The Most Fun All-Time Iowa Hawkeye Basketball Team

Last week, @BallIsLife presented something beautiful in that they asked people to create their All-Time Basketball team using only $15 (My team of Magic, Jordan, Pippen, Duncan, and Hakeem would not lose). It was a really fun exercise, and it has been repeated for just about every team. The one that got my attention came from Black Heart Gold Pants where they asked people to make their All-Time Hawkeye starting 5. There was a lot of really great debate on it, but then people started bringing up the omitted players that didn't make the list, and most of those players, although beloved, weren't all that good. Still, I loved some of those players, so I decided to create the most fun Iowa Hawkeye basketball team in my history. I will admit that my history really only goes back to the mid-90s from players I remember well enough to include on this list. Honestly, this team isn't great. In fact, if they could put all of these guys in their prime, they'd only be a borderline NCAA team, but man, they would be incredibly fun to watch...on offense. On defense, they would be pretty brutal. But let's get to the picks.

PG - Tony Freeman - This may surprise people, because Iowa has had a lot of decent point guards during my basketball viewing lifetime, but Freeman is the perfect straw to stir the drink. Not only was his shot horrifying, but he was always looking to make a highlight play. Layups were for the weak when you could bounce it off the backboard for the guy trailing behind. Sometimes this led to heads in hands for an entire Hawkeye crowd, but when it worked, hoo boy, it was a thing to behold. Also, in football, we all fondly remember Marvin McNutt's "7 got 6" catch against Michigan State, but let us not forget T-Free's "11 got 3" against sixth-ranked Michigan State.

It's pretty amazing that the final score of 43-36 is only the second funniest thing about this video. The best is that Lickliter who has one athletic guard on his team spends his time talking to implore Tony Freeman to stop driving to the hoop and just shoot jump shots.

SG - Chris Kingsbury - No words are necessary when this video exists:

If that doesn't take you from 6 to 12, then you need to go see a doctor for your ED. Also, the best part of the video are when the announcers recount a converstion with Kingsbury where he said that he loves three pointers. Kingsbury said, "It's better than a dunk, because it counts for one more point." Words to live by.

SF - Ricky Davis - Total homer pick. Ricky Davis and I share a hometown. Vegas 4 Life, baby. He only lasted a year, but I'm not sure if there was ever a more gifted basketball player in Iowa history. It's a shame he was only in college for one year, because both Iowa and Davis would have benefited from him sticking around. Plus, you know that he would make plans with Tony Freeman on weird shit they could try to pull during the game.

PF - Doug Thomas - I've waxed poetically about this guy before and nothing has changed. Minute for minute, there was not a more entertaining Hawkeye in my lifetime. This video should do enough to convince you of his merit.


Still not convinced? Well, according to this video, Thunder Doug is also the HIGHEST JUMPER IN THE WORLD.

Yeah, Thunder Doug is the best.

C - Kurt Looby - This is definitely the toughest position to pick for the Hawkeyes, so I am going to just take the best athlete with the longest limbs who had no idea where those limbs were actually going. Also, if you are a fan of dunks, putbacks, and blocks, then I have 7 minutes in Heaven with Kurt Looby right here.



No great team can only have a starting lineup, so here are five other guys that I would want coming off the bench for me.

Jack Brownlee - A forgotten Hawkeye by many, but he was a rich man's lovable version of John Lickliter. He never earned meaningful minutes, but he was the little engine that could, and used his Senior Night speech to try to get JR Angle a girlfriend.

Joey Range - My memory of Joey Range far outshines his actual performance, but he had a very good Freshman year before dropping out of school. Before looking at the stats, I estimated that he put up a 14-5-3 average. In actuality, it was 8-3-0.5, but with 1.5 steals per game as well. And he shot over 50% from the field. It wasn't a Ricky Davis level Freshman year, but it was better than Roy Devyn Mamba, so Joey Range is an all-time "What if" story.

Seth Gorney - Although it never caught on like it should have, parodying 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny" every time Gorney checked in was probably my favorite Iowa cheer. Oh, Me So Gorney, oh oh, Me So Gorney.

Duez Henderson - Duez once bought my friends and I shots at the bar, so he has to make this list.

Brody Boyd - Outside of his ridiculous hot streaks on the court, I feel like Brody Boyd can best be summed up for his efforts off the court by comparing him to another Hawkeye on this list. Although nobody partied harder than Kingsbury, nobody partied longer than Brody Boyd, as I am sure he is still doing keg stands at house parties in Iowa City to this day.

