Your Newest JPoint King...

Derrick Williams of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Who, last night, beat the Los Angeles Clippers thanks to a wizardly fourth quarter and 27 points each from Williams and future Laker Michael Beasley.

D. Williams, F, MIN: 29 points, 9-10 FG, 4-4 3FG, 5-5 FT, 5 rebounds, 1 block, 86.2 JPoint


I mean, sweet Jesus Derrick, he's just a boy! (No clue who "he" is). In terms of offensive efficiency, this may be the best game of basketball we ever see. I don't see how this could physically be improved - make the tenth field goal, yes, but that's nearly impossible. This is ten points better than anyone we've ever seen in an actual game (to my knowledge). Even Kyrie Irving's performance in the rising stars game was only like an 84. I imagine Williams holds this crown for a long, long time.

Previous Champions:
Michael Beasley, F, MIN (January 30) - 74.6
Jeff Teague, PG, ATL (January 29) - 71.7
Kevin Love, PF, MIN (January 23) - 68.8
Deividas Dulkys, G, FSU (January 14) - 68.3

Bullets Blog Academy Awards Recap

For those of you that played along at home, I hope you followed the "You Have To Pick Either The Artist Or Hugo" rule - it would have made for a really fun matchup. Unfortunately, there was some confusion when Toph and I drafted and I ended up with both films, and he never really stood a chance. They combined for eight Oscars. Here's how it played out:

Team Jay
The Winners: Hugo (5), The Artist (3), Christopher Plummer (1)
I would have picked Hugo to win the most awards, but they ran away with it and won just about everything. And really, The Artist was likely the second-place candidate in most of those categories so I was really going into the night with seven wins on lock. I was happy to see Plummer finally win, and I don't even mind the nature of the role that he played. But I thought it was funny that the person in charge of playing the music to kick the winners off stage steadfastly refused to do it to Plummer.

The Losers: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, Paradise Lost 3, Footnote, Max von Sydow, Viola Davis, Rooney Mara, Woody Allen
I'll say this: I knew that Footnote, von Sydow, Mara, and Allen were all extremely longshots to win. But I really thought I had picked Apes, Tsunami, and Paradise right. Especially the Apes. I mean really, how did that not win for best visual effects? It's outrageous. And also, I had been referring to Tsunami as "The Tsunami and the Cherry Tree" so sorry to Japan for that one.

Team Toph
The Winners: The Descendants (1), Midnight in Paris, Rango (1), A Separation (1), Jean Dujardin (1), Meryl Streep (1), Octavia Spencer (1)
There's definitely a sports metaphor for the way Toph picked up his six points, with no one member of his team shouldering a majority of the load. I don't know what it is, but it's out there. He drafted really well, what can I say? I mean after the first round, at least. Also, what's the deal with Meryl Streep? I've never, to my knowledge, seen a movie with her in it and she's supposedly the best actress ever or something like that. Finally, why the shit was Tintin not nominated for best animated film?

The Losers: Pina, Incident in New Baghdad, George Clooney
I know Toph is fine with having Clooney on his team despite the loss - he loves the guy. Also, did you see his date? Potentially the hottest girl alive:

Oh shit, that was Stacy Kiebler? Man, she's really aging well. The hottest chick there last night, hands down.

One More Thing
I ranked the Best Motion Candidates on how much I want to see them - because to be honest I have not seen a single one.

1. Hugo: How can I not? This movie won it for me, and it looks cool. 
2. Midnight in Paris: A very close second. It looks like a cute movie (pause) and I like Owen Wilson (pause). 
3. The Tree of Life: It's supposedly incredibly confusing, and I think I'd like the opportunity to try to wrap my mind around the concept - whatever the concept of this movie turns out to be. 
4. The Descendants: The premise of this movie seems intriguing, but I prefer Ocean's Eleven Clooney over torn, emotional Clooney. 
5.  Moneyball: Everyone knows what happens, and it would really have to have an astounding plot to overcome that fact (looking at you, Titanic). And the plot is a bunch of baseball nerds creating the statistics that nerdy fantasy baseball nerds use. 
6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Don't get me wrong, I love America. But it seems like this movie is trying to profit off of American pride by setting a movie in the environment of the 9/11 attacks by focusing on the tragedy in the commercials - I get the feeling the plot does not actually revolve around that at all. But hey, I could be wrong. 
7. The Help: I'm sure it's an awesomely motivating, powerful movie. I just don't particularly care. 
8. War Horse: This would be last, but...
9. The Artist: Never in my life do I want to see a movie that has no dialogue and is also in black and white. I'm pissed that this won because I really don't want to have to see ads for a bunch of similar movies next year. 

