Cleveland Browns outlast bad Raiders team 23-13
October 26, 2014Cavs working on Anderson Varejao contract extension
October 27, 2014Happy Monday, you guys. At least we’re not Oakland! The game was pretty abysmal overall, but at least we know one guy who made the most of his evening.
Legendary night @Terrancewest_28 #FreeBandz
— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) October 27, 2014
What could possibly qualify as a “legendary” night for Manziel, a guy who is dating a 10 and can fly to wherever he wishes at the drop of a snapback? I polled some of the WFNY guys, and received a couple responses to this very question.
Denny: He watched the independent film “I Am Legend” starring Jaden Smith
Ryan: A couple of Four Lokos, listening to Wiz Khalifa Pandora and playing Mario Kart on N64. Surely, Colleen Crowley and her sister Robyn are in the house taking selfies with Johnny’s Heisman and “accidentally” sending them to Chandler Parsons.
We’ll have plenty of Browns coverage over the coming hours and days, but while we’re waiting…
Three. More. Days. The NBA off-season flew by—I barely remember the Las Vegas Summer League even taking place (seriously). But there is absolutely no way I’m alone when I say that the preseason, essentially every day that has passed since Media Day, has plodded along with incredible inertia. With roughly 48 hours to go (72 if you’re talking anything specific to Cleveland), we are finally in the late stages of what has been an excruciating few weeks.
Sure, fans have had the chance to watch some actual basketball. Fantasy hoops drafts should be wrapping up. And all of the story lines are firmly in place. But just like it’s NFL counterparts, while the preseason has all of the motions, it’s far from the real thing. Take the Cavs for example: Dan Gilbert went and hired a company (an additional outflow of dollars) solely to go up in the rafters and cover the 74-foot Humongotron with opaque sheets of material simply so that fans were unable to see it and it’s fire-breathing ways prior to October 30. That player intro video you keep seeing on FOX Sports? The one with all of the digital effects and awesome footage of downtown Cleveland set to Young Jeezy’s “Put On”? Yeah, that’s just the preseason video. That Beats by Dre banner? Yeah, that’s a fraction of the size of the one Nike is unveiling across the street. It’s all been a huge tease, setting the stage for the real deal.
If you haven’t signed up for the WFNY Cavs Newsletter yet, I’m not sure what you’re waiting for. Brian hit everyone’s inbox with his own preview of the upcoming season and it was excellent and somehow got me even more excited for the next eight months. I’m finding myself trying to not get too caught up in every minute of play—an 82-game schedule will come with plenty of highs and lows and I pride myself on thinking big picture. Plus, this season is already going to be under one of the biggest microscopes the media has to offer. But I’d be kidding you if I said that I cannot wait to walk through those Quicken Loans Arena doors on Thursday evening. The energy is going to be incredible; the seats will simply be placeholders so fans know the general vicinity in which they’re supposed to stand.
I hate using words like “epic,” but this Thursday—between pregame outside, pregame inside and the game itself—is shaping up to be an event that may very well bring me to utilize such verbiage. I hate it, but there are some instances where it just makes sense.
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If you’re a fan of well-written features and bar-setting production, you’ll want to check out SB Nation’s NBA Preview. There’s a chock full of Cavaliers stuff, but also some high-quality work on the rest of the league. If you hate words, I recommend that you at least watch this video.
