KYLE'S NHL PICKS TO DATE: 50-35-1
KYLE'S MLB PICKS TO DATE: 146-112-7
A few years ago I worked in alternative education at a school called "Clean And Sober High" - the humor of which was never lost on me or the attending students. C.S.H.S. was a self-contained, single classroom program designed for students from main stream high schools who were considered at risk for substance abuse issues because they were either caught with drugs at school or were incurring drug and alcohol related legal issues during their free time. Either way, the intentions were good but the results were suspect at best.
By the middle of the year there about twenty adolescents from rival gangs hopped up on one thing or another, angry at everything, mistrusting of everyone, and mandated by probation to attend six hours of school with poor Mr. Wright as their teacher and yours truly attempting to be their counselor. While the students responsibilities were to show up, not hurt anyone else, and be subjected to random urine tests, mine and Mr. Wright's were to cultivate the darkest sense of humor you could imagine just to survive the daily insanity and the horrifying living situations these children came from. What do you call compassion mixed with fear?
Early in my first semester I felt like I was beginning to build relationships with a few of the students. I wouldn't call it trust, but at least I wasn't "as much of a douche bag" as Mr. Wright they'd tell me. My goal with most of them was to both build trust and elicit honesty. If they were still using or had relapsed I wanted them to just tell me and we'd go from there. Some students gave it a shot and I earned their trust. Others kept their distance. Behind the scenes, however, interesting thing started to happen.
On one occasion a boy - let's call him Student A -who was not particularly fond of me or piss testing (who could blame him) decided to bring a bottle of his brother's "clean" urine to school and hide it in the roof boards of the bathroom so he could avoid a dirty test even though he was getting high before school on a regular basis. What he didn't know was that one of the students whose trust I'd earned - Student B who was also getting high before school on a regular basis - took exception to Student A's attempt to dupe me, so he promptly went into the boy's bathroom, reached up into the roof boards, emptied the cup, and filled it to the brim with his own THC-infused pee. Needless to say, Student A was very surprised by the results of his test. Meanwhile, Student C was still trying unsuccessfully to get his dog to pee in a cup so he could proudly say, "I told you my idea was better."
What the hell does this have to do with NBA basketball you might rightfully ask? Well, it was on that same day that Mr. Wright and I began a secret game of Fantasy Juvenile Delinquincy. We took turns drafting students from the classroom - higher rates of recidivism first of course - and created categories of both negative behaviors - suspensions, acts of violence, dirty tests, probation violations - and positive attributes - sober, on time, random acts of kindness, etc. - and started keeping score just like all the online fantasy sports. Much like Michael J. Fox when he went back in time, however, the only rule was that we were not allowed to interfere with the statistical outcomes.
What the hell does this have to do with NBA basketball you might rightfully ask again? Well, wouldn't it be fun to have NBA Finals Fantasy Teams with outrageous categories that would be impossible to keep track of? If you were so inclined, you could even make a drinking game out of it like we used to do with certain words or phrases like "DNA," "gun shot residue," or "blunt force trauma" while watching CSI Miami during grad school. Alcohol is the only way to ignore the god-awful writing on that show.
The following are some examples of categories and personnel you might consider drafting in a Fantasy Finals league:
1. Captured in camera shots of Miami bench: Eric Spoelstra, Alonzo Mourning, Juwan Howard, Fatty McTowelboy
2. Butt slaps received: Instinctively you'd want to go with the Europeans or South Americans because of their more evolved cultural understanding of sexuality, but you'd be wrong. Giving and receiving butt slaps is a strange, repressed homo-erotic activity designed by Americans for Americans. With a very international roster in San Antonio, good money says Mario Chalmers of the Miami Heat will be receiving the most slaps upon his ass.
"Hey guys, can I get in on that?"
3. Butt slaps given: Brett Favre - you never notice him there until you start playing Fantasy Finals.
Other prop bets that could easily be included on a game to game basis:
4. How many inches too tall will Justin Beiber's Miami Heat hat be when he's sitting court side for Game 1? If this is a disguise intended to draw less attention to him it failed miserably. What is that a leather wife beater? And did anyone else notice the robotic way this kid drinks water? Very bizarre.
5. How many times will they reference San Antonio's trade with the Indiana Pacers that gave them the rights to Kawhi Leonard and how many times will the same reference include a description of Leonard's "creaky ankles?"
Obviously the list could go on ad nauseum, but let's leave the rest of the suggestions to our beloved readers who enjoy nothing more than filling up the comments section with their insights and witticisms - or more commonly just math corrections and questions about Nascar. We're not complaining - our motto at TSZ is "We'll take what we can get." Now let's move on to Game 1 of the 2013 NBA Finals
San Antonio Spurs (+5) over MIAMI HEAT: Is anyone else wondering why Miami is still the favorite to win the NBA Finals? Did we not just see them taken to the brink by the young, upstart Indiana Pacers, a team with less depth, experience, offensive capability, championship pedigree, and Popavichian Know-How than the Spurs? Is San Antonio's four championships in the past fourteen years being completely overlooked by odds makers? Do they know that Tim Duncan is banking on the outcome of this series to save his shaky marriage? Don't turn your back on these guys.
There's a lot of talk about Rest vs Rust, questions about how the San Antonio Spurs will respond to a ten day lay off between games. Others are talking about the amazing detail with which Coach Popavich can prepare given so much time. The truth of the matter is, Gregg Popavich hasn't just been preparing for this game since May 27th, he's been preparing for this game every day since Friday, June 15th, 2007, the day after his San Antonio Spurs swept the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers. Once he saw first hand what a young LeBron could do, Coach Popavich knew this day would come again. Did he hope it would come much, much, much sooner? Of course, but nonetheless that day has come and it's his for reckoning. Why else would he bench his stars on the trip to Miami. No game tape for you Mr. Video Coordinator.
This series pits the current Big Three against last decade's OG Big Three. Lately, Miami's trio has been playing more like a Big One and Three Quarters while the Spurs have at the very least a Big Two and a Sporadic Six Tenths coming off the bench in Manu Ginobili. If you think it was size that helped Indiana compete in the Eastern Conference Finals, the San Antonio Spurs have a former Twin Tower in Tim Duncan, a 6'10" former athlete in Boris Diaw, and - in case you're concerned about Miami's Chris "The Birdman" Anderson - a rather large Tiago Splitter, who has recently taken on the nickname The Avian Flu.
At the risk of boring you with more amazing, made-up NBA knowledge, let's just leave it at that because chances are this series is going at least six games. The Heat will be relieved to have gotten the monkey of the Pacers off their backs only to find they're facing a gorilla in the Finals. Take the points, buy the money line, and pick the Spurs to win the series, too.
Hopefully you heard it here first,
Vinny and Marco
KYLE'S CORNER: Quick Hits
Unfortunately, I don't even have time for excuses this morning. Stats will be updated tomorrow, but I could not let a day go by without getting you some picks. If there's nothing else you can count on in the world, there's always The Spread Zone. Here's the skinny
NHL: Chicago @ LAK: Under 4.5
MLB:
Pitchers to Back
NYY: Hughes (2-4, 5.37 ERA)
STL: Miller (6-3, 1.82 ERA)
DET: Scherzer (7-0, 3.42 ERA)
Overs:
NYM: Marcum (0-6, 5.71 ERA) @ WSH: Gonzalez (3-3, 3.64 ERA)
MIN: Pelfrey (3-6, 6.66 ERA) @ KC: Davis (3-5, 6.16 ERA)
Good luck!
Kyle
No comments:
Post a Comment