The NBA Season is Upon Us

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The NBA season is upon us. LeBron James has become the player we all wanted him to be and the Lakers are back in business, but there is so much more to look forward to this season.  Here’s the list I jotted down during halftime of Monday Night Football.

1. Charting the progress of Austin Rivers’ Struggle Goatee.
2. More Tony Parker/Drake/teammates’ wives stories.
3. Bob Fitzgerald beginning sentences with, “When I was calling games in London…”
4. Rush Hour 4 in Houston starring Jeremy Lin and James Harden.
5. Eddy Curry starting at center for the Dallas Mavericks.
6. Everybody saying, “KLAY THOMPSON, SCOTT! SEE! KLAY THOMPSON!”
7. “Put it in the bucket and send him to the line!”
8. The Cream Team: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee, and Andrew Bogut.
9. Walt Frazier’s endless vocabulary. “The Knicks are beginning to percolate”
10. Russell Westbrook’s playoff outfits.
11. Warriors Over 35.5, Hornets Over 26.5, Bobcats Under 20.5.
12. Reflecting on the 2011 lockout and thinking, “Hold up, there was a lockout to address teams losing money, but teams handed out $36M to Jeff Green, max contracts to Brook Lopez, Roy Hibbert, and Eric Gordon, and $40M to Gerald Wallace after blowing the sixth pick in the draft to get him?”
13. Reflecting on the 2011 lockout and thinking, “Hold up, there was a lockout to address competitive balance, but since the lockout ended, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, and Steve Nash were all traded to the Lakers?”
14. The Toronto Raptors regretting picking Terrence Ross over Andre Drummond the second Ross checks into his first game.
15. The Cleveland Cavaliers regretting passing on Andre Drummond one season after regretting passing on Jonas Valanciunas.
16. The irrational nature of Lakers fans.
17. Watching Kendrick Perkins lumber down the court and wondering, “Wait, why didn’t Oklahoma City take their title shot, amnesty Perkins after the season, and then give James Harden the extra $6M without having to take the huge tax hit?
18. Jimmer Fredette playing his version of defense.
19. JaVale McGee “highlights.”
20. Russell Westbrook’s post-dunk celebrations. During Westbrook’s rookie season, I went to the Thunder v. Kings game on Superbowl Sunday. I could hear Westbrook scream after his dunks from the upper level. And his screams have gotten exponentially louder over the years.
21. #leaguepassalert
22. Ray Allen’s return to Boston.
23. James Harden’s return to Oklahoma City. I’d like to think that I’m a loyal person and that I would take less money to stay in a winning situation, but I’d take the extra $25M (assuming Harden signs the five-year max) 100 times out of 100. And to think he’s going to get booed when he goes back to Oklahoma City for doing something that damn near 100% of Thunder fans would’ve also done…
24. Backdoor covers
25. Warriors games. I miss being cheap and parking in the BART parking lot. I miss the Oracle atmosphere. I miss Franco Finn hyping up the W-W-W-Warriors fans. I miss that dude in the track suit doing the running man dance. I miss contemplating buying a $5 shirt from the street vendors after the game, and I miss praying that my windows weren’t shattered when I got back to my car.
26. Twitter explosions following any historic/jawdropping/headshaking play.
27. The Russell Westbrook slander following a bad game, but absolute crickets when he leads the Thunder to victory with Kevin Durant playing like dog feces.
28. The Flopping Police. For years, my girlfriend has been calling for a Flopping Police. One time I was playing NBA 2k with her and I started taking charges at halfcourt. She threw down the controller, quit, and didn’t talk to me for the next hour. She also likes to call Blake Griffin a cave man (“Rub stick, make fire”) and question his manhood after flopping.
29. Michael Beasley doing Michael Beasley things.
30. Great players being great. There’s absolutely nothing more entertaining than watching a player dominate against the best players in the world.