Today's Truths

• Shoals at FreeDarko has an almost indescribably fantastic post about, more or less, basketball as a metaphor for finding meaning in an essentially anonymity inducing consumer culture. Relatedly, I mourn for Francisco Liriano by demonstrating that (shameless) imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
  

• Barack Obama... I mean this is 6 kinds of awesome, and really, for me, this is about 150 kinds of kick-ass. But since we here at WAP are all about substance over style (except when we aren't) how much of this is playing the Saxophone on Arsenio? I just don't know enough to get excited about him for any reasons aside from A) he ain't Hillary, and relatedly B) he might win, even against John (St.) McCain. Now, talk to me about Gore-Obama '08, and I'm ready with the bumper space.
  

• KFMonkey drops the hammer on the third season of Lost _boom. I don't really have anything to add other than to call bullshit on the show's creators any and every time they claim to "know where they are going" with the whole story of the island. If they're just making stuff up at this point, I'll start a fund so that we can get better, uhm, stuff to the writers' room, and we can go full-on David Lynch on this piece.
  

• I am boring (ht: Lance:

How evil are you?

• A tailer-made description of why I keep saying (in comments) that basketball is not-especially amenable to SABR-geekdom from today's Daily Dime:

  
  

  You may never see a highlight of this play, as it did not result in a bucket or dunk, but follow this to get a glimpse of the kinds of things that happen in an NBA game on a nightly basis:

  Deron Williams beats a show by Dirk Nowitzki on a ball screen, drives middle and makes a sweet no-look pass to Carlos Boozer. Boozer, challenged by a good shot-blocker in DeSagana Diop, loses the ball on his way up, sending the ball high into the air. Williams, on the baseline following his pass, jumps high to keep the ball away from Anthony Johnson, who otherwise would have an easy recovery, and bats the ball toward the free-throw line.

  Boozer, Diop, and Devean George all make an effort to get a hand on the ball, but it ultimately goes to Andrei Kirilenko. AK-47 takes an immediate dribble toward the rim and Diop, who gets back into defensive position. Andrei bends his long 6-9 frame down to almost half his size and throws a perfect bounce pass, thru Diop's legs, to a waiting Jarron Collins under the basket.

  As Collins goes up for the layup, Diop reacts quickly and blocks Collins point blank at the rim.

  The entire play takes nine seconds and produces two missed shots, a good hustle play by four players, two terrific passes, and a blocked shot. And no points. Oh, and three verbalized "wow" calls by me as it happened. Highlights alone do not tell the NBA story.

  Nor do the stats as we collect them.

That's all for now. Theo, get it done, or JoBu is coming to get you: