Give Me The Rock

Since there’s some news of the Heat, now seems like a good time to chime in. Starting right now, and continuing through April 3rd, you can vote for your favorite NBA Dance Team. It’s like March Madness, except the cheerleaders dancers just show their mini dresses and underwear instead of full frontal nudity. All classy like.

Last year’s Dance Team Champs: Miami Heat Dancers

And they’re going to be tough to be again this year if Natalie has anything to say about it.

Well, Nels basically grovelled and begged me to come back. I knew it was coming. I read the site (most days). I know he’s scared as hell that that Mrs. Fantasy is actually going to provide better fantasy analysis than him. Just him though. No one is going to beat Patrick. He’s unstoppable. Nels, though? Pretty stoppable.

I told him that to counter the feminine wiles of another fantasy mistress it would be best for me to provide some real fantasy advice. But of course, that would make it much more difficult to post pictures of cheerleaders and/or dancer ladies. Therefore and hence and thus, I will traipse around the NBA.com article, starting with the leading vote getters, and focusing on those players’ respective teams with respect to who’s going to be making the All Star Dance Team; and thus, getting some respect. Respectfuly, of course.

This is especially necessary in 2008 because there is no mention of an All Star Dance Team on the NBA.com All Star 2008 site. Maybe twas only b’cause the 2007 All Star game was in Vegas - home of the Showgirl. If ’tis so, oh, NBA, please bring back the All Star Dance Team. How about an All Star Dance Off instead of playing some recockulous game of HORSE. You want ratings? That’s ratings right there. On a silver platter.

Or a green platter if you come from the leading vote getter’s team, the Boston Celtics. Last year, Courtney was the official All Star Dance Team blogger, and I think she’d definitely make the cut again this year. But she’s got some competition this year, because Chantal, Michelle, and (I couldn’t make this stuff up) Rachel are sure to turn some heads. Cliche. Take it or leave it.

I could probably right a whole post about those 4 Celtics Dancers (seriously, their bios are awesome) and leave it at that… but I’m sure there’s some other short jersey-dresses deserving ladies around the league. Certainly more deserving than Nicole, who couldn’t seem to find the camera.

On the other hand, the camera just seems to find Rachel… what can I say?

Now that we’ve got a little East… it only makes sense to go to the West. And, of course, it also follows the order I actually intended, since Kobe Bryant was 2nd in the getting of All-Star votes.

Wow. The World Renowned Lakers Girls are kind of a dissappointment this year. Yes, I did just check them out, and not only do they have the stupid flash photo galleries where you can’t download the pictures (Boston had that too), but um, did I really think any of the pictures were worth downloading (let alone re-uploading)? Ima give you Candace, and we’ll just be moving on.

Okay, who’s next? Shit. I made a mistake. LeBron James is actually the 2nd place vote getter. Could NBA.com have made this dumb article any more confusing? I just need a Power Ranking style list by number of votes - who cares what conference people are in and what position they play?

Okay, so, let’s check out the Cavalier Girls (very original). Aaaaaaaaaand… let’s see if we can find some more of Katie C, Kelly, Kristin, and Stephanie…

I guess this isn’t a fashion restricted to Florida State fans…

Yeah, he’s buying a calendar. Or at least pretending like he’s really interested.

The 2007-08 calendars are sold out, btw. I checked.

Shades of Paula Abdul, am I right? Anyone?

Saving the best for last…

Coup de Grace:

Aaaaaaaaaand, I’m spent. I was on the verge of a Cavalier Girl overload there… Meanwhile, Dwight Howard somehow has more votes than Yao Ming. Not sure, but somehow Tim Duncan is actually close to Yao in the voting, followed by Carmelo Anthony, before we go back East to pick up Dwyane Wade. And by pick up, I don’t mean pick up basketball.