Fictional Basketball Trade of the Day: LAL, BOS, MIN

I'm writing a paper for Ethics today and I'm desperately looking for ways to procrastinate. Here's my list:

1. Make some fictional trades on ESPN's NBA Trade Machine
2. Think of a nickname for myself, similar to how Bill Simmons calls himself "Trade Machine Picasso"

For the trade, I went with the quick mention Michael Wilbon made in his post today (link here) about the Lakers going after Michael Beasley. Here's how it played out:

Lakers receive: F Michael Beasley, PG Luke Ridnour, C Jermaine O'Neal

Timberwolves receive: F/C Pau Gasol

Celtics receive: SG Wesley Johnson

For the Lakers:

• They can finally get some closure on the whole Pau Gasol situation. And they can also remove a second center from their roster since they already have the best center in the West. 
• The add another scoring threat in Beasley, who would then be able to pair with Bynum to be the future of the Lakers. Gasol's been upset with his role away from the basket this season. Beasley fits that role perfectly. He's much more equipped to shoot jumpers and slash his way to the rim than Gasol. 
• They upgrade the point guard position. Luke Ridnour isn't a great point guard, but he's one hundred million gajillion times better than Fisher. Plus he's a white American, and you know how the Lakers feel about white Americans. 

Team Jay is going to crush the Oscars

Toph and I had our Academy Awards fantasy draft today while I was supposed to be learning about defamation or some other business law bullshit. And I could not be happier with the results. As you may recall, the roster looks like this:

• 3 Full Length Motion Pictures
• 1 Short Film
• 1 Documentary
• 1 Foreign Language Film
• 2 Actors
• 2 Actresses
• 1 Director

Here's the starting lineup for Team Jay (it's also my only lineup because there's no subs) in order of how I drafted them (we did a snake draft so every set is the last pick of one round and the first pick of the following round): 

• Hugo &The Artist: I'm baffled as to how I was able to get both of these. If you recall, when I made the play-along-at-home rules I said you couldn't pick both because it'd be unfair. It's unfair. They are going to win a combined 6-8 awards. 
• Christopher Plummer & The Tsunami and the Cherry Tree: Two more wins, basically for sure. Plummer killed in Beginners and if he doesn't win, I've addressed that (see below). The Tsunami documentary has to win just because of its sentimental nature, right?
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes & Viola Davis: The Apes are winning for visual effects. Bank on that.  Viola Davis has a decent shot at lead actress. 
• Paradise Lost 3 & Max von Sydow: Just in case Plummer doesn't win, vox Sydow will. His character doesn't say a word during the whole movie because he was traumatized by World War 2. So I got that category on lockdown. Paradise Lost 3 is counting as my documentary because Tsunami is technically also a short film. 
• Footnote & Woody Allen: I needed a foreign language film and Toph had already grabbed the one that's going to win (A Separation) so I went with the Jews (Footnote is from Israel). Woody Allen won Best Director at the Golden Globes, so that's reason enough for me to draft him. 
• Rooney Mara: She has no chance. But there's this: 

Winner. 

Knicks - Heat & All-Star Weekend Preview

You could say that the NBA's All-Star weekend actually starts with tonight's TNT games: Knicks @ Heat and Lakers @ Thunder. Those games will be more interesting than the All-Star game itself because they could end up being conference semifinal (or even conference final) matchups. Let's break that game, and the rest of the weekend festivities, down:

Part 1: Knicks vs. Heat

It's easy to break this game down into smaller matchups, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Backcourt
New York: Jeremy Lin, JR Smith, Baron Davis, Landry Fields, Iman Shumpert, Bill Walker
Miami: Dwyane Wade, Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole, Mike Miller, James Jones
Edge: New York
Dwyane Wade is the best shooting guard in the game. But the Heat have no depth at the guard positions. All of the Knicks listed could go off for 20 points and 10 assists and nobody would be that surprised - Dave touched on this yesterday. Maybe don't count Bill Walker in that group. But hey, you never know.

