The Journey of Mirza Teletovic

On July 3, 2012, the Brooklyn Nets signed Mirza Teletovic, a 27 year old power forward born and raised in war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina. With a listed height of 6'9" and three-point range, Mirza is considered one of the top players to emerge from the Iberian Peninsula and is rumored to have caught the eye of Mikhail Prokhorov while the reclusive team owner hunted bears with Russian president Vladamir Putin in the wilds of Siberia. According to a now-missing source, Prokhorov was enthralled with Mirza's dominating performances in the Euroleague and immediately requested the player's presence for his revamped Nets roster.

"He cannot refuse," Prokhorov purportedly noted, unloading a shotgun into the face of of a nearby brown bear and suspected CIA agent. "I actually mean that for real."

One of the few Bosnians to make a professional sports league in the United States, Mirza is now something of a folk hero to the people back home. In their minds, he represents Bosnia's gradual ascendance to relevance on the world stage and is a symbol of what can be achieved as a nation- including, potentially, admission to the European Union. As a result, Mirza is in top demand - the highways of the Adriatic coast are peppered with Mirza's face, proudly endorsing local-grown pork and the other carbohydrate-based crops used to make Bosnia's world-renowned vodka (the country's principal source of revenue).

Sava Bukvic, a 53 year old itinerant farmer from the impoverished south, has been a fan since he first spotted a 7-year old Mirza developing his dribbling skills on a bombed-out bridge. Speaking from the back of his chamois, a local pack animal and staple protein source, he remains enthusiastic:

"The boy, he has strength of wild pig and balance of chamois on mountainside. He will show the world the spirit of Bosnia."

Bukvic also confirmed the quality of Mirza's bone structure and the soundness of the player's calves, observing that "they can support many structures of emergency nature."

In Mirza's NBA debut on November 5, 2012, he scored 5 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves and the absent Kevin Love. The next game, against the defending champion Miami Heat, he followed up with 3 points on 8 shots.  With the Nets' recent acquisition of Celtics legends Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce - thereby forming an opening-day starting lineup described by some as the greatest in Nets history - Mirza now has the opportunity to contribute his skills to a potential championship contender.  Expect big things from Mirza and the Nets in 2014.

NBA cost per win through 12/2/13

What should have been a battle for borough supremacy this Thursday between the Knicks and Nets has turned into a match-up of two awful basketball teams. It's not just the Manhattanites and Brooklynites that are floundering though, the entire Eastern conference has been historically inept so far this year.

But a Milwaukee team with a $55.9 million payroll going 3-13 is different than the Knicks going 3-13 with a $86.9 million payrfoll, before luxury tax. The Knicks salary still pales in comparison to the Nets, who have a $101.3 million tab before the luxury tax. The 5-12 Nets projected but rarely intact starting lineup of Deron Williams ($18.5 million), Joe Johnson ($21.5 million), Paul Pierce ($15.3 million), Kevin Garnett ($12.4 million) and Brook Lopez ($14.7 million) will make about $82.4 million combined in 2013-14, or more than the entire payroll of 27 out of 30 NBA teams. 

But have the Nets been the most cost inefficient team so far this year? Below is the cost per win (pre-luxury tax) for each NBA franchise for games through yesterday, December 2nd. As wildly as Mikhail Prokhorov and Billy King spent this summer, James Dolan still takes the cake in ineptitude, at least for now. 

Kid's Korner: Amar'e Stoudemire

Today we introduce a fresh-faced blogger to PL 121: my eight year old nephew J. A lifelong Knicks fan, J's a precocious b-ball connoisseur and the self proclaimed second best player on his youth team. Today, he's here to drop some knowledge on his favorite player, Amar'e Stoudemire. 

My Favorite Basketball Player

My favorite basketball player is Amar’e Stoudemire, otherwise known as Stat.  He was born on November 16, 1982, in Florida.  He stands out among most people at 6 feet 11 inches tall.

He plays power-forward/center for the New York Knicks. He is a 6-time all-star and started his career with the Phoenix Suns. Amar’e was the 9th pick in the 2002 NBA draft. I was surprised to learn that Amar’e didn't start playing organized basketball until he was 14 years of age.

Amar’e is my favorite player because he plays my favorite position, power-forward, on my favorite team, the New York Knicks. He can score points, pull down rebounds, and dish out assists to his fellow teammates.

He plays alongside NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler. He is well-known all around the NBA. He and the Knicks look to win a championship in the 2013-2014 season.

