Have a GET REAL Holiday!!

Tis the season to spend time with friends and family and this is exactly what we at GET REAL will be doing this holiday season. Our team will spend their holiday resting up and preparing themselves for a hot new year in 2011!

We will be back with more of the GET REAL attitude- along with our opinionated sports articles on GetRealHammered.com - we will be bringing along some new friends like GetRealTickets, GetRealNutrition, GetRealTraining , GetRealSmashed and GetRealHotties

Check us out in early January!

See you in 2011

Happy New Year and Happy Holidays to all!!

Get Real Management

Andrew Bynum Is Back and Ready for the Triangle

With Andrew Bynum's long and attritional knee injury finally healed, the Lakers add a long and brawny weapon to an already dangerous arsenal.

At seven-feet tall and 285 pounds, Bynum is big, even by NBA standards. Which means Phil Jackson can pair him with seven-foot Pau Gasol at power forward, put a bulky 6'7" Ron Artest at small forward, have 6'6" Kobe at the usual two-spot and play a towering 6'11" Lamar Odom at point forward. With Bynum back in the line-up, Los Angeles is not only one of the most talented and well-coached teams in the league, it's becomes the tallest as well.

And while Bynum's debut seven points, four rebounds, two blocks and one assist last night weren't exactly spectacular numbers, his impact and significance within Jackson's two decade old triangle offense was unmistakable. His huge frame kicked an already well-oiled machine into high gear. And, according to Jackson, Bynum is "nowhere near 95-100%" and still has more than half a season to get ready for the playoffs.

At the risk of sounding too cultist about the triangle offense, depending on size and ability, each player in the NBA has a certain amount of "gravity" that helps defenders and creates small offensive opportunities for teammates. You can think of the triangle offense as a dynamic and reactive system of movements designed to maximize and capitalize on these opportunities. Moreover, with this system revolving around prolific scorers like Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol (and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the 90s), a player’s significance on offense can be less about points and assists than about the subjective spacing opportunities they create within the triangle.

For most of the players Phil Jackson has acquired over his career, and, in particular Bynum's, the triangle system waters down offensive weaknesses and augments strengths. Bynum may be slow and immobile, but he's large enough that he can't be given much space or allowed low-post positioning under the rim. Just mulling around the paint, he demands a huge amount of attention from a defense already scrambling to keep track of Kobe and Gasol. The result is that in the Lakers’ offense, Bryant won't capitalize on Bynum double teams, he'll capitalize on the extra foot of space created by his defender merely hedging on Bynum. Plus, when Gasol and Bryant do get double teamed, Bynum is big enough to catch a lob and can finish with power given the slightest window to the rim.

Like I said, the best team on the planet just got bigger, and a whole lot better.

High Basketball Player Suplexes Referee

Down in Desoto County Florida this week, a high school basketball player got a little annoyed with the referee over a technical foul involving some pretty blatant shoving with the opposition.

Here's how he expressed himself:



This is just kind of fire and competitive spirit we love to see in athletes. Because when refs make bad calls, or even good calls players might not agree with, they deserve to be pushed around and thrown to the ground like a rag doll.

Even though he'll probably be expelled, and maybe even arrested, this player clearly has a bright future in the world of basketball.

Derrick Rose is Good. With his Teammates, He’s Unstobbable.

The Bulls have won eight of their last nine games at home and now have the forth best record in the Eastern conference. Their most impressive win as of late was Saturday's cool 88-84 win over the Lakers. A few things became clear.

Not only does Chicago's roster look good, like two players short of being Boston good, but the strengths and weaknesses of the team's core players mesh in a kind of understated perfection. The Bulls' system revolves around Derrick Rose, a freakishly athletic combo guard who moves with controlled, almost violent energy. His athletic edge and offensive repertoire mean opposing teams have to constantly double team and rotate on help defence. This frees up players like shooter Kyle Korver on the perimeter where he's averaging 41% on three pointers, a cutting and versatile Luol Deng who's can draw fouls or power forward Joakim Noah under the rim.

