When we last saw Miami, they shot 38% and had Pat Riley contemplating suiting up for the first time in 31 years. That was two weeks and 20 percentage points ago. On Tuesday they had Dwyane Wade back in the lineup and their performance ratings rose faster than Mike Huckabee’s. Never mind that Wade only played 26 minutes for them, just as voters don’t seem to mind that Huckabee thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old: D-Wade transforms his team from the Miami Clank Machine to the Hot Hot Heat. D-Wade is to the Heat what Accutane is to Jessica Simpson: he completely changes the complexion.

 

You know what I’m starting to think is the true definition of a superstar? The ability to bomb a long-distance 3-pointer with no time left on the shot clock. Think about it: all the great ones do it LeBron, Kobe, Gilbert, Wade. You pin them down outside the arc, isolate them with a double-team, seal off all of their passing options, manage to bleed the 24-second clock down to 3-2-1, and what do they do? Chuck up a what-the-eff trey that…goes right in. Only a select few can do it, and the effects can be traumatizing. Wade did it in the first quarter last night, and right then and there, I knew the "Heat Suck" party was over. Someone could have dumped pig’s blood on Gerald Wallace while he was shooting a free throw and I wouldn’t have been more demoralized.

 

Much has been made of Riles’ decision to bench Ricky Davis and Jason Williams to start the game, but Wade is the straw that snorts this team’s coke. He wasn’t perfect, he only scored 13 points, and he launched enough bad passes into the first row to make Carlos Arroyo blush. But with him in the lineup, the Heat regained their swagger and drive. Miami shot 58%, converted 19 Charlotte turnovers into 28 points, and stuck the dagger in when they had the chance by going on a 15-0 run that spanned the 3rd and 4th quarters. For his part, Davis was sensational, getting 23 points on 9-14 shooting and 3 steals. Meanwhile, rookie Daequan Cook became Daequan the Chef, serving up a fine cuisine of 19 points and a perfect 9-9 from the foul line.

 

For the Bobcats, it was the same old recurring themes: inconsistent play from the stars (Crash had 4 turnovers and only 6 points after the 1st quarter, Emeka Okafor had just 7 points and 6 boards, and Richardson had just 10 points, or 1 point for every $1.11 million he’s owed this year), a non-presence at the center spot (although Jermareo Davis (8 points) is making a strong case for 2nd Best Rookie Named "Jermareo" (after Toronto’s Moon)), and an over-reliance on outside shooting (we’re the 6th-worst shooting team in the lead because we can’t penetrate). Also, Raymond Felton’s got to be leading the league in the Most – Drives – That – End – Up – With – The – Ball – Spinning – Agonizingly – Long – On – The – Rim – Before – Rolling – Off – And – No – Fouls – Called – Despite – Obvious – Contact category.

 

And not to beat a dead horse, but Jeff McInnis’s season-to-date numbers? 23 MPG, 4.2 PPG, 4.1 APG, and the 4th-worst PG efficiency in the league. Smush Parker is after him on the list, coincidentally, and he was a DNP on Tuesday; McInnis played 21 minutes…I’m starting to envy other team’s point guard situations the way I imagine rappers envy each other’s G-4’s. I’m even jealous of Portland, for cripes’ sake. When we played them a few weeks ago, I was like, "Wow, Steve Blake, Jarret Jack, and Sergio Rodriguezimagine if we had them."

 

By my unofficial estimate, the consensus picks for the NFC and AFC Most Disappointing Teams of the Year have been the Rams and Bengals, respectively.  In fact, as a thought experiment, before reading further, ask yourself whether or not you agree with these choices, and why or why not. 
 
Done?  Okay.  Now here’s why I think St. Louis and Cincinnati have been disappointing in critics’ eyes.  On the eve of the season, most NFL prognosticators believed both teams would make the playoffs and—in the Rams case—compete for the division title.  The rationale behind these healthy outlooks was that both teams had good-to-great quarterbacks (Carson Palmer, Marc Bulger), wide receivers (Chad Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chris Henry; Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, Drew Bennett), and running backs (Rudi Johnson, Steven Jackson).  While the defenses for both teams weren’t great, weaknesses had been addressed through the draft (the Rams selected DE Adam Carriker 13th overall, the Bengals took CB Leon Hall 18th overall).
 
