Fourprise me

It must have been about a week ago when I decided to write a “5 (or 10) surprising facts about the NBA at the halfway point” blog. Since then, I have, well, not done that. And – typically – if I delay a blog more than a day or so, it doesn’t happen.

So, as a comprise, here are four (potentially) surprising facts about the NBA at this point in the season.

The rebound leaders:

1. Kevin Love, 15.6 RPG (good gracious)
2. Dwight Howard, 13.6
3. Zach Randolph, 13.3
4. Blake Griffin, 12.8
5. Andrew Bogut, 11.7

If you’ve been paying attention, this was also my Surprise of the Year for the 2010 BISdom awards, and it was what gave me the idea for this blog. When I wrote that blog, Marcus Camby was in the top five, making this a bit more surprising, though Bogut is still a bit of a surprise – unless you consider the #1 surprising fact of last season: the Milwaukee Deer made the playoffs, and there had to be some reason.

Manu Ginobli is an MVP candidate. The Spurs are 4 games better than the Celtics, the other best team in the league. San Antonio’s record: 40-7. In ’95-’96, when they set the NBA season record with 72 wins, the Bulls were 42-5 through 47 games. The Spurs are playing that well this year, and Manu Ginobli is their best player so far. His PER is about 2 points higher than Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. He also leads the team in scoring and steals, is second in assists, and is fifth in rebounding.

The third most important rookie in the league is New York’s Landry Fields. We all know about Blake Griffin and John Wall at this point, but Fields – the 39^th overall pick in this year’s draft – is the only other rookie to average more than 30 minutes per game. Amongst rookies, he’s 4^th in PPG (10.1), 3^rd in RPG (7.1), and 2^nd in FG % (52.3 – ahead of both Griffin and Wall).

I started my fantasy basketball season a perfect and fantastic 12-0. I finally lost this past week to Bryan, after Stephen Curry failed to score 900 f-points in the late game last night. We play an 18-game season, so I’m guaranteed at least a 66.7% win percentage.

Quote(s) of the Week:

Two gems from Kevin Durant, a usually soft-spoken guy:

“Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!”

“There's a lot of fake tough guys in this league and [Chris Bosh is] one of them.”

MCJealousy

Now that we can all agree that Jay Cutler did have a legitimate injury, the biggest leftover question seems: why did so many other players decide he was faking it and then tweet that to millions of internet nerds and journalists?

Maybe it’s this: from an outsider’s perspective, Cutler seems like a diva, at least, for three reasons:

1. Yesterday.
2. Dude always has a sad face on – it’s just his default mode, like zero on a calculator.
3. He divaed his way out of Denver – asking for a trade because they wanted to trade him or something (?).

Insiders – like the players who tweeted – may have other (insider) reasons to consider him diva-like. I don’t know.

What I do know: Jay Cutler is by no means the only quarterback to act and/or look like the world voted unanimously for their feelings in the worldwide whose-feelings-are-most-important contest.

Let’s start with the obvious: Brett Favre is the biggest attention whore east of Hollywood. For a guy who Wrangler tries to sell as just a regular guy, Favre sure does seem to have a lot of interest in our interest. But the list goes on.

Philip Rivers comes to mind. He’s often wearing the same “Don’t bother me – I’m brooding” look as Cutler.

Tom Brady is somewhere between a supermodel’s boy-toy and an aspiring (successful?) male model.

Vince Young has become so conceited from being an NFL quarterback that he actually thinks he’s an NFL quarterback.

Even SNL­-hosting, Justin-Timberlake-hanging-out-withing golden boy Peyton Manning had his “idiot kicker” moment.

So, it’s not just Cutler; in fact, I’d argue that this is culturally ingrained and it’s nearly impossible for big-time QBs to not have holier-than-thou attitudes. Quarterbacks are essentially idolized.

On any given week during the football season, there are probably at least a dozen guys on television who claim that the quarterback position is the most important position in football/sports.

And their fame reflects that. People who don’t watch a single game all season can name Favre, Brady, and Manning.

In college and high school, the treatment is the same. I can probably name as many college QBs as I can other college players. And I watch a lot of college sports.

(Off the top of my head – so the spelling may be off: QBs: Cam Newton, Ricky Stanzi, Jake Locker, Denard Robinson, Tyrell Pryor, TJ Yates, Andrew Luck, Matt Barkley (8). Other guys: Nick Fairley, Da’Quan Bowers, AJ Green, Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Marvin Austin (does that count?), Shaun Draughn (7). I could probably name more eventually, but those were the first 15 to come to mind.)

So, when Jay Cutler acts/looks like a diva or people react to him like he’s acting/looking like a diva, I’m not really surprised.

Ego’s a hell of a drug.

(Unconfirmed) Fact of the Day:

Evidently, if a third-string QB enters an NFL game in the first three quarters of play, the first- and second-stringers aren’t allowed to reenter, according to Karl Ravech on yesterday’s SportsCenter.

The Twenty-Ten BISdom Awards

As promised, the 2010 BISies are here. These are number three, which means there was a one and a two before. You might reference those for comparative purposes.

