The NBA Playoffs are an under-rated time of the year, and TNT has capitalized on one of the great monikers for a sporting event. College basketball has "March Madness", the Super Bowl has, well, the "Super Bowl", but the NBA Playoffs have 40 games in 40 nights.
It's great because you have 40 games featuring the best collection of talent on a basketball court, all the players are trying as hard as they can for 40 nights, and you occaisionally will get to see memorable matchups as we did last year when we saw the greatest first round series ever between the Celtics and Bull. And this year is we're treated to LeBron vs. Derrick Rose AND Kevin Durant vs. Kobe. These are four of the best 15 players in the league, and I could make a case that each are the best player at their respective position (if you consider LeBron's point-forward/shooting guard position unique).
There are a lot of folks that prefer to watch college basketball, but I'm not one of them. There's few greater sports experiences than seeing a basketball player playing at the top of their game like LeBron (Game 2) or Derrick Rose (Game Three).
So, on the notion that, if you're a fan of basketball, you should be watching the NBA Playoffs, I give you the Links of the Week:
A firm in London has developed software, and a company, that is essentially the first legal sports betting hedge fund. I'm not sure how I feel about this: on one hand, its an interesting idea, on the other hand, its a lot of money to be betting on sports. An excerpt:
Galileo’s managers analyze and trade the betting markets, taking the emotion out of the betting game and putting quantitative analysis in its place. “We have unique software we’ve written over five years that ensures we purely trade on statistics and probabilities,” said Tony Woodhams, managing director of Centaur. “The process is very clinical, which is our edge.”
Last night, I was able to try an iPad for the first time. Pretty amazing. You know what else is amazing? Bacon. Put them together? Super-dooper amazing.
Esquire.com, for some reason, put together a list of the 75 Greatest Women in History. Umm... thanks, Esquire!
'10 Reasons to Watch Community' from the Portland TV Examiner. Really good show, highly entertaining.
INTENDED PUN ALERT: These are the coolest pictures of the sun to date, am I right?
There has been recent chatter amongst baseball people of potential realignments for the divisions in Major League baseball, mainly because the players (and their payrolls) on the Yankees and Red Sox have made it virtually impossible for teams like the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays to ever make the playoffs because they can't compete with teams that essentially buy their championships. My favorite take on realignment comes from Buster Olney of ESPN, but since his opinions cost money (re: ESPN Insider), here's The Big Lead's take on his idea.
Every time I see a remake of an old movie or TV show, I think to myself, "That has to be the last show available to be remade." Like so many others, Mighty Mouse has proved me wrong.
Great. Now I won't be able to watch Parks & Recreation without thinking of Jabba the Hut.
So, as far as the Shake Weight goes, I'm always a little hesitent to put a link to anything related to it in my Links of the Week blog. Especially if there's a video of Charles Barkley is using it on live TV.
Pretty cool stuff: a bunch of pictures from near Eyjafiallajokull, the Icelandic volcano that caused so much havoc this week. Tons of great pictures.
And for your video of the week, I give you an a-cappella version of the old TGIF theme songs (worth sitting through the 15-second pre-roll ad, by the way):