Frontcourt
New York: Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Jared Jeffries, Steve Novak
Miami: LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Joel Anthony, Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem, Dexter Pittman
Edge: New York
Again, the Heat are stacked at the top of the order and then it tails off horribly. LeBron obviously is better than Melo. Stoudemire and Bosh are essentially a push. Chandler is better than anyone the Heat can put at center. Steve Novak can spread the floor for Lin, Anthony, and everyone else to get to the rim.

Based on the most basic of breakdowns, I'm taking the Knicks +9.5 in a heartbeat (odds from Bovada).

Part 2: All-Star Saturday

Linsanity and the Long Awaited Emergence of the Knickerbockers

Could I have a more cliche post title? Honestly. Unless you've been living under a rock since the beginning of the month, odds are you've heard the words "Jeremy Lin," "Linsanity," "Lincredible", "Super Lintendo"….the list goes on. Jeremy Lin took the reigns of the Knicks as their starting point guard after coming out of nowhere. After being a forgotten about last man off the bench, the Harvard grad shocked the world and has led the Knicks to 9 wins in 11 games. His statistics speak for themselves, averaging 24.6 points and 9.4 points in his first 10 games as a starter. It's truly amazing what this kid has accomplished. The story is one of the most amazing in basketball history and he deserves all the credit he's been given. He turned around the (what had been) thus far disappointing season for the New York Knicks and gave fans more hope, creating an enormous buzz around Madison Square Garden and New York City.

The Knicks bench, which had been VERY weak at the start of the season, also just got a hell of a lot better- giving New York one of the better benches in the league. The emergence of Steve Novak has been a revelation. All of last year, the guy only played in 23 games…he's already played in 21 this season. Once Jeremy Lin began starting, Novak emerged as an absolutely deadly three-point shooter that the team could count on- he's shooting 44% from downtown. The Knicks also have rookie Iman Shumpert coming off the bench now that Lin is starting. Shumpert gives the team a great athletic option at the shooting guard position and he's one of the best defensive players on the team. The recent acquisition of the explosive J.R. Smith and the improved health of point guard Baron Davis will also bolster the Knicks' bench. I'd be foolish not to acknowledge the recent great play of second year guard Landry Fields and the always solid Bill Walker. Any of those players could go off for 20 points in a game on any night. Throw that in with Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler and you've got a very solid team that will no doubt be in contention for a top 5 playoff seed.

(Thanks to theknicksblog for this^)

It's freaking amazing how a second year Asian American grad from Harvard could lead an NBA team in the biggest market in the world from the depths of disappointing to championship promise within a month. All I know is if the Knicks make a deep playoff run, I'm going to be going sick. Absolutely bananas. I've been waiting a long time for this team to return from glory and escape the days cursed by Stephon Marbury, Isaiah Thomas and all of the other good for nothing players the Knicks paid unreal amounts of money for. LETS DO THIS NY.

Academy Awards Contest Preview

For those of you who check out of Music page, you know that Toph and I had a little competition to see who could guess the most Grammy award winners correctly. We actually did it way back for the Golden Globes too. We're trying a new style for the Academy Awards, which air this upcoming Sunday.

We are doing a movie/actor/director fantasy draft. If it sounds bizarre, it's because it is. Here's the lineup card we have to fill out:

Full-Length Motion Picture

Full-Length Motion Picture

Full-Length Motion Picture

Short Film

Documentary

Foreign Language Film

Actor

Actor

Actress

Actress

Director

A few quick notes, in case you want to play along at home:

• Any of the Full-Length Motion Picture spots can win for picture, screenplay, animated, foreign, documentary, art, cinematography, costumes, editing, makeup, score, song, sound editing, sound mixing, or visual effects. 
• The Full-Length Motion Picture spots cannot win for actor, actress, supporting actor or actress, director, animated short, documentary short, or live-action short. 
• The Short Film spot can win for animated short, documentary short, or live-action short. 
• The Documentary spot can win for documentary or documentary short. 
• The actor and actress spots count for both lead and supporting roles.
• Every award won counts as one point. Each spot can (obviously) win more than one point if it works out like that. 

We still haven't worked out the logistics of the fantasy draft but I'm leaning towards a snake draft. No word yet on who gets the first pick. Not that I'm worried - I don't think Toph has seen any of the nominated movies and he picked Jonah Hill to win in the Golden Globes Pick 'Em.