There’s something that you may not realize as you peruse through your routine 8-9am surfing of the internet:  Tonight is opening night for the NBA.  Sandwiched in between the middle of NFL season, the World Series, and Halloween, the start of the NBA season has approached us with a lack of national fanfare.  I was hoping to get blown away with coverage yesterday during my chill time after work (5:30pm-midnight).  I wanted to get so sick of hearing about the Lakers, Celtics, Cavs, Magic, and Spurs that I be forced to flip the channel.  It never happened.  In fact, I think the Tennessee Titans’ secondary has better coverage than the opening of the NBA season. 

Again though, I get it.  It’s not as dramatic as having a Tim McGraw concert on opening night like they do in the NFL, or a parade through the city like the Reds do for opening day.  It’s just a Tuesday night in October. 

In reality, it’s not just a Tuesday night in October.  It’s the best Tuesday night in October (Don’t forget that it’s competing against the 6th, 13th, and 20th!)  Dancing with the Stars fans may disagree, but that’s why you’re reading this blog now.  Four games get the season kicked off tonight, starting with the Celtics-Cavs and ending with the Lakers-Clippers.  The Mavs-Wizards and Rockets-Blazers serve as the mustard and mayonnaise on this great sandwich.

Knowing myself well, I’ll only be able to catch the Lakers-Clippers game at 10:30.  Providing that it’s a game in the 4th Quarter, I’m going to watch the entire ballgame.  1 am, here I come!  If anything, I’ll watch to see how much the Lakers bench resembles every high school girls basketball program the state of Indiana had to offer from 1987-1993 with their dance ritual.  

Need proof?

They’ve got nothing on the 1991 Bedford North Lawrence Lady Stars.  If dances on the bench don’t hook you, maybe you’ll tune in to see how Ron Artest fits into the defending champs plans.  I’ll put it like this:  I wouldn’t bet a dime on the Lakers repeating as champs. 

Will the Clippers be relevant?  Seeing that Blake Griffin is out for 6 weeks isn’t a good start for the Clips, but they’ll probably lead my NBA League Pass with most games watched on a bad team.  I”m thinking the over/under on Clippers games I tune into is at 25, solely to watch the progression of Eric Gordon.  In fact, here are 5 under the radar, young teams that have a chance to become very watchable by yours truly:

1.  Clippers (Eric Gordon, Baron Davis, Blake Griffin’s knees)

2.  Thunder (My top fantasy prospect, Kevin Durant.  Russell Westbrook is explosive and due to breakout).

3.  Hawks  (not under the radar in terms of making the playoffs, but in terms of no one on earth watching their ballgames.)

4.  Warriors (If anything, just to watch this team combust.  Ellis and Jackson aren’t happy, which could make the viewer happy)

5.  Bulls (again, not under the radar in talent, but Derrick Rose is one of the most watchable players in the league.  I think he’s due to replicate the playoff series he had against Boston for the entire season.  Oh, that’s right, I just read he’s out of shape.  Good to know he hasn’t changed his candy diet any.  Also good to know he’s the point guard on my fantasy basketball team.)

And now…my predictions for teams I’ll watch the most of:

1.  Pacers (I’m going to try and watch all 72 of the Fox Sports Indiana games.  It’s a lofty goal, but I’ll be happy if I watch 50).

2. Lakers (Kobe and Ron-Ron teaming up is fascinating to me.  Watching Lakers home games takes you to a happy place).

3.  Magic (Who knew how watchable these guys were before the playoffs?  Depending on who you are, the loss of Hedo either helps or hurts that.  Hurts for his loss of game, but helps for his on screen appearance.  Will Vince Carter buy in to the system?)

4. Suns (Until Steve Nash retires or can’t move from his bad back, the Suns will always be in the frey.  The loss of Shaq makes them completely more watchable.  If Amar’e Stoudemire recovers from nearly losing his eye, look out.  Oh yeah, he was my fantasy basketball team’s 2nd round pick).

5. Celtics (Is Garnett healthy?  Is there a louder frontcourt in the league than Garnett and Rasheed Wallace?  I’ll make sure to have my volume up and my lip reader translator with me for all these games).

6.  Cavs, Heat, Hornets – You never know what Lebron, D Wade, and CP3 will do.  It’s like a guy who drinks entirely too much every single weekend, only this is actually fun to watch.  Okay, so maybe the other scenario is too.