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Speaking of bar-setting videos, for those of you who missed Grantland’s Basketball Hour, I recommend you run a search on your DVR and record it in the event it is on between now and the start of the season. While it does the whole segment very little in the way of justice, here’s a clip of Bill Simmons, Zach Lowe and Jalen Rose talking LeBron James and the Cavs. Pay special attention at the 1:40 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD45_9dBaTk
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Curb that couch-side commentary. Here’s this week’s edition of #ActualSportswriting:
“Steve Nash’s transcendent career has come to a close” by Bruce Arthur (Toronto Star): “He was beginning to let go. He wanted to take it all in, whatever came, however it ended. But then Nash picked up some bags, and something flared. This is a sudden, brutal stop. I asked him in early October whether there was any chance that this was not his final season. ‘“I’m not going to say no way,” he said. “I’d be open to considering it for sure. But it’d have to be in L.A., staying with the Lakers. Because my kids have a really good life here now, and they’re happy, and they’re more important than me flying off somewhere to play basketball.”’1
“Think the Kansas City Royals Are Named for Kings? That’s a Bunch of Bull” by Jared Diamond (WSJ): “You probably think the name of the Kansas City Royals, who on Wednesday won the American League pennant, is meant to associate the baseball team with castles and courts, purple and ermine. Oh, no, it is something with a much grander local lineage: a livestock show. It is called the American Royal, and unlike the Royals, who are playing October baseball for the first time in 29 years, it draws crowds every year at this time, including thousands of farm children and their prize-seeking sheep, hogs and cattle.”2
“New biometric testing invades the NBA” by Pablo S. Torre (ESPN The Magazine): “Imagine an NBA season as a horizontal graph of the load on a player’s body, dotted with strategically chosen peaks (for games of the utmost importance) and valleys (where rest is necessary to cut down the odds of injury). Imagine the capacity to generate an all-encompassing version of that graph, down to the hour a player tired himself out chasing his kids in his backyard — or doing something significantly less family-friendly. Imagine a sortable chart that lists, for each rung of the depth chart, a color-coded number representing current overall fatigue level. The market for that kind of risk-management solution is self-evident.”3
“New Sheriff in Town” by Sarah Kogod (SB Nation): “Roberts is meeting with me in the offices of the NBPA in Harlem, her new home after relocating from Washington D.C. after more than 30 years in the nation’s capital. The intimidating image that one damn quote demands doesn’t jive with the woman now sitting before me. In black pants and a tank top paired with a fashionable blue blazer and dangly earrings, she punctuates her answers with light raps on the table, her bracelets jingling when she waves her arms to make a point. When something gives her pause, she rubs her close-cropped natural hair as she thinks of an answer. Her flawless skin makes her appear at least a decade younger than her 58 years. She looks and acts more like someone’s cool aunt rather than a high-powered executive.”4
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And finally, this week’s Brew du Jour: Fathead’s Hop Stalker
Fans of IPAs know that not all India Pale Ale’s are created equal—there are Session Ales, Imperial Ales, Citra Ales…you get the drift. Hop Stalker, on tap now at Fathead’s Cleveland, falls into the latter of the three aforementioned. A little more alcohol than a Session, but not quite Imperial, Hop Stalker has a little more citrus (hence, Citra) tinge to it.
The hops come from Washington State’s Yakima Valley. It pours a lot darker than one would expect from a fruitier beer, but the head is almost white and the froth that sticks to the glass is terrific. Interestingly enough, as we discussed canned crafts last week, this one is only the second Fathead’s brew to be sold in a can—it was released in 16-ouncers earlier this year.
It won’t win the awards getting raked in by Head Hunter (Fathead’s best-selling IPA), but
- I’ve had just one interaction with Nash over my years covering the Cavs, and he was nothing short of teriffic. But the reason why there were so few: Injuries. He was rarely in uniform over his last few seasons in Cleveland. An excellent basketball player and an excellent human being. [↩]
- I had no clue where the Royals’ name came from. Caught in all of the Lorde references that have plagued the playoffs is this excellent look at the team’s history. [↩]
- This piece is excellent for several reasons, one being that it opened up these practices to the Players Association. Journalism at its finest. Think your place of employment is overstepping by making you wear a FitBit? Check out this piece. [↩]
- Raise your hand if you knew about Michelle Roberts, the new director for the NBA Players Union. If your hand isn’t up in the air, you’ll want to check this one out. [↩]
10 Comments
I thought Jalen was a buffoon, another ex-player talking head, until recently started listening to his podcasts. Really smart, and really funny in his own way.
I will definitely be keeping an eye out for Hop Stalker in the stores.
I tuned out on Grantland right after the LeBron segment. ESPN should have stuck to covering actual sports instead of following the path MTV blazed and that is everything but music television!
Oh RGB what happened to your boy????
http://fansided.com/2014/10/26/sammy-watkins-celebrates-td-early-caught-behind-video/
I hadn’t heard this…Cardinals OF Oscar Taveras and his GF were killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic this weekend.
http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/10/26/st-louis-cardinals-oscar-taveras-car-accident
yeah, really sad and tons of thoughts & prayers out to their families. it doesn’t really matter, but Tavares had shown that he was likely to be another great product from the StL farm system. a short life and tragic end.
Dion Waiter’s pool party – be there or be square!!
http://www.fearthesword.com/2013/8/20/4639854/philadelphia-suburbs-people-pretty-upset-about-dion-waiters-pool-party
Is this the Cavaliers new scoreboard?
http://instagram.com/p/uq4toClTTi/
157 and a TD.
He won’t make that mistake again.
Humongotron is on the way…including the return of The Diff…