The fact that both franchises are now floundering—with no realistic shot at anything—spotlights the lackadaisically narrow view many analysts take when appraising a team.  Last season, the Bengals ranked 17th in points allowed and 30th in yards allowed, while the Rams ranked 28th and 23rd.  Other than the Bengals’ acquisition of Lemar Marshall, neither team acquired a significant defensive free agent in the off-season, and Cincinnati placed Marshall on injured reserve in the first week of October, where he joined teammate and fellow starting LBs Dave Pollack and Caleb Miller.  And though both teams focused on drafting defensive talent, considering the historical lack of impact that even high draft picks have their rookie year, both teams had essentially done nothing to improve themselves on defense in the near term.
 
So why did NFL analysts expect so much out of these teams?  Quite simply, most people—including high-paid experts—ignore the importance of defense, even though—as the cliché goes—it “wins championships.”  And do you know why I think they do this?  Two words: fantasy football.  According to some estimates, as many as 20 million people now play fantasy football—often in several leagues at once.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the rules, fantasy football rosters generally consist of quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends, running backs, kickers, and “defenses/special teams.”  The first five groups are drafted by fantasy “owners” on an individual basis, while “defenses/special teams” are selected collectively.  Thus, for example, a fantasy football roster might feature Tom Brady at quarterback (plus backup), Steve Smith and Andre Johnson at wide receiver (plus backups), Heath Miller at tight end (plus backup), Brandon Jacobs at running back (plus backup), Neil Rackers kicking, and the Baltimore Ravens defense/special teams.  Further, the scoring structure within fantasy football is such that the defense/special teams “position” matters the least, because by nature the majority of scoring in football comes from the offense.  While defenses do provide quantifiable results (e.g., sacks, interceptions, and even the occasional defensive touchdown), the founders and participants of fantasy football had too much trouble coming up with a method of properly integrating individual defensive statistics into their point-scoring systems.  Or they didn’t feel like it.
 
That’s a shame, because as crazy as it may sound, I really think a side effect of this derivative, pretend game (fantasy football) has been to marginalize the contributions of half the participants—i.e., defenses—of the real thing.  I really can’t think of any other reason why—when analyzing a weekly match-up, for instance—commentators will go in-depth on each team’s QB, WR, RB, and TE (and often even touching on their backups) before—almost as an afterthought—merely rating the entire defensive unit as either “good” or “bad.”     
 
Similarly, an over-exaggeration of the draft’s importance distorts our assessment of teams.  Out of the entire first round of picks, I count only about five rookies who have made truly significant contributions: Joe Thomas (3rd), Adrian Peterson (7th), Patrick Willis (11th), Jon Beason (25th), and Greg Olsen (31st).  Others have been steady if unspectacular, and about a third of them have barely even played.  According to Len Pasquerelli at ESPN.com, only 13 first round selections are even starting for their teams this year, and out of the 260+ total selections made every year, only 30 or so on average start.  Yet a rundown of each team’s draft picks is typically at the very top of every season preview.
 
We all love offense, and we’re all excited about rookies.  High-scoring games are generally more fun to watch.  I’m told fantasy football is really fun to play.  Meanwhile, rookies are new, interesting, and prone to saying stupid, thoughtless, highly-quotable things.  But sometimes I worry that both fantasy football and the draft are dumbing down our overall analytical skills.  Football isn’t all that hard to absorb in its totality in the first place.  Let’s face it, watching football and following it obsessively is time that could be spent pursuing more intellectually challenging endeavors.  We basically do it because it’s a visceral experience that’s easier than, say, reading a book or listening to an orchestra.  So by focusing mostly on five positions and draft picks, what are we saying about our attention spans?  They’re not even robust enough to account for half a football team? 
 
This all reminds me of some ads I’ve seen for a product called “Executive Summaries,” which boils down popular business books into 1-page synopses.  These uber-Cliffs Notes are targeted for “busy” executives who apparently don’t have time to take in the entire book and would really just like the bottom-line main points.  What’s sort of disturbing is the fact that these are books like Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, which doesn’t exactly reach James Joyce-levels of complexity to begin with.  Is all this hyper-truncation where society’s ultimately headed?  I wonder what might be next; perhaps songs that only feature a repeated chorus, or movies that cut straight to the shoot-outs and sex scenes.  If that’s the case, the pharmaceutical companies better get started on their Soma production…
 
Offensive Player of the Week: Brett Favre, Packers.  381 yards, 3 touchdowns, no picks, and a stretch of 20 consecutive completions.  To me, Favre’s like Bono.  For a long time, I basically thought of them both as cagey charlatans—Bono with his supposed worldliness, and Favre with his fake tears.  But now I’m convinced that both are the real deal and should be celebrated.
 
Defensive Player of the Week: Patrick Kerney, Seahawks.  Forget about drafting Seattle’s defense for your fantasy team, just draft Kerney, who amassed 3 sacks, an interception, and a forced fumbles.  Although I don’t know how many fantasy points that’s worth, it helped his real team win the game.                  
 
RIP Sean Taylor.  Between the spitting, the jet-ski related assault charges, and the explosive plays in the secondary, there was simply never a dull moment for this amazing talent and volatile personality.  He lived fast and died much too young…

I’ve had to wait a few days for the sting to go down before I could comment.  Man, it’s been a rough week.  I’m already naturally down on Thanksgiving week, because I’m a vegetarian and not inclined to celebrate over the mass slaughter and consumption of 46 million helpless animals.  The little “gobble” sound effects noises on radio shows, all the idle chatter about people stuffing themselves, the humiliating Presidential “pardon” of two turkeys who've already had their lives cut in half thanks to the genetic manipulation performed by factory farms…ha-ha. 

I actually do eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family, although I consume “Tofurkey.”  Relatives think I’m crazy, laugh at me, and roll their eyes at my irrationality before gorging on the carcass of an innocent bird that spent an unbearably short 14-week life crammed in a 2-foot cell, had its beak and toes severed without anesthesia, got pumped full of hormones to increase its girth to twice its natural size, then—still fully conscious—was hung by its toes while its throat was slit, before finally getting tossed into a steaming vat of water, covered in its own blood, and boiled alive—happy holidays, everyone!  Enjoy those leftovers…
 
Anyway, as I was saying, I was down BEFORE the Bobcats’ 3-game losing streak with results that ranged from merely “painful” to “soul-sucking.”  Like all of us, I’m sure, I was salivating with anticipation just prior to the Wizards game on Wednesday.  Washington was coming off a back-to-back, they were on the road, and—what was it, something else…oh yeah, they'd just learned they’d be without Gilbert Arenas for the next three months.  AND they wouldn’t have Brendan Haywood either—for Washington fans, the Haywood announcement probably felt like the sports fan equivalent of learning the Pentagon had been hit after the WTC went down.  Charlotte fans couldn’t have asked for much more. 
 
Instead, Washington rallied without their star like Teen Wolf’s team in the state championship.  Antawn Jamison (27 points, 12 rebounds) and Caron Butler (39 points) led the way.  I forgot just how fast Butler is, considering his size—he had two breakaway steals and excelled at getting charges called on people due to his ability to quickly get in position.  Meanwhile, if only Andray Blatche could solicit prostitutes as well as he filled in at power forward; the man had 12 points, 13 boards, 5 blocks, and 2 steals.  We also learned a harsh lesson in what happens if you don’t bother guarding Antonio Daniels.  (Answer: he shoots and scores repeatedly)
 
Don’t let the OT fool you: the effort was terrible, and we deserved to lose this in regulation.  Washington out-rebounded us 53-40, had leads as large as 9, and had 18 fast break points to our 10.  Only a series of weird fouls at the end of regulation sent this to an extra frame.  The chief culprit in our crime spree of laziness was Jason Richardson.  And as bad as he was (4-14 shooting for 10 points in 39 minutes), he STILL had a chance to be a hero when he drew an “and-1” with a minute left in regulation and the score tied at 101.  But he missed it.  I guess I should be happy that he drove, though, because it seems like he hardly ever does—why I don’t know, considering he’s got a good handle and he’s lithe. 
 