THE SPORTS CLASS:

Team of the Year:

Auburn Tigers football.

I’m not sure why I’d start here – seems like this would be the final reveal of the sports class. But precedent has been set.

Including a January 1 bowl game win over Northwestern, the Tigers won all of their 14 games in 2010 and then won the “Tostitos BCS National Championship Game” on 1/10/11. During that 15-game stretch, Auburn put up 49+ points on seven different occasions. Plus, Cam Newton won the Heisman, and Nick Fairley won the Lombardi Award.

Runner-up:

UConn women’s basketball. Considering they only lost one game all year – and it was on December 30 – they might deserve the top spot, except very few people actually care about women’s basketball. So it’d be hard to justify.

Athlete of the Year:

Roy Halladay. What a disgusting year he had? A no-hitter and a perfect game? Really?

Runner-up:

Michael Vick.

Story of the Year:

The decision. This is a new award category. I was debating (with myself) about the criteria for Athlete (or Team, for that matter) of the Year. The name of the award isn’t particularly descriptive; presumably, it means the best performing athlete of the year, but it could also mean most important athlete or best dressed athlete or most alarmingly honest athlete or any number of other things.

Ultimately, I decided that the Athlete of the Year is the best performing, so I had to create this new award for LeBron James and the 2010 free agency.

Runner-up:

Cliff Lee joins Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt in Philadelphia. The Phillies traded Lee six months after acquiring him and almost exactly one year before he returned, essentially so they could get Halladay. So, I’m not particularly sure why he would want to return to that franchise, which almost certainly undervalued him.

The word betrayal comes to mind, as does the word dominance. It’s hard to imagine this won’t be the Story of the Year next year as well, at least in MLB.

Surprise of the Year:

NBA rebound leaders. If I’d asked you at the beginning of the season who would be leading the NBA in rebounds at roughly the midway point, you wouldn’t have guessed Kevin Love, unless you were from the future. You also probably wouldn’t have put Zach Randolph, Blake Griffin, or Marcus Camby in the top 5, but they’re there. (As is Dwight Howard – you might have guessed him.)

Runner-up:

The SF Giants win the World Series. They’re not that good, really. They had two All-Stars; the Rangers, whom they beat in the Series, had six. The Giants’ best player is the size of Hunter Biggs. Their other two best players were a rookie and Charlie Sheen’s character from Major League.

Fantasy Player of the Year:

Bryan informed me earlier this month that he won this award. I’ll let him explain why.

Runner-up:

Byron. I really want to give myself the runner-up spot simply because I’m 11-0 in fantasy basketball (and I also won the regular season title in football), but By deserves some credit just for being involved in all three major sports and (usually) paying attention. Obviously Matt, Bryan, and I fit this bill as well, but that's not as surprising.

THE ENTERTAINMENT CLASS:

Movie of the Year:

Inception. I drank the Kool-Aid on this one. By the way, in my mind, the top stopped spinning.

Runner-up:

Anything other than Avatar. Technically released in 2009, Avatar was one of my least favorite movies that I watched in 2010 and represents an annoying trend that develops any time a new technology is super-cool and revolutionary: crappy products that just show off the technology (in this case 3-D computer-animated visuals) with little to no concern for overall quality.

Funniest Movie of the Year:

Get Him to the Greek.

Another new category that was necessary for this and the next movie.

Runner-up:

Youth in Revolt. I’m a pretty serious Michael Cera fan and generally think he’s hilarious. Even so, this was surprisingly funny.

Show of the Year:

Modern Family. Just an amazingly good show.

Runner-up:

Mad Men. I’m still not sold on Jon Hamm being a good actor or Mad Men’s sense of technical timing, but this season had some great moments and an overall good year.

Best New Show of the Year:

Archer. We didn’t get a lot of Archer in 2010 (only 10 episodes), and it took some convincing to get my house on board, but it was well worth it. Adam Reed (the man behind Archer and Sealab 2021) and H. Jon Benjamin (the voice of Archer and Bob from 2011’s-best-new-show-so-far Bob's Burgers) are definitely two of my favorite TV people of 2010.

Runner-up:

Human Target. The latest two-hour episode of Human Target was just terrible. But the average quality of the show is pretty high. It is a bit MacGyvery at times and asks a lot of its audience, but it generally rewards with some fun moments and funny dialogue.

THE VIDEO GAME CLASS:

Biggest Disappointment of the Year:

The end of the “Port City Gamers” blog. Now I have one less job.

Runner-up:

Multiplayer in Wii’s GoldenEye 007. I wasn’t particularly surprised by this, considering the basic formula for the multiplayer was created 13 years ago, but I was still disappointed.

Most Fun Game of the Year:

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. This game owned me for a few weeks there in December – that magical time after grades are due but before holiday things start.

Runner-up:

Red Dead Redemption. Really, either of these games could be my Game of the Year, especially considering I value “fun” over most other things in games, but I decided to slot them in here so I could write about other games too.

Best Multiplayer Game:

Halo: Reach. I haven’t really played the multiplayer of this as much as I could, but it pretty much has the complete MP package: co-op campaign, online competitive, and co-op horde (or, in this case, firefight). And jetpacks.

