Friends,
I want to preface the first of what might be many entries in the No Sports Chronicles with a message: Coronavirus is an actual pandemic. It’s not the flu, it’s not a conspiracy and it’s not an excuse to go to Kid Rock’s shitty restaurant or wherever it is that you spend your time. I have been banging this drum loudly since we became aware of the potential fallout, and I feel fortunate that my friends haven’t booted me from every group chat for bombarding them with grim news and projections. Take this seriously and stay at home. It will get worse before it gets better, but we have the power to determine just how much worse.
With that out of the way, we are on ~Day 5 of no sports. If you’re like me, you’ve severely underestimated your sports-viewing habit and are now realizing just how large the gaping hole in your life really is. The irony of the situation is that we now have more time than ever to watch March Madness, early-season baseball, and our (my) Orlando Magic limp into an inevitable first-round playoff massacre (Giannis can’t sweep us if there’s no basketball). We now have to find other ways to fill our uninspiring and sedentary lives.
I’m too washed to reteach myself how to play sports video games. In my prime, there were like four buttons you needed to master to beat your roommate. Kids today are studying 4-3 defenses and VR’ing themselves into Gruden’s QB Camp to become mediocre Madden players. I don’t have the patience or fine motor skills to handle that pressure.
Instead, I’m going to feed my YouTube addiction and write a bit until sports are back. They will be back, right?
What I watched today on YouTube
There are three key takeaways from Steph Curry’s 40-point performance vs. Gonzaga in Round 1 of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.
1) Steph’s 2008 run has not been replicated. I was born in 1990. My meaningful basketball memories, excluding a weird obsession with Detlef Schrempf’s name, started in 1998. I personally cannot think of a more exciting and dominating individual performance than Steph’s in the 2008 tournament. Look at his teammates. At the 2:34 mark, with 1:11 left in a 74-74 game, No. 14 (refuse to look up his name after this shot) bricks a three that I will have nightmares about tonight. Gonzaga picked Steph up at 35 feet in a college game and he still scored half of his team’s points in a first-round upset. Jimmer and Kemba and Adam Morrison and Zion and Derrick Rose were all thrilling, but Steph’s run was wild.
2) Curry genes remain undefeated. I don’t know if you knew this, but Curry’s dad, Dell Curry, played in the NBA and was also a shooter. I also don’t know if you knew this, but his mom, Sonya Curry, is attractive and comes to his games. What we now all know for certain is that Steph, Sonya, and (sort of) Dell look the same 12 years later. I want to punt my phone into the ocean every time I see a picture of myself from five years ago.
3) Short length. When I was six, my mom bought me a pair of basketball shorts for camp that just reached my knees. I was mortified. I thought I looked like a go-go dancer. Steph probably weighs a buck fifty in this game and is wearing XXL shorts. He looks like a kid playing basketball dress-up. There are times where I can’t tell if he’s wearing Davidson shorts or a Davidson-branded kilt.
This put me down a rabbit hole of my favorite big basketball shorts-wearers. (Let me know who I missed.)
A good cross-draft would have blown all of these guys out of the arena. Steve Nash could fit an MVP Trophy in each shorts leg and still have enough fabric left over to craft a headband.
Today’s Sports Hero
Bill O’Brien. Coronavirus was really getting us down, and, as Americans, we needed someone to do something silly and irrational so we could occupy a full media cycle. Thank you, Coach O’Brien, for stepping up to the plate and trading a generational player out of the blue for pennies on the dollar. We tip our caps, which we are wearing indoors because we are not showering.
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Hang in there. Sports will be back soon(?).
Edit: Forgot TJ Ford. Too good to omit. (H/T Justin B)