Magical Look-alikes

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably either noticed or heard that Stan Van Gundy and Ron Jeremy bare resemblance. What you may not know, is that he isn't the only Magic coach or player that has a look-alike. Let's take a look at some of the other players/coaches for the Magic that have a celebrity counterpart.

Mickael Pietrus & President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert)

Mickael Pietrus aka Air France aka Peaches aka Mr. Injury has been a solid 6th man for the Magic this year, after losing the starting job to Courtney Lee during his "Let's see what I injure next" tour. The late David Palmer was the president of the United States with a backstabbing wife, a nuclear threat on his hands, and a career in All-State commercials.

What else do the two have in common? Looks, and that's about it.

Hedo Turkoglu & Leon (Jean Reno)

Hedo Turkoglu is the starting SF for the Magic. He is the master of the Turkofade, and will either lose a game for you in the 4th, or win it. Either way, he will drive you crazy. Leon is a professional assasin who befriends a young Natalie Portman and likes plants. He is also pretty badass.
What else do they have in common? Hedo likes to plant crazy shots in defenders faces, while Leon likes to plant...plants.

Brendan Malone & Judah Friedlander

Brendan Malone is the assistant coach of the Orlando Magic, and former head coach of the Toronto Raptors. He enjoys trucker hats with witty phrases on them. Judah Friedlander stars in the hit comedy show 30 Rock, and likes to give hugs.

What else do they have in common? See above, minus the hugs.

Tony Battie & Tony Todd

Tony Battie is the reserve "power" forward for the Orlando Magic. Tony Todd is the rocket man, and has scared children and adults on 3 separate occasions as Candyman.

What else do they have in common? They both scare the crap out of children and adults alike when they show up on your television set, albeit for different reasons. [see Battie's jumpshot and Todd's hook]

Steve Clifford and Superman: The Animated Series version of Mr. Mxyzptlk

Steve Clifford is an assistant coach for the Orlando Magic, and likes to smile in photos and turn red during games. Mr. Mxyzptlk is an arch enemy and sometimes friend of Superman, and has a very annoying name that you have to say backwards to vanish him to his dimension.

What else do they have in common? They both are involved with Magic.

Marcin Gortat & Duane "Gillberg" Gill

Marcin Gortat aka Warlock aka Polish Hammer aka he can be called whatever he wants since I fear him is the backup center to Dwight Howard, and destroyer of worlds. Duane Gill has built a career on jobbing in professional wrestling, and mimicking the "Goldberg" character.

What else do they have in common? They will both destroy you easily with their death stares.

You are who you are

I realized over the course of my trip to and from the Magic's victory over the Wizards that there are two things in this world that I have nothing but scorn for, and both of those things I'd never really considered: Tony Battie and the DC Metrorail.

The enmity for the Metrorail is pretty straight forward. It's inefficient, slow, they never have enough trains running, the maps of the larger individual stations make no goddamn sense, it's loud, it smells, there are no bathrooms anywhere, and they never seem to plan for major events, such as having extra trains running through the Chinatown station(the station directly beneath the Verizon Center) during and after concerts and games at the Verizon Center. This isn't exactly rocket science. But there I was sitting on a platform at L'Enfant Plaza, the biggest station on the Metro, for 27 goddamn minutes waiting for the next Orange line train. I'm convinced there was only one Orange line train running all night.

The other thing is equally obvious, but deserves some explanation. We at TPASTBM clearly love the Magic. We wouldn't update this site, or have even created it, if we didn't. But there will always be exceptions. None of us ever had much love for Brian Cook, for instance. But it's very possible I'm alone amongst our crew in hating Battie. But the truth must be told.

Tony Battie came into the game last night and was, for reasons that mystify me, tasked with guarding Antawn Jamison, who was already heating up offensively. I have several problems with this:

First, Tony Battie isn't quick enough to guard Jamison. He just isn't. It's like asking a penguin to fly. Total physical limitations will always beat out desire, and it's not like Battie ever seems overwhelmed with desire(more on that later).

Second, the story on Jamison has always been "Scores 20, gives up 25". By putting Battie in the game at the 4, and subsequently putting him in the position to be guarded by Jamison, we conceded the first half of that commonality, while completely abandoning the second. Why the hell would we do that?

Third, and most importantly, I can't remember a scenario where I've ever seen someone play so lazy and so irresponsible as a big defending the pick and roll than the way Tony Battie does. I say "does" rather than "did", because during my near half hour break between subway trains at L'Enfant last night, I remembered that I had a conversation 2 years ago about how Darko Milicic should be getting Tony's minutes during the 2007 playoffs, since Hamilton and Billups were killing him on the pick and roll due to his blatant refusal to make a show of any kind on the defense. I kept imagining him having the following conversation with his guards for the entire series:

Guard: "Tony, you have to show on the pick and roll. I can't run straight through a man twice my size,"

Tony: "I have to stay on my man. McDyess can go off for 40 any given night."

Guard: "Antonio McDyess hasn't been a threat to score 40 since the Clinton administration! Do your job!"

Tony: "Hey man, don't talk to me like that. I'm blue collar."

Guard: "No, you are most certainly not blue collar. You get paid over 5 million dollars a year, and you're not even that good at your job. An auto assembly worker is blue collar, and if they were as mediocre and overpaid as you, THEY'D be fired. You're just lacking in real skill."

All that came back into my mind as I watched Tony Battie blow a pretty basic assignment on 3 consecutive possessions. It's not that difficult. If your man sets a pick for the ball-handler, you have to show against the ball-handler, to give your teammate time to recover. And yet, there was Tony, not even LOOKING at Nick Young on 3 consecutive possessions, giving Young a straight shot to the basket, resulting in an assortment of fouls and a dunk that energized the home crowd. But at least Oleksiy Pecherov was never a threat to score.

And that doesn't even speak to his contributions on offense(minimal), his passing(non-existent), his shooting(ugly and inconsistent), or his general lack of interest in putting up meaningful numbers. Unless a rebound bounces into his hand, he won't get it. Unless the ball comes directly to him, he won't get it in the offense(and if it hits his hands, it's 90% positive he's shooting it, his lack of shooting touch be damned). He is more and more rivaling the worst of the worst on the team for sole possession of the "Worst team defender" on the team, which is one of those awards you try to avoid. I know, sometimes I get confused too.

And he's going to make 6.2m next season, which is more than Nelson, Pietrus, and Alston. Or if you prefer: Tony Battie will make more money next season than JJ, Lee, and Johnson combined. I think I need to go lie down.

Question of the day: Why is it that no one slashes into the paint when Dwight is double teamed? Those are gimme assists that we simply avoid.

Blind leading the blind

Tonight's Orlando/Detroit game is currently being aired on ESPN. In a nice little 30 second clip towards the end of the 1st quarter announcers Jon Barry and Kevin Calabro were classic.

Said Barry, "Tony Battie has been banged up this year. He has only played in 55 games." Let's see. First, Orlando has played 57 games so far this year. Does missing two out of 57 games count as banged up? Next, the two games that Tony missed were both DNP-CD. He has not missed a single game this year due to injury.

Just seconds before this they congratulated Hedo Turkoglu on his first child being born this morning. Only problem is... She was born yesterday.

Keep it up ESPN.