Column: Huge Balls

     by Rob Stiller

In the weeks leading up to the NBA playoffs this season, I shared a sentiment with Charles Barkley in that, as he stated during one of TNT’s Inside the NBA programs, “This is gon’ be the best playoffs ev’r.” Perhaps my expectations were too high, but so far I haven’t gotten what I had hoped for. I never thought the Suns-Spurs series would be over in five games. I never thought the best first round series would be Boston-Atlanta. And I certainly never anticipated being so distracted and disgusted at that standard of officiating that has cropped up this playoff season, part of which has been just bad officiating and part of which is due to how the league has chosen to handle certain situations, particularly the flagrant foul.

Continue reading Column:: Huge Balls: “Officiating in the NBA Playoffs”

Column: How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight

     by Graham Weber

Never Trust A Man In This Much Denim - Photo: Jessica Adie

We coaxed local musician Graham Weber off the coattails of his latest album The Door To The Morning to come over and write a column for us here at the Dic. Ever the pushover, Graham agreed, and we’re pleased to bring you the idle thoughts of one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters. You can catch Vol. 1 of How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight on his myspace, or Vol. 2 right here. Vol. 3 is waiting for you below.

It’s late again, and I haven’t had a chance to eat all day. So needless to say as the day wore on my mind has been preoccupied with my appetite. There is not much to eat in my house tonight. The cupboard is nearly bare, with the exception of dried pasta, and 4 cans of Skyline Chili. It’s one the few red meat products I will eat from a can. The other is Armor Corned Beef Hash. Unfortunately, I ate my reserve can of that last week. I take a bite, and I’m taken back to a more innocent time in my life, when I didn’t care what I was eating. I don’t know what’s in those cans but I prefer not to think about it… I’m a red-blooded American and I don’t ask questions.

Continue reading Feature: How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight Vol. 3

Column: Huge Balls

     by Rob Stiller

Dallas Stars: Lost at the San Jose Sharks Friday 3-2 (OT); Beat the Sharks in Dallas Sunday 2-1 (4OT)

It’s only fitting that the ballsiest player on the team scored the ballsiest goal of the season for the Stars as the team advances to face the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Finals after appearing on the brink of completing an historic collapse. I’m talking about Brendan Morrow, for those of you who didn’t weather the five and a half hours it took to decide a winner early Monday morning. Just as significant as the playoff implications this game held, though, is the fact that this game reminded us that hockey games needn’t be high scoring affairs to be exceedingly entertaining. As much as the league has tweaked the rules in recent years to allow for more scoring, games like this, in which two goaltenders go toe to toe for hours, are the ones that will be tagged as “instant classics” in the hockey world. If you had asked me three weeks ago how much hockey I had watched this season, an honest response would probably have been about six hours. But not only did I watch as much Sunday night, I was on the edge of my seat the whole game, as Turco and Nabokov made ridiculous save after ridiculous save. As of 2:43 Monday morning, there isn’t a YouTube video of the game winning goal. But to me this HUGE hit Brendan Morrow layed on some San Jose chump might as well have been the game winner. Video, as well as Rockets and Spurs weekend news, after the jump. Continue reading Columns:: Huge Balls: “Weekend Wrap: Stars Induce Multiple Heart Attacks, Insomnia”

Column: Huge Balls

     by Rob Stiller

**UPDATE** As of Thursday afternoon, the New York Post and Chicago Tribune are, respectively, reporting that the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls are both interested in interviewing Avery Johnson and Mike D’Antoni in the next few days, assuming the latter becomes available.
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Upon their elimination from the NBA playoffs Tuesday night at the hands of the up-and-coming New Orleans Hornets, the down-and-going Dallas Mavericks officially embarked on their most significant offseason since 2004. But what is the appropriate course of action, and what will Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson actually do to restore the Mavs to their elite status? At this point, there is no right answer, but big changes are clearly on the horizon, given the team’s dismissal of Avery Johnson Wednesday afternoon. There essentially exist three philosophical approaches that the organization could take, none of which are necessarily appealing to the fans, but all of which management will have to weigh in the coming weeks and months.

1. Stand pat
Probably the most distasteful approach to disgruntled Mavs fans everywhere is the possibility that Donnie and Cuban decide to give this group one last chance to make it to the top. And for a number of reasons, this scenario is a lot more likely than most sports media outlets would have you believe.

1. Cuban just signed off on one of the riskiest trades in franchise history, and Cubes isn’t the sort of guy that’s used to failure. And to clarify, trading Kidd now would be one big admission of failure. It certainly wouldn’t be difficult to sell the media on the “perhaps the team just didn’t have enough games together to find their chemistry will Kidd at the helm before the playoffs” explanation.
2. The team’s most valuable trade chip just caused a media raucous after discussing his affinity for smoking dro during the offseason, and compounded that with the worst playoff series of his career. Even if the Mavs are shopping Josh Howard, which, one can only assume they are, the logical move is to wait until next season when J-Ho has had a chance to remind the league exactly the Mavs were unwilling to part with him this season. Prematurely moving Howard would only hurt the Mavs and move them further away from the upper tier of the Western Conference.
3. The other big ticket item the Mavs have to work with, Jason Kidd’s expiring contract, will similarly increase in value the longer they hold on to it. That is, as next season’s trade deadline approaches, teams working to clear cap space for the 2010 LeBron James Sweepstakes would LOVE to take on Kidd’s 21.3 million (!) dollar expiring contract.
4. Beyond the two players already mentioned, the Mavs have a lot of undesirable (Terry, Stackhouse) or just plain bad (Dampier) contracts that are essentially immovable. That is, unless the team starts stripping parts and selling them off for pennies on the dollar in order to clear cap space down the road. Continue reading Column:: Huge Balls: “What this Summer May Hold for the Mavericks”

Column: How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight

     by Graham Weber

Never Trust A Man In This Much Denim - Photo: Jessica Adie

We coaxed local musician Graham Weber off the coattails of his latest album The Door To The Morning to come over and write a column for us here at the Dic. Ever the pushover, Graham agreed, and we’re pleased to bring you the idle thoughts of one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters. You can catch Vol. 1 of How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight on his myspace. Vol. 2 is waiting for you below.

It’s raining as the clock strikes 1am. It’s coming down hard and I’m hoping that the wall between my kitchen and the side yard doesn’t decide that it is water soluble as it has done from time to time in the past. I’m exhausted. My body hurts and I can’t seem to get caught up with the things I need to get done… so of course, I’m writing this instead. Rain in the middle of the night is one of my favorite things. I sit in my garage and smoke, and as of late I’ve been nostalgic. Unintentionally finding myself clinging to a youth that gets farther away with every bill and brutal morning after.

Continue reading Feature: Graham Weber’s How To Successfully Avoid The Imaginary Limelight Vol. 2