Finally, this team needs a coach. A coach is not only a great leader on the basketball court. He's also a leader in the salon. That being said, there is really only one candidate.

Coach - Steve Alford 

If you have anybody to add, let me know, as I am sure I may have forgotten about some hilarious Hawkeyes, especially during the dark days of Lickliter. 

Derrick Rose Is More Exciting Than Blake Griffin

I know that most NBA fans will find the title of this article blasphemous.  They'll think, "Blake Griffin is so cool.  He dunks it really hard.  That's excitement personified."  Okay, they probably wouldn't use the word personified, but you get the point.  Almost all NBA fans love Blake Griffin.  Now don't get me wrong, I think Blake's a great player, and I enjoy watching his hustle.  But as I watched a highlight video of him this year, I realized something:  He isn't that exciting.  If you want to watch, here it is for all to enjoy:

Imagine going to a Clippers game.  Blake Griffin would inevitably dunk, and you could say that you saw Blake Griffin dunk.  But if someone asked you to describe that dunk, you’d probably say that it was the one where he dunked it really hard, and that's about it.  It’s cool that he dunks, but it’s a dunk.  It’s fun, but dunkers come and go.  Let’s face it, unless you’re a hardcore fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes, you probably don’t think about Thunder Doug Thomas very often.

On the other hand, Derrick Rose’s plays are timeless.  They make your jaw drop.  Plus, they’re fun as hell to describe.  You can actually show your friends what he did, which you can't do with a Blake Griffin dunk.  Now, will you do Rose's moves much slower and way more awkwardly?  Of course you will.  But you can position your friends as defenders, show your slow ass crossover move, spin past a third guy, and go in for an easy layup. Just so everyone has a visual, here's a random D-Rose highlight video.

If you compare their highlight videos, it’s not even close.  Blake Griffin’s is dunk, dunk, another dunk, an alley-oop dunk, a two handed dunk, a windmill dunk, another dunk, and a dunk.

Derrick Rose's highlights involve steals, blocks, assists, rebounds, lay-ups, spin moves, crossovers, broken ankles, ball fakes, and of course, dunks.

But the real beauty of Derrick Rose is not watching his highlights, it's watching everything he does.  Derrick Rose is not the most God-gifted point guard in the league, but he's definitely the most fun to watch.  John Wall is more athletic than Derrick Rose.  Chris Paul is more technically skilled than Derrick Rose.  Deron Williams is physically stronger than Derrick Rose.  And Rajon Rondo is a far bigger douchebag than Derrick Rose could ever be. 

But you can watch any game that the Bulls have played this season, and no matter the situation, you'll find your eyes drifting towards D-Rose.  Part of that is that he's really learned to hustle on both ends of the floor, but part of it is something else.  When the Bulls need a boost, Derrick Rose has the killer instinct to do everything that is humanly possible to take over a game.  It doesn’t always work.  Otherwise the Bulls would be undefeated.  But it is one of the most exciting things to ever see a basketball player do.  As much as we all want to find that instinct in any of our favorite players, it’s an extremely rare thing for someone to have.  There are guys who can turn it on, but a guy who is able to bring it every single night is so special that you'll only see it once in a decade..  In the 80s, it was Bird.  In the 90s, it was Jordan.  It the 00s, it was Kobe.  Now, I’m certainly not ready to hand over the 10s to Derrick Rose in February of 2011, but he’s definitely the favorite.

Listen, Blake Griffin is an incredibly talented player.  He is already one of the most popular players in the NBA.  But he’ll never be the best, and if you actually enjoy watching the game of basketball, he’ll never be the most exciting either.  I’m not ready to crown D-Rose as the best player in the NBA, but he’s got that killer instinct that is rare to see, and nearly impossible to beat.  Because of that, there’s no one I’d rather watch play the game. 

-Joe

P.S.  Even though I was not able to weave it into my post, I wanted to mention the admiration that Kobe has shown for Derrick Rose this year.  As skilled as Rose is, Kobe's admiration is because he sees his own killer instinct when he sees Rose.  I know a lot of people hate Kobe, but there is nobody who wants to win more than him...except for maybe Derrick Rose.

DA BULLS

The NBA Trade Deadline has come and gone, and the Bulls are in better shape today than they were yesterday. Yes, they're probably worse for this season, but not by an awful amount.

The first trade was dumping John Salmons for Joe Alexander and Hakim Warrick. Yeah, those guys pretty well suck, but Salmons had an option for next season that he was definitely going to exercise, so the Bulls needed to find a way to get rid of him despite him being a solid player. It's two expiring contracts, so it's really exactly what the Bulls needed to pull off in a trade for Salmons.