Well, there you have it.  The NBA coverage that you’ve so desperately wanted for your Tuesday morning.  

The only way I’d suggest going to another website for coverage is if you actually want good coverage.  For all mediocre coverage from an outside view, tune into the Bous Theory all season long!

In the past week, I’ve started about five blog entries without finishing one of them.  Whether I’m trying to be too precise in my postings, they’re just not that interesting, or I’m not alloting enough time to finish, they haven’t gotten the call-up to the majors to be posted on here. 

The last of those five entries was started during the IU-Northwestern game on Saturday afternoon.  I went to Qdoba around 11:40 to pick up the mandatory pregame meal.   This time it was a chicken queso burrito and chips & queso.  I didn’t get back into my car until right before kickoff, so I was set on listening to the first possession on the radio.  Don Fischer called the kickoff, a return to the 30 yard line.    One play later, it was 7-0 Hoosiers, after Darius Willis took the opening play 70 yards to the endzone.  I yelled out enough ”Wooooo’s” to make a cow say Moo.  Not only did I get to hear a great play by play man call a long touchdown, I also would make it home to catch the rest on television without missing another play. 

Before I even had enough time to finish my chips & queso, it was 21-3.  I called my mom to see if she was tuning into the game.  She wasn’t, which gave me great glee in telling her to turn it on.  IU was rolling and I wanted everyone to see it.  It was making for a great game.  Before I hung up the phone with her, Ray Fisher returned a kickoff to the house:  28-3 Hoosiers.  I’m pretty sure I woke up the neighbors that got in too late  the night before with a couple of loud “Woooo’s”.  The Hoosiers answered the challenge I had placed in front of them (not that they actually read what I wrote) and came together to whip Illinois.  They were well on there way to a 5-3 record and bowl eligibility with just one win in their final four.  My buddy Sears and I were texting back and forth, and had talked ourselves into beating Iowa on the road.  Here are some examples of texts sent during the great start ( I won’t say who wrote what to save a little bit of face for both myself and Sears):

“We are gonna be bowling baby”

“We are beating Iowa next week!”

“If we didn’t have flu, we would have gotten Virginia”

“Wooo.  Let’s beat these effers by 100″

“I like where your heads at.  We own Iowa”

“We gotta finish this game out”

“We will be bowling and ready to start building something.  they should just go ahead and extend Lynch.”

To be clear, I wrote “We gotta finish this out.”  I was then easily persuaded that we had the ballgame.  It just felt like it was over. 

Then Northwestern scored 2 touchdowns right before the half to only trail 28-17 at the half.

Here were some texts:

“Why can’t we ever slam the door shut?”

“The defense HAS to get a stop this first possession”

“If NU scores a TD, I won’t be feeling good.  Let’s go D!”

“Let’s go Hoosiers”

“I may just vomit all over myself”

“We are still okay.  Big third down here”  (For the record the Hoosiers stopped them on that big 3rd down.  They did not stop them, however, on the big 4th down that came after). 

The only moment of clarity I had in the entire 3 and a half hours was right after it ended (Northwestern won 29-28), when I texted:

“We got too pumped I think.  dog gone it.  that was going to be a great start to my saturdee.”

***************************************

What did I learn out of all of this?  Stop texting during ballgames.  I think we single handedly jinxed the Hoosiers after their great start.

Realistically, they got their great start due to big plays.  Once Northwestern neutralized those plays, the Wildcats were better.  I liked the aggresiveness of the Hoosiers to go for it on 4th and 1 at the goaline.  They get 6 there, and it’s ballgame.  A field goal there meant nothing as Northwestern would have just driven in for a game winning touchdown, instead of what ended up being a game winning field goal.

To me though, it looked like Mitchell Evans just tripped over his own lineman.  It would have been a great play had he scored, but made it all the more painful that he tripped over his own guy.  The playcall was shaky at best, giving your QB the short side of the field to throw in an already crowded endzone.  Love going for it, though! 

I think IU is back to where I thought they were after Virginia.  They’ve got Iowa, Penn State, and Wisconsin as the next three.  Do they come out and fight in these ballgames, or do they lay down?  In the past, IU has laid down every single time.  This team shows signs of being different, but not on a consistent enough basis to prove that they can win one of three. 

I still like their chances at Iowa. 

 I was also the same guy that texted:  “We will be bowling and ready to start building something.  They should just go ahead and extend Lynch now” and “I may just vomit all over myself” within a 2 hour window.