-J, age 8

Thanks, buddy. Now let's all enjoy seven minutes of Stat highlights from the 2012-13 season. That's right, Stat played enough minutes in the '12-13 campaign to put together seven minutes of highlights, apparently.

Tornike "The Tokomotive" Shengelia Mix

Today is opening night for the new-look, 2013-14 Brooklyn Nets. Since Nets forward  Tornike Shengelia ( in his native Georgian: თორნიკე შენგელია)  is inactive tonight (a victim of the numbers game and off-season knee surgery)  for the Nets opener against the Cavs, we present to you a mix for Shengelia AKA The Tokomotive AKA TokoLoko AKA The Lebron James of the D-League.

Now this isn't a mix of Toko NBA highlights. For starters, there aren't that many of those, as Toko only played 93 games in the Association last year. It also isn't a D-League highlight reel, though Shengelia did thoroughly dominate the NBA's minor league in his intermittent, 10 game tenure last season on the Springfield Armor.

No, even that would be too mainstream.

It's a mix from Toko's adolescent days plying his trade in the Spanish minor league, Liga Española de Baloncesto Amateur (EBA), on Valencia BC Sunny Delight from 2008-2010. While current Nets teammates Tyshawn Taylor and Mason Plumlee played in front of raucous home crowds at Allen Fieldhouse and Cameron Indoor, respectfully, Toko left his home in the former Soviet Union to ball in front of empty crowds in glorified Spanish high school gyms. 

It's three to five years later, but fans of the D-League and NBA garbage time will find the Toko they sort-of know but definitely love in this mix. Shengelia is the epitome of the basketball bromide, "high motor," as we see in the play at 0:20 in, when the Tokomotive misses a rebound on the offensive glass, only to hustle down and breakup the fastbreak; or at 1:12, when Toko tracks down a would-be easy fastbreak layup and swats it away in patented King James fashion. 

We also find the same seemingly out-of-control-but-effective drives to the basket (0:37; 1:05) and deceptive post moves (0:50) that made Shengelia a star of the 2012 NBA Summer League and earned him an underdog spot on the Brooklyn Nets inaugural roster in 2012-13. Shengelia is only the seventh Georgian national to make an NBA roster, and one of only two active players, along with the Bucks Zaza Pachulia.

And dunks. We have dunks. Alley-oop dunks (0:45), rim-shaking two-handed dunks (2;07) and even slow-motion fast-break And-1 dunks (1:40). Throw it down, teenage Toko, throw it down. 

As for the music, it's the instrumental version of "Black-and-Yellow," rapper Wiz Khalifa's 2010 hit about his bumble-bee colored car that became an anthem-of-sorts for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Keeping with the Euro theme of this post, the beat was produced for Khalifa by Norwegian duo Stargate. It's an oft used sample in hip-hop, with my favorite appropriation of the beat coming in MC Lars (featuring MC Frontalot)' 2011 song "Black and Yellow T-Shirts" about making it in the indie-rap game on Indie Rocket Science. 

So enjoy the Nets opening night game and remember to check out The Brooklyn Game's mega-2013-14 preview, which includes my ranking the best Nets starting lineups in franchise history. 

Sasha "The Machine" Vujacic Mix

by Jonathan Cho 

Thousands pore over every on-court move of a LeBron James or a Kobe Bryant, sick beats and video editing software on deck to reap YouTube views at a moment's notice. 

Players of that level are highlight machines- Vince Carter, for example, is so prolific that he has a top ten mix devoted to a *single dunk variant*. 

Sasha Vujacic, by contrast, is mainly known for:  (i) looking really European; (ii) getting chair-smackingly upset after letting Ray Allen blow past him in the Finals; and (iii) getting cut from the Slovenian national team in 2009, notwithstanding the fact that, at the time, Sasha was entering his prime and one of only eight Slovenian-born players to ever play in the NBA.

Were there really 12 basketball players in Slovenia better than Sasha Vujacic in 2009? I could check, but it seems easier to just wait for a die-hard Sasha fan to do the research and call me out in the comments section or something. I flatter myself.

To be fair, Sasha is also a two-time NBA champion, millionaire, holder of the Lakers' single season three-point percentage record, and married to Maria Sharapova, so whatever he's doing is probably working better than anything I'm doing. Whatever.

