Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You know, if I have to do too many more games where we see a starting lineup of Jason Thompson, Travis Outlaw, John Salmons, Francisco Garcia and Aaron Brooks there won't BE any more grades threads. That's embarrassing and pointless and not even worth my time. We can just go to permanent nightly girls threads instead to keep people entertained until the next real NBA lineup takes the court wearing our jerseys.
We'll do a theme of Craters...seems vaguely appropriate. Unless we've done that before/recently? Know I was planning it. Will have to go check. Anyway...
Boxscore
Stats: 36min 16pts (7-14, 1-5, 1-1) 3reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Salmons ( B- ) -- hey guys, come and meet the new "star" of our new starting linuep. Woot woot! We're lucky there is no tradition of franchise relegationon this side of the Atlantic (moving weaker teams down into lower divisions and stronger ones up into higher ones). Was ineffective offensively in the first half. Think he had something like 2pts heading into halftime, although we were getting some good efforts on defense. You could tell how the 3rd was going to go though from the first play, where we immediately ran a curl play to get John one of his devastating midrange jumpers in traffic. Well, that didn't work, but it was a sign of a John Salmons as goto guy 2008 flashback quarter (hell, Cisco was there starting next to him! And Travis Outlaw! And...holy flashback Batman. Or maybe just acid trip. Except I don't take acid. Although this team makes me want to sometimes. Or maybe cyanide. Er...anyway, where was I?). So, John hit a three a minnute later to cut the lead back to 5 (the only one he hit on the night -- he would actually airball one later in the quarter), and then got out on the break to become the first King to dazzle with double figure scoring. You could kindly call the scoring "low impact", but hey, it was scoring, and surrounded by scrubs and guys who shouldn't even be in the league it looked positively professional. Given the calber of his teammates, its probably not a surprise that this was a scoring effort rather than wasting his time trying to set people up (who exactly?).
Oldest Crater On Earth Discovered in Greenland -- this was actually the story that made me think of this for a possible theme one day. Back during the summer a story came out that a researcher up in Greenland had come upon a novel explanation for a series of geologic features he just couldn't explain otherwise -- he suddenly realized he was standing in the heart of the most ancient impact crater on the planet. 3 billion years old ancient. And 62 miles wide. Except that calculations of erosion estimate that when it hit it would have been over 300 miles wide, caused by a planet killer if there ever was one (the estimiated asteroid would have been 20 miles wide, the one that finished the dinosaurs is thought to have been 6-9). Fortunately there was no life to wipe out back then, because if it happened today nothing larger than a microbe would make it -- the largest nuclear weapon ever set off, the Tsar Bomba, released 50 megatons of energy, which is 3000 times as much as Hiroshima. The meteor which hit Greenland 3 billion years ago would have released something like 100 million megatons of energy.
Stats: 16min 6pts (1-6, 0-1, 4-4) 4reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Outlaw ( D+ ) -- why? There is no posisble explanation for this one. If you're going to throw a game, throw your struggling rookie out there as a starter at PF, not your washed up vet SF. In any case, got the start (the START!!) and quickly burned thorugh whatever remaining goodwill he had from the Portland aberration, or at least would have with any reasonable coach. Shot 0-4 in the first half, including an airballed corner three, and somehow turned Mbah a Moute into an offensive weapon the other way. Rode the John Salmons train to modest comeptence in the third when he actually hit a jumper and some FTs, and mistakenly stumbled into the path of several rebounds. But come on.
Barringer Crater, Arizona -- aka the Crater where Warhawk took his son. You should too. Located about 50 miles outside of Flagstaff, and if you've never been you should go. And bring a kid along with you, it'll leave an impression. Plus you can tell them that naughty little boys/girls who don't do their homework have giant rocks fall on their head too. Anyway, this is the world's most famous and best preserved crater. The latter both because it is one of the youngest, and because its out in the middle of a nice dry desert (although they think when it hit 50,000 years ago it might have been grasslands). Its also just a tiny tiny little baby crater compared to the Greenland monstrosity, "only" a mile wide and 600 feet deep, caused by a rock that was "only" about half a football field in diameter and "only" released 10 megatons or so of energy (about 5-600 hiroshimas). So sure, if it hit a city it would completely obliterate it, leaving a mile wide smoking hole 500 feet deep where the buildings used to be and incinerating everything within 20 miles. But hey, life goes on right? Unless you are anywhere even remotely in the neighborhood of course.
