All Star Rosters

Last night the NBA coaches have picked 7 players from each Conference as All Star reserves and I was really disappointed with their choices. I know that it is imposibble to reward every guy that's been playing his heart out, because there are only 12 spots on each team. Some guys will be left out. 

First let's start with the All Star starters. I think the fan voting system is idiotic and should be replaced for the next All Star Game, I mean Jeremy Lin almost got the started spot in the West? C'mon NBA fans, use your head. I think Kobe Bryant deserves his place in the All Star Game, just not as a starter. He could have been picked as a reserve. But no harm's done, as Kobe will sit out this game, resting due to injury and I think it says a lot about Black Mamba's class when he said that he thought one of the youngsters should get his spot. KD, Blake, KLove, they all deserve to be in the starting roster. I'm not so sure about Steph Curry. He is an All Star, no doubt about that, I just think that from a very underrated player, he became super overrated. But that's not his fault. In my opinion Chris Paul, last year's All Star game MVP, should have gotten his spot. But that doesn't really matter as both of these guys made it, I just stated the way I see it. 

In the East I don't see how Dwyane Wade got so many votes. He barely played half of the games, so were the fans voting for him just because his name is Dwyane Wade? Or were they voting for him, based on the plays he made last year? Only the bandwagon Miami Heat fans know the answers to that I guess. I'm happy with Melo, LeBron and Paul getting to the starter lineup, but Kyrie aka Unlce Drew Irving is starting over John Wall? Are you serious? I could bet a milion dollars (only if I had that much money) that if John Wall was Uncle Drew and Kyrie would be just Kyrie, that John would get that starting spot. I'm a fan of Irving's game and of his personality, I really am, but this dude had been in the league for 3 years already and has shown no signs of improvement. Yeah he has the 'uuaaa' ankle breaking crossovers, but the man plays absolutely no defence! When he was coming out of Duke people were comparing him to Chris Paul the general playmaker. I still don't see the reasons for that comparison. I know Kyrie doesn't have the best supporting cast but I would really like my point guard to set up my players, dish out some dimes. Right now he is playing more of a shooting guard instead of a point guard. I think this is also a reason why the Cavs are struggling so much. Anyway, in my eyes, John Wall has been the best point guard in the East and he should have been a starter. 

Now let's get to the reserves. 

WEST:

James Harden - James Harden is most definately an All Star (he should be starting in place of Kobe), he is the best shooting guard in the league right now and he is also one of the best players. 

Damian Lillard - I am a huge fan of Damian, and have been following him since his days at Weber State. I love that guy and I am proud to see him make it. He and LaMarcus Aldridge led the Portland Trailblazers to the top of the Western Conference.

Tony Parker - I don't see why or how Tony made it to this year's team, as there are tons of other guys who deserve this spot more than he does (think DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, Chandler Parsons, Goran Dragic and even Isaiah Thomas)

Chris Paul - No comments, he fully deserves this spot.

LaMarcus Aldrigde - The best power forward in the game right now, as I said he and Damian transformed the Trailblazers into a powerhouse in the West.

Dirk Nowitzki - The way the Mavs are playing this year is really surprising and a big reason for it Dirk.

Dwight Howard - The second best center in the NBA (Boogie is number 1, deal with it lol) 

EAST:

DeMar DeRozan - DeMar is having a breakout year. Thanks to the Rudy Gay trade, he became the Raptors' first option on offence and he hasn't disappointed. Finally living up to the potential.

Joe Johnson - No, no, no, no. Can someone pleeeaaaasee tell me how did Iso Joe make it? Did the coaches completely forget about Kyle Lowry? Who is surprisingly playing extremely well? All Star level well? I'm shaking my head on that one.

John Wall - Should have been picked to the starting line up

Chris Bosh - Versus the Trailblazer, with DWade and LeBron out, Bosh reminded us of what he is capable of being the first option on offence. All Star.

Paul Milsap - No Al Horford, no problem. Paul is carrying the Hawks team right now and I'm happy he's been awarded with an All Star spot. 

Joakim Noah - The guy is the heart and soul of Bulls basketball, playing at a 110% every game, being the best player on the team with Derrick Rose's injury and Luol Deng being traded away.

