I Dislike Your Favorite Team

If you don't watch Adventure Time, that is your business. You are wrong of course. But it is your business.

In his off hours, the creator of said Adventure Time, Pendleton Ward, has been known to engage in doodles. And some of those doodles are pretty crazy awesome.

Like Peppermint Patty's freckled balls. Enjoy.

In honor of the NBA returning this week, and Shaq joining the TNT Crew, how about one of his Top 40 singles from 1993? From his (no, really) Platinum debut, Shaq Diesel.

Oh, sure, we've detailed ridiculous Wisconsin behavior before. And maybe, as you've read through those stories, of drunken Santas and Deer Corpse Fuckers and drunken hammer wielding food thieves and mothers stealing their daughter's identity to relive high school and all that shit, you've wondered, "I wonder what kind of people they elect to represent them?"

Of course, you probably know that the Real World Boston cast member/one-time ESPN Outdoor Games commentator Sean Duffy (who I once ran into and pestered at Billy's on Grand. Mostly with the following questions--"So, Montana--what was she like? Bitchy, right? Because I watched your season, and she came off as super-sucky.") is now in the House of Representatives (for now, but with quotes like this--not for long).

But the old man of the GOP in Wisconsin is James Sensenbrenner. He's been around forever. The Democrats in Wisconsin have Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl (until he retires next year). The Republicans have Sensenbrenner. Both have been in public office for as long as you have been cognizant of Congress (or close to it).

So, what did Representative James Sensenbrenner do to make news this week? Did he help broker the deal that finally got that payroll tax vacation passed? Did he make a courageous stand against the horrible SOPA Bill? Or did he live up to his Wisconsininess, and do something incredibly stupid and wrong-headed, and sit down with a bunch of citizens, and make rude comments about Michelle Obama's ass?

GUESS!  According to one of the people there, this happened:  "He implied that Michelle Obama being interested in childhood obesity was not serious, he sort of made fun of it and then he made fun of her. He said something like, look at her big butt.”

A couple of things here:

1. Thanks to Representative James Sensenbrenner, we can finally have the conversation we, as a nation, have always wanted to have--which First Lady would you most like to tag? To be fair, we'd probably have to exclude Dolley Madison, because we all know she was a tramp who would be down for all sorts of freaky shit, and would run away with the poll.

dead sexy.

2. Representative James Sensenbrenner has a bit of a case of Pot-Kettle Syndrome. If the Kettle were a pretty hot, late 40's black woman lawyer and wife of the President, and the Pot was just another fat white dude from Wisconsin.

"Hypocrisy? Is that something I can fry in bacon fat?"

If you were doing something stupid, like celebrating Jesus' Birthday, instead of watching football, you may have missed this insane maneuver.

It is being sold as if it is the National Game of the Week. But hold on one second...

They are, right now, a combined 15-13. COMBINED TWO GAMES OVER .500!

Would you know that, if you were just watching all the bullshit hype?

Recent history--the Jets got their dogs walked by Philly just last week (by "getting their dogs walked", I mean, losing 19-45). The Giants lost to the Goddamn Drunken Savages by 13 points last week.

But, OH MY GOD, these teams are fighting for postseason play!

Let's take a moment--The Giants are 7-7. The Jets are 8-6.

The Jets, even at 8-6, have maybe the worst record in football. In that they are 8-6, and have beaten absolutely no one.

At least, wins against Dallas, Jacksonville, Miami, San Diego, Buffalo (twice), Washington, and Kansas City doesn't exactly light up a sign in my mind that says, "SUPER BOWL".

Fuck these two crappy ass teams. This game is important because the loser is out of the playoffs, more than likely, the winner is going to sneak in with the 5th or 6th seed and lose in the first round. Clearly, this game is FUCKING IMPORTANT.

But it isn't. Not really.

If you are looking for actually important games this Saturday, and not just what the East Coast Media Liberal Elite thinks is important (apologies to nutjobs who actually think that way) look at these games:

Chargers vs. Lions
Saints vs. Falcons.

Those are games worthy of mention. The Chargers and Lions are both on hot streaks, and haven't lost to the likes of the Washington Drunken Savages of late. The Saints and The Falcons, boring as it may be for those of you who don't live in the South, has a ton of repercussions, especially if the Falcons can win (and they can. Will they? who knows. But they can.)

Giants vs. Jets? Fuck that mediocre shit. It is, seriously mediocre shit.

Apologies for the shaky-cam work.

That was a long title, and I congratulate you for getting through it. Let me put it another way--if Syracuse is the best team in the country, I'll eat my own feces, whilst fondling Jimmy Boeheim's little rodent genitalia.

That's an unfair way to describe one of the top coaches in the league, who is leading the #1 team in the country.

I'd feel terrible about describing Boeheim that way, if it weren't already clear that one of his top assistants was involved in some dirty shit.

