Redeemed

It was a tough match but Team USA has finally redeemed itself, winning the gold medal 118-107.  Spain proved themselves a worthy opponent and showed the world their young talent.  They’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the future, in the NBA and in international play.  But congratulations to the Redeem Team.  Mission accomplished.

Lightning Strikes Twice

He did it again.  Jamaica’s lightning-fast sprinter Usain Bolt beat Michael Johnson’s supposed unbeatable 200m world-record time of 19.32s.  Bolt’s time?  19.30.  Against a headwind.  Unreal.  Second-place wasn’t even close.  What this guy has done has to be on par with what Michael Phelps has done.  I’m not taking anything away from Phelps but what Bolt has done is amazing as well.

Insane Bolt

It’s not greater than what Michael Phelps has done, but it’s definitely more ridiculous.  Watching Jamaica’s track sensation Usain Bolt run is just…ridiculous.  I can’t think of another word.  The guy doesn’t even try and he sets world records.  He pounds his chest, high steps 15 meters and still no one is close to him.  I’ve seen his 200m qualifying heats and it’s just laughable how he knows how much faster he is than everyone else (and at 6′5, how much bigger he is than everyone else).  He tries for about 5 seconds to get in the lead then coasts the rest of the way.  He looks around to see if anyone is close to him and if he sees someone close then he turns on the boosters for oh 5 tenths of a second until he is clearly in the lead again.  Meanwhile everyone else is huffing and puffing their way to the finish line.  It’s just stupid how fast the guy is.

Michael Phelps…G.O.A.T.?

I am pretty late on this but it would be a travesty if I didn’t comment about the great Michael Phelps and what he’s accomplished in these Olympics.  Eight gold medals.  I mean c’mon.  That is just amazing.  And just watching him swim is even more amazing.  Not that this even matters at all but he wins in every way: he dominates from the start, he comes from behind and he wins as part of a team.  He doesn’t stick with one stroke, he does them all.  There is not a doubt in my mind that he could win the gold in any stroke in any distance if he really wanted to.  Watching his pure domination in the 200m free and the nail-biting finish in the 100m butterfly left me as he would say “at a loss for words.”  And who could forget the 4×100m freestyle relay where Jason Lezak suddenly turned into Aquaman and owned that French dude Alain Bernard, giving Michael the opportunity to go for eight golds.  He’s so good he even had Kobe and LeBron cheering him on at his races and showering him with compliments on everything he’s done.  Unbelievable.  The guy deserves all the superlatives and awards (not to mention money and women that will be coming his way) that he’s getting.  He is the greatest Olympic champion of all time.  And he’s got the hardware to prove it.

Dwyane Wade…is Back

A few posts ago I said LeBron was the best player in this Olympics but I may have been a bit premature with that statement.  Dwyane Wade is showing that he is still a dominant basketball player (though LeBron was dominant also against Greece with 13 points, 6 assists, 6 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals).  He pretty much single-handedly picked apart the Greeks and ignited the Redeem Team to victory.  Flash did everything:  Scored baskets (17 points), created (5 assists including that ridiculous alley-oop to Kobe), got to the line (9 free throw attempts), and played great D (6 steals).  He did everything but make his free throws, missing 5.  His +/- must’ve been the highest on the team today by far, possibly along with Chris Bosh.  I still can’t get over how all these people (possibly including his own team) gave up on him and said he was done.  D-Wade is back and he’ll be exciting to see the rest of these Olympics, this season, and in the future.

LeBron still doing what he does.