Stats: 33min 8pts (4-10, 0-0, 0-1) 15reb 1ast 2stl 1blk 2TO
Thompson ( B- ) -- some good hustle plays in the early first to get hoops around Dalembert, but it was a struggle for him all game long in there as his interior shots were repeatedly blocked or altered. When he returned was a little out of control and flaily. Was doing yeoman's work on the glass however, which is an absolute necessity when your coach has thrown out an Outlaw/Salmons/Cisco/Brooks quartet as your teammates. Was rewarded for his chugging along effort by having his tooth broken off when he took an inadvertent forearm to the face late in the first half. Saw him pause and grab his mouth an walk out of the play, and was preparing to be annoyed if it was all drama for the refs. But as play continued, he saw that the ball was still alive and jumped back into it to block the Bucks' attmpted shot, grab the resulting defensive board, and then go over and and hand his tooth to the trainer in pieces before keeping on playing. There's some all Madden team for you. Continued to be effective as our sole rebounder after half, but swarmed inside and never able to provide much of an interior attack. largely played Daly to a draw in their minutes together.
Rio Cuarto Craters, Argentina -- a series of ten odd depressions in northern Argentina were finally investigated and explained in the early 1990s when an Argentinian pilot provided aerial photgraphs of them to astronomers. The series of teardrop shaped gouges, some as large as a mile in length, stretched for miles across as area known as the Northern Basin, and certianly did not look like classic craters. But meteor debris scattered through the area suggested they were, and models finally showed that what likely happened was a large object came in at a very shallow angle (perhaps as little as 15 degrees, whihc is very rare) and broke up before impact, with large chunks of it skipping across the surface tearing great gouges into the earth and creating a 25 mile long wall of fire and debris. The asteroid is thought to have been something like a large lump of soot in composition, meaning that when it exploded it would have released huge clouds of carbon monoxide to asphyixiate anything that survived the initial blast, resulting in a very exciting day for the local wildlife 10,000 years ago or so. Which is just young enough there may have even been people around to see the fireball and say "holy ****" in ancient proto-Incan (you wonder where myths about "firebirds" and the like come from?)
Stats: 22min 3pts (1-5, 0-2, 1-2) 5reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Garcia ( D+ ) -- so finally we got to see the roleplayer out there now with a team totally stripped of ALL of its stars,and you suddenly remembered, uh, oh yeah. Roleplayer. Ineffective in the extreme, although it took a long time for Ellis to get going the other way to make it a blowout. Could not hit his shots, not even the wide open threes he is supposed to hit. You barely noticed him elsewhere. Returned late in the game and somehow ended up checking Ilyasova, who went right over him to grab a big rebound that helped close the door on any silliness we might have planned.
Tunguska Event, Middle of Nowhere, Siberia -- in 1908 Earth nearly has its newest big crater, as something big and ill intentioned blew up just above Siberia with a force of 10-15 megatons (about 1000 Hiroshimas), completely flattering 800 square miles of forest and leaving an impression on the locals: "At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. [...] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped."
We'll do a theme of Craters...seems vaguely appropriate. Unless we've done that before/recently? Know I was planning it. Will have to go check. Anyway...
Boxscore
Stats: 36min 16pts (7-14, 1-5, 1-1) 3reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Salmons ( B- ) -- hey guys, come and meet the new "star" of our new starting linuep. Woot woot! We're lucky there is no tradition of franchise relegationon this side of the Atlantic (moving weaker teams down into lower divisions and stronger ones up into higher ones). Was ineffective offensively in the first half. Think he had something like 2pts heading into halftime, although we were getting some good efforts on defense. You could tell how the 3rd was going to go though from the first play, where we immediately ran a curl play to get John one of his devastating midrange jumpers in traffic. Well, that didn't work, but it was a sign of a John Salmons as goto guy 2008 flashback quarter (hell, Cisco was there starting next to him! And Travis Outlaw! And...holy flashback Batman. Or maybe just acid trip. Except I don't take acid. Although this team makes me want to sometimes. Or maybe cyanide. Er...anyway, where was I?). So, John hit a three a minnute later to cut the lead back to 5 (the only one he hit on the night -- he would actually airball one later in the quarter), and then got out on the break to become the first King to dazzle with double figure scoring. You could kindly call the scoring "low impact", but hey, it was scoring, and surrounded by scrubs and guys who shouldn't even be in the league it looked positively professional. Given the calber of his teammates, its probably not a surprise that this was a scoring effort rather than wasting his time trying to set people up (who exactly?).
Oldest Crater On Earth Discovered in Greenland -- this was actually the story that made me think of this for a possible theme one day. Back during the summer a story came out that a researcher up in Greenland had come upon a novel explanation for a series of geologic features he just couldn't explain otherwise -- he suddenly realized he was standing in the heart of the most ancient impact crater on the planet. 3 billion years old ancient. And 62 miles wide. Except that calculations of erosion estimate that when it hit it would have been over 300 miles wide, caused by a planet killer if there ever was one (the estimiated asteroid would have been 20 miles wide, the one that finished the dinosaurs is thought to have been 6-9). Fortunately there was no life to wipe out back then, because if it happened today nothing larger than a microbe would make it -- the largest nuclear weapon ever set off, the Tsar Bomba, released 50 megatons of energy, which is 3000 times as much as Hiroshima. The meteor which hit Greenland 3 billion years ago would have released something like 100 million megatons of energy.