Runner-up:

Rock Band 3. Again, haven’t played as much as maybe I could.

Sports Game of the Year:

NBA 2K11. Finally jumping the EA Sports bandwagon, Bryan and I have played a lot of this game with mostly positive results. But this game really set itself apart with the Michael Jordan challenges that were well integrated and really fun.

Runner-up:

FIFA 11. Thanks to Daniel, I’d already known that soccer games can be fun, but this was the year I got Bryan on board. But, again, the single-player experience is well worth the trip here as well.

Game of the Year:

Mass Effect 2. Everybody’s picking this game for GotY. They are right.

Runner-up:

Fable 3. Even though it screwed me and I hate it, this is a really good game. It’s only because I liked it so much that I was so pissed about the way it left me.

(In case you’re keeping track, I didn’t rename this category this year.)

LEFTOVER/I-NEED-TO-FINISH-SO-I-CAN-GO-TO CLASS:

Class of the Year:

Spring final exams/presentations. My students presented proposal arguments as their final exam. Many of them were really awesome. Others were laughably terrible. Either way, it was a good few days.

Runner-up:

The day we watched Modern Family in my Lit class. This was a surprisingly robust class, although not that surprising since this is the best show on TV (see above).

News of the Year:

Stew and Stacey getting married.

Runner-up:

Hunter moving to New York. Really, the news of this wasn’t as significant as it actually happening, but I suppose it actually happened in 2011.

Best Food:

An Italian spinach shell recipe that I found in a pretty basic cookbook. I think it’s funny that this is in the Leftover Class.

Runner-up:

That baked chicken Austin made the other night. That’s deserving, right? Hey, these are my awards, okay?

Best Trip:

B-B-B-Bobcats weekend.

Runner-up:

Any baseball trip, including St. Louis, Boston, and Washington. Man, I spent a lot of money on trips this year.

Event of the Year:

Daniel and Lauren’s wedding. Another awesome beach wedding with lots of great people.

Runner-up:

The Pig Pickin’ 10.

Biggest Scrumpt:

UNC’s loss in the finals of the NIT. Obviously, getting to the NIT (instead of THE tournament) was a disappointment anyway, but the NIT championship would have seemed a small measure of redemption. Alas, it was not to be.

Runner-up:

Austin at the Pig Pickin’. If you know, then you know. If you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t.

If you or someone you know did something awesome and/or noteworthy this year but didn’t make the list, it’s most likely because I forgot. Feel free to award yourself below.

Warning: The Daily BISdom is not responsible for any self-awarding. Any awarding made during this blog is performed by trained professionals under proper supervision. Other awarding is the sole responsibility of the awarders and will not be guaranteed, ensured, or validated by The Daily BISdom or any of its affiliates.

Savoir-not-faire

I’m so tired of video games with imperfect save game systems. It’s such an easy thing to get right.

I’ve played two games of late that have frustratingly screwed save features: Fable 3 and FIFA 11.

The Fable issue was just…crap. When I ran into those issues about a week ago, it almost forced me to start blogging again – I was so irritated. Ranting is a hard sell, though, especially about something so niche as Fable 3.

But now that I’ve got the FIFA spiel to back it up…

With Fable 3, the save system was almost completely wrong. It works thusly: once you start a game, that game loads automatically after a press of start at a title screen. There’s practically no menu between the word go and the game action. Presumably, this is meant to streamline the game and ultimately eliminate the ‘gaminess’ of it, something that the whole of the product seems meant to accomplish.

But then there’s no control.

The meta-game, the user interface is where players take control of how the game works, in some very real ways. I suppose the prime example would be an options menu, which literally gives the player “options.” Without that level of control (in this case, of save games), options are limited.

So, my Fable 3 experience was limited by the limited control over save games. It’s probably not worth expanding on beyond that.

For FIFA 11, the issue may be more digestible.

There’s a Virtual Pro mode, which contains a lot of value and payout. As such, I want to play Virtual Pro, and Bryan also wants to play Virtual Pro. And then, we want to play Virtual Pro together, on the same Xbox, at the same time.

This isn’t possible.

Each Virtual Pro needs to be saved to a different Xbox profile, and that profile needs to be active, but only one profile can be active at one time. Ergo, this inanely flawed save game system is directly preventing our absolute enjoyment of what is really a good and fun game.

I can’t imagine this or any other of the myriad broken save game systems have particularly difficult fixes. It’s probably just a one or a zero somewhere. So it has to come down to one of two things: carelessness or simply bad decisions.

The games industry should definitely be past either of those, though, especially for major titles like Fable 3 and FIFA 11. Long gone are the days of needing to complete a game in one session or saving game progress through different passwords.

It’s 2011. I can store gigabytes of data on a disk the size of my fingernail. Why can’t I save my Fable 3 game at two different moments or save two different Virtual Pro players on one profile? The industry and technology has come too far for issues like this to plague otherwise stellar games.

Event of the Week:

Since it's past midnight on the 14th, Bryan's birthday is tomorrow (the 15th). Happy birthday, B.