I think the Magic dancers are pretty hot, but then I thought that would be the case for the Laker Girls… I think the same thing about the Spurs Silver Dancers, and according to Nels the Denver Dance Team (not Cheer Team) has got at least one lovely lady. Add in the Heat and you’ve got a pretty awesome Part 2 of Rachel Style All Star Preview. We’ll have see what kind of birthday pre$ent I get from Nel$ before that one happen$…

In trying to crank out the Team Previews and actually get them finished, I let Rachel take one off my hands. I’m sure no one will notice.

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Addition by subtraction and then addition. That’s what the Magic did. They let Darko and Grant Hill go and landed Rashard Lewis. The Magic Dancers are hoping for the same kind of equation as they lost a few promising young ladies, brought back a bunch of middle of the road girls, and fleshed out the roster with what we in the business would call “upside potential.”

(Also, this blog should totally have been called Upside Potential)

Anywho, to check out a semi-retrospective of last year’s dance squad, check out Black and Blue Magic’s August Archive. You have to get about half way down and there’s a dancer tournament. It acutally starts in July, so you can go back there if you want to see more.

As for a semi-retrospective of the Magic fantasy team… check this:

Last Season’s Ratings (without TOs, with TOs):
14, 9 - Rashard Lewis
50, 98 - Dwight Howard
105, 114 - Hedo Turkoglu
113, 151 - Jameer Nelson
186, 207 - Trevor Ariza
239, 237 - Tony Battie
230, 238 - Keyon Dooling
289, 251 - J.J. Redick
255, 272 - Carlos Arroyo
292, 276 - Keith Bogans
308, 279 - Adonal Foyle
394, 383 - Pat Garrity
434, 393 - James Augustine
NR, NR - Marcin Gortat
NR, NR - Mikolan Rakovic

I put in the ratings with and without turnovers because in this case, it seems to demonstrate a pretty profound problem (hooray for consonance). If you’re drafting Dwight Howard, you know he’s going to hurt your FT% (8.1 attempts per game at 59%). But it might also help (or hurt) to note how much he’s going to kill your Turnovers, if that’s a category in your league (3.9 turnovers per game). The turnovers, though, should go down this season, because that generally happens as players get more experience and learn how to take care of the ball better.

Magic Starting Lineup:
PG: Jameer Nelson
SG: Trevor Ariza
SF: Rashard Lewis
PF: Hedo Turkoglu
C: Dwight Howard

With Ariza coming in at 186/207, there’s not a lot beyond the starting lineup that you’ll want to take in your draft. The Magic’s rookies, um, I’ve never heard of them. I’m pretty sure that any rookies who will be worth having on your team, I would have heard of them. Trust me. I don’t just follow the cheerleaders.

At least the Magic didn’t go after this guy:

So here’s where you should draft these guys:
Dwight Howard - 2nd round
Rashard Lewis - 2nd round
Jameer Nelson - late 7th/early 8th round
Trevor Ariza - last round if there’s more than 12 rounds
Hedo Turkoglu - last round if there’s more than 12 rounds

And here’s some gratuitous cheerleader pics:

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Okay… so I’ve been waiting a while to bust out this kind of joke. Thank You Isaiah did it first with the Luolcats, and I think it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. If you don’t get the reference, please click here. I would like to thank Rachel for giving me the opportunity to finally make use of the Lolcat Generator. I knew it had to be good for more than just cats.

If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed that I didn’t make LOL versions of the first two pictures that Rachel had in her gratuitous section. I leave that as a challenge to the reader. The first one should be pretty easy, but I couldn’t come up with anything short enough to fit on the picture. And yeah, I know the rock in mai boot one isn’t that funny. You want your money back or something?

My good buddy Matt Buser (full disclosure: I don’t know Matt Buser) has already broken down the fantasy implications of this year’s NBA draft. I love that kind of fantasy basketball dedication. Like a nice vodka tonic, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach. However, I don’t know if I’ll be drafting Joakim Noah next season. I can’t see enough offense being there in his rookie year to warrant a draft pick. Down the road, sure, just not next season.