But forget all of that--the #1 team in the country has beaten one team, one team in #10 Florida (at Syracuse). The rest of their wins almost read as a joke of how a team can stay unbeaten--Fordham, Manhattan, Albany, Colgate, VA Tech, Stanford (those last two in Madison Square Garden, where in the record book it will go down as a "neutral site", but we all know better, yeah?). Followed by wins over East Michigan, Marshall, and George Washington.

Meanwhile, real #1's have fallen because they have played each other. Ohio State lost to #13 Kansas, at least in part because they were without their best player. Prior to that, they had beaten Florida, just like Syracuse did, and absolutely destroyed Duke.

Kentucky has beaten UNC and Kansas, and their only loss was because of a miracle 3-pointer in Indiana. The message is clear. Beating shitty teams is worth more than losing to very very good teams.

Yeah, sure, Syracuse is #1 right now. But anyone with two eyeballs and a sense of history knows what it coming--Kentucky and Ohio State and North Carolina all have more NBA ready players than Syracuse, and more quality wins (and equally important, quality losses--though UNC needs to do some work to wash out that UNLV loss, no offense to Lon Kruger, Dave Rice, who is totally awesome a long-time, respected assistant getting his first shot at the Head Coaching gig). Already, Syracuse stinks like a team likely to fall the most in the rankings in the next 3 weeks.

corrected: 12/20/11

Couple of thieves ass-dial 911, spill details of crime to the cops. WISCONSIN!

First and goal on the nine yard line. Under one minute left, down by one touchdown against the Hatriots. Sensational rookie RB Helu takes it up the middle for five yards. Second and goal, four yard line.

If you knew that your QB was Rex Grossman, who averages two turnovers per game, and you knew that his second turnover had already been overturned in the first half thanks to an admittedly bullshit roughing penalty ... you might want to run it in this situation.

Cheat your fate! If Grossman leads the league for interceptions in the end zone, maybe a pass isn't the best option. Washington earned 170 yards rushing against New England, with a 5 yard per rush average, and it was getting easier with every handoff.

I don't blame Grossman, who does his level best. His coaches need to gameplan around his two turnovers per game.

It's less than one minute left. Second and goal on the four yard line. Averaging five yards per run.

Instead: empty backfield, shotgun. Interception. Game over.

As I heard Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix (super-cool name, by the by) go on Dan Patrick's show and totally roast David Stern for nixing the trade that would have sent Chris Paul to Los Angeles, for a whole bunch of players and a draft pick, I started to wonder--"Sure, man, the lamestream media are all over Stern, but that's because they are in the pockets, of, I don't know, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who is always super media savvy and is known for his measured, thoughtful responses to bad news"

Some quick background, in case you haven't been following closely--the New Orleans Hornets had their owner, George Shinn say, essentially, "I can't run or own this team anymore, and I can't find a buyer." So the NBA, as an organization, gave him some money and let him walk, and they are now in charge of the Hornet's operations. Chris Paul, the only legitimate star on the Hornets has made it clear that he wants to leave that particular shitbox of a situation. The Lakers, Rockets and Hornets put together a deal--a pretty fair deal, according to most outside observers. Stern vetoed it.

And let's be clear--Mannix was fired up on Patrick's radio show. He was most definitely ranting. He's a bit more measured in his written piece, but it is still clear that he thinks that Stern made a massive mistake--you can tell, because he argues the only thing to do is reverse the decision:  "The only recourse for Stern is to flip, issue a mea culpa and sign off on the deal. The consequences are enormous if he doesn't. One of the smallest of small-market teams will crumble. Paul will wither under the daily scrutiny of an insatiable media that will feed on speculation about his future. An already lukewarm fan base will turn away in droves, making New Orleans Arena a hollow, depressing tomb. This is David Stern's mess now, and he is the only one who can clean it up."

I said Mannix was kinder in his column than he was on the radio, but then again, this is a wonderfully nasty way of putting things: "An NBA spokesman said the league torpedoed the deal for basketball reasons, which is like saying Herman Cain dropped out of the race because he decided he didn't want to be president."

So yeah, I was thinking--that's what the Sports Illustrated guy thinks, but man--they publish Peter King and Rick Reilly and shit. What are the iconoclastic contrarians on the Interwebs going to say?

Turns out, they pretty much agree. At least, Tommy Craggs of Deadspin does (Tommy Craggs is making me read Deadspin again--you should read his stuff). And you know why? It was seemingly a pretty damn good deal for the Hornets given the fact that every NBA General Manager and his favorite dog know that the Hornets aren't going to be able to re-sign Chris Paul. You know, seeing as Chris Paul has publicly stated that he doesn't want to be there, but does want to help the team get the most they can for him out of a trade.