The other trade hurts. The most exciting player in the NBA, Tyrus Thomas, was traded to Charlotte for Acie Law, Flip Thomas, and a future first round pick. The contracts, again, are expiring, so that's really what the Bulls were looking for as well as adding future talent which the first round pick helps with. It really sucks to see Tyrus go, but he was never going to be good for the Bulls. The worst coach in the NBA, Vinny Del Negro, and him never got along, and the Bulls weren't going to make much of an offer to Tyrus this summer because of that. If the Bulls had manged to get Mike D'Antoni, Tyrus Thomas would probably be as productive as Shawn Marion was in his prime, but there's no going back now. This trade's biggest impact on my life is that the Charlotte Bobcats become my third favorite team in the NBA, behind the Bulls and the Thunder. They now have my two favorite former Bulls in Tyrus Thomas and Tyson Chandler. Maybe the Bulls should stop drafting guys named Ty (or James Johnson for that matter).

What the trade means is that the Bulls can, without a doubt, max out one player this offseason. I am the eternal optimist, and I don't see why they can't get two of the free agents available. Basically, they'd just need to get rid of Hinrich or Deng. Now, in my dream world, the Bulls will pursue LeBron and Bosh. If you're Toronto or Cleveland, don't you have to jump at the chance to pull off a sign and trade to get either Hinrich or Deng. Cleveland could put Deng in LeBron's spot, and probably only lose 20 more games. That's a great trade for them. So the starting five of the 2011 NBA Champions will be Joakim Noah, Chris Bosh, LeBron James, Kirk Hinrich, and Derrick Rose. But clearly Vinny Del Negro cannot lead these guys, so who should they get to coach? Well, there's a lot of teams that have tried to lure him out of the NCAA for NBA jobs, but he has always turned them down, but with this talent, I think they can manage to get this iconic coach to lead these guys. You know who I'm talking about...

The Man, The Myth, The Hair

Steve Alford will lead them to 82-0 baby. Plus, the Bulls will also have the 6th Man of the Year when they give the league minimum to the man.

THUNDER DOUG!

I'm all boned up over here.

-Joe

My Favorites

I like it when people disagree with me, because that is a surefire way to find out if someone is a moron. I like Natural Light, yet take abuse for having a sophisticated sense of taste. I'm classy, and now I have proof. Because there's another person who loves the smooth flavor of Natural Light, and if you're a true American, there's no way you're talking shit about him.



That's right, Mickey "Motherfucking" Mantle. He knows that taste is why you'll switch. So suck on that haters.

Next up, a couple recent videos from the man, the myth, the legend, THUNDER DOUG!



Yep, he's still dunking. Plus, this next video combines dunks and an interview. I don't think he has actually taken a real shot in Europe. I also think he might already be President of Poland.



Although I could not confirm it at the time of this post, I am nearly positive Dwight Howard pissed himself watching this video.

So, remember kids, drinking Natural Light and watching Thunder Doug dunk are two things that not only make hair grow on your balls, but also make you irresistible to women. It's the second weekend in February, go out and try it.

-Joe

P.S. After a ton of scouting and analysis, I am willing to make my prediction for the Snowbird Slow-Pitch Softball Tournament. This year's champions will be none other than the team from...THE STADIUM CLUB.

Iowa Basketball

Anytime somebody says they are about to have something painful happen to them (i.e. tonsils removed, arm broken by bookie, girl breaks their heart, etc.), I think to myself, "Well, at least it can't be as painful as watching Iowa Basketball."

Yes, the Hawkeyes are bad, but that isn't the disturbing thing about the team in recent years. It's that they're bad and boring. Say what you will about Alford (And before doing that, remember that he was the reason that student ticket prices dropped in price by a huge margin), but his teams were fun to watch. They weren't very fundamentally sound, and Alford never taught them his great talent of shooting free throws, but they were fun to watch. Doug Thomas provided many of those memories, but we also have Hawkeye greats like Glen Worley, Erek Hansen, and Kurt Looby.

This team is boring, but they try hard so I do have to give them credit for that. A starting five of Payne, May, Gatens, Fuller, and Cole isn't awful. It's still incredibly small, but those five can play Big Ten Basketball. After that, it's pretty slim pickings. But outside of their last game against Michigan, they were playing a ton better than the way they started this season.

So watch the Hawks tonight. It won't be pretty; you probably won't find yourself all that entertained, but they're playing Illinois, so I'll even go out and predict a win tonight. Iowa 11, Illinois 8. Go Hawks.

-Joe