Alone, these players are all pretty much inconsequential, but together they each represent a specific skill designed to capitalize on the kaleidoscope of offensive opportunities created by Rose. And now with juggernaut Carlos Boozer back from a hand injury, Rose now has his most unstoppable teammate yet wreaking havoc in his wake of disarray and auspicious momentum.

Only in his 3rd year, he's averaging 25.1 points and 8.1 assists a game Rose is putting up MVP numbers. Thanks to his teammates (and Bulls management) neutralizing has become impossible.

Will this be the NBA Photo of the Year? We Think So.

Depending on how everything pans without with the Heat, this could easily make NBA photo of the year. At the year least, it's a damn good depiction of what's been going on in Miami the last two weeks. The Heat have now won six consecutive games and swayed the fickle hordes of media jackals back on board. Yeah, GetrealHammered is right there with the rest of them, but with plays like this,

How can you not join the party? And the photo, well depending on how the next few years unfold, it could very well be one of those zeitgeist images that encapsulate the general mood of the beast, and where it's going next.

In the foreground you've got Dwayne Wade. Having left a pass for James to devour, has his hands outstretched kinda like a airplane ( a fitting metaphor) and kinda like he's saying 'This is what we can really do. See how easy we make it look? See what we're going to do this league, very soon?'. Behind Wade is LeBron James, about to crush his signature tomahawk dunk as he rises like Godzilla in space. Meanwhile, Chris Bosh is way in the back, out of the play, tiny and neglected. Just watching it happen.

This is Why they're Professionals. It was Game Winners Galore Last Night

Jesus. So this is what clutch looks like. Enough players accomplished game winners last night to make to make it all look like providence. And not a single one of them involved Kobe Byrant. Thanks to Derek Fisher.

Of the four buzzer beaters last, Derek Fisher's game winner was probably  the most impressive. With 3.1 seconds on the clock and the game tied, the 6'1,  36 year-old drove to the rim on the basis of an opening, that in the NBA, isn't <em>really</em> an opening at all. It's more like the illusion of an opening, or at the very least an ephemeral hole in the key that only a handful of players can physically cope with. 

Derek Fisher is not one of these players, in fact he is the opposite. And as a grizzled vet, you can be damn sure he understood how fast and hard the help-defense would swarm around his impulsive little plan. Yet despite the odds,  Fisher caught the inbound pass meant for Kobe, looked at the league's most clutch player gesticulating wildly for ball and beetled to the hoop like a groundhog. 

The tear drop was pure vet. The margins for failure were incredible. Fisher let the ball fly with 0.1 seconds on the clock, 6'11 DeAndre Jordan was a millimeter away from getting the block and Kobe, visibly mopping in the background, was pissed. 

Here's who else carried their team in a night that looked touched by the Man Upstairs....

The Knicks Are Actually Winning, and It's only Going to Get Better

While the season is still wet (we just passed the first-quarter mark last week) the Knicks are looking more and more like they've finally put their lost decade of failure behind them. With a win over the Timberwolves on Monday, the Knicks have won their last five games, including four on the road against the the Kings, Bobcats, Warriors and Clippers. The streak puts them at 13-9, a record strong enough to put them in the sixth slot of the Eastern conference playoffs if they started today. Kinda remarkable.

Hang around Madison Square Garden and you can feel it. New York City is finally breathing a sigh of relief. Gone is the city's perpetual squad of dysfunctional, overrated narcissists governed by weedy and myopic coaches. Here is something new, something refreshing. Something America's city of basketball can actually be proud of.

