The Black Converse's Massive NBA Preview

Like most fans, we are excited about the start of the NBA season. We don't know what is going to happen with this shortened, compressed season. Surely chaos will ensue; there will be surprise teams, veteran teams that don't quite get going, injuries, tanking for the best draft since '03*, and an influx of overseas guys comig back in time for a stretch run. It will be a strange year and but we can all be relieved that there will be basketball**. Here are a list of fake prop bets that we came up with.*** Each bet tries to highlight a different storyline for the season. Enjoy.

Over/Under 2.5 Leg Injuries for the Clippers
Spike: Under
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under 12 playoff wins for the Bulls
Spike: Under
Charlie T: Under

Over/Under 12 playoff wins for the Thunder
Spike: Under
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under 1.5 top 5 picks for the Hornets
Spike: Over
Charlie T: Under

Higher Playoff seed: Lakers or Celtics
Spike: Celtics
Charlie T: Celtics

Higher Playoff seed: Spurs or Knicks
Spike: Spurs
Charlie T: Knicks

Over/Under 1.5 Heat MVP Awards
Spike: Under
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under .5 All-Stars for the Jazz
Spike: Over
Charlie T: Under

Over/Under 2.5 All-Stars for the Heat
Spike: Over
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under 4 combined Playoff wins for Washington, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Detroit, New Jersey, Toronto, Cleveland
Spike: Under
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under 4 combined Playoff wins for Houston, Phoenix, Golden State, Clippers, Sacramento, Minnesota
Spike: Over
Charlie T: Over

Over/Under Black Eyed Peas songs being played on every NBA telecast
Spike: Awesome
Charlie T: Over

There you have it. You can be sure we will forget about these wagers we have made as we get engulfed in the drama of the season. I know it will be one for the ages. And who knows, Spike might come around on Chris Bosh before it's all said and done.

*At least that's what David Stern thinks

**For at most 6 more years...then we're going to get crapped on again.

***We had 12 and had planned on releasing them one per day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, but that seemed a little douchey since there isn't much substance to each bet. Besides, who doesn't prefer ripping open all their gifts as fast as they can?

Introducing: THE 910 CONVERSATION

The long, dead summer is over. Now, we at The Black Converse like us some baseball–Charlie T the still-in-it Phillies, me the disappointing Red Sox. But, we got into this to blog about a mix of the NBA and music. Or to blog about them independently when the mix isn’t working. Kind of like Chris Cornell and Timbaland. Or Chris Cornell and the RATM dudes. Or Chris Cornell and short hair. Or Chris Cornell and anyone but Soundgarden or a home 4-track*. Whatever. The point is: The Black Converse dry season is over and NBA Opening Night is next week.

Which makes a fine segue into introducing THE 910 CONVERSATION. (Or 910 Converse-ation, if you're into hyphens and overselling the pun.) 910 because it's the 09-10 season. Conversation because obviously we, the Converse, will use this format to discuss the season. It's essentially a team-by-team criteria we've concocted for talking about the upcoming season, unique to each team. We're fully aware just how genius the title is. It took us a mere 20 minutes to come up with it. Give us a half hour and we'll be pulling Pulitzers.

See, we’re not hoop experts or statisticians, so we don't venture into the usual sportsblogger predictions. And we’re not hyperfans, so we won’t be breaking any news or giving any ultra in-depth insights or talking about how this offense doesn't suit that player or how this matchup should dictate that lineup shift. Please. We can admit to our limitations as normal NBA fans and, frankly, think that that’s what makes us readable anyway. We are the Chauncey Gardener/overweight sitcom schlub/Everyman of the hoop blogging world. Even if saying so seems pretty pretentious. Moving on.

True to the iChat roots of this blog, we've spent the past month or two IM’ing about every team- angles, new players, drama, degree of our interest, media oversaturation, stars, off-court life, and more. Eventually, for each team, we settled on (some would say compromised, others might say surrendered to) a storyline that we’re inclined to follow this season. Some teams (Bucks, Nets) interest us so little that we’ve chosen purposefully obscure non-stories that may only surface once all season. Other teams will get more regular coverage. And two teams (Jazz for me, Los Heat for Charlie T) will get the unabashed personal bias and unrepentant skewed focus of fans (There, I outed us. Now all the Carlos Boozer posts make sense. I feel a huge weight lifted.). We're hoping that THE 910 CONVERSATION will give us one thing that many NBA predictions don't have: accountability and legs. So many writers make predictions only to a) ignore them when it's convenient (aka: wrong), b) remind us of them when they're right (aka: rarely), or c) revise them when bandwagons and/or hype machines dictate.

Charlie T will introduce you to our Central, Southeast, and Southwest Division storylines and I’ll introduce the Atlantic, Pacific, and Northwest (incidentally, my favorite parts of the country) Division storylines. After that, we’ll both be posting whenever the spirit strikes us. So, just like every other sports blog, let's roll out the 2009-2010 preseason stuff.

NOTE: All of these storylines will be searchable by the following tag: “(Team) 910”

*

The Turning Seasons

This is my favorite time of the year. My fantasy football team is a bust so I can stop worrying about it, the college football championship has been decided (also off my radar for the most part), its jacket weather, good tv is back on and the NBA season is just starting to gain some hype. Yes I realize college football is only 4 games in, the NFL 3 and October will inevitably have a few days in the 80's that make me miss the summer. There will also inevitably be a slew of great albums come out between now and the end of the year, starting with this weeks Avett Brothers release and a new Thao album in the weeks to come. And its also NBA time.

Last night was the first official pre-season game. While I don't care that the Jazz beat down the Nuggets last night or that the Pacers could field a whiteout at some point tonight against the Bulls, I do care that something besides Michael Beasley's rehab stay in Houston is on the sports ticker under the NBA section. We, The Black Converse, are furiously working on a gigantic NBA season preview unlike any you have ever experienced. If everything works out, and we don't die while trying to sustain another overly ambitious project (see here for a previous death by ambition example), then you, us and the NBA will be ready to roll the last week of October.

In the meantime, I am trying to imagine how the conversation went as Kyle Korver talked Kirilenko into letting him style his hair.