At any rate, my point is that Sasha doesn't exactly throw it down on a regular basis. To really get enough material to support a highlight reel, you'd presumably have to comb through a substantial proportion of his playing time in the NBA. At an average of 15.9 minutes per game, that takes dedication. So you have to imagine that someone who makes a 4-minute mix entitled "Sasha Vujacic 'The Machine' Mix" *really cares*- that he goes into the project thinking "hey, I think Sasha Vujacic is the man, and I'm making this video for him and for everyone else who is on board with that." And we have to go into this with the understanding that we're examining a project of passion.

A few initial observations: (i) the footage in this video was recorded on a microwave; (ii) the video suddenly cuts off and appears to restart around 1:00; and (iii) the soundtrack is by Korean rock and hip hop groups MC the Max and Epik High.

Back in 2010, the leader of Epik High, a guy called Daniel Lee, was demonized by Korean internet users who accused him of lying about graduating from Stanford. This got so bad that Lee quit his label and created a documentary where he returned to Stanford, got the registrar to reprint his diploma on camera, and interviewed former professors who confirmed that they knew him. Korean police got involved and various people were sued for criminal defamation. Notwithstanding all of this, certain people believe to this day that Daniel Lee did not attend Stanford.

Every conspiracy theory, no matter how irrelevant, has its adherents. Anyway, the video roughly goes as follows:

0:06-0:16: Montage of open threes, which fairly summarizes Sasha's NBA career- standing by the 3 point line while everyone swarms Kobe.

0:16-0:17: Ronny Turiaf dancing. Hell yeah.

0:18-0:25: Various shots of Kobe Bryant. This goes a long way towards establishing some initial credibility- surely if Kobe Bryant is willing to man-hug this guy, he must be okay. Also, a glimpse of pre-crack Lamar Odom.

0:26-0:36: Open threes, finger pointing, and clapping. Sasha. The essence.

0:37: Sasha takes a charge, I guess.

0:40-0:42: Sasha passes to Kobe, which was the principal raison d'etre for the Lakers roster from 2004-2007.

0:56: Yeah, this is getting good, we're all getting pretty amped- wait, what just happened? Why'd everything stop? *Let's kill all our momentum and start over*.

1:13-1:21: Sasha crosses up Ray Allen and drains a three. Now we're talking. This kicks off around 40 seconds of footage from what looks like game 3 of the 2008 NBA Finals- possibly Sasha's finest hour.

1:33: Sasha looks very Sasha.

2:03-2:18: A Sasha dunk from three different angles. Reminded of how awesome dunks are, I took a break at around this point to watch a mix entitled Top 100 Vince Carter Dunks.

2:56: Sasha talking to Kobe. The guy is legit.

2:57-3:19: Sasha throws down some pretty good dunks in this sequence. At 3:16, we also see the return of the Sasha face from1:33.

3:20-3:25, 3:40-3:47: Kobe passes to Sasha for some open threes. Wait, what? Kobe, you're worked hard. Just take the shot yourself.

3:55-3:58: Kobe nodding at Sasha, but it be a "yeah, you exist" kind of nod. Unclear.

3:58-End: The video concludes with a still of Kobe giving Sasha some kind of advice, followed by what appears to be a screenshot of an online question and answer session.

The most exciting parts of this mix end up being those involving Kobe, like a crappy indie movie that happens to have a cameo appearance from Patrick Stewart as a convenience store clerk. Everything just seems brighter and more interesting when he's onscreen. Otherwise, the main takeaway from this video - which just might be a collection of Sasha's greatest NBA moments - is something like "that guy plays basketball." Ah, Sasha.

SASHA SIGHTING: Sasha Vujacic is currently playing in Turkey and looking to get back into the NBA.

Bryant "Big Country" Reeves AKA "The North of the Border Anti-Marc Gasol" mix

First, some back story, because the Pau Gasol trade is way more interesting than Bryant Reeves and it's related, I swear. 

San Antonio All-World coach Greg Poppovich said the following in 2009 about the 2008 trade that sent Pau Gasol from a floundering Memphis Grizzlies teams to the Kobe Bryant led LA Lakers:

"Pau Gasol changed the landscape of basketball in the NBA, as far as the west is concerned, and championship caliber basketball. He's a great player, perhaps the most versatile big man in the league right now, and it makes them really, really good."