Roy Hibbert - I am not a big fan of Roy Hibbert and I think he is the most overrated big man in the league. The guy is grabbing, on average, 7 rebounds, c'mon he is 7'2" feet tall. Plus he is scoring 12 points, which is ok, if it wasn't for his 46% FG percentage. How can a guy this tall miss more than half of his shots and grab less than 10 rebounds a game? Not an All Star, in my opinion.

All Star's biggest snubs:

WEST:

DeMarcus Boooogieeeee (Jalen Rose voice) Cousins. 23 points, 12 rebounds, a couple of dimes, steals and blocks doesn't get you an All Star spot? Then what does? Don't tell me that's because Boogie is on a losing team, what about Joe Johnson? DeMarcus has been playing some serious ball and is proving to be the best center in the game so he should be awarded with an All Star spot and I think he thinks the same way. All I can is that he was robbed just like Kendrick was at the Grammys.

Anthony Davis - The Brow is on his way to win the Most Improved Player Award and has shown signs that he can be a superstar in the NBA. He improves his scoring, rebounding and his defence, the dude is averaging over 3 blocker per game!

Goran Dragic - Everybody predicted the Suns would tank this season to get the #1 pick in this draft. But what happended was the complete opposite. Right now the Phoenix Suns are 6th in the Western Conference and I think that someone from that roster should be awarded for their effort. If Bledsoe was healthy I would have picked him, but still, Goran is playing amazingly and who thought that the Suns would be that good?

EAST:

Kyle Lowry - I already mentioned him earlier. He is one of the biggest All Star snubbs. Kyle is playing much better than Johnson and he is on a winning Raptors team.

Arron Afflalo - From a '3-D' guy, Arron really blossomed into one of the best shooting guards in the league. He is considered to be a veteran, despite his young age, on the rebuilding Orlando Magic team. This is a guy that can do anything you ask him to. He can score, defend, shoot threes, has a good post up game, he can rebound and create chances for his teammates. 

Lance Stephenson - Lance leads the league in most triple-doubles this season and he is having the best season in his young career. 

I don't know what's worse, the All Star jerseys or the All Star rosters? I guess it's the jersey's, I absolutely hate the whole 'sleeve shirts' idea. The players do too, the whole basketball community hates them. I just hope that this year's dunk contest will have something new to show. 

LeBron James vs Kevin Durant

Last night I watched the Oklahoma City Thunder go up against the 2 time defending champions Miami Heat. OKC came to American Airlines Arena and defeated the Heat, they dismantled them. Kevin Durant aka KD aka The Slim Reaper aka Iceberg Slim scored 33 points on 12/23 shooting, which made his 12th consecutive game with 30+ points. Now people are starting to claim that KD surprassed LeBron in being the best player in the league. I beg to differ.

LeBron Raymone James is and has been for the last 5 years, the best player in the league. Who won 4 MVP awards in 5 years? Who won back-to-back NBA titles and is on his way to threepeat? That's right, it's LeBron James. I don't want to take anything away from Kevin, as I consider both of them to be my favourite players. He still is the best, the most all around and efficient scorer in the NBA (sorry Carmelo). Even LBJ said that nobody can stop him in a 1vs1 matchup and we all have seen that last night, when KD shot 3s right in LeBron's face. But that's the only thing in which Durant is better then King James, that's scoring. James is an elite defender (one of the best in the league), a better rebounder, a better passer, ballhandler, he can take over games in various ways, not only scoring. But let's go back to his Cleveland days, when he had to take over 23 shots per game and did so averaging 31 points and winning a scoring title during the 2005/2006 season. LeBron can score too, but in Miami he doesn't have to, as there are other guys that can score some buckets. Still, right now James is averaging around 27 points on 58% from the field. Don't tell me that's not impressive. I think people got so used to seeing him have a statline of 27/7/8 on 55FG% that they forgot how unique that is. 

Kevin Durant's 12 game streak of games with 30+ points is purely amazing. The ways in which he can take over games, put his team on the back and get the win is something to admire. He really stepped up after Russell Westbrook's injury and his game tells us that he is clearly tired of finishing second. Right now KD is the clear MVP of this season, but remember that there are still plenty of games to be played and anything can change. Let's just enjoy the greatness of this two players and watch them compete against each other instead of their fans hating on them huh? Right, like that's gonna happen. 

