FREE THROW FEST

There were 97 free throw attempts in the Lakers-Cavs game tonight. No, it didn't go into octuple overtime, just your regular 48 minute game. There were 61 fouls, which works out to 1 foul for every 47 seconds of playing time. Now I like a tighly called game, but that's just ridiculous.

It wasn't the reason the Lakers lost--that would be Lebron waking up from his month-long slumber and looking like the old active/spectacular Lebron (seriously, it was night and day watching how hyped up he was, the combo of being in the big city, on national TV with no other competing games, and going up against Kobe. 9 times out of 10, when he caught the ball he immediately when into an aggressive move toward the rim. It really confirms what I've been saying the last few weeks about him laying down on the job. It's not that he *can't* do it, he just chooses not to on more nights than most other superstars.)

The bizarre calls were pretty even both ways; some of the calls the Lakers got, I was just shaking my head in wonder. And then uber-scrub Eric Snow would bash into Kobe completely out of control and go to the line and I'd also shake my head in wonder--while letting out a string of profanity. I wonder when was the last time Eric Snow had double digit FTAs--not in this millenium, I'll bet. Possibly not in this lifetime.

That makes 5 straight losses for the Lakers, officially moving them out of the ranks of the lesser championship contenders. They'll be a lot better once Luke Walton and especially Kwame come back--playing Turiaf at center is just disastrous, as his game-costing inability to rebound a fucking missed free throw in the last 10 seconds showed--but they just can't hang with the West's top teams. They played over their heads earlier in the year, they're underachieving now, the reality is somewhere in the middle--48-52 win team that gets bounced in the first or second round of the playoffs.

2009, baby!

Back to the officiating--it's funny how refs will get. You can see a crew call a game *super tight*, blowing the whistle on virtually every drive to the basket, and then the next night the very same crew will call a game normally, or even very loose. Now sometimes a crew sees that a game is getting "chippy", as the announcer will inevitably say, and tighten up to make sure the game doesn't get out of hand, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean that they'll just literally change their standards of what constitutes a foul from game to game--I mean, it's so clearly true, I think NBA officials would even generally agree with that observation. And they'll change those standards to a *wild* degree. Sometimes you go to the rim, get utterly hacked, and can't buy a call, the next night nobody's allowed to look in your direction (for Bird and Jordan, that was "every night").

That's what frustrates people about NBA officiating. It's a hard gig, no doubt, but there's no excuse for the lack of consistency with these assclowns. Decide what level of contact constitutes a foul and call it that way *every single game*. There can be variations from call-to-call--it would be impossible for there not to be--but not game-to-game variations in the fucking philosophy behind your officiating.

ALL-STAR WEEKEND

I guess I'm the only person left who gets excited about the dunk and 3-point contest. I'm not sure what other lame shit they have planned; I guess the rookie-sophomore game is tonight, that can be occasionally entertaining. I'd guess the sophs (with Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Monta Ellis, Danny Granger, Andrew Bynum, etc.) would roll over the crappy rookie class (Brandon Roy, Adam Morrison, Andrea Bargnani, Rudy Gay, etc.), but let's be honest, these guys are young, rich and in Las Vegas, they couldn't possibly give less of a shit about this game. And neither do I, really--these kinds of games are only fun to watch when the court is populated with super-athletes doing crazy stuff. The soph class is very good, but not really many Wades or Lebrons. I mean, nobody wants to see Deron Williams and Danny Granger run a perfectly executed pick-and-roll, or Chris Paul use a screen to set up a clean foul-line jumper. Ellis will probably shine, he's a great open court player. Maybe Randy Foye will show he can hoop a little.

D-LEAGUE

There's a D-League all-star game on Saturday night (only on the NBA Network, I believe (I realize I'm the laziest blogger around. I'm not going to do anything about it, but I think it's fair to acknowledge it)). That might be pretty interesting. It'd be better if Amir Johnson were in it, but the Pistons inexplicably called him up to let him rot on the bench instead of getting PT at a surprisingly solid level of play in the D-League. I don't know, maybe they feel a player gets way better coaching in the majors.

Anyway, there are some names you might recognize from college ball in the game--Loren Woods, BJ Elder, Luke Schenscher, Alan Anderson, Randy Livingston (yup, still hanging around trying to snag the last spot on an NBA bench; you gotta admire the hell out of this guy for his persistence), Dijon Thompson, Rick Rickert, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, and Peter John Ramos from the Puerto Rican national team that always gives us fits. I don't know, I'll give it a look and see if it's any good.

DUNK CONTEST

Man, there are a lot of dunkers I'd rather see than Nate Robinson. But he's got something to prove after last year's complete debacle, I guess we'll see what he's got. He ain't having the title handed over to him on the "aww, he's so little, isn't that cute!" criteria *this* year, not with MJ, Nique, Dr. J, Vince and Kobe as the judges (I think I speak for everyone when I say I'd much rather see a dunk contest with *those* guys. I'll bet the Doctor can still throw down).

Gerald Green supposedly has some crazy shit planned, I'm pretty excited about that. He's a freak show with top 1% athleticism in the league. Fellow freak Tyrus Thomas will probably come strong after getting ripped apart for his comments (he said something along the lines of not giving a shit about the dunk contest and only planning to show up to get the "free money"). Dwight Howard is kinda interesting. He's obviously powerful as hell, but that's not what this is about--you have to get up high enough to do in-air acrobatics, and most big men don't have the hang time to do that. Shawn Kemp (pre-obesity) is the only real exception I can think of--we'll see if the Man-Child can hang in Kemp's class.

THREE POINT SHOOTOUT

This should be pretty cool, there's a lot of talent here--Nowitzki, Arenas, Mike Miller, Jason Kapono, Damon Jones (they gotta mike him) and Jason Terry. If Arenas and Nowitzki get hot, it could be an all-timer. But Miller's got the sweetest release in the game and Kapono's shooting an absurd .560 (on 3+ attempts per game!) from three this year. Still, the guys with the experience and the quick releases usually win it. Arenas has been off the last couple weeks, so I'll go with Nowitzki.

THE GAME

I love the all-star game. And it's not like it was back in the 70s-80s-90s--they still don't play any D in the first half, but it usually tightens up a bit in the second and you see some legitimately good basketball in addition to all the highlight reel stuff. Nash and Iverson are out, which sucks--PGs make the game--but you still have Kidd and Billups along with table setters Wade, Lebron, Kobe, T-Mac, Arenas and Joe Johnson, there should be plenty of fine ballhandling and passing going on. And you have plenty of high-flying finishers in Dwight Howard, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler, Vince and Amare. With an amped-up Las Vegas crowd, it'll be a lot of fun to watch.