And he was right. In three full seasons after the departure of Shaq from LA following a 2004 NBA Finals loss to the upstart Pistons,  Kobe was able to score the second most points ever in a single game (81 against the Raptors in 2007), but he wasn't able to bring the Lakers out of the first round of the playoffs. Just a half-season after the seven foot Spaniard came to Tinseltown in February 08, the Lakers were back in the Finals, where they lost to Boston's Big Three Party of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. KG and the Truth are now on the Nets (yay) and Ray Allen is on the Heat, because the 2013-14 NBA season is going to be bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Anyway, the Lakers followed that loss up with back-to-back titles in 09 and 10.

The Lakers paid next to nothing for Gasol, giving up the signing rights to a fat foreign center, the expiring carcass - err, contract - of Kwame Brown, a retired Aaaron McKie, Javaris Crittenton (currently on trial for murder; no..seriously) and draft picks that became Dante Green (out of the league) and Greivis Vasquez (ok,so he ended up being a solid NBA guard).

That's right, a retired Aaron Mckie. Well, not collect social security retired - dude was only 35 - and not even retired from the NBA - he was an assistant coach with the Sixers. In order to make the Gasol trade work under the salary cap, the Lakers needed to sign Mckie, whose rights they owned, and ship him to the Grizzlies. For his troubles, Mckie made $750,000 to sign a contract (I'm assuming it was a paper contract, the iPad wasn't out yet) and never play in a game. Mckie would re-join the Sixers coaching staff in the offseason.

Poppovich was so incensed about the newly formed super team in his conference and their seemingly shady dealings that he called for the Association to have a trade committee to prevent such deals. Speaking of good ole Popp...

"Please," he said with a sarcastic eye roll. "Please." 

That was Popp in 2009, when asked if the trade seemed a little less lopsided because that fat foregin center included in the deal was shaping up to be a decent NBA player. In fact, since 2009, that Grizzlies player has turned into a 2013 Second Team All-NBA Center. He is, of course, Marc Gasol, Pau's kid brother.

Which brings us, finally, to Bryant "Big Country" Reeves or the Bizzaro Marc Gasol. Both are big, plodding, starting centers for the Grizzlies, but other than that they couldn't be more different: 

-The Grizzlies selected Big Country with the first ever pick in franchise history, 6th overall in 1995. Gasol was taken in the second round of the 2007 draft, 47th overall.

-Bryant grew up in Gans, Oklahoma, population 312. Gasol grew up in Madrid, Spain, population 1.6 million. 

-Bryant was a Two-Time All-American at Oklahoma State. Gasol went to high school in Memphis (because of Pau), but never played collegiate ball. 

-Despite being as American as American-Pie induced diabetes, Bryant's tenure with the Grizzlies was in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spanish national Gasol mans the paint for the Grizzlies of Memphis, Tennessee. 

-Reeves career was done after six seasons. Marc Gasol is entering his sixth season and his career is just taking off. 

-Reeves' weight went up in the NBA. Gasol's went down. 

-Reeves' expansion Grizzlies never made the playoffs and never won more than 23 games in a season. Gasol's teams have made three out of five playoff appearances, have increased their win total in each successive season since Gasol arrived in Memphis and started that tenure with 24 wins, one more than the most Reeves ever won. 

But before we rag on Big Country too much, he did have an iconic nickname and had a few decent years in the league, which is more than you can say for some other big men taken even higher than Reeves in the 90s (* glares at  Michael Olowokandi *). Now he's a 300 something pound cattle-rancher in Oklahama and the subject of one of Buzzfeed's 2,347,568 listicles. On to the mix tape!

The mix starts with draft day and a doughy, ginormous Reeves shaking Commissioner David Stern's hand, followed by media interviews with "#50 Big Country" on the scoreboard in the background. The mix is mostly what you would expect, Big Country with his back to the basket backing down smaller, often white, centers, before taking  short turn around jumpers.

There are some put-back dunks, like my personal favorite shown from different angles at (0:24) and (1:57). Mike Bibby misses a three and Reeves posterizes the T-Wolves big man trying to box him out for the follow-up dunk. Standing a few feet away from the rim is current Brooklyn Net Kevin Garnett, the man taking by the Wolves one spot ahead of Reeves in the 1995 NBA Draft. So close, Vancouver, so close.

The other takeaway moment comes at (0:40), when a close-up shows a doofy, self satisfied smile on Reeves' face after making a layup that is reminiscent of Sloth from the Goonies. An underrated part of the mix, at least to me, is the Grizzlies homecourt at General Motors Place. Maybe I just spent too many of my formative years in the '90s, but I really like the non-painted paint, surrounded by the teal filling out to three and whatever shed of red that is at the circle. Not to mention the old Grizzlies logo at center court.

