The NBA on You-a-Tube

 

I just watched 149 games of the NBA playoffs on youtube and now I'm going to analyze and comment on the whole thing in excruciating detail...

Nah, I'm just kidding but this will be too long though.

Recently, youtube was suggesting old NBA playoff games to me and a thought occurred to me... I wondered could I go back and watch every Chicago Bulls playoff game of the "Jordan era" (loosely defining the Jordan era as 1991-1998). So I started, as all projects do, by creating an excel spreadsheet, listing all the games and all the rounds of the first year. Then I searched for, found and watched the first game on youtube. Then, I repeated the process for the second game, once that series was over, I went to the second round, once that year was over, I sent to the second year, and so forth. Once I got to 1992 I thought I might skip to a parallel track and watch all the Dream Team Olympic games. Once that was done, I figured I step backward and watch the rest of their games leading up to the Olympics.

I'm here to say that, having watched all of these games, every single one was available to watch on youtube. So if you have a particular NBA playoff game, series, team, era, whatever and you want to revisit it, I think you can. I've been wondering if this is true for other sports and also, for the NBA, how many eras. I don't know, all I know is I haven't failed on a single game yet.

Here are a few thoughts on the NBA in the 90's. It was a glorious era, first of all. But as glorious as basketball can be, Bill Walton as a color man makes it almost unwatchable. He's the worst. I thought about making an entire blog post about just this topic. It was a unique viewing experience when even Walton's fellow commentators started pointing out how stupid his statements were. You don't see that a lot. It was fascinating at first and then I just felt sorry for- for everyone. Bill Walton at the mic almost ruins basketball completely. Fortunately for me, he really only really affected one year (1997) but, depending on your favorite era, you may not be so lucky.

Another thing I was thinking was that the "NBA on NBC" theme is played before Every Single Commercial Break and sometimes going to commercial. It's one of the great themes of all-time but so many times per game for 149 games, I stopped really hearing it and it sort of lost all meaning.

I was thinking next I'm going to try watching the NCAA Basketball Tournament for particular years and teams. I also might try the 1996 Dream Team games.

The Last Dance and The Last Waltz

A few things I've watched recently that might be of interest...

The Last Dance (2020)

If basketball was your thing in the 90s - and especially if you followed Michael Jordan and the Bulls teams of that era - "The Last Dance" is a 10 part documentary from ESPN that follows that team throughout their two three-peat runs. It's extremely well done, interviewing all the people involved now, with the benefit of hindsight and the benefit of so much time elapsing that they can speak freely about what was really going down. The main focus of the series is the last season the Bulls were all together (1997-1998) but in each episode it will flip between the "present" and the "past" so that eventually the entire era will be covered.

The split timeline is a little disorienting but I get it, it allows for more of the "cliffhanger", "let's make them binge watch it" style that keeps you wanting more.

Extremely interesting, highly recommended.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (2019)

Apparently there's a "new" documentary about The Band and it flew under my radar until now. This is another Martin Scorcese project and, therefore, focuses a great deal on Robbie Robertson rather than treating the group equally. You might say the documentary is about the entire band but from Robbie's perspective.

After "The Last Waltz", my knee-jerk reaction to Robbie Robertson-centrism is to wince but, after all, the book "This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band" and the documentary "Ain't in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm" told other sides of the story so it's only fair to get Robbie's.

A lot of time is spent on the relationship between Robertson and Levon Helm - how they were closer than brothers back in the day but then grew apart, eventually turning into something approaching enemies. This is, again Robbie, telling his side, justifying himself. The problem with Robbie's perspective, though - and this documentary - is that he's struggling to grasp Levon's point of view and then and then arguing against his own vague theories. This makes his arguments seem disingenuous, at best.

Why would you not read Levon's book, or watch his documentary, or read the articles where you can get specific quotes, the thoughts stated by Levon himself and respond to those? We live in the age of the printed word and have lived there for hundreds of years. Let's get Robertson's side, sure, but how much more valuable would the documentary be if it provided an exchange of ideas between Robbie and Levon that neither got in their lifetimes?

As it is, the film leaves the conflict to everyone's imagination. "Oh, there are two sides to history and who can say who is right and who is wrong?, etc." And it will probably stay that way forever. There may be a hint though in the fact that, as long as we're forced into the realm of imagination, we have to wonder why it appears one side is dodging the issue.

In the end, I don't know who's right or wrong or even where the gray area stops. My head tends to think Robertson may be right but my heart is still with Levon and the rest of the band. Overall, a well-made documentary worth watching if you're interested. The music and video footage are amazing.

The Super Bowl of Schlock / Super Bulls

This post is part of a continuing mission to boycott every Super Bowl in which I don't have a rooting interest and replace the watching of it with various very non-Super-Bowlish activities.

(Pre-2011, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).

This year was kind of an off year. Firstly, I didn't really plan too much ahead of time - due to problems at work, I wasn't really fertile with imagination. Then, when the day came, I was stuck in bed, feeling the physical and psychological effects of some tainted ice cream I had eaten the day before.

In such a lowly state, the order of the day was simply finding something fun, something easy to watch, something low-key; finding the entertainment that best compliments a warm blanket and hot soup. For that purpose, what could be better than plowing through a "Best of the Worst" marathon on youtube?

In "Best of the Worst" the "gang" from RedLetterMedia watches three B-Movies (usually on VHS), discusses each one, analyzes them, breaks them down and then decides which movie is "Best of the Worst". If any movie is determined to be especially egregious, it will be destroyed in some creative manner.

In this episode, the gang watches movies from the dinosaur craze of the mid-nineties. This episode features Academy Award Winner Whoopi Goldberg and Academy Award Watcher Denise Richards.



There is also a sub-genre of "Best of the Worst" called "Wheel of the Worst". In "Wheel of the Worst", the guys put even worse and more bizarre VHS tapes on a wheel and spins it three times. The three movies that the wheel lands on are the three that they must watch.

This episode features the classic VHS "How Can I Tell if I'm Really in Love?" which stars Justine Bateman, Jason Bateman, Ted Danson and a step ladder. Or is there a step ladder? Either way, it's a star-studded affair. But even with that level of star power, it may not be enough to match "The Osteoporosis Dance" which features no stars (unless you count Tay Zonday) but does feature old people flailing about semi-randomly.

Part 2

Feeling slightly better, I was ready to take on some amount of excitement. So I watched Game 1 of the 1990-91 NBA Finals: Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls vs. Magic Johnson and the Lakers. Sometimes you just gotta relive the Michael Jordan glory days. Also the Marv Albert glory days, as he calls the game.

One of the great "bonus add-ons" that you get with this era is reliving the Chicago intro that featured "Sirius". From my memory, I thought the intro stopped at "Sirius" but I could have sworn I heard it transition fully into "Eye in the Sky" on this particular occasion. I THINK that's what I heard, I could be wrong.



The music fun didn't stop there. You know what music seriously dates the game? When "Hangin' Tough" played during a timeout. Man, oh man.

But then there were a lot of ways that 1992 has started to really look old. There were a large number of men in the crowd wearing pink shirts, for one. And the arena had a large banner ad for Winston Cigarettes. I wonder if those even exist anymore. Also, the cheerleaders were wearing the old-fashioned pleated cheerleader skirts that no one wears anymore. NBA cheerleaders these days wear... wait, what do they wear?

As for the game itself, it's a pretty good game. It was close, exciting till the end but the Lakers won. Oh well, the Bulls will hopefully bounce back. Game 2 takes place in a few days / 25 years ago.

And that was the Super Bowl for me.