The loss to Washington was critical, because it was the only winnable looking one out of the three games.  Orlando was next, featuring Dwight Howard, who greeted us like a cyclone does to Bangladesh.  Finishing with 34 points, 17 rebounds, 4 blocks, and even 3 steals, I don’t know if Howard prefers playing as George, Lizzie, or Ralph, but whatever the case, he went on a total rampage.  The only reason his totals weren’t far higher was Howard’s poor FT-percentage (12-21).  If you’re wondering why Orlando’s now 12-3, look no further than Howard.  He’s so dominant that it really doesn’t matter if the rest of the team is a bunch of one-dimensional shooters (and not even good shooters at that—take away Howard and the rest of the Magic only shot 27-of-66); Howard will just grab the rebound.  And stuff it.  And run the fast break.  And rip Ryan Hollins’ arm out of his socket and start beating him with it.  Howard once said that his ultimate goal was to get a cross on the NBA logo, which—depending on your religious views—is either inspirational or terrifying.  In this game, he dropped a hammer of the gods on us.
 
At least the effort was slightly better on this one.  Even though we never led and trailed by as many as 22, we kept scrapping.  For once, Gerald Wallace was unable to summon his Claire Bennett powers, and a calf injury limited him to even fewer minutes than Primoz Brezec.  Outgunned down low, Emeka Okafor put up a heroic 12 points and 18 boards.  What’s alarming, though, is that Mek’s range this season has been even less than Anton Chigurh’s.  Unless Okafor is point-blank and armed with a cattlegun, he can't seem to make his shots.  Walter Herrmann led the way for us with 16 points, but they were largely inconsequential.  This blowout paved the way for…
 
…Boston.  My cycle of emotions during this game mirrored that of the doomed hostage cop in Reservoir Dogs.  Follow me here: at first I was basically just praying for a quick death, which I knew I wouldn’t get.  Then all of a sudden Mr. Blonde gets shot out of nowhere (or in this case, the Celtics go a full three minutes at the end without scoring a point) and I had a little hope, but then suddenly “Nice Guy” Ray Allen guns me down unexpectedly.  It was absolutely devastating. 
 
Making matters worse, I had to watch the game on League Pass with the Celtics announcers, which means…oh dear lord…Hi, Mr. Heinsohn, always a pleasure.  After 3 hours with Tommy, and lots of insistence on fouls against the Celtics not getting called, lots of claims about being unable to see anything, and lots of praise for Brian Scalabrine, I was pretty much an emotional wreck.  My personal favorite Tommy line of the night: “Needless to say, with a couple of minutes left, the Celtics need some stops here…they also need to score some buckets too.”  You’re right, Tommy, that was needless to say.           
 
Anyhow, though I still wish he’d drive more, J-Rich partially redeemed himself with this one by going 5-5 from downtown (although he $#%&ed it up with that inbounds at the end—ARRRGH!).  And despite being not particularly big, fast, strong, or athletic—actually, he’s kind of like Sean May, I guess, except without the injuries—Jared Dudley is playing some fabulous ball.  Subbing for Crash, Dudley did a little of everything with 11 points, 9 boards, and 3 assists.  He’s got a knack for getting open, he’s a good shooter, and he gets to the free throw line the way I wish J-Rich would.  And as Beanie Sigel is the general of the ROC, Raymond Felton is the general with the rock.  Anything I say about poor effort does not apply to him.  Ever.     
 
How odd were the similarities between this game and the Eagles-Patriots?  Think about it: two huge underdogs, both playing without their marquee names (Wallace for us, McNabb for Philly), both going up against Boston-based juggernauts, and both ALMOST winning.  A little too ironic, yeah I really do think…