Stats: 16min 6pts (1-6, 0-1, 4-4) 4reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 0TO
Outlaw ( D+ ) -- why? There is no posisble explanation for this one. If you're going to throw a game, throw your struggling rookie out there as a starter at PF, not your washed up vet SF. In any case, got the start (the START!!) and quickly burned thorugh whatever remaining goodwill he had from the Portland aberration, or at least would have with any reasonable coach. Shot 0-4 in the first half, including an airballed corner three, and somehow turned Mbah a Moute into an offensive weapon the other way. Rode the John Salmons train to modest comeptence in the third when he actually hit a jumper and some FTs, and mistakenly stumbled into the path of several rebounds. But come on.
Barringer Crater, Arizona -- aka the Crater where Warhawk took his son. You should too. Located about 50 miles outside of Flagstaff, and if you've never been you should go. And bring a kid along with you, it'll leave an impression. Plus you can tell them that naughty little boys/girls who don't do their homework have giant rocks fall on their head too. Anyway, this is the world's most famous and best preserved crater. The latter both because it is one of the youngest, and because its out in the middle of a nice dry desert (although they think when it hit 50,000 years ago it might have been grasslands). Its also just a tiny tiny little baby crater compared to the Greenland monstrosity, "only" a mile wide and 600 feet deep, caused by a rock that was "only" about half a football field in diameter and "only" released 10 megatons or so of energy (about 5-600 hiroshimas). So sure, if it hit a city it would completely obliterate it, leaving a mile wide smoking hole 500 feet deep where the buildings used to be and incinerating everything within 20 miles. But hey, life goes on right? Unless you are anywhere even remotely in the neighborhood of course.
Stats: 33min 8pts (4-10, 0-0, 0-1) 15reb 1ast 2stl 1blk 2TO
Thompson ( B- ) -- some good hustle plays in the early first to get hoops around Dalembert, but it was a struggle for him all game long in there as his interior shots were repeatedly blocked or altered. When he returned was a little out of control and flaily. Was doing yeoman's work on the glass however, which is an absolute necessity when your coach has thrown out an Outlaw/Salmons/Cisco/Brooks quartet as your teammates. Was rewarded for his chugging along effort by having his tooth broken off when he took an inadvertent forearm to the face late in the first half. Saw him pause and grab his mouth an walk out of the play, and was preparing to be annoyed if it was all drama for the refs. But as play continued, he saw that the ball was still alive and jumped back into it to block the Bucks' attmpted shot, grab the resulting defensive board, and then go over and and hand his tooth to the trainer in pieces before keeping on playing. There's some all Madden team for you. Continued to be effective as our sole rebounder after half, but swarmed inside and never able to provide much of an interior attack. largely played Daly to a draw in their minutes together.
Rio Cuarto Craters, Argentina -- a series of ten odd depressions in northern Argentina were finally investigated and explained in the early 1990s when an Argentinian pilot provided aerial photgraphs of them to astronomers. The series of teardrop shaped gouges, some as large as a mile in length, stretched for miles across as area known as the Northern Basin, and certianly did not look like classic craters. But meteor debris scattered through the area suggested they were, and models finally showed that what likely happened was a large object came in at a very shallow angle (perhaps as little as 15 degrees, whihc is very rare) and broke up before impact, with large chunks of it skipping across the surface tearing great gouges into the earth and creating a 25 mile long wall of fire and debris. The asteroid is thought to have been something like a large lump of soot in composition, meaning that when it exploded it would have released huge clouds of carbon monoxide to asphyixiate anything that survived the initial blast, resulting in a very exciting day for the local wildlife 10,000 years ago or so. Which is just young enough there may have even been people around to see the fireball and say "holy ****" in ancient proto-Incan (you wonder where myths about "firebirds" and the like come from?)
Stats: 22min 3pts (1-5, 0-2, 1-2) 5reb 1ast 0stl 2blk 1TO
Garcia ( D+ ) -- so finally we got to see the roleplayer out there now with a team totally stripped of ALL of its stars,and you suddenly remembered, uh, oh yeah. Roleplayer. Ineffective in the extreme, although it took a long time for Ellis to get going the other way to make it a blowout. Could not hit his shots, not even the wide open threes he is supposed to hit. You barely noticed him elsewhere. Returned late in the game and somehow ended up checking Ilyasova, who went right over him to grab a big rebound that helped close the door on any silliness we might have planned.
Tunguska Event, Middle of Nowhere, Siberia -- in 1908 Earth nearly has its newest big crater, as something big and ill intentioned blew up just above Siberia with a force of 10-15 megatons (about 1000 Hiroshimas), completely flattering 800 square miles of forest and leaving an impression on the locals: "At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. [...] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped."
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