Garcia ( F ) -- I don't even know what to say here. Yesterday he missed pretty mucn everything and did little of consequence correctly, and I gave him a gentleman's D largely because we won and he was a minor soldier more than ably replaced by Donte and Casspi. Today he missed pretty much everything -- and almost all of them were wide open looks set up repeatedly by various teammates -- and did nothing else of consequence, and I am giving him an F. Why? Well we lost, and a huge part of it was the gaping chest wound that opened up at SF where not only did Cisco suck, but neither of the wildly inconsistent kids could do anything in place of him. In other words we needed him this time, and he wasn't there. His shots could not have been easier or more typical for him and just...nothing. Was gone by the midway point of the third for the second straight game, and if we actually had anybody consistent to replace him with you would have to wonder if he might not be in danger of being replaced. Proabably not for a few months though, or whenever the lockout starts allowing FA signings.
Kelly Clarkson -- I was wondering who to start this thing off with, and I thought why not start with the woman who was voted in 2010 the #1 Pop voice of all time. I am not necessarily endorsing that poll result btw, but there is no doubt that the girl can really sing. The gap between a singer at this level, and an autotuned corporate creation is immense. Very few people can do this.
Cousins ( C- ) -- disappointing game from DeMarcus, and really our entire frontcourt. But in his case I think the explanation might be as simple as tired legs. In a lot of ways DeMarcus does not have the whole concept of being a professional down yet -- core parts fo that title is you show up and do work rain or shine, in a good mood or bad, tired or fresh, wiht a bumpy red rash on your...er...um, anyway, that ain't DeMarcus at this point. When something is even a little off with him, its directly reflected on the court. And I think I've seen him play enough to tell when he just had no legs. And that's what it looked like out there. When it happens, he just loses all the force from his game. The rebounding disppears, and it did, the post playing disappears, and it did -- most of what offense he did produce were passive long jumpers. And he really wants to function primarily as a passer when he's tired. And he dropped in some nifty ones again. But he was just out there trying them again an again, and along wiht the nifty ones were all kinds of low percentage ones leading to another swath of turnovers. He managed to block a couple of shots on defense, but notably both were standing flatfooted. Finally had a couple of forceful pays late, with a beautiful crossover bewtween the legs and drive to the hoop fromt eh top of the key,and a huge slam off a sharp Thornton/Reke passing sequence with 2:30 to go. But they were long islands and too little too late in a very middling little 11pt 4reb night with 5TOs tacked on for good measure.
Cyndi Lauper -- one of the other choices I had to make is over what time span was I going to select people, and finally I decided that anyone stil active and making new music was good enough. I liked the Lauper pick anyway because I think it may be a bit of surprise to some people who only know her by her quirky highly mannered image. But I realized some years after her first burst of popularity that looking back on it, she really had a heck of a voice when she wanted to use it. Take a listen to the song above -- that was a song originally written for Roy Orbison, but he let her release her version first. And having listened to both versions, I am not at all sure hers isn't better. Anybody who can outsing a singing legend like Roy Orbison on his own song has a heck of a voice. Here was Roy's, silky as always, version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptdePsIZUHg
Dalembert ( C- ) -- another one of our disappointing bigs, and hwo knows as long as we are distributing excuses, maybe this one was still because of the bruised ribs. Was quickly into foul trouble with two early ones against Nene, who at least obliged by missing all 4 Fts. But we left them in there, and after a few minutes of providing defense and rebounding he challenged a shot you just should not challenge with 2 early fouls, pikced up his 3rd foul only 4 moniutes into the game and sat until half. Minutes in the second half were spotty, and spottily productive. Some good rebounds in the early minutes after the break, and a flat out nice pass right between two Nuggets legs to a slashing Thornton -- our passing has improved so much that we now have Samuel Dalembert, career assist average <1, throwing passes between opponent's legs to cutters. Picked up his 4th and final foul when he mishandled a nice pass from Reke late, resulting in a turnover and a Nuggets break. He got back in time to challenge (actually kind of impressive given that he turned it over right under the opposing hoop), but all he could do was give Gallinari a +1. Gave us decent rebounding numbers, and not much else in his limited minutes.
Christina Aguilera -- she was called for from the peanut gallery, but really there never was any doubt she was going to be included. Of that pack of pop stars who came up around the millenium -- Britney, Aguilera, JLo, Simpson, Mandy Moore etc. Christina was the one who could really sing. Little girl with a big voice. As an aside, while most of the songs selected are not surprisingly going to be ballads, since its much easier to disguise a lack of pipes on highly produced uptempo stuff, one of my other criteria is I wanted these to all be pop stars at least as famous for their uptempo poppish songs, and not just professional adult contemprary type ballad singers. Christina is certainly a pop star in all ways, but she is one armed with a real weapon. Let Keisha try to sing this song and see what happens.
Thornton ( B+ ) -- has rapidly become maybe our most consistent player. Just started off the game on fire again and drained 3 threes on the Nuggets in the first quarter as they were apparently listening to their announcers too much about how Marcus wasn't ****. Or maybe was ****. Having them and Walton assault my ears on back to back nights was getting aggravating. Back in in the second and immediately came up with a nice dropoff pass to JT for a little flip. In the first hal f did not seem much intereaction with Reke, and thre up a 1 on 1 forced three as soon as Reke went out with 3:30 to go in the half. Was so hot that he started drawing doubles -- the third King capable of doing that, which of course is the stuff you can build offense around. Couple of bad plays to end the first half as he chucked up a bad 2 for 1 3pt attempt with no ball movement that had no chance. And then messed up the final play of the half, throwing the pass between Beno and Donte and straight out of bounds. Seemed to lose his shooting touch in the third, and in the midst of Denver's run added a bad little touch foul trying to defend the break that gave Gallinari the +1. Seemed to get a 2nd wind in the early 4th with a good, if slightly late, pass over to Beno on the break for a jumper, and a slash to the rim to get us the lead back. Really tough drive at the 3:50 mark, but forced the next one as you could again see the youth and inexperience crop up down the stretch as guys started trying to do it themselves. Dropped in a last three in the final mintes, but too little but to late. Is taking a LOT of threes now, and maybe that is the wy he is going to fit with Cousins and Reke inside. Certainly if he continues taking 10 threes a game and hitting 40% of them it takes a lot of pressure off of us in who we select at SF.
Mariah Carey -- once I made the decision that not everybody had to be under 25, it would be a strange list of this nature indeed that did not include Mariah and her 5 octave range. I intentionally went back to Mariah's early career for one of her more famous performances of one of her more famous songs (does not hurt that she was really hot back then). I don't think she had quite the power of her rival coming up a little later, but her range and control was spectacular at that time, and you can see her just having the crowd eating out of her hands. I have heard that she has rediscovered discipline in recent years after a long period of experimentation and sometimes lazy performances, which is a good thing.