The Knicks rebirth can be attributed to a few key features. For starters, management's big-ticket acquisition of Amar'e Stoudemire is panning out perfectly. Stoudemire is averaging 22.6 points and 8.1 rebounds a game on 50% shooting. Just as critical, he's become a leader on a team accustomed to absconders and weak-kneed money mongers.  And, while Stoudemire won't be a true force until he learns to effectively (and consistently) create his own shot, point guard Raymond Felton will feed him the kind of passes he needs until he does. The North Carolina alum has stepped up this season and become a potential All-Star.  His 18 points per game and 8.5 assists make him one of the most underrated point guards in the league. As a floor general, he's calm and capable of controlling the tempo in a manner that suits the Knicks perfectly.

With new Coach Mike D'Antoni's blazingly fast and much questioned 'Seven Seconds or Less' offense, the Knicks are only missing a versatile wing man, a three-point shooter and a bulky centre. I know that sounds like a lot, but, with a core of Stoudemire and Felton, it's really isn't.

This is the start of something New Yorkers have deserved since Ewing became disgusting to watch: Victory and some decent jerseys to rock.

Ron Artest Devises a Theory of Zero Sum Team Play. Only it Doesn’t Really Work.

Ron Artest has been talking a lot about winning lately for one reason: it puts a positive spin on his reduced role in the team's offense. How else can he explain why his scoring, shooting percentage and playing time are all significantly down this season?

Promoting the basis behind his new strategy this weekend, Ron Ron lectured members of the press  on how his declining significance is merely due to 'Guys getting better. Shannon Brown got much better. It's his time to shine. Steve Blake is averaging more than Jordan Farmar last year and then Matt Barnes is probably averaging more than Luke Walton. So if you take all those points, those are points I probably could have had. But those are team points. The sun comes out when it's going to come out. You can't just force it. I could go maybe eight for 15 every game or something like that, and take away shots from other guys. I'd rather have two points and everyone else score. I'd rather win.'

Well, the first half of Artest's plan is going swimmingly. This season Ron is successfully averaging a career low 8.2 points a game and playing less minutes than ever. He recently orchestrated a masterful two-point performance against Sacramento, chipped in an effective four points against Houston and had nine points against Washington last night.

Except the Lakers aren't really winning that many games. They've lost four of their last six and LA is now tied for fifth place in the league and ranks a paltry forth in the relatively weak Western Conference. Artest's argument that offensive basketball is a zero-sum game is a cop out. Points aren't spread around, they're made.

If the Laker's start really winning and make the playoff run everyone's expecting, we'll reassess the the  validity of Ron Ron the strategist. Until then, Artest should stop talking about pursuing a professional football/boxing career, stop masquerading as Houston Rocket's Luis Scola on radio shows and start playing basketball.  

Did the NBA just Bail Out the New Orleans Hornets?

Every now and then the Big Business aspect of professional sports gets juiced up enough that it actually becomes interesting. The money extends beyond the trivialness of salaries and enters a realm where the real players think not in millions but in billions. Where the sweaty athletes chasing balls fade to black as men in suits slice, dice and mend the world into a better, more competitive balance sheet.

Today, the financial arm of the NBA confirmed its impressive plan to purchase the New Orleans Hornets from the squabbling ownership of George Shinn and Gary Chouest. Under the rock steady leadership of Commissioner David Stern, the NBA will, for the first time in its history, assume ownership of one of its teams.

While the circumstances and eventual consequences of the deal remain uncertain and opaque, this morning's slew of interviews and press releases has cleared up a few things.

1) While the NBA has yet to make a detailed offer for the Hornets, Stern and his legion of investment banker have valued the team at upwards of $300 million; an amount the league has made clear they're more than willing to pay.

2) The league was essentially forced into the deal after negotiations between Chouest and Shinn fell through, leaving the financially floundering Hornets on the brink of either collapsing or being relocated to another city.

3) The NBA will maintain ownership of the Hornets until a buyer emerges who intends to keep the team in much belaguered New Orleans. Had the NBA not stepped in with its offer, the Hornets would have likely been sold to business interests with plans of moving the team to either Anaheim, Kansas City or Seattle.

5) The league has been working closely with city officials and the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, to ensure that the Katrina-ravished New Orleans maintains a professional sports team as it reconstructs itself.