Figuring out Anthony Bennett

It was Cleveland's 3rd time they hold the rights to the 1st overall pick in9 years, with the first two being LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. In this draft the choice of picking the right player for your team was very mind gobbling and Cleveland shocked us, picking the UNLV product, Anthony Bennett. The world was amused by that choice, thinking 'Had they seen something from that kid that we didn't?' Me, myself, didn't know much about Anthony, his game didn't catch my eye, but I was confused as to why did the Cavs pick him? I think they, themselves still are not entirely sure why they made that choice.

I was hoping to find the answer during the regular season. It turned out that this pick was a huge BUST. People are already calling him the worst 1st overall pick in NBA's history and well, it is tough to find an argument against that, when Mr. Bennett is scoring around 3 points per game on 25% shooting (Yes, 25% it is not a mistake). People ask themselves what is the problem? The guy shot around 50% from the field and 38% from deep and scored 16 points for his college team so what happened? Well, I think he just wasn't ready for the NBA. He came into the league after a shoulder injury, looking fat, overweight and out of shape. The thing I don't understand is why hadn't he worked out during the off season? Was it because of the shoulder injury? I doubt that it would limit him from any workouts. Maybe he's lazy? Nah, I don't know the man, so I won't call him lazy. But the one thing I do know is that if Anthony Bennett doesn't want to be remembered as one of the worst picks in NBA's draft history, he better start working and prove that he is worthy of the 1st overall pick. And if he doesn't? Let's just say that Kwame Brown will have some competition in "who was the worse pick". 

Now I understand it's not all Anthony's fault (Although most of it is). Cleveland did some damage too. The reason they picked Bennett was because they tried to be smart, instead of going for the easy pick. They passed on guys like Nerlens Noel, Ben McLemore, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Victor Oladipo, Michael Carter-Williams and Trey Burke, saying that they have guys on that position already. So what? Didn't they draft Tristan Thompson in 2011 who also plays the power forward spot? Yes, they did, but I think they forgot about him and that forced Anthony Bennett to play the small forward, causing him to shoot more long range shots, which resulted into more bricks and the huge grop in his FG%. What I think the Cavs should have done is pick the player with the highest upside, the biggest potential. Guys like Victor Oladipo, Ben McLemore or Nerlens Noel. I don't know why they didn't pick any of those players, as I think they will turn out to be very good in the future. Another option which Cleveland had was trading away the pick, which I think was a good idea. Kyrie Irving wants to win and some fans are already afraid he might leave in free agency like LeBron, so if they had traded the pick for some good assets they might have build a better team for Kyrie. But we can't say that for sure, this is all speculation.

At the end, what's done is done and we can't do much about it, but work, work hard each and every day. That's to you Mr. Bennett. I am not hating on Anthony, I just think he can't handle the pressure of being the 1st overall pick. I wish you well Anthony, I hope you will be able to turn that ship around and prove that you are indeed worthy of being drafted the 1st pick. Good luck.

The Sacramento Soon-To-Be-Kings: Part III

The Indian messiah also noticed the potential in DeMarcus and decided to offer him a contract extension for 4 years worth 62mln$ I believe, telling him that he is the star of this team and the team will be built around him. That's also why he traded Tyreke Evans to New Orleans Pelicans for Greivis Vasquez. it was a good move, since he didn't want to resign Tyreke but he also didn't want to lose him for nothing. I was very sad on that day, as Tyreke will remain one of my favourite players and I will miss his gorgeous cross overs, game winners and smooth as silk euro steps. Best of luck Tyreke, I wish you will develop into an All Star like you should have in Sactown, I will always cherish your game winner against the Memphis Grizzlies and will look at it as one of the best game winners of all time. We're going to miss you Tyreke.

The 2013 NBA Draft Class was completely different from the previous one, lacking potential NBA All Stars and Hall Of Famers. No one knew who would be the 1st overall pick. Sacramento Kings had the 7th pick and I wasn't sure who would we draft as the only player I really liked were Ben McLemore and Nerlens Noel and these guys were projected to go in the top3. But I guess the Gods were in our favour and as it turned out, *David Stern voice* the Sacramento Kings with the 7th overall pick selected Ben McLemore from Kansas University. Once again I got reasons to be excited for the upcoming new season.

I was really impressed with Coach Mike Malone and how he managed this Sacramento team. Malone was an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors the previous season and he was their defensive coordinator. Finally, a coach that will teach defense