Speaking of Grizzlies courts, last Christmas you had the opportunity to buy the Vancouver Grizzlies practice court on Craigslist for $13,000, apparently. So there's that.

As for the music, it's an instrumental hip-hop track from little known producer Anno Domini. Probably best not to have any hip-hop lyrics in a Big Country Mix, unless you are going for intentional comedy, of course.

Luscious "Sweet Lou" Harris Mix

Yesterday we brought you a mix tape from the Jason Kidd era of Nets basketball that had no Jason Kidd era highlights. What a tease. Today, we deliver the goods, with a Luscious Harris mix that is chuck full-0-Kidd highlights. Of the 18 Luscious Harris highlights, eight are direct passes from Kidd, while several others are probably passes from Kidd, but the passes aren't shown.

Inexplicably, THE Kidd-Harris play AKA The Bowling Ball Pass is not on the mix. I'd scream at the YouTube user who created the video, TheKingMisek, but besides not actually knowing him, he did also make an entire mix devoted to Luscious Harris (and Todd MacCulloch and other magical creatures), so I'll give him a pass.

What the mix lacks in iconic plays, it makes up for in revealing 1. How freaking good Jason Kidd was and 2. How smart Luscious Harris was at utilizing Jason Kidd's magic to become a relevant player on a relevant team, if only briefly. In the first highlight, Jason Kidd navigates a fastbreak, driving down the lane and drawing three Magic players, which leaves a well placed Luscious Harris open for a jumper on the NJ sign at Continental Airlines Arena. The mix replays this play from another angle (2:35), which is lazy, yeah, but it also shows you how Harris anticipates Kidd's drive and moves himself to the right spot.

Other Kidd-Harris highlights include Kidd almost nonchalantly threading the needle between two Lakers with his feathery touch to find Harris at the block for a 2002 Finals lay-in And-1 (0:50).  Or Kidd, dressed in the retro ABA Nets jerseys (that should be worn by Brooklyn at some point, but I digress) thrashing down the lane and going up for a lay-up only to meet a head-banded Brad Miller, so Kidd casually decides, milliseconds from the rim, to pull the ball to his waist and shuffle it to Harris for the lay-in (1:28).

The non-Kidd highlights generally show the same Harris skill of expert court spacing. Occasionally, Sweet Lou will capitalize on an over-committed defender and drive to the basket for an earth-shattering layup.  An example of this is at 0:45, when Knicks guard and yacht enthusiast Latrell Sprewell reaches and Harris then teaches. The mix, committed to matching the length of Mobb Deep's "Survival of the Fittest", replays the play again at 3:00, but again uses another angle to make you think it is a different play. One way to have matched up the song with the highlights without duplicated plays would have been to include The Bowling Ball Pass, but hey, I'm not bitter.

Speaking of the music, A-plus for the selection. The second single off of Mobb Deep's critically acclaimed 1995 album The Infamous, "Survival of the Fittest" features a haunting piano sample over Havoc and Prodigy spitting rhymes about the street life, something I have only experienced through the art of people like Havoc and Prodigy. Tying it to the Nets, Kanye West references the line from the song, "There's a war going outside, no man is safe from" on the track "Murder to Excellence" from Kanye's collaborative album, Watch The Throne, with former Nets minority owner Jay-Z .

Mobb Deep also re-recorded the song with hardcore band Sick of it All for the 2000 album Loud Rocks, which featured collaborations between "hard rock" bands and hip hop artists. I wouldn't blame you for dismissing any disc with Crazy Town and Sugar Ray on it before it ever hit your auditory cortex, but the Mobb Deep/Sick of It All collaboration is worth it.

The song features a vaguely scientific title, which gives me nerd segway license to let you know that today, October 23rd, from 6:02 A.M. to 6:02 P.M. is Mole Day. If you don't know what a mole or Avogardro's number (6.02 x 10^23) are, apparently you didn't pay attention in even basic high school chemistry class and you are a horrible person (No, seriously, I'm not bitter today, why do you ask?). Finally, to conclude "Survival of the Fittest" tangent time, the song features the phrase Halfway Crooks, which my friend named his band after.

What were we talking about again? Oh, right, Luscious Harris. So there you have it, the New Jersey Nets mix tape for Sweet Lou, a 12 year NBA veteran (1993-2005) with the Mavericks, Sixers, Nets and Cavs that made the most out of Jason Kidd's genius as much as any role player the newest Nets coach ever played with.