6) The NBA is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars off this deal. Because anybody who knows anything about buying assets, (whether they be basketball teams or securities) knows that the best time to buy is in crappy, repressed markets at low prices and the best time to sell is in booming, bullish markets at high prices.

At the tail end of a one of the most pesimistic markets in history, the NBA has has just scooped up a huge asset at a bargain price.  It also helps that during this period, the NBA will likely sign a collective bargaining agreement designed to maximize ownership profits and institute a revenue sharing system which essentially guarantees  a minimum of $10 million in profit for each and every team. Compound the new CBA with a robust economic climate and the value of the Hornets franchise will soar.

The strategy, while new to the NBA isn't unprecended for professional sports leagues. In 2002 the MLB scooped up the tanking Montreal Expos for the bargain rate of $120 million and  quickly sold it to the Washington National for $450 million only 4 years later.

The NBA and do the same thing. And make sure New Orleans keeps a team in needs in the process.

Steve Nash's Bounce Pass is like Crack for Hakim Warrick

In Sunday's Phoenix-Washington game, Hakim Warrick delivered another sledgehammer dunk off a Steve Nash pick & roll bounce pass.



While Warrick has averaged a modest 10ppg playing for Memphis, Chicago and Milwaukee, he's forming an interesting groove in Phoenix with its skipper Steve Nash.

Warrick's wiry 6'9 frame and quick hands let him explode to the rim, almost as if he's uncoiling. Catching a pick & roll pass on the go, his lankiness allows him to cock the ball back, giving him enough time to gather his momentum as he hurls himself towards the rim.

The key to optimizing this kind of a Steve Nash pick & roll is an ability for the receiver to essentially deal with whatever stands between them and the rim.

Much like Amar'e, Warrick has proven he can do just that.







Great off-season pick up. Phoenix management proves astute again.

Read his Lips: Cavaliers Coach Tells LeBron James to 'Shut the F*** Up'

LeBronocalypse was avoided and the city of Cleveland still stands. Even with LeBron pounding the Cavaliers like a pile of raw hamburger and the Heat winning 118-90, nothing was thrown, nothing was torched. All in all, it was a pretty boring game.

But people did have things to say, including a Cavaliers assistant coach who very clearly tells James to STFU after some trash talking near the Cleveland bench.



Unfortunately it was pretty much the only ballsy thing the Cavs pulled last night, and I don't even think LeBron noticed. Oh yeah, Mo Williams sort of snubbed James at the beginning of the third quarter.



Boy, revenge sure is sweet.

The Cavaliers owed it to their indignant fans to provoke and harass LeBron; to at least make it look like he had a target on his back. A slew of hard fouls, some trash talking and a little bit of Detroit Pistons late 80s violence would have sufficed. STFU probably gets thrown around every three minutes in the NBA, and Mo Williams acting like an ex-girlfriend just didn't cut it.

Greatest Dunk in the History of Israel?

Damn, maybe we need to start watching more Euro league basketball. Former Gonzaga star Jeremy Pargo breaks his defender's ankles, parts the defence like Moses and bangs on a 7-footer with American wrath. Chicago's not quite finest gets it down for the Tel Aviv Maccabi.

Will Tonight Be Lebronageddon in Cleveland?

Tonight LeBron James will spend 48 minutes playing in front of the most pugnacious crowd in NBA history. With the sun down and a dark wind coming off Lake Erie, the Q Arena will become a raving tinderbox filled to the brim with booze soaked Clevelanders. They will be armed with vile chants, projectiles and the Midwestern disposition of having nothing to lose.

Bars are being filled as we speak. Already, office workers have slipped into utility closets to sip gin and sharpen the ends of broomsticks. In outer borrows, women are stitching together elaborate effigies while bearded men drink cheap beer and watch taped versions of The Decision. Ticketless suburbanites and hooligans are busy planning the nights activities; mainly jersey burning, looting and bus attacking. 'How to make a molotov cocktail' has likely been Googled.



