Saturday, March 5, 2016

Ring video doorbell couldn't think of a better line than "I'm bathing the children right now"?

I have to say, I like the idea of the Ring video doorbell.  However, I think they might've been wise to put a little more effort/time/ money into writing this commercial.  I feel pretty confident in the fact that one thing this lady definitely would not say to the creepy guy who wants to break into her house by pretending to give free tree-trimming estimates is "I'm bathing the children right now."

On another note, I'm not buying this coffee-drinking wanna-be mom's fake story for one second.





Friday, March 4, 2016

The Spurs might go undefeated at home and not win the NBA championship

The 1985-86 Boston Celtics went 50-1 at home (40-1 in the regular season and 10-0 in the playoffs) on their way to an NBA title.  It's the best home record in league history.

The 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs are currently 29-0 in their own building.  They're 52-9 overall, an .852 winning percentage that puts them on pace to finish 70-12, which would be the second-best record of all time (behind the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls who played .878 ball and went 72-10).

Unfortunately for the Spurs, their near-record pace is 3.5 games behind the insanely good Steph Curry and the 55-5 (.917) Golden State Warriors.  Like San Antonio, Golden State is also undefeated at home this year (26-0).  Not only is there a chance the Spurs will post a better record than all but one team in NBA history and still enter the playoffs as major underdogs in their own conference, there's also a possibility San Antonio may win every home game it plays all season and fail to take home the title.

The Spurs could make it all the way to Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals vs. the Warriors (and lose) without dropping a single home contest.  Depending on how many road wins they get in the early rounds, that scenario might leave them anywhere between 48-0 and 52-0 in San Antonio.

Golden State can also break Boston's 50-1 mark, and has the potential to end up from 49-0 to 57-0 at home.  The Celtics' record is in jeopardy either way, but the prospect of the Spurs having a perfect home season and not winning a championship is somewhat mind-boggling.



Thursday, March 3, 2016

It should be a wacky 2016 NCAA tournament (it's a good year to bet on some long shots)

Cavaliers a No. 1 seed with 30/1 odds?
We're two weeks away from the 2016 NCAA men's basketball tournament, and it's looking like one of the most wide-open fields we've seen in a long time.

The expected No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, Ben Simmons, plays for an 18-12 LSU team that likely won't even be there.  That's weird.  The last time a top-overall selection missed the tournament was 18 years ago, when Michael Olowokandi was selected first by the Clippers out of Pacific University.

Buddy Hield has taken the nation by storm, but after lifting Oklahoma to No. 1 in the AP poll in January, his Sooners have fallen back to No. 6 in the rankings.

According to Mytopsportsbooks.com, Kansas and Michigan St. are the co-favorites to win it all at 6/1.  For comparison, last year Kentucky was 6/5 to take home the title (although Duke, who was 9/1, ended up winning).

ESPN's Joe Lunardi currently projects Kansas, Villanova (20/1), North Carolina (25/1) and Virginia (30/1) as the four top seeds.  A No. 1 seed with 30/1 odds?  Wow.  Lunardi also has Xavier (40/1) as a No. 2 seed.  If you're somebody who likes to put down money on winners instead of entering a standard fill-out-a-bracket pool, this is shaping up like a great tourney to pick a few long shots.



Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Today is the 5th birthday of LucidSportsFan.com

Five years.  There's been a blog post on LucidSportsFan.com for 1,827 consecutive days, if my math is correct, dating back to March 2, 2011.

Here's what was going on this week a year ago.

And around this time in 2014.

In 2013.

2012.

The very beginning.



Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Andy Roddick thinks he can out-drink Roger Federer, + dogs as tennis ball boys?


It's been a long time since I've posted anything about tennis, but I saw two things today that sparked my interest:

1.  Andy Roddick believes he can do tequila shots better than Rodger Federer:


2.  This exhibition match in Brazil used rescued dogs from a shelter as ball boys:



I this this concept definitely has potential if you could train the dogs to do a better job than they did in the above video.  Although you'd probably also have to genetically alter them in some way so they don't slobber all over the balls...


Monday, February 29, 2016

Leap Day should be in the summer, not the winter

I saw this tweet yesterday, and I couldn't agree more:


February is probably the worst month of the year.  It's the dead of winter, nothing much happens, there aren't any major holidays, etc.  Why would anyone ever get excited about an extra day in February?

On the other hand, if you put Leap Day in the middle of summer, people would be pumped (I guess there may be somewhere else in the world where February is the middle of summer, but whatever, I doubt I have many readers there).  July 32 might be a little too weird for us to handle, but how about a June 31 or a September 31?


Sunday, February 28, 2016

No one has ever been better at basketball than Steph Curry is right now

I'm not saying Stephen Curry is the greatest basketball player of all time--he's going to have to keep doing what he's doing for many more years and win a few more championships in order to take that title away from Michael Jordan (although as I suggested back in December, I do think it's going to happen).

But I will say this: Steph Curry is better at basketball right now than any human has ever been before.

Here's why:

The following was true after the game before Curry's epic performance on Saturday night in Oklahoma City:


Now here are a few of the things Curry accomplished on Saturday:


On top of tying the league record for three-pointers in a game and breaking his own record for total threes in a season (with 24 games to go, by the way--that's 29 percent of the season remaining) on the same day, Curry's 53-5 Warriors also clinched a postseason berth Saturday (February 27):


Golden State is one game ahead of the pace set by Jordan's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who won an NBA record 72 games (72-10).

Back to Curry, not only did he tie the record for most triples in a game, he also shot 75 percent from deep while doing it:


Here's a look at all 12 of those three-pointers:


This is the beginning of my case as to why Curry is better than anyone we've ever seen before.  It's not as if he hit 12 open threes--by my count, eight of his 12 treys were shots most players shouldn't even be taking.  Watch this one in particular, in which Curry was several feet behind the three-point line and tightly guarded by seven-footer Steven Adams:



And how about this:


What's crazy to me is not that he's made half his shots from 30+ feet (even though the league average is 7.9 percent) but rather the fact that he's taken 22 and connected on 11 of them.  The three-point line is 23'9"--who shoots from outside of 30 feet?


And that gets to the crux of my argument, Curry's preposterous game-winner on Saturday.  But before I delve into that, take a look at this legendary performance from Larry Bird in 1988 (jump to the 1:17 mark for Bird's Curry-like moment):



Bird's heroics are child's play compared to Curry's:



Here are a several more angles:


A few things are important when breaking this play down:

- When the Warriors got the ball with just under seven seconds left, they had a timeout, but didn't bother to use it.
- The game was tied so they didn't need a three-pointer, and Curry released the ball with nearly three full seconds remaining.  He had plenty of time to get closer and take what most people would think is a much higher-percentage shot.
- Afterwards, Curry said he pulled up from where he did because he wanted to make sure to shoot before the defender picked him up--the distance he was from the hoop wasn't a factor.

Curry makes shots with ease that other players don't even of taking.  For everyone else on the planet (and throughout history), that was a stupid shot to attempt in that situation.  But for Steph Curry, it wasn't.



Back to homepage