Craggs: "The Paul trade was a bad deal for the Lakers and a good one for the Hornets, the small-market team whose bullshit interests all those angry owners—and Stern, too, as Hornets owner in loco parentis—were supposedly defending. I'm with John Hollinger: The Hornets weren't going to find a better return on Paul than what they would've gotten in the deal (Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Lamar Odom, Goran Dragic, plus the Knicks' first-round pick), and what little leverage they had in the trade market for Paul has now been shot to hell and gone. The Lakers would've had a great pick-and-roll point guard with no one left to pick and roll with him. Superteam? Bullshit."

I have got to agree with Craggs and Hollinger mostly on what the Hornets would be getting back. Obviously, the plan for the Lakers was to acquire some big man who actually wants out of Florida, like, say, Dwight Howard, and hope that Paul, Howard and a frankly rapidly aging Kobe Bryant would be able to put together a couple of great years. (It is saying something about this debacle that even Skip Bayless was making some sense--he argued that given the health and age issues that Bryant and Paul have dealt with/are dealing with, he's be worried about calling any collaboration between them a "superteam").

Regardless, the Hornets put together a deal that gave them a bunch of decent players that they could presumably deal again, or use to cobble together a team that would at least be competitive--five players for one player? Can you name the folks on the Hornet's roster that these dudes would be replacing? I can't. I know more starters on the 1998 Hornets Team than I do the 2010 team.

So, in this Holiday Season, a miracle! Sports Illustrated, Dan Patrick, and Deadspin all agree on something--David Stern fucked up, but real good, and New Orleans got fucked, in the guise of being protected.

I know Tim Tebow is full of intangibles and spirit and Grace and winning. "Winning" is something the teams he has beaten don't have.

Miami: 4-8
Oakland: 7-5
Kansas City: 5-7
New York Jets: 7-5
San Diego: 5-7
Minnesota: 2-10

That's a combined record of 30-42. Even if you toss out that horrible Vikings squad, you still end up at 28-32. Maybe the single most important factor in Tebow's God-Based Winning Strategy is the crappy opponents that God/the NFL Schedulers gave him. The best team Tebow has beaten, arguably is the laughably unpredictable, inconsistent Jets, who also lost to Oakland, and have convincingly gotten their dogs walked by the Patriots. There isn't a real playoff team in the bunch (sorry, Jets fans, but your offense is way to inconsistent to do anything on the road in the playoffs. Oh, and your defense is overrated). Oakland is in the hunt for the playoffs, but certainly their "intriguing potential playoff team" status took a hit when they got destroyed by Miami, yeah?

I'm not taking anything away from a 6-1 run--I just think it is fair to point out that a majority of those teams have a losing record. And the ones over .500 have real obvious flaws. Everyone is talking about how Chicago's defense is going to be a real test, but if their offense is without their starting QB and RB, what kind of test is it, really? Next week, against the Patriots, with a team that can score like crazy, and has a pretty questionable defense against the pass--that's when we will really see what Tebow can do.

Look, look, look--I know, I know. The Timberwolves are more than likely going to be fairly terrible this season. There are many factors stacked against them--their youth, all of the new guys, the lockout shortened pre-season, with a new coach and a new system, and let's not forget--approximately half a decade of total suck.

But I was pretty geeked up when this team drafted Derrick Williams, despite his confusing height. I have grown to love KLOVE (though I was dead-set against his drafting at the time). I've never been as concerned as others were whether Ricky Rubio was going to come play here.

And again--I know this team is super-young, is running a brand-new system, and doesn't really have the time to learn it. But damn if this footage of them playing 5 on 5 in a gym this week doesn't get me excited. Please note: Ricky Rubio can hit open shots, and if Rubio bounces a pass to KLOVE, he's just going to bounce it to someone else for a dunk. I'm beginning to believe again, which will end in tears, I know. But damn, this team is promising. In that they have shooters of all sizes and shapes.

I watched part of the Vikings/Broncos game, and saw Tim Tebow in action. He can't throw a spiral, and is only slightly more precise than most defensive tackles. He's thrown only 1 pick in 7 games. He's 6-1 as a starter for the Broncos, who were 1-4 with a QB who could throw a spiral. What possible explanation could there be for his 6-1 record other than divine intervention? Tim Tebow is the strongest proof for the existence of God that I have seen.

It depends one's perspective, I suppose, to say how long the Vikings have felt destined to move to Los Angeles. If you are a member of the Twin Cities community, and have been listening to KFAN exclusively, you might think it is a foregone conclusion that the Vikings are like "this close" to leaving if something doesn't happen. By "something", of course, I mean $650,000,000 in public money to buy them a new stadium in a place in Arden Hills, which just so happens to have a lot of other undeveloped land that maybe, just maybe, owners of the Vikings, the Wilf Family, might just develop and not share any of those profits with the taxpayers--even though, in their own ad, they claim the stadium will be "owned" by the State of Minnesota.