ABDC Week 9

The final two:

• I wasn’t blown away by any of the performances tonight.  They were good but nothing memorable.  Pretty similar to last season’s finale.  The performances from the previous weeks were more memorable.  Not a big deal though.  We’ve all seen what we need to see.
• The around-the-world challenge was a little too long.  It’s not as fun to watch when the performances are a few minutes long.
• For SoReal Cru, I wasn’t a fan of their A Millie performance.  You say you guys wanted to dance to that song all season long so I was expecting something big but it was a pretty standard performance in my eyes.  Plus they seemed to use the whole dance as a way to attack Super Cr3w.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it made them look like they seemed threatened by Super Cr3w.  It’s not the route I would’ve taken but hey, I’m not on the show.
• As for who I think should win…it’s pretty clear to me that Super Cr3w should win.  I mean, JC said it best when he said Super Cr3w does things that no one else can do.  I’ve seen SoReal Cru before.  As a matter of fact I’ve seen a better version of SoReal Cru before and they are Kaba Modern.  So for even that fact alone, Super Cr3w should get the cash.  As for who actually does, we’ll see in a week.

Nike Does It Again

Another great commercial from Nike featuring the song “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers.  In it are Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carl Lewis, and a bunch of other athletes.  Very similar to their SPARQ Training commercials.  Take a look.

Yao, LeBron Olympics Coke Commercial

Great Coke commercial featuring Yao Ming and LeBron James.

Team USA vs China

I think LeBron proved that he’s the best player on Team USA today against China.  He seemed to do whatever he wanted offensively AND defensively.  He had three ridiculous blocks and ended up with 18 points, 6 boards and 3 assists.  But it’s not about who’s the best on this team as much as I’ll want to keep talking about it.  As long as they win the gold everyone will be happy and I’m still saying they will.

But today’s game wasn’t even about Team USA.  It was about China.  It was incredibly inspiring to watch them play.  Yao Ming, in many regards the face of these Olympics, opened the game with a 3-pointer and the thunderous reaction from the crowd was touching.  China as a team played inspired basketball in the first half, keeping it close for the most part (though I think Team USA helped them out by being nervous to open the game.  They kind of played down to the competition by committing some unforced turnovers and being too aggressive on defense and getting burned for it a few times, though that seems like a footprint of this team).  Even after Team USA was up by 30 and Yao Ming had checked out, to see him so fired up on the bench and so happy for his teammates after every made basket just put a smile on face.  A true ambassador for China who represents all that is good for his country and deserving of his status as a national hero, Yao knew his team wouldn’t be winning this game but still played his hardest and just enjoyed this time, the biggest 40 minutes of his life.  A 31 point loss would not bring his spirits down because in the end, he was a winner as well.

ABDC Week 8

An 80’s recap…

• Lil’ Mama was not even alive in the 80s.
• Super Cr3w is sick.  Both performances…sick.  I liked the first one better.  I thought that was the best performance of the night.
• Fanny Pak is sick.  Both performances…sick.  But I think they just tried a little too hard to suck up to the judges with their second performance.  And it seemed kind of short.  I’m nitpicking though.
• SoReal Cru…definitely did not deserve an automatic bid to the finals.  First performance was eh.  Second performance was great but I was a little confused watching it.  Overall they weren’t as good as the other two though.
• If it was up to me, I would’ve picked Super Cr3w to move on but that’s just because I’d personally rather watch them.  It was obviously a tough choice for the judges to pick between the two groups.  Like JC said, it’s like you have one crew (Super Cr3w) who is the best at one thing (athleticism/stunts) and another crew (Fanny Pak) who is the best at another thing (creativity/humor).  I was actually SHOCKED that Fanny Pak was eliminated.  I honestly thought they were gonna move on and one of the dudes from Super Cr3w seemed to think so also.  I am happy Super Cr3w advanced to the finals but I can’t lie at all about this…I’m a little upset to see Fanny Pak go.  I was a total hater at first but they really showed they deserved to be on the show way more than a bunch of the other crews.
• As for my prediction…normally I would say SoReal Cru has no shot to win this thing but I would’ve said they had no shot to make it the finals…and they did.  So I’m still gonna say Super Cr3w is gonna take this home.  Hey America…listen to Fanny Pak and vote right.