#sportsguy

[helixcb]

Sports guy! 🎾🎽 #marlowe #cartoondog #thewhitestripes #sportsguy #dogsofinstagram #cockerspaniel #cockerdream (at Shoreditch Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwUORCcHO29/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=nojvx9vybk3j

[intrepidgenius]

Just had a bit of fun coming up with a mascot design for Intrepid Genius Makers. I wanted add something to the faction in order to possibly push thru a varsity aspect for them. I want to come up with a version of some varsity looks and this is only the beginning of the concepts I'm working on. Hope you enjoy! 😉 #designconcepts #mascotdesign #colorcodes #smallspacedesign #sportsguy #goteamgo #graphics https://www.instagram.com/p/Bss_3rkgXal/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qec12g8lpfcy

[lyngdoh10]

#November21

[scottclause]

#boomsauce getting the shot ! #sportsguy @jrusselltv @collinkushner photo by @scottclause #scottclausephotography (at Cajun Field)

[stag28]

"“I wonder if the guys just play harder game to game now … I was just watching how casually they played defense in the ’80s. They would turn it up in the last six minutes of playoff games, but for the most part, you just played offense, and you kind of half-heartedly jog around guys, maybe in the low post you shove people. But you can’t do that … Everybody plays really hard and you have to run out on shooters all the time … [there’s] more ground to cover, and if you don’t give a crap and you mail in a possession or a play, you end up like Otto Porter in … ‘Shaqtin’ a Fool.’ So there is this pressure to just go [all] out all the time … and what Westbrook was doing as you said earlier, it’s not sustainable. You’re gonna lay in the runway. You’re gonna fall on your wrist. Your knee is gonna act up. You’re gonna be playing through some injury and pretend you don’t have it. And I just wonder, do these guys go too hard, and do we have to reduce the season now? It feels like we do.” [..] it’s only getting worse. I’m constantly amazed by how hard everyone plays these days. When a contender like the Warriors goes through the motions on a random night, it turns into a 24-hour news cycle. Are the Warriors worn out? Have they lost their swagger??? Thanks to League Pass, social media, and the never-ending slew of national games, the level of scrutiny is unparalleled — and on top of THAT, they’re playing a smaller, faster, unrelenting style that’s littered with slash-and-kicks, run-outs, chasedowns and protect-the-rim-by-committee leaps. Maybe stars aren’t getting hammered in the lane like they did in the Laimbeer-Oakley days, but they can’t take plays off either. There’s a reason nobody plays 40-plus minutes a game anymore. You can’t. Why do we need an 82-game NBA season? For one of my favorite dumb reasons: “That’s the way we’ve always done it!” That’s code for, The players and owners know the season should be 76 games so we can eliminate every “four games in five nights” scenario, but we don’t want to lose six extra games of ticket revenue and TV money. Don’t just blame the owners; they split revenue 50–50 with the players. If the players want more rest, bargain for it — give up six games and see how it affects the league’s overall revenue and salary cap. [..] Barring a lockout, we haven’t budged from 82 games in 49 years, only we added another EIGHTEEN teams? What? Go back to my aforementioned “76” — that’s 30 nonconference games (15 opponents), 30 non-division conference games (10 opponents), and 16 division games (four opponents). If we pressed RESET and created the best 30-team schedule possible, it’s 76 games — that removes one game a month, saves us about 24,530 hours of sports media complaints about resting, and solves pretty much every resting problem [..] My suggestion for the umpteenth straight year: Drop to 76 games and guarantee seven playoff spots in each conference. Start the season 10 days early (in mid-October), end it in early April after Game 76, then have your 16 non-playoff teams battle for the last two seeds in a single-elimination Entertaining As Hell tournament as the playoff teams rest. Oh, and if you miss any of the softened 76-game schedule for “rest”? You don’t get paid for that game. Thank you and please drive through. [..] Let’s say the Celtics luck out and get Lonzo or Fultz — in two summers, Lonzo/Fultz, Avery Bradley (a free agent in 2018), and Marcus Smart (eligible for an extension next summer) would cost 90 percent as much as Thomas by himself. [..] I believe that everyone shoots more 3-pointers now. Three-pointers are more random and unpredictable. It’s boring, but it’s true. I also believe that travel habits and resting/dieting habits are better (which improve the chances for road teams), and I believe that home-court advantage has been slipping for a while because of the people looking at their phones and visiting fans getting tickets on secondary markets [..] we’ve somehow entered the NBA’s version of the Steroid Era without the steroids (we hope). Everywhere you look, a 2017 player is doing something that leads to the sentence, “Only (X) players in NBA history have (done what this guy’s doing).”"

