The Realest GM
"Basketball is my favorite sport, I like the way they dribble up and down the court."
-Lil Bow Wow, Basketball
Ever since I was a young boy I have followed the sport of basketball. I love all athletics but something about basketball made me fall in love with the sport. I've been a player, coach, fan, employee, and manager of fantasy teams. I've been involved with basketball on so many different levels, and I can't imagine my life without it.
As I've grown older, and begun to think about a career, I am heavily considering pursuing one in the sport of basketball. The general manager of a National Basketball Association (NBA) team is responsible for all player and personnel management. He is the one who decides to sign free agents, trade players, hire coaching staff, and makes sure the team stays within the financial contract restrictions of the NBA so that his team can continue to build towards a successful future. The general manager (GM) is the architect of a team and deserves just as much credit for its success (or failure) as the players and coach. This is by no means an easy job, but it is one I believe I want to pursue. There are many responsibilities and professional sports is a high pressure business. Everyone is expected to win and only one team can each year. Its up to the GM to make his team the one that comes out on top.
There are a few NBA GM's who are very good at their jobs. Mitch Kupchak of the Los Angeles Lakers, Sam Presti of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Masai Ujiri of the Denver Nuggets, to name a few. That being said. It is my honest opinion that around 75 percent of general managers in the NBA are completely incompetent and some even terrible at their jobs. Why do I believe this? The NBA is different than a lot of major sports currently in one HUGE way. There are only three teams that experts consider legitimate threats to win the championship of the league at the beginning of the season. Those teams are the Los Angeles Lakers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Miami Heat (all have great general managers). In many other professional sports leagues there is a sense of parity. Eighty percent of teams and their fan bases believe they have a real shot at a championship at the beginning of every season. This is not the case in the NBA. It is the three elite teams and everyone else. The reasons for this are many, but all of them lead back to piss poor management by mediocre teams. The league has become filled with super teams such as Miami, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma CIty. This is the result of good general managers taking advantage of mediocre ones in lopsided trades. The best management make great draft picks. The unskilled managers make the wrong draft picks and overpay bad players with bloated contracts, perpetually keeping their teams in the cellar of the league. If the bottom tier teams had better management, it would help them greatly achieve the level of success of the top franchises in the NBA. But, the mistakes continue to happen.
It is my honest opinion that if I took over the Charlotte Bobcats today (the worst team in the league for the past two seasons), I could make them into a playoff team in the next 3 seasons. Their management, which is ironically run by arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, has not achieved anything since the franchise was created almost ten years ago. They continue to make head scratching decisions as do other teams in the league. The examples are many. The Lebron James free agency debacle a few years back, the Chris Paul trade drama last season, and most recently a lopsided Dwight Howard trade that made one of the leagues top teams, the Lakers, much better and possibly ruined the future of the Orlando Magic, a team that people believe will be in the bottom of the league for years to come.
In this blog I will vent my frustrations and the frustrations of many NBA fans with the majority of NBA management. I will review trades, free agent signings, and other NBA happenings. I love basketball and believe myself to be very knowledgeable on the topic. Feel free to comment on my posts and give your opinions of the topics I bring up. I'd love to start in-depth discussions or heated arguments. Either is fine with me. This should be an open forum for all people who believe themselves to be knowledgeable about basketball to give their "expert" opinions. After all, many of us could probably do a better job than most NBA general manager's anyway.
Profile
Lost Angeles
ARROGANT NATION. What does that mean? Well, you're about to find out. As most of my readers know, I've been known to rant during my blog posts. I get frustrated with bad basketball management, and it comes out in my writing. The same is true of one of my favorite blogs, Lost Angeles. This blog is all about USC Football and the frustrations that came to their fan base when the NCAA handed down sanctions to them starting in 2010. The blog is written by USC Alum Zack Jerome, who I've actually had the pleasure to meet and socialize with, and he's a die hard USC fan who knows plenty about football to boot. As he says, he's "hell with a pen". Zack is an amazing writer, and during his rants he picks on USC opponents with a double-edged blade of sarcasm and wit. Here's what he had to say about USC's upcoming game:
I humbly throw my chiseled, handsome frame on the barbecue so you may all smell the
aroma of greatness. I’m hell with a pen and it’s time for you to appreciate that it’s the
day before the day before.
I know that a football blog isn't necessarily related to a basketball management blog, but I would hope that most of my readers are sports fans, and I wanted to share this awesome blog with all of you.
Zack posts every week, twice a week. Once before the USC game, his Arrogant Game Preview, or AGP, and once a few days after the game, his Arrogant Game Recap. His blog is pretty popular for a small blog not run by a larger company (such as ESPN). He is ranked 84,162 in America (according to www.alexa.com).
I know this blog doesn't really relate to basketball, but I love all sports, and I love this blog. It doesn't try to be what its not. Zack often mentions how he's not ESPN and his score predictions for games often don't even include real numbers. For example, his prediction for the USC vs. Arizona game was 237 to 174. It's a fun, casual blog about a sport and team that he loves, and that's what makes it great.
