Grades v. Magic 01/13

[Bricklayer]

Woohoo! Record setting performance!

Better yet...clearly this calls for some more Pretty Girls. When life give you lemons...

Alright, so could have just done another Pretty Girl Errata theme, but thought I'd try to group them a bit again -- as usual my normal attempt here is to use ladies that haven't already been tagged in the earlier pretty girl themes, or in the Hot Babes draft from this summer. So, a total of about 400 girls already out of contention, and it doesn't slow me down a bit. I'm even going to toss in a guy too for the ladies since the request was made. So here we go: Pretty Girls: Flash In the Hottie Pan Edition


Salmons ( D+ ) -- for the most part just politely declined to show up in this one, which actually makes this performance better than those of most of the guys who did show. Got very little going against the long rangy defense of Hedo, backed by the big backstop behind him. You could say the defense was less horrrible than most of his teammates in that Hedo did not score 40 or can 10 threes on us, but fact is he was getting anywhere he wanted and running the Magic's offense to perfection, and John was just too small to do anything about it. I wondered about the size issue at SF before the season, and its popped up a number of timies this year -- John Salmons is an OG, and he can't challenge a 6'10" 240lb guy up high or in the post. Especially not when he lets himslef get scraped off on screens. Hit a three to close the first half, and the sad part was he probably felt pretty good about himself for such a magnificent achievement. the crowd certainly erupted in thunderous applause while I was just shaking my head at the 75pts we had given u the other way. Never much of anything after half as it was Kevin in the early third, and then straight to scrubtime soon therafter.

Erin Gray -- by positing a future in which high ranking female military officers (she was a colonel) run around in skin tight lycra outfits and occasionally have to go undercover as harem girls and the like, the failed early 80's TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century briefly elevated a career TV bit player to major hottie status.


Thomspon ( D ) -- in the early going could not stay with Lewis on defense, and was dominated by Howard on the glass. Had a jumper, a couple of little follow finishes inside, but no impact and I was having trouble figuring out his demeanor for the game. Was he scared? Frustrated? On one play appeared to simply give up on defense against Lewis, and then not even run down the cout on offense. Got destroyed by Howard in the opening minutes of the thrid, and was quickly pulled in favor of Spencer. Was back in for the garbagetime and padded his stats a little at the beginning of the 4th after the game was over courtesy of some Cisco passes, but sort of faded off and did not get much done in the end even against the scrubs.

Amanda Pays -- she had a major role in the briefly popular late 80s TV series Max Headroom, and starred in the leaky monster flick Leviathan, in which she spent most of the movie jogging around the station working up a sexy sweat in between the doctor giving her medical examinations in her underwear (yes I, er, remember these things). Even had the cute Brit accent thing going, but then she married Corbin Bernsen which is kind of a kiss of death for hottie status.

Miller ( F ) -- ok, it was Brad Miller vs. Dwight Howard...how did you think this was going to go? Well however badly you thought it might go, it went worse. Dwight operated at will in the middle, and there was no jump shooting counter from Brad. Or any counter really -- took all of two shots. Finally ran all the way out to three point land to hit something, but jeesh. Dwight Howard >>>>>>>>>> Brad Miller, but that's still no excuse for him to shoot 8-10 from the field, go for 25 and 15 in three quarters, while our starting center gives us...3pts 2rebs. He did have 4 assists, now ask me if I care.

Vanity -- aka Denise Matthews, rose to prominence in the mid-80s as the gorgeous lingerie clad coke snorting main squeeze of Prince, or Symbol, or whatever the hell is he now, adopting the apppropriate stage name Vanity along the way -- she had a lot to be vain about. Unfortunately after a couple of skin flashing movie roles, the last of which was in the wonderfully fun cheeseflick Action Jackson, she caught a bad case of religion and disappeared from hottiedom forever.

