Drive and Diss Poll Madness! Alert

Welcome to a new feature at Drive and Diss: Poll Madness! This is where we alert you to great new polls up on the site. Now is the time to select your favorite player from the '90-'91 Trailblazers. Good luck! And hey look, it's old friend Kevin Duckworth!

The "LAME AIM BLAME GAME": part one of two. Trouble in Denver.

Over the past few weeks I have had brief instant messenger discussions with one of the most passionate Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns fans I know. Yes, one of the most underrated techniques that we often employ here at Drive and Diss, simply to entertain you, is researching the fan pulse through heated arguments with angry emoticons.

In part one of our series in the “LAME AIM BLAME GAME” I will spend time talking about Andy Feinstein’s Nuggets.

If you want a history lesson in basketball one can't go wrong consulting "the walking encyclopedia of nba roundball" Andy Feinstein. You can simply check out his blog firegeorgekarl.com and see what I mean. His wealth of information is scary, and if you really want to be frightened, he can summon his knowledge on cue while balancing animation production budgets in one hand and conducting a cell phone conversation in the other (usually involving a girl yelling at him… which is another blog subject entirely). With all his love of basketball the real apple of his eye is his Denver Nuggets.

These days, his argument with his team is plain to see with his blog firegeorgekarl.com but I really believe he is turning a blind eye to the true culprit and painting himself into an uncomfortable corner. His blog's namesake hinges on the failure of the Nuggets to prove his point. The url "firegeorgekarl" leads to only one, misguided path: Firing the wrong person. At the rate this is going he could be performing a type of blog seppuku through the honor of twisted, masochistic fandom. Normally, there is no love lost with typical Nuggets fans and myself being a Utah Jazz fan. However, with Andy’s basketball mind I feel a duty to preserve it. I cannot stand idly by and watch Andy's decent into madness .

Here is the problem with his argument from a purely fanatical point of view: the better the Nuggets do, the weaker the case is for justifying a George Karl exit. The problem is amplified since the nuggets are magically playing inspired basketball with their flawed star Carmelo Anthony. What can Andy do? Root for the Nuggets? Root against them? Why would a fan such as Andy place himself in such a difficult place? The reason is simple from what I can deduce; he wants results for a long playoff run.

After reading through a few of his well constructed, thoroughly fact checked, posts I have concluded a Nuggets seeding less than 2nd place is considered a failure for George Karl in Andy's eyes. Considering the talent the Nuggets have, I respectfully disagree.

Considering the powers in the west and the wealth of talent, the Nuggets have yet to have proven themselves against the playoff elite. The Spurs and Lakers should be considered the real barometer. They have true superstars that have the championship experience to weather the storms during the regular season, and the maturity to maintain an eerie calm in the playoffs. The unproven Hornets deserve a grounded third place. At best, the Nuggets are hovering around a fourth place seed tied with the Jazz. Considering the Jazz are edging them with their current record, the Nuggets could still be considered in a respectable seed at 5th place. At the rate this inspired version of the Nuggets are going, a fifth seed is a reasonable goal to achieve.

Talent wise the Nuggets are amazing. Maturity wise the Nuggets are not. This falls squarely on the shoulders of their "superstar" Carmelo Anthony. As I watch Melo I find him constantly whining and following a popular senatorial school of thought of feeling entitled to having things handed to him, like winning a playoff round.

Melo has been reported to say things fans like to hear such as "I have matured". I suppose it takes maturity to utter phrases like that. It is another thing entirely to have actions reflect words on the court. I remember when Melo was being compared to Lebron during their rookie and second seasons and then, the comparisons stopped... cold. Lebron and Melo in the same sentence? Laughable. Carmelo and Chris Paul? Still laughing.

Lebron has single handedly taken his team to the championship round in the same amount of time Melo has done absolutely nothing. Since his maturity line Melo has done nothing but score a series of pretty looking points and sucker punching an opposing knicks player in the face while running backwards. A knicks player of all people! Melo does not get it yet. Perhaps he never will.

Take the latest example of Melo in action in last night’s crucial game vs. the Suns. In one series on defense Melo had guard duty on Nash, one and one in the third quarter. After Melo blinked Nash blew right by him making an acrobatic layup. Never mind this critical moment in the game... moments later I watched him take it to the rack and blow a layup followed moments later by a second. Bucket by bucket, I watched the Nuggets squander their nineteen point lead halftime score. Kobe? Lebron? Even Chris Paul? They play on both sides of the court in critical games while providing the superstar leadership their teams need. The only thing I see Melo do is slump when things do not go his way and expecting things to happen in his favor. He needs to start taking lessons from the crafty point guard that embarrassed him last night... or step aside and let a true superstar run the team... If only AI was in his prime.

PLAY BY PLAY: Fourth quarter with 3:18 left. Melo takes it to the rack, and misses yet another layup.

Advice to the Nuggets: Trade Melo while he has value as a scorer... or be prepared to role the dice and see where Melo takes the team in 4 more years in hopes that he matures. I'll save my nickname "Marshmallow Anthony" for the Nuggets playoff run this year.

Andy, for your sake I hope I'm wrong. You have suffered enough as a Nuggets fan. I implore you, take off your rose-colored signature black rimmed glasses and look at the franchise player on your team. Your current path will only lead to fanatical madness and ruin any temporary enjoyment you can spend with your team.

-J

Drive and Diss Double Takes: Elite Eight Edition

Welcome to a new feature at Drive and Diss: Drive and Diss Double Takes. This is where we, appropriately enough, do double takes while scouting the sports landscape. Today's first edition focuses on the excitement of the NCAA tournament.

