Sports

Players you won’t believe are still in the NBA

By November 3, 2012June 18th, 2018No Comments

I had my annual Yahoo! Public League fantasy basketball draft this morning.  Spare you the details, but my team always resemble the ’05-’06 New York Knicks, a bunch of guys that used to be good, but in reality are easily defeated.  While I was looking at the Yahoo! draft board, I noticed there are some guys still in the league that probably belong at a library helping people get books off the top shelf.  Here are a few that surprised me the most (listed from shortest to tallest).

Steve Blake – 6’3 – LA Lakers

Coming out of Maryland, as a National Champion mind you, did anybody look at Steve Blake and think “Yeah, he’s going to have longevity in the NBA, 10 years minimum”?  Well, that’s what he’s doing so far, and for a Los Angeles Lakers team that’s going to contend for a title.  While Googling this individual, I came across an article that says he had to miss some time this training camp because he stepped on a parking lot spike strip and it punctured his foot.  I know he’s 6’3, but did he not see it?  I can understand when Merv from the Wet Bandits stepped on that nail on the dark stairs in Home Alone, but have you seen a parking lot spike strip lately?

Army guys and stuff.

Jerry Stackhouse – 6’6 – Brooklyn Nets

This is Stack’s seventeenth season in the NBA.  He came into the league in 1996.  I was in 6th grade for crying out loud.  I’m a grown man now.  His past four seasons, he’s averaged 4.2, 8.5, 1.7 and 3.6 points per game.  Jer, you finished second in the league in PPG in 2000-2001, maybe it’s time you go play some NBA Live for Nintendo 64 (I absolutely dominated that game…and I wasn’t one of those idiots that chucked 3’s all game, I played motion offense and fed the post), and enjoy retirement.  Also puzzling, why Jay-Z would pay Stack to be on the team?  Wouldn’t a rookie be cheaper and have a little bit more potential?  Anyways, I wanted to post a Youtube clip of the time Jerry Stackhouse was featured on MTV Cribs (season 4, episode 5, also starring “Mighty Mouse” Damon Stoudamire and Jason “No Nickname” Kidd), but all the websites the clip might have been on looked like they were ready to unload a fury of viruses on my work computer.  Not trying to have IT call me up and be like “Hey, why are you looking up Jerry Stackhouse MTV Cribs videos?  You know that’s NSFW”.

Al Harrington – 6’9 – Orlando Magic

Really, this just gives me a chance to post this clip.  My editor-in-chief wanted me to add a little more substance to Al other than that delightful clip, so here’s something that I’m going to guess none of you know: Al Harrington is the name of a character in Family Guy.   No joke.  See if that doesn’t win you a bar bet or two this weekend.

Mike Dunleavy 6’9 and Drew Gooden 6’10 – Milwaukee Bucks

The #3 and 4 picks of the 2002 Draft.  Anytime you can match up top 4 talent from arguably the worst draft crop in NBA history, you have to jump at that opportunity.  Both players have been moderately productive I suppose, but I guess if you can just hide off in Milwaukee for a few years, collect a paycheck and go back to whatever Duke and Kansas drop-outs do, then don’t let me stop you.  By the way, I’m just assuming since each played only three seasons at their respective institution of higher learning that they did not graduate.  I didn’t actually finish my Bachelor of Arts until a year after I left school either, so there’s still hope for you guys.

Jermaine O’Neal – 6’11 – Phoenix Suns

He was drafted in 1996 along with Stack.  I think he’s had about 26 surgeries on both his knees, and hasn’t been productive since ’09-’10.  Why keep trotting yourself out there?  It can’t be money, because big fella has made (are you sitting down for this?) $165 MILLION dollars in his career.  That’s enough money to skydive from outer space like that other assclown about 5 times.  Go retire.  Eat at IHOP and teach high school basketball or something.  Let someone else have a turn.  Again, it takes two to tango, so somebody out there picked up the phone (or wrote an email or however basketball executives communicate) and said “Hey, we should get Jermaine O’Neal on the team.  It’ll only cost us like a million bucks”.

Jason Collins – 7’0 – Boston Celtics

Lesser, or maybe equally, well-known brother of Jarron Collins, Jason has never posted more than 6.4 points or 6.1 rebounds per game in his 11 seasons.  Despite that, he’s going to make $1.3 mil to shoot hoops in ATL.  Sidenote, he’s made $32 mil in his career.  I’d say 90% of you reading this site will never accumulate $32 million in revenue for yourself over your lifetime, but Jason Collins has an eight figure bank account (I can assume it is eight figures because he went to Stanford, therefore pretty smart).   Speaking of smart, in high school, Jason’s backup was Jason Segel, star of The Muppets.  Due to Jason’s efforts, they won back-to-back high school basketball titles.

By the way, was there a worse movie for basketball action than Michael J. Fox’s classic Teen Wolf?  If you have 8 minutes to kill, watch the Championship Game in Teen Wolf and tell me that the Beavers wouldn’t lose to a competent 8th grade team.  Particularly, check out the shot at 2:25, nobody getting back on defense at the 3:28 mark, again at the 4:51 mark (who carries their teammate post-wedding style back down the court after a fast break layup?), at the 5:30 mark, he’s got no armbar to protect his dribble…should have been an easy steal for the evil nemisis.  Anyways, how this relates to Jason Collins, it really doesn’t but he probably would have been a great compliment to Teen Wolf on the glass.

FRIDAY NIGHT GAMBLING LOCK OF THE WORLD

Washington Huskies +155 Money Line @ Cal Bears

Washington has a top Pac-12 QB in Keith Price, their schedule has been murder so far (@ LSU, Stanford (which they won), @ Oregon, USC, @ Arizona and Oregon St. (another winner)) and now they hit the soft part of things.  They’re battle tested, and have their backs against the wall from salvaging their season or being relegated to a pre-Christmas day bowl.  Those are the worst.  Meanwhile, Cal is 3-6, but their only quality win came in a blowout of UCLA, which is looking more like an anomaly than the norm.  Plus Keenan Allen, Cal’s all-time leading receiver, will not play tonight.  You can take the +4 for the Huskies if you want to play it safe, but I think the Huskies put a whoopin on Cal.

This was written by resident degenerate Jim Cook. 

Rob Cressy

Rob Cressy

Sports loving free throw specialist and yinzer living in Chicago who is awesome most of the time, has run with the bulls in Spain, and is a graduate of Second City's Improv program.