[stag28]

"LeBron has never had Westbrook’s insatiable hunger to score and keep scoring. Young LeBron aspired to be the queen of the chessboard; he wanted to be Magic, not Jordan. LeBron’s dream game was always 27 points, 12 assists, 9 rebounds … and six teammates scoring in double figures. If he wanted to score 35 a game or average a triple-double, he could have done it. LeBron cares less about numbers than any all-timer since Bird and Magic [..] The opposite [..] with Westbrook: Freed of sharing the ball with Kevin Durant, he’s chasing numbers like nobody has since Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. In fact, even Wilt never hogged the ball like Westbrook does. Statistically, Russell Westbrook is the biggest ball hog of all time. [..] The biggest problem with ball hog basketball: eventually, everyone else atrophies. The supporting guys stop thinking independently; when they’re asked to step up, it’s difficult to flick on that “OK, I’m good!” switch. [..] OKC’s only silver lining: we’ve never seen an NBA season like this one, either. It’s the Moreyball generation of 3s and free throws, one that overvalues perimeter guys and severely undervalues centers and low-post players. Everyone wants slash-and-kick creators and shooters now, and if you glance around the league, the most important assets after our seven superstars (KD, Russ, LeBron, Harden, Curry, Anthony Davis and Kawhi) are point guards, shooters and fledgling unicorns. If you drafted rosters from scratch for a new 30-team league, the first center might not go until the 15–20 range… and it’s probably Nikola Jokic, who just became an impact guy five minutes ago. [..] For all the bad blood between Durant and Westbrook, and all the pain it caused Oklahoma City (and maybe each other, too), their divorce worked out beautifully if you love the NBA. Assuming Durant comes back healthy and happy for the playoffs, both guys ended up getting what they wanted — even if they never admitted as much. Kevin Durant believed there was another level of basketball out there, that he could evolve as a two-way superstar on a remarkably unselfish basketball team. And Russell Westbrook believed that he didn’t need Kevin Durant. They were both right."

[stag28]

"Look at the best assets in the NBA right now. We have seven superstars: LeBron, Davis, Durant, Kawhi, Curry, Harden and Westbrook. (None were available this week.) We also have six untouchable 25-and-under studs: Jokic, Giannis, Kyrie, Towns, Porzingis and Embiid. (None were available this week.) After that, you’re looking at this “not completely untradable, but you’d have to bowl us over with a ludicrous offer” threesome: George, Butler and John Wall. After that, there are seven crucial stars on playoff teams who wouldn’t be available anyway: Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Marc Gasol and Isaiah Thomas (especially because of his cheap contract), then Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Kyle Lowry (downgraded slightly because they’re free agents). After that, a group of players who might be worth that pick in a one-on-one swap (or close), but it wouldn’t have made sense at the deadline for a variety of reasons: CJ McCollum, Rudy Gobert, LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, Mike Conley, Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, then Gordon Hayward and Paul Millsap (downgraded because they’re free agents), then Boogie Cousins (who just got dealt for 40 cents on the dollar). After that: six more just-about-untouchable young guys who aren’t worth as much as that Brooklyn pick: Andrew Wiggins, Ben Simmons, Devin Booker, Myles Turner, Aaron Gordon and Brandon Ingram."

[stag28]

"Mike D’Antoni, basically created a new style of basketball, only it’s not replicable because nobody else has the right mix of shooters and rollers. Oh, and NOBODY ELSE has James Harden. If Seven Seconds or Less was, “Give the ball to Steve Nash with pace,” then Seventeen Seconds or More is, “Spread the floor for James for 17 seconds, he’s a genius, he can get to any spot he wants, he’ll figure this out.” [..] Only the 7-foot Durant affects a basketball game in more consistently positive ways on both ends, whereas Curry’s undeniable brilliance hinges on touches and hot streaks more than anything else. That’s what made Golden State’s 73-win season so implausible; they built a Hall of Fame offense around two exceptional shooters who caught fire at inexplicably consistent rates. This year’s Warriors offense is actually better — it just doesn’t feature Curry quite as much. [..] Professional basketball — as currently designed, with the right spacing — rewards any guard who can shoot 3s and attack the rim. Isaiah Thomas used to be very good at both skills; this season, he’s been extraordinary at them, and that’s before you throw in his deadly step-back jumper in the paint. This doesn’t feel like a hot streak anymore. He just happens to be 5-foot-9 and looks like he’s 14 years old, so there’s an invisible asterisk being added to everything. Admittedly, he wouldn’t be thriving like this in the Bird-Magic-MJ era, with the paint clogged with four big guys or with the Oakleys and Laimbeers ready to clothesline him into the photographers. But that’s the thing: Basketball works differently now. Thomas makes way more sense than he once did."