Double Take #1: Was that former NBA point guard Rod Strickland on the Memphis bench? Indeed it was, but we still can't believe it. While Rod was one of the most talented point guards of the past two decades (especially with the Trail Blazers and Bullets), he was also one of the era's biggest underachievers. Off the court, he had multiple brushes with the law (read more here). And on the court, he was known to regularly vomit after a pre-game hot dog eating ritual. True story. Maybe he has matured with age? After all, Memphis' Derrick Rose is the best point guard in the country and you've got to think Strickland had a hand in that. Or maybe he's just teaching the team how to bowl.

Double Take #2: Does R & B superstar Chaka Khan play for Kansas? The answer to this one is no, but we did a double take during today's game between Kansas and Davidson. We thought we heard the great CBS announcer (and NewsChannel 8 veteran) Gus Johnson talk about big plays by Chaka Khan. He was actually saying Sasha Kaun. The Kansas center was a difference maker in the game. Davidson had no match for his size in the low post. We guess you could say that Davidson got "Kauned."

-E

Wrong! 24 second Shot clock violation. Injury changes everything.

Here at Drive and Diss we love to innovate at certain times, other times we don't. This is one of those times when we don't. When we need to come clean and admit wrong doing we have felt compelled to innovate yet again. "The 24 second Shot clock violation" is our new method of coming clean. Welcome to our first, official installment.

It turns out an unforseen event has happened moments after predicting the Suns having no chance at a playoff run this year. Despite recent losses to Boston and Detroit the Suns have nothing to worry about now. This is all because of Dirk Nowitzki's injury nanoseconds before the playoffs. This injury could not have come at a better time for the Suns.



Dirk has survived injury before, just refer to the above photograph to see what I mean. But the timing of this injury is huge for the Mediocre Mavs. The timetable for the mvp is set for about a week... but open to being longer. Meanwhile, 9th place Denver looms tonight to pick away at the Mav's flimsy holding of their seventh seed. Our prediction was seeing Denver sneak into the playoffs pushing the setting Suns out of the horizon. It appears now the Mavericks have volunteered their spot so viewers are forced to watch a slower, confused, repackaged Suns team for a few more weeks. Oh goody, more Shaq quotes....

Thanks Dirk.

-J

A Drive and Diss 3-Second Violation: Bold Playoff Prediction

Welcome to Drive and Diss' newest innovation - the 3-second violation. This is where we take a maximum of 3 seconds to create hard-hitting blog entries. In today's first installment, the Suns will not make the playoffs. Even with that special glow around Shaq.

- J and E

We are back and so is Kwame!

Hello Drive and Diss fans. It's been a while. Too long for some. Not long enough for others. We have been busy working on scouting reports for the upcoming season. And apparently Kwame Brown has been busy as well. Busy getting arrested that is - and just in time for training camp!



Everyone's favorite draft bust was booked over the weekend in Georgia for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer after his cousin was charged with drunken driving. (He should have resisted arrest as well to go for the misdemeanor trifecta.) You know, there was a time we had some sympathy for Kwame. Half of Drive and Diss lives and dies with the Washington Wizards. We held out high hopes when he was drafted and felt bad about the incessant tongue lashings Kwame got from an over-the-hill Michael Jordan trying to recapture his glory days. However, we came to realize that Kwame simply did not have what it takes. He would have one explosive game where he would dominate on both ends of the court followed by 50 games where he would disappear. The Kwame Brown era was a dark chapter for the illustrious Wizards franchise. Fortunately it ended with the arrival of the shining light of Gilbert Arenas.



Below is Kwame in a pose we are all very familiar with: getting hurt. Kwame's other most recognizable pose has him dropping a pass in the post therby blowing a wide open layup. Did you know there is an active web site called kwamebrownsucks.com? We didn't either. We tip our hats to the industrial folks behind that site.


-E

New Nickname for KG. "The Big REGULAR SEASON Ticket"

I think I am a little bit confused here. For some reason ESPN, Fox, and sports writers across the media landscape are buzzing with the KG trade transaction. The "Big Ticket" is going to the Celtics. My response? "Big Deal...."

Unless the Celtic's faithful are fans of the regular nba season I hardly think this is something to applaud. For some interesting reason, a recipe for elite status in the NBA now comes from combining an injury prone shooting guard, an "all star default" swing forward guard, and one of the best non clutch big men to play the game.

KG wants a championship even though his play history has said otherwise. His trade appears to echo his play by joining two other playoffphobic stars in their quest to look really good in a regular season atmosphere.

Here at drive and diss, we take pride in using processes operating out of conventional wisdom to substantiate our claims. My research for today took a whopping 3 minutes to arrive at my conclusion about KG, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce (as of 08/14/07):

-Go to Youtube.

-Type in "KG Game Winner" and look at the myriad of choices.

The current search yields some kind of skiing incident as the most "relevant" selection. This is followed by an actual game winner by KG in Portland. This video is then followed by another version of the same shot in Portland. YouTube then gives us a KG game winner over the lowly Sixers. The next example is the same victory shot over the Philly. Finally, this is followed by a World Championship match from the WWE video game "Raw vs. Smackdown" featuring Kiego available on the Playstation 2. After close scrutiny I counted 2 official game winners for KG that fans felt the need to share with the world. Does anyone really think KG will be calling for the ball in crunch time for Boston? (for entertainment purposes I have provided the direct link to the WWE match below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xEh10nz6sI

For fun try this formula with "Ray Allen" or "Pierce Game winner" in the text field instead. Both yielded one whole page with the same odd mixture for results.

For even more fun type "Kobe Game Winner" to see what championship experienced players do. I counted 7 plus pages of results at first glance....

Laker Haters should thank Kevin Mchale for his entrenched, competitive, stubbornness to ensure instant championships take a detour away from the purple and gold. On a positive note, Kevin Mchale has been the Best GM the Celtic front office has had in a long time.

-J