An American city hasn't been so united in hate for years. For it to come together in a pulseless place like Cleveland will be a spectacle to behold. That its citizens suffered a half-century of sports failure only to be abandoned with such ostentatious disregard at a very real moment of hope has been compounded by years of economic hardship. Cavalier fans are not only feeling hurt and angry, they're feeling helpless.

Except for tonight which makes it so dangerous.

The NBA's going to wish they scheduled this one for a Tuesday night.

Dunk You Very Much. Blake Griffin's Top 10 Dunks Are Out

The popular thing to do right now is recommend Griffin for the dunk contest. But given he specializes more in dunking with power (like a gorilla) than with flaying limbs (like a pterodactyl) we're not sure he's got the repertoire. Dunk contests are typically won by lanky small forwards, dwarfish guards and Dwight Howard, not by 6'10 250 lbs power forwards. This kid's game looks increasingly groundbreaking with every play, so who knows what we'll get come All-Star Weekend.

Here he is winning the McDonald's All American Dunk contest way back in 2007



But NBA dunk contest or not, there's going to be plenty of Blake Griffin dunks to go around.

Allen Iverson Starts Hocking Personal Belongings on eBay

As a professional athlete's financial situation implodes, they inevitably turn to pawning their personal belonging to raise cash. Allen Iverson has decided to use eBay. The 'Iverson Authentic' store is now open and selling things like the jersey from his first game in Turkey, a collection of signed Reebok shoes, the arm sleeves he made so famous, an autographed Michael Jordan White Sox Jersey and entire NBA uniforms, warm-up gear and all.

I don't know what's worse; that fact one of the NBA's modern legacies is so broke he has an eBay account, or that by buying his stuff, you're actually helping him out.

First he gets shunned from the NBA, then he signs in Turkey and now he's peddling his own second-hand shoes. There's a pattern here. It's called disintegration.

Kevin McHale Learns why He Shouldn't Make Weird Anthrax Jokes on NBA TV

Kevin McHale's LeBron/anthrax joke
Kevin, it doesn't matter how many accolades you won with Boston, you still can't drop weird jokes on TV about LeBron James spraying anthrax into NBA crowds. It just doesn't work. Webb seems to find it funny, chuckling right through to the commercial break, but he probably couldn't think of anything to say. Weirdo Ernie Johnson doesn't do much, mumbling something about ignoring McHale next time he sees him. Another stellar performance from the team at Turner Broadcasting.

Old Gods Will Crumble in Dallas

Despite Dallas handing Miami another loss this Saturday and improving their record to 12-4 (third-best in the league behind only the Lakers and Spurs) the Mavericks have garnered little attention or hype.

And rightfully so.

Because while a team stocked with Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion and All-Star Dirk Nowitzki might sound like a Boston-Los Angeles style powerhouse and finals contender, it’s not.

The Mavericks are just too damn old.

Jason Terry and Shawn Marion have been in the league for 11 years, Jason Kidd a whopping 16. This’ll be Dirk’s 12th year in the NBA and Caron Butler’s 8th. Though drafted straight from high school, Tyson Chandler is now in his 9th year as a pro.

Yes, Boston is a case where age acts more as an asset than a hindrance (Ray Allen is in his 14th year, Kevin Garnett his 15th, Shaq his 18th and Paul Pierce his 12th). But, unlike the Mavs, the Celtics and its Old Core specialize in long-range shooting and low post footwork; things that tend to get better with age. They also have a lightning-quick and intelligent point guard in Rajon Rondo and young, energetic guards like Nate Robinson and Delonte West coming off the bench.

Dallas’ bench is as weak as its starters are old and most of the team’s core assets (with the exception of Dirk) are players whose ability lies in speed and athleticism; the first things to go with age.

So while they might look good now:


Rest assured, an entire season without decent substitution will take its toll on the German Messiah and his flock of weak knees.