matchup the other night was just... wrong.  No one seemed to care, even that deep into the playoffs.

As for Omar:

Most Carolina fans would jump all over you for your takedown of Dean Smith.  I grew up an NC State fan (I was at the Brickyard at State in 1983 after the win the in Pit - the craziest party scene I have ever witnessed), so I always felt torn about Smith, even when I was there.  Then I learned to hate Kryzyzewski more and all that questioning went away.

You can argue for or against whether he should have had more championships, but a lot of coaches with a lot of talent never even won one, much less two.  Donovan happened to have a ton of great players return in an era when you usually lose your whole team after a championship (witness Carolina post-2005).  I don't begrudge them leaving, though - I think Joakim Noah paid a lot of money to stay one more year.

Omar and Dorvid:

As for Georgetown - they got whupped by a bunch of undertalented people who were ACTUALLY HIGH DURING THE GAME.  And at the White House afterward.  Sweet.

Given Villanova's shooting performance in the second half, I always wondered why MORE teams didn't do rails in the locker room.

How come Philly Boy Roy never talks about Villanova or Temple?  Lon Chaney is a fascinating man, to have been both a 1920s horror actor and a great coach.  He was terrifying in both roles, although I thought it was much scarier when he threatened to kill John Calipari than when he played "The Ape Man."

[Omar]

Omar and Dorvid:

As for Georgetown - they got whupped by a bunch of undertalented people who were ACTUALLY HIGH DURING THE GAME.  And at the White House afterward.  Sweet.

Given Villanova's shooting performance in the second half, I always wondered why MORE teams didn't do rails in the locker room.

Good point on the power of rails, but Gtown played pretty damn well to only lose by 2 points to a team that only missed one shot in the second half.  If only Patrick and David Wingate visited The White Lady at halftime ...

How come Philly Boy Roy never talks about Villanova or Temple?  Lon Chaney is a fascinating man, to have been both a 1920s horror actor and a great coach.  He was terrifying in both roles, although I thought it was much scarier when he threatened to kill John Calipari than when he played "The Ape Man."

Not to mention the fact that Lon Chaney is the current Vice-President!

[Omar]

...my introduction to the sport was the Patrick Ewing-era Georgetown teams, which were beyond belief.

Me too!  One of my earliest memories is going to Hoyas games in '82 w/ my dad.
I've remained a Hoyas fan and they're back in a big way.

Let's hope Roy and Jeff return.  I became a Hoyas fan via my dad and grandmother, who began following the team when my uncle attended Gtown.  He was friends with Paul Tagliabue, the eventual NFL Commish who remains one of the top rebounders in school history.

[Tom Scharpling]

Watching the 4th quarter of the New Jersey-Cleveland matchup the other night was just... wrong. 

Anybody can pick bad quarters or bad games to make their case. I could also pick the Nets-Pacers first round series from a few years ago as an example of why a multiple-game series trumps one-offs.

How come Philly Boy Roy never talks about Villanova or Temple? 

Because even Philly Boy Roy knows that college basketball sucks.

Tom.