The Knuckles: Greedy Gunners and (Not So) Lovable Losers
There sure are a lot of knuckleheads out there. They’re everywhere you turn lately but for our purposes here, we’ll stick to the wide world of sports, where there’s no shortage of them whatsoever.
We were treated these past couple of weeks to some tremendous, Golden Knuckle-worthy stuff from some of our favorite regular winners like Jameis Winston, Roger Goodell and the always entertaining Washington D.C. pro football team. But those knuckleheads and the stories that come with them are mostly depressing (well, not always when it comes to the Washington footballers) and we’re all about fun and laughter (most of the time) here at The Knuckles. So let’s delve into the NBA, where knucklehead trees grow in cities all across the land and take a look at this week’s lucky winners.
BRONZE: Josh Smith – He’s set a standard for NBA knuckleheads for a few years but in the past week, with his wayward visit to Boston serving as a highlight, Detroit Pistons’ forward Josh Smith has sailed to new heights.
Smith, an notoriously unapologetic gunner who moves further and further away from respectability with every ill-advised 20-footer, fouled out of the Pistons’ loss (their 10th straight, 13th in 14 games and 16th of the season, against just three wins) to the Celtics on Wednesday night in roughly 28 minutes. That’s, um… not very long. From the looks of it though, it may have been too long for him.
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He did manage to snare 11 rebounds, a solid total. But he also shot 4-for-15 from the field for 12 points, a line that can best be described as dispiriting at best and nausea-inducing at worst.
This would be an apt description of most Josh Smith shooting lines. In fact, it was reported earlier this week that out of the 140 players who have started 10 games or more in the NBA this season, 139 of them have shot 50 percent from the floor at least once.
You get a polite pat on the back if you can guess the one guy who hasn’t.
Smith was once one of the NBA’s brighter young stars, an athletic freak who could dominate in the post thanks to his combination of quickness, power and strength for the Atlanta Hawks. He would routinely fill up stat sheets with silly totals in the blocks and steals columns while grabbing at least eight or nine boards per night and — for the last six seasons of his nine with the Hawks – shooting at least 45 percent from the floor. Ask Celtics’ fans about Smith back in the first round of the 2008 playoffs.
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But he’s always had an affinity for the 3-pointer that became a full-on affliction as his NBA life wore on. He’s a career 27.8 percent shooter from long range and his attempts, while down a bit this season now that the Pistons have brought in Stan Van Gundy to coach/rebuild/rein in guys like Josh Smith, reached borderline Antoine Walker levels despite the fact that he’s never once in his career averaged more than one made 3 per game over a single season.
Smith is careening toward irrelevance since signing a four-year, $54 million contract with the Pistons prior to last season. His numbers currently hover at, or around, career lows in pretty much every category, with his Rondo-esque, 47 percent from the free throw line standing out almost as sorely as the typical 23 percent he’s shooting from deep. He’s been benched on more than one occasion by Van Gundy while posting equally lousy numbers in the advanced categories. As tough as fourth quarters have been for the Celtics, it may not be a coincidence that Detroit made its comeback that sent Wednesday’s game to overtime almost immediately after Smith went to the bench for good.
The Pistons can’t trade Smith and his horrific contract unless they’re prepared to eat a large chunk of it. It may be worth it in order to rid themselves of such a knucklehead.
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SILVER: The Sixers and the T’Wolves – Thank goodness for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Minnesota Timberwolves to keep us chuckling during these uncertain times. The two teams played a basketball game on Wednesday night that was as compelling as any of this NBA season’s first few weeks all because both teams are absolutely terrible.
The Sixers are historically bad, making an art form of the idea of “tanking’’ as they spend their second straight season intentionally plummeting into the ninth circle of hell in an effort to rebuild. They were 0-17 on the year entering their game in Minneapolis that night; another loss would have set a new record for futility to open a season.
The Wolves are just plain old bad because a) they traded their best player for young potential that isn’t ready to win yet, b) lost their entire starting backcourt and starting center to injury in the first month of the season and c) are coached and run by someone who probably shouldn’t be coaching or running anything.
Put it all together, mix and serve and what do you have? You have this.
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Almost too tremendous for words. What makes the knucklehead level for this one truly spike though is that the Sixers actually won even though they scored nine points in the second quarter, had 18 turnovers and shot 39 percent against a team that allows 110 points per game. If you enjoy basketball, you may now laugh so that you don’t cry or just bow your head in shame.
Wait, there’s another reason the Sixers are complete knuckleheads: Now they can’t go 0-82. Finishing 5-77, their current projection, would be even worse than 0-82 because, well, 0-82. ZERO WINS IN 82 TRIES! DON’T THEY REALIZE WHAT THEY’VE DONE BY WINNING???
Sigh…
GOLD: Evan Turner – It hasn’t been terribly easy to find real, live, local knuckleheads since the Red Sox season ended but at last, we have one to answer our prayers.
Thank you Evan Turner, swingman for the Boston Celtics, for coming to town and taking just a couple of months to prove to us what most of the rest of the NBA already knows. You’re a knucklehead.
Colleague Chad Finn eloquently spelled this all out in a column on Thursday in which he professed to having a very tough time coming up with a Celtic more annoying to watch in a long time. He’s right – on a team that needs a go-to guy something fierce, Turner, a former No. 2 overall draft pick, has the skills and talent to possibly be just that but instead just dribbles too much, takes a lot of bad jumpers and plays no defense.
But beyond the court, where Turner is pushing his third fan base in four years to relentlessly boo the crap out of him whenever he touches the ball, he’s also taken to running his mouth to predictably embarrassing effect.
After the Celts blew a 23-point lead and lost to the Hawks in Atlanta on Tuesday, Turner decided to talk about Hawks’ guard Kyle Korver, who had just torched the C’s for 24 points on nine shots including 6-for-7 from long distance (!!!).
None of that was terribly impressive to Turner though. We know this because he decided to go off on Korver’s defense to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe.
“They started pressuring and it’s tough to score when you have two hands inside your jersey as well,’’ he said. “At the same time, I got a foul call on Korver and they said I pushed him and tripped him and he just fell. He can’t guard to save his life and he’s grabbing Marcus Thornton and he’s grabbing me and he has no business being in the game on the defensive end but what can you possibly do if they’re allowed to have their hands on you?’’
Um, OK.
Here’s a dude who doesn’t even play any defense complaining about how someone who just smoked his team plays defense. Brilliant. Obviously, he’s not familiar with the meaning of irony. And when you add to that the fact that the Celtics are the third worst defensive team in the league, fifth worst in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) and worse in both categories when Turner is on the court, well, that’s even more brilliant, is it not?
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Maybe instead of bitching about Korver’s defense, Turner should try adopting some of his tactics. They seem to be working. Or, maybe he could think about just trying a little harder on that end of the floor. Or even have the common sense and the perspective to understand that his team had just lost its fifth straight game and eighth out of nine and that complaining about the other team makes him look not only like a sore loser but a sore loser who isn’t very bright.
The Celtics are in a bad way and it’s painful to watch. They play hard for the most part, they just aren’t equipped to succeed as presently constituted. Turner has shown a few limited flashes this season that he might possibly be the guy down the stretch of games (he certainly thinks he can be) but has spent far more time annoying Chad and myself and plenty of fans with the way he conducts himself.
Just play, man. You could be exactly what this team needs if you just get over yourself.
And stop being a knucklehead.
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