Laugh Out Loud George Karl: Riley Predicts That Your Team Gonna Turn Errybody Gay!
Riley Freeman of the Boondocks cartoon show is a big time basketball follower and a Quest for the Ring (QFTR) reader. It seems that most of our readers are fictional characters, laugh out loud. Meanwhile, among real humans, it seems that most everyday basketball fans are dumb asses and apparently prefer to remain that way.
But fictional characters can be unexpectedly intelligent because, for one thing, those who are creative enough to create fictional characters tend to be very smart people and so the characters they create are often smarter than it may appear. So as strange as it may sound, Riley is a smart QFTR reader (and to show appreciation for that we get him hooked up with Bulls tickets every once in a while).
Anyway, Riley recently read the recent QFTR Report breaking down the 2011-12 defending of all thirty NBA teams. Denver was just 18th out of the 30 teams in defensive efficiency, which is the best and most important overall measure for defensive quality. This alone disqualifies Denver from having any chance to win this years' Quest for the Ring.
In defending by zone on the court the Nuggets were recently:
Paint Defending: 19th out of 30 teams
Mid-Range Defending: 18th out of 30 teams
Long Range (Perimeter) Defending: 30th out of 30 teams
That last one is not a misprint; the Nuggets were recently the worst team in the League in defending against the 3-point shot, and that alone will very likely utterly destroy them in the playoffs.
If the Nuggets were not already disqualified from any chance of winning the 2012 Championship (by their relatively poor defensive efficiency) those zone rankings just above would have disqualified them. The point is that there is no way in hell the Nuggets can win this years' Quest. When they had players such as Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby they theoretically had a chance. But now they can not possibly win the Quest.
Moreover, if it were not for how relatively easy it is to make the playoffs in the NBA, the Nuggets would not make the playoffs at all in 2012. If the truth were told, the Nuggets really have no business in this years' playoffs.
But we want more than just the Nuggets being disqualified from having any chance to win the 2012 Championship. That would be setting the bar way too low. We need for the Nuggets to be completely humiliated in round one of the 2012 playoffs so that the Nuggets' cheap regular season wins are not rewarded in any way shape or form in the playoffs. We hope that the Nuggets are swept 4 games to zilch.
At the beginning of the season we stated a hope (and Riley expected) that Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, and the rest of the Minnesota Timberwolves could challenge the Nuggets for the last slot in the playoffs (the 8th seed in the Western Conference). Any chance of that ended when Rubio was injured and had to have surgery and was out for the season.
Incidentally, the Rubio injury was a reminder that it is silly to try to predict how a team’s season will go. Even if you can make amazingly accurate predictions without regard to injuries and trades, you will rarely actually be correct due to those pesky injuries and trades. Having learned this lesson once and for all, QFTR now “hopes” for things to happen because it is silly to “expect” for things to happen or to predict that things will happen since injuries and trades are totally unpredictable.
But in the days just before Rubio was injured, when Minnesota actually was challenging Denver for one of the last playoff slots (probably the very last slot) I was thinking to myself of that old expression: "Be careful, because you might get what you wish for". I realized that if the Timberwolves (or Phoenix or some other team) got the last slot in the playoffs and the Nuggets failed to make the playoffs, George Karl would escape getting a playoff loss added to his already miserable playoff record. There is no man alive who deserves to lose a NBA playoff series more so than Karl. But obviously he would have escaped a playoff loss had Rubio not been injured and had the Timberwolves taken the playoff slot away from the Nuggets. (And the same applies if Phoenix or some other team took that last playoff slot away from the Nuggets.)
So hell, I'll be happy that the Nuggets are apparently going to be in the playoffs in the year after several really good players quit the team due to Karl’s inability to win in the playoffs. At least the Nuggets' 2011-12 regular season winning percentage will be lower than when Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin were on the team. And it will be lower than when Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby were on the team.
Even though Carmelo Anthony himself (and his New York Knicks) will probably be losing in the first round this year, at least he (and everyone else) will see that the Nuggets’ with no Carmelo Anthony are going to lose in the playoffs even more decisively than when Anthony was on the team. Barring a whole lot of injuries to opponents, there will be no 2009 style miracle appearance in the 2012 West Conference Final for the Nuggets and their sorry ass defense. Note: if something is really, really obvious, it is an exception to the rule and I am allowed to “unofficially predict” that if will happen. So I unofficially predict that the Nuggets will not reach the 2012 West Final.
To put it bluntly (as we are allowed and encouraged to do in a Laugh Out Loud) we hope (and Riley expects) that George Karl and the Nuggets are going to get their asses kicked by the Thunder this year. We want to see broom signs in Oklahoma.
Remember, all I can officially do is hope; I am not allowed to officially predict playoff results directly or indirectly. I can’t try to cheat the rule by officially saying that I "expect" one team to beat another.
But Riley can say whatever the hell he wants! He can say that everyone is gay except for him and no one will think much of it, because he always seems to be saying that, laugh out loud. So we can let Riley do the talking!
So at the moment it looks like the Nuggets will be up against the Oklahoma Thunder in round one of the 2012 playoffs. If so, Riley and I will most likely have more fun than anyone should be allowed to have watching the complete dismantlement of the shabby Nuggets thanks to their very sub par defense, their lack of any strong superstars, their obsession with fast breaking which does not work out reliably in the playoffs, and their relatively street ball style in general.
It will be especially enjoyable to see the Thunder rain threes on the worst perimeter defense in the NBA! George Karl thinks Aaron Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA even though the Nuggets' mascot Rocky and many randomly chosen men waiting at a Chicago train stop can defend the three better than Afflalo can.
If Aaron Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA and if the Nuggets’ / George Karl’s 2012 defense is respectable then I am the Easter Bunny, laugh out loud.
Or else I am the producer of Riley’s new hip hop album, which is called “Damn, Everybody’s Gay Except Me”.
Or if Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA and if the Nuggets’ / George Karl’s 2012 defense is respectable then I have several toll bridges in Mongolia for sale.
Or if Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA and if the Nuggets’ / George Karl’s 2012 defense is respectable then I am Tupac Shakur reincarnated. And this time, no one is going to put a cap in my ass because instead of being King of the Hill in the rap business I produce a sophisticated but obscure basketball site that armed gangsters who go around putting caps in people’s asses are not interested in.
And the banksters (aka the very rich gangsters who go around putting caps in people’s asses figuratively speaking) are not riled up about or even merely interested in QFTR either. That’s a good thing, because quite frankly I suspect that I would rather have a cap in my ass than to have all of my money stolen by banksters.
Or if Aaron Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA and if the Nuggets’ / George Karl 2012 defense is respectable then I am Michael Jackson reincarnated and this time I am going to watch Detroit Pistons games when I need to fall asleep.
Or if Aaron Afflalo is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA and if the Nuggets’ / George Karl 2012 defense is respectable then Mitt Romney will be picking Nancy Pelosi as his running mate for the 2012 presidential election, laugh out loud.
Or else I am the producer of the world’s most sophisticated basketball Site. Oh wait, that is probably true; my bad.
Anyway, you get the point.
Riley, being a silly and immature young man, has silly, immature, crude, yet strangely compelling things to say about failures such as the Nuggets’ 2012 defense....
Laugh out loud.