Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Rise and Rise of Kimbo Slice

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What was the biggest and the most important boxing fight held in 2013? If one asks the average person on the street, the responses will probably vary between “Klitchko-some random Russian guy”, “Mayweather – Saul Alvarez”, and some might probably mention Pacquiao’s comeback fight, in which he beat Brandon Rios. However, the real boxing enthusiasts, the ones who truly understand the noble sport, will all say without a doubt that THE fight of 2013 was “Kimbo Slice – Shane Tilyard”, which was held in January. In this fight, which Kimbo obviously won convincingly by a devastating KO in the 2nd round, Kimbo proved once again that nothing will stop him on his quest to conquer the boxing world, similarly to what he did to the MMA world only a few years earlier. No one who is in his right mind thinks it’s a coincidence that Vitali Klitchko suddenly retired to politics, and his brother Vladimir will probably follow in his footsteps very soon – no one wants to stand in Kimbo’s way… It’s Kimbo time! Continue reading →

My Take on the 2015 All-Star Starters and Kobe’s Injury

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Well, I have to concede that I didn’t get ALL of my picks right… In fact, I picked right only 1/5 of the Eastern conference starters (LeBron), and 3/5 of the Western conference starters (Kobe, Unibrow, Steph). But never mind that. My percentage is still better than Kobe’s this season (oh snap!). Now let’s see what we have to say about the actual starters… Continue reading →

1972 – Football’s Annus Mirabilis

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From Wikipedia: “Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means wonderful year, “year of wonders” or “year of miracles”.” This is a term more often used for Isaac Newton’s amazing 1666 year, or Albert Einstein’s astonishing 1905 year. But yeah, we can definitely apply it to football as well. After all, “Football is not a matter of life and death… it’s much more important than that” – Bill Shankley.

Growing up as a sports fan and sports stats fanatic, I couldn’t not notice that there seemed to be these magical cohorts in sports. These wonderful years, in which a disproportional number of great athletes were born. Like the magical 1963 in basketball, a year which gave the world (let’s take a deep breath) – Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Hakeem Olajuwon, Joe Dumars, and those are just the major stars. One can also mention Charles Oakley, Detlef Schrempf and Spud Webb.
It seems un-fucking-believable that all of those players were born in the same year, within 12 months of each other. I mean, one can produce an all-time great team just based on this cohort alone. A starting five of Hakeem, Malone, Sir Charles, Michael and Dumars/Mullin – are you fucking kidding me?! Is there any other year that can compete with that?! Continue reading →

Westbrook’s Massive Game

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Whoa, OKC just beat Golden State 127-115!

But even bigger than the win was Russell Westbrook‘s epic performance in tonight’s game. And that says something, because Durant scored 36 points to go along with 9 rebounds and 4 assists, and Russ’s performance still eclipsed his.

Westbrook finished with a triple double of 17 points, 15 rebounds and 17 assists (and 4 steals). Such an achievement is a real rarity. Using the BBR’s Player Game Finder feature I found out that only 6 such instances, of getting at least 15 in all three categories, occured in the last 30 years. And Westbrook joins Jason Kidd and Rajon Rondo as the only players to achieve that since 2000. Continue reading →

Coach Pop and Pau

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Hey, a real brief post, following tonight’s games.

1) What did I say about Pau Gasol? He IS having his best season ever, at 34 years of age! In tonight’s game against the Bucks, he set a career-high of 46 points, adding 18 rebounds (his career high is 22). Amazing!

I didn’t check it, but I reckon he’s right at the all-time top of players who set their career-bests in points at such an old age. I mean, he’s 34 years old! I can’t recall any similar example from the past few years. Continue reading →

Hall Of Fame – Aleksandr Averbukh

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averbukh

It’s been a while since our first induction to the Blog’s Hall of Fame, so it is time we introduce our second inductee. And this time it’s Israel’s greatest track & field athlete of all-time, one of the greatest pole vaulters of the last 15 years, Aleksandr (or Alex) Averbukh.

My first encounter with Alex occurred at the 1999 World Championships. He immigrated from Russia only a month before that, and in the Championship’s program he was still listed as Russian. Alex was previously a decathlete, with a PB of 8084 points, a whole THOUSAND points better than the Israeli embarrassing record of 7096 (WTF?!). However, by then he already shifted his career to the Pole Vault. I must admit, I never heard of him before the championship, but in Seville he shocked everyone by winning the bronze medal. I still remember the excitement of when it happened – Israel won a medal at the World Athletics Championship! Wow! Averbukh competed with vaulters who were way more celebrated and more experienced than him, but it was he who managed to win the bronze medal with a result of 5.80m, which was also a new NR. Interestingly, he shared the podium with two more Soviet-born vaulters, but only one of them actually represented an ex-Soviet country – Maksim Tarasov (Russia), who won the gold vaulting an unbelievable height of 6.02m, and grabbing his head in amazement afterwards. The silver medalist was Dmitri Markov, who represented Australia. Continue reading →

A Few Thoughts on the NBA Teams and their Current Positions

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First post of 2015, what should it be about?

Hmmm… How about surveying the teams’ positions in the NBA standings? Hey, that’s a great idea! Boy, I love my ideas sometimes.

Honestly, what better time there is to do that? End of the season? Nah, too mainstream. At the All-Star break? Nah, I will be busy watching and writing about the All-Star itself. Maybe at the season’s halfway point? Give me a break, that’s even more mainstream than writing at the end of the season. Let’s do it now, when the teams played 31-37 games. Lets keep things unpredictable as possible, so the enemy can’t recognize a pattern. Continue reading →