One of the most interesting posts on the blog came the week before the first games of the college football season. Zack calls it his "Arrogant Nation Mission Statement". The post was about his and the USC football team's goals for the year, and it got so many views it crashed the site. You can find the post here. Zack likes to be what he calls "Arrogant". A lifestyle he thinks USC students and alumni embody in the best way (they make up Arrogant Nation). He often goes into detail in his posts about specific players, both Trojans and opposing team's. He also talks about the coaches and programs in general. He likes to pick on and make fun of the other teams, and often does it in very witty ways. His typical banter is on full display in his most recent post about the recent USC vs. Colorado game. On Colorado:
Look, you named your team the Buffaloes, an animal famous for being easily hunted
and almost dying out.
Zack's audience is mainly USC current students and alumni, but fans of opposing teams often frequent the blog leaving less than intelligent trash talk in their wake. Zack often responds to the Trojans' opponents, putting them to shame with his superior college football intellect every time.
I love reading Zack's posts because I can see his passion come through in his writing. This is the same thing I try to achieve in my blog. I want to be passionate about the mistakes and successes of basketball management, while having the facts to back it up. My site obviously differs in the fact that it is more generally about professional basketball as a whole, but at their core, both of our blogs are the ranting of passionate fans of their sport. I hope that this comes through in my posts, and my audience enjoys reading my blog as much as I enjoy reading Lost Angeles.
Voice Critique
The Basketball Jones
"Basketball Jones, I got a Basketball Jones, Got a Basketball Jones, oh baby, oo-oo-ooo"
The famous song from the movie Space Jam, Basketball Jones, is a tune that I'll never forget. It has a sound all its own, and it just so happens to also be the name of one of my favorite basketball related blogs. The Basketball Jones is written as a collaborative project between a few people, but my favorite writer of the bunch is definitlely the man who also serves as editor of the blog, Trey Kirby.
Trey takes a mainly sarcastic tone in his blog. The Basketball Jones focuses on obscure stories in the world of basketball. For example, in one of his most recent posts entitled "Jose Calderon just wants to sell some hams, geez," Trey talks about Toronto Raptors point guard Jose Calderon, and his stake of ownership in a pig farm. Trey starts the post:
Hey guys, lay off Jose Calderon about the pig farm he is part owner of, OK? Just relax
about it, so he can sell hams in peace.
From this opening sentence and the title of the article, you can clearly see the sarcastic nature of his blog. No one is really giving Jose Calderon a hard time that he owns part of a pig farming enterprise. But the fact that he is from Spain, famous for their cured pig meats, and he plays in the NBA (he isn't poor), makes for a funny premise. Through his written sarcasm, Trey points out the ironies of specific situations in the NBA. He finishes the post:
Enough with the Hams, moving on, sheesh.
By ending sentences with words like "geez" and "sheesh", Trey uses the slang to show that these sentences are overly sarcastic, as these words are normally meant to dismiss a topic. He also uses more slang language such as "duh" when pointing out the absurdity of a ridiculous play that happened so easily, but no one expected. From the post, "Things of Note for November 14, 2012":
Of course the San Antonio Spurs ran a quick-hitter for Danny Green on their last
offensive possession, and of course he hit the game-winning three. They're the
Spurs. Duh.
This sarcastic and pithy voice stays pretty consistent throughout Trey's writing on the blog, and he continues to use it to show the ridiculousness behind happenings, stories, and plays from the NBA. It is a perfect complement to the topics he blogs on, as they are not really basketball news, but more fun and unnecessary side stories that a reader might otherwise never know, and could definitely be a great fan without ever knowing. The stories are short but sweet, and his posts are almost his train of thought put to paper.
In another post entitled "Tim Duncan will Pimp Your Ride", Trey starts off by saying:
Yo dawg, we heard you like basketball players, so we put a basketball player in your
car customization shop.
For anyone who has seen the once hit tv show, Pimp My Ride, it is easy to see that through slang and great use of punctuation, Trey is imitating the voice of rapper Xzibit in this opening, the host of the show. He is doing this to show the hilarity behind one of the best basketball players of all time's favorite hobbies. He continues his sarcasm by saying:
If we know anything about Tim Duncan, it’s that his custom creations will be very
efficient, probably black and silver, definitely Punisher themed, and people will
complain that they’re boring even while agreeing that they’re some of the best cars
available.
This is a reference to the fact that Tim Duncan as a basketball player, while definitely not the most fun to watch, is one of the best players of all time. He even earned the nickname the Big Fundamental for his plodding and meticulous style of play.
From these posts (of many, many more), Trey's voice is very evident and distinct. He uses sarcasm to expound on funny side stories from the world of professional basketball, and he is a great read for anyone who might be interested. This blog is great for all basketball fans and sports fans in general. If you enjoy my blog, then go get a basketball jones!
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