Although Nels has already mentioned it, if you still want more NBA draft/fantasy basketball readin’, I would highly recommend Draft-o-Rama! from the Fantasy Basketblog guys. They’ve come out of their summer hibernation to give us part diary, part fantasy analysis of this year’s draft. Like most of their stuff, it’s long, intelligent, interesting, and spot on in so many ways.

Tonight we’ve got the start of the Finals. I’m sure you can find a preview of it somewhere… but right here I’m going to do it the way you’ve come to expect from Rachel. Yup. Cheerleader style.

I’m leaning towards the Cavs in this one based on their ability to put out 10 videos to the Spurs Silver Dancers who only have 4.

The balance of power shifts, though, when you recall that I voted Kim the number two hottest All-Star Dancer. None of the Cavs dancers (lamely called the Cavalier Girls - but wisely appealing to all the pervs out there) even made the list (the list was only 5 dancers though so really you the odds are pretty slim - kind of like most of the dancers).

The balance of power shifts back, though, because the Cavalier Girls have 26 photo galleries. Their site is also easier to find your way around. The Silver Dancers site seemed like it should have more, and while it’s a prettier site, it’s really quite shallow when it comes down to it. And the CG site made it a lot easier for me to grab photos for this post.

The photos are out of date since they don’t have the 06-07 calendar pictures online (understandably), but really, everyone knows that the best place to get cheerleader pictures is at Sports Illustrated anyway.

I know whenever my hair gets blown in my face, I’m forced to hang onto my swimsuit for dear life.

Yes, all women need somwhere to rest their hands. If you don’t have pockets to put them in, the top of your swimsuit is the next best place. Followed by the bottom of your swimsuit, but really, only hos do that.

No good caption for this one. Just wanted to show off those skyscrapers. The ones in the Cleveland skyline.

WINNER: Cavalier Girls by +4.5 (if you’re betting)

Winner of the series? Sorry, it’s going to San Antonio.

So the NBA Dancer All-Star Team is set. Anyone else think it’s kind of lame that they made it all PC with one dancer from every team? Next year, it should be like the real All-Stars with everyone voting among all the cheerleaders in the league. I’m sure NBA.com would get a lot more hits if they just had gallery upon gallery of hot dancers.

So, I’m going to be a total bitch and pick out the Top 5 Dancers (I’m pretty sure it’s been done before, but I’ll do it again)

NUMBER 5: I’m going with Courtney from the Brand Spanking New Celtics Dancers (and not just cause Patrick is our Celtics guy)

NUMBER 4: Jaclyn from the New Jersey Nets Dancers (you’ll have to click on here to get the pictures, the whole thing is Flash so I couldn’t download anything). As a sidenote, I think Terry probably would have been a better overall choice for the Nets, so you might check her out too.

NUMBER 3: Gina from the Phoenix Suns Dancers (even though her outfit totally looks like what the Kings dancers should be wearing)

NUMBER 2: Kim from the San Antonio Spurs Dancers

NUMBER 1: (with a Bullet) Katherine from the Miami Heat Dancers. I think Katherine was pretty much a unanimous choice for the All-Star team, and probably for hottest dancer and/or cheerleader in The League.

As an added bonerus, the Mavs Dancers each have their own video “Close Up”. Oh, and the video “Close Up” features the making of the swimsuit calendar. But it gets better… the slideshow of the dancer keeps going while the video is playing for HandsFree™ viewing.

There’s some sort of brou-ha-ha brewing like beer with the NBA bloggers… It involves the Pussycat Dolls and their promo for the Heat/Lakers game on Christmas Day. Yeah, it sucks all right. But, I’ve danced to the PCD (that’s what they’re called when you say the name enough that you need to make it shorter) many a time “in da club” and that song does not represent at all what they are capable of. It sounds like an obvious Christina copycat, but it’s a pretty weak-ass one.

Also, since the PCD don’t actually write any of their own material (I’m about 98% sure on that), you can’t really blame them for how terrible the spot is. Cause also, they did win an MTV award for best dance video. So, maybe they’re just better at promoting the shaking of the booty than the bouncing of the ball.

Promote shaking that booty girl