 

[Bricklayer]

Martin ( B ) -- the good: scored 30 points on a night when nobdoy else was doing anything. The bad: his no name barely in the league opponents torched him at will the other way, bombed in half a dozen threes on him, and he might have been lucky to be +5pts on the night against the weakest position the Magic have. Offensively had his way early against a feeble pairing of rookie Courtney Lee, and then to make it even worse, undersized, underathletic, undereverything JJ Reddick. Was slowed somewhat once Bogans arrived but I couold have told you before the game that Kevin was going to have abig scoring night -- Dick Bavetta's crew was reffing this game. And Bavetta and friends call more pathetic touch fouls than any other crew in the league -- it turns into two hand touch. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet! Ironically most of the close phantom calls seemed to go against us tonight, but Kevin at least certainly benefits when the refs are whistle happy. Kept his points rolling even when the defense tightened. On the other end did not defend the 3pt shot at all and I guess he can proudly say now he had a hand in setting a record, but at least tried to impede Rashard Lewis inside late on a couple of possessions where he got switched onto him. Counterparts shot 7-8 in the first half, including 5-6 from downtown. Came out in the third just abusing the poor little rookie (Lee) and had something like our first 8-10 points. But the Magic have really matured as an elite team, matched him score for score (we still weren't playing defense) rather than letting us gain on them, and broke what little will we had to resist by the mid 3rd quarter. There were all sorts of modiers here that got me to this grade -- good offense, helped by the way the refs were calling it, awful defense, only player putting up fight, surge to begin third to try to get us back in it. In the end I think Kevin really tried to save us to begin the third on the end he understands (offense) and deserves credit for at least trying to turn the tide, but unfortunately he just does not get it at the other end and was as much of the part of the problem in a 139pt humilation as anybody. So could not in good conscience go above a B here.

Jennifer Beals -- flashed (get it? haha!) onto the scene in the pop culture phenom movie Flashdance in the early 80s, and is often credited with creating the sexy chopped collar off the shoulder sweatshirt look. Had a great character too -- industrial welder by day, stripper by night. Who writes this stuff? In any case the above picture was everywhere and she was going to be the next big thing. Except she wasn't, and drifted off doing smaller indie films and generally disappearing from popular hottie consciousness.

Udrih ( D ) -- a game after it looked like maybe he had had a breakthrough game (and Natt had had a breakthrough in the way he was going to use him too) all of the old problems rematerialized. In fact signalled it right from the beginning of the game, immediately turning the ball over (something he did not do once vs. Dallas). Was aggressive offensively early, but had problems staying in front of Nelson back the other way, and then compounded things by overreacting and leaving Jameer to can three after three in his face...or they would have been in his face if he had actually been anywhere in the neighborhood. Nelson on the night? A cool 5-5 from downtown. Ended up benched for most fo the night for the defense I would imagne (BJax was at lleast pretending to try on that end). So a little good grade for the offense -- might have had a solid night on that end given the minutes. But a lot of bad grade for the defense, which was just intolerably bad.

Carre Otis -- a model of some note, she burst onto the public scene in the softcore flick Wild Orchid across from sleazy then boyfriend Micky Rourke, and just as quickly disappeared once his patronage ended. Made some news a decade later as she reemerged several sizes larger as a plus size model, saying that she had grown tired of the fasting and other ridiculous demands of modern modelhood (indeed it had almost killed her). Note that she did not look like your mom's plus size model.

Brown ( C- ) -- in early for Beno who was in both foul and defense trouble. Seemed to be overdribbling and making late decisions on whether to pass, and was acutely aware of Dwight back there. Back in for the garbagetime and split ballhandling with the other Bobby and Cisco. Was dribbling himself into traps and trouble, and one turnover annoyed Natt enough that he called a tiimeout to whisper some sweet nothing's in Bobby's ear over it.

Ricky Martin -- see? Here you go ladies. Of course calling Ricky Martin a flash in the pan would be purely a North American affectation. In South America he's been famous since he was like 13, was famous before his American foray, was still famous after it. But in America he exploded onto the scene back in '99 with hsi hip shaking to La Vida Loca, and disappeared nearly as quickly (I think the ludicrously cheesy "She Bangs" might have been the kicker). And so I'll call him a flash in the pan to shoehorn him into this theme for the ladies.

Hawes ( C ) -- in quick foul trouble vs. Dwight, but was left in and got active at least, but not efficient. Got whipped inside by Dwight of course, but eventually came up with a couple of nice little post moves of his own. Continued to pump up shots at a glorious rate (led the team with 16 FGA in 27min) while not playing defense or rebounding right into the garbage minutes before eventually giving way to Natt's ultimate white flag: a Shelden Williams sighting. Took 16 FGs on the night to 0 FTs, and responded to a gorgeous Howard move by comng down the next possession and trying one of his own -- throwing about a dozen post moves in on one play for whatever reason, spinning left, spinning right, and then coming up completely empty anyway.

Lisa Bonet -- I'm breaking my own rule on this one, because after I started to type this up it suddenly occurred to me that she might have been taken in the Hot Babe draft, and sure enough. But I was already committed, and too lazy to think of someone else, soi going wiht her anyway. In any case, she had an extremely small hottie window as she came to prominence on the Cosby Show as the cute sister, but I'm pretty sure it was written into the Cosby Show contract somewhere that you could not be a sex symbol and on the Cosby Show at the same time. Getting married to Lenny Kravitz for a bit back before Lenny himself was really big helped the hottie status, but she had still largely disappeared by the mid-90s and as I recall changed her name to something strange just because she is a celebrity, and they do things like that.

 

[Bricklayer]

Cisco ( B- ) -- while the game was still on, put up some points himself but could not stay in front of Hedo at all, and so was gambling and trying to play the passing lanes to try to deny him the ball. When he missed... Padded his stats significantly helping run the team in garbagetime. It was 9pts 2rebs in regulation. A much better looking 15 5 and 5 by the end of the garbage minutes.

Heather Thomas -- ah yes, a picture that takes me back. Heather Thomas came to prominence playing the hottie in The Fall Guy series int he 80s. That was all she blatantly was -- the hottie. And well, the hottie could not act, but she did have a heck of a body, and so for a few years there were big selling posters (not that I would know anything about that) and magazine spreads and whatnot, but once The Fall Guy went off the air, so did she.

Jackson ( B- ) -- got far more minutes in this one than he should have for the simple reason that he has pride and was going to at least try to play defense. Had a nice sequence hitting a three, then next trip grabbing a tough offensive rebound inside against 4 of the Magic and drawing the foul. Think we were only down 15 at the time too. Got the better of it in against another of our former stubby guiards -- Anthony Johnson, who was the only Magic player who found it remotely difficult to score on us. In by the mid-3rd quarter again just because he was at least going to try on defense. Scored most of his points in garbagetime, and was largely responsible for making sure we got over the 100 point barrier and held this below a 40 point margin with a late meaningless barrage.

Alicia Silverstone -- calling Alicia a flash in the pan may not be quite accurate -- she is still working. But all the buzz that briefly surrounded her in the mid-90s (she is another of the actresses that was supposed to be the next big thing) has long since gone away. She had all kinds of hottie buzz after a couple of famous Aerosmith videos which helped launch both her and Liv Tyler, and then it kicked into high gear after her turn as the ridiculously cute lead in Clueless. Things went awry soon after however, as rumors of weight problems, insecurity issues, bad followup vehicles etc. soon dimmed her star. Reemerged recently helping PETA to save the sea kittens of the world by taking off her clothes. See PETA does have a purpose in this world.

Moore ( INC ) -- thrown in just for some first half comedy in the Mikki vs. Dwight matchup. Could not finish inside. Rebound. Defend...

Natalie Imbruglia -- the first single off of this beauty's first album seemed to have her on the road to major stardom -- "Torn" ran up the charts around the world in 1997, and the singer's looks certainly weren't hurting things. She would later land a contract with L'Oreal. But in true one hit wonder fashion, none of her other songs on the album did as well, the next album largely failed, L'Oreal did not renew the contract, and she was eventually dropped from her label because she wanted to make music rather than generic pop crap. Meanwhile Paris Hilton has released an album.

Thomas ( INC ) -- You know what the K in K9 stands for? That's right baby! Kryptonite! The ONLY King on the night to not have a negative +/- (he had a 0), and the reason was probably because he played Superman to an absolute standstill in his awesome 2 minutes and 31 seconds of action.

Bobbie Brown -- and duh, it just now occurs to me that I should have had this one underneath our own Bobby Brown. Heck, if she can play any defense, lets make the swap. Uh, the story: back in the days when music videos were still king, there used to be a whole class of supergroupies who hung aorund rock groups in particular (although there is a similar phenomenom amongst rap groups) with their great goal in life to sleep with guys who had slept with 73 other women and a goat in the past month, and to maybe just maybe get themselves in a music video! Yay!! The most successful and famous of these was Tawny Kitaen, who parlayed groupiedom into a low level movie and TV career. But Bobbie Brown might have been the next name on the list, turning heads in megahottie fashion in a Great White video (in the days before they took to amateur arson) and starring in Warrant's immortal "Cherry Pie". She would then have the bad taste to go ahead and marry one of the Warrant guys, but the better taste to ditch him as soon as hair metal was washed away in the grunge wave of the early 90s. No idea what she is doing now. Quantum mechanics most likely.

 

[Bricklayer]

Williams ( INC ) -- and poor lonely forgotten Sheldon left all by himself in this post, which is about how he has to feel on our bench right now. If I were him I would turn to Candace for lots and lots of comforting. Anyway in for the garbage minutes. Ok the late garbage minutes. Ok..the late 4th quarter garbage minutes. Have to get specific in a game like this. Not much else to say. Grabbed a couple of boards, but didn't do much against Gortat, and may have been the guy who was guarding Brian Cook when he canned a late three to extend the new NBA record. By my count BTW, at least 7 team and NBA records were set last night: Most 3ptrs allowed in a quarter at Arco (tied); Most 3ptrs allowed in a half at Arco by one team; Most combined 3ptrs in a game at Arco; Most 3ptrs in half by Magic (team record); Most 3ptrs in a game by Magic (team record); Most 3ptrs given up by Kings (team record); Most 3ptrs made in NBA history;

Olivia D'Abo -- the cousin of Bond girl Maryam D'abo, Olivia inherited the family cuteness, but amazingly was an even worse actress. She created a splash of controversy by choosing as her debuting vehicle none other than the infamously bad Bo Derek skinflcik "Bolero" while she was a teenager. She followed it up by playing a cute ditz of a princess who develops a crush on Arnold Scwartzenegger in the second Conan, and on the backs of such rousing successes, promptly disappeared into B-moviedom.

 

[SacTownKid]

Better be some nudity tonight.

 

[bloom]

How about some Pretty Boys in this Pretty Girls thread?

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Seems that the box score's been changed to 133-107. Apparently the Magic just hit another three...

 

[Bricklayer]

Seems that the box score's been changed to 133-107. Apparently the Magic just hit another three...

Well, it was 139-107 at the end, so as ridiculous as this is, 133-107 would be an IMPROVEMENT.

You could list that under "signs that you suck".

 

[Alacron]

That was certainly the most entertaining blowout of the season.

If you put a piece of duct tape over the score on the TV, fast forward through all of Orlando's possessions and just watch ours, you could fool yourself into thinking we had a good game.

F- for Beno, who found a way to leave his man open for three even while not helping to double anyone.
~~

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

Woohoo! Record setting performance!

Better yet...clearly this calls for some more Pretty Girls. When life give you lemons...


rest will come...

Why dont you just give one grade for the whole TEAM and not waste your time, and just post hot chicks?!?

 

[BritishColumbia]

Better be some nudity tonight.

... words of wisdom

 

[LoungeLizard]

Dwight Howard: 15 Rebounds, All 5 Kings starters: 12 Rebounds!!!

I guess when the opposing team shoots 60% from the field and 62% from 3 there aren't too many boards to be had.

 

[Jerryaki]

as a former Lehman Brothers employee, that last poll option made me chuckle.

and now i shall go cry.

 

[kennadog]

Better be some nudity tonight.

Go right ahead. The good thing about the internet is you can be choose to be nude and the rest of us don't have to see it.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Jennifer Beals -- flashed (get it? haha!) onto the scene in the pop culture phenom movie Flashdance in the early 80s, and is often credited with creating the sexy chopped collar off the shoulder sweatshirt look. Had a great character too -- industrial welder by day, stripper by night. Who writes this stuff? In any case the above picture was everywhere and she was going to be the next big thing. Except she wasn't, and drifted off doing smaller indie films and generally disappearing from popular hottie consciousness.

Au contraire. With several seasons of "The L Word" under her belt, Jennifer Beals is still a hottie. Just... to a different audience.

 

[TheFifthMookie]

I was very fortunate and got to sit in the lower half of the lower bowl last night, and just wanted to chime in some observations on this game.

Seemed like most (practically all) of the Magic's 3's were in the right corner.
We had nobody who could even sort of guard Dwight Howard one on one, and it seemed like we 'triple teamed' him a bit.
Orlando's offense seemed to shoot from the same 3 locations, whereas our offense took whatever weirdness we could pull off.
The Kings ran this one play where the guy with the ball at the center on th 3pt line would pass it to a guy running past him, but the pass was after the guy had run past. It looked awkward, and was always well guarded by the magic.
I kept hoping someone would figure out how to get a guy over to guard that 3pt corner, but it never happened.
Kenny Natt looked angry most of the game, but wasn't shouting a whole lot.

 

[Bricklayer]

I was very fortunate

If you say so.

P.S. Natt always looks angry. He probably came out of the womb, the doctor slapped him, Natt scowled at him, and the exprerssion has never changed.

 

[bloom]

Ricky Martin? We got to improve your guy choices. lol…How ironic is it that Ricky Martin has a tattoo of a naked lady on his arm? hehe

We embarrassed ourselves last night and the Magic had fun with it. I don’t blame them at all. This is from the Bee. 1st link is just quotes by Kevin.

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/sports/kings/archives/018582.html

"It'll be the last time somebody comes in here and then plays like that and us not give at least a good effort," he said in the postgame reflection Tuesday. "That's not even team basketball. There was nothing fun about that, and we've got a game tomorrow. I'm talking about the last time us not give an effort like that. That's me being on the court and getting in guys' stuff and if other guys get mad or whatever you want to call it, that's fine. But we won't come out there like that again."

Question: How can you be so sure?

Answer: Because I'm going to play hard and it's going to start with me. And if other guys are not playing hard, then coach Natt's going to see that, including myself. It's time to start making people accountable because that was just an embarrassment tonight.

Q: When you talk about making guys more accountable, are you going to begin to assert yourself into that role?

A: Just like tonight, there could have been a couple instances where people can come up to me or I can come up to people. We've just got to be together as a team. If I'm not getting the job done, a guy needs to come up to me and let me know. If somebody else is not getting the job done, you can tell him, "This is what we need to do." It's not necessarily anything about getting in their face and telling them how it is, but we need to have a reality check.

Source: http://www.sacbee.com/kings/story/1540440.html

"I saw that (they continued shooting threes), and it kind of (ticked) me off a little bit," Kings swingman Francisco García said. "(But) that's the price we've got to pay. We weren't playing no defense."

In a fourth quarter moment that surely led to García's frustration, he asked Howard, as the Magic center sat on the bench, for the ball so he could inbound it. Howard pretended to shoot the ball and launched it over García's head some 10 feet away, the fake attempt serving as a rare miss while García shrugged his shoulders as he walked away.

The laughs continued in a raucous Magic locker room afterward, as Howard provided the antics and comedy as the team watched its televised highlights.

"We're a joke right now," said Martin, whose 30 points doubled that of the team's second-highest scorer (García, 15). "That's how people look at us. They keep on launching threes and still have one of their best players out on the court. You should be pretty angry about that."

If Kevin is going to get on other players for not being in there, then he has to improve his defense. He has to improve that area of his game or there's going to be problems in the locker room.

 

[TheFifthMookie]

If you say so.

I'll call it fortunate, cuz I was close enough to yell at Dick Bavetta "It's not 2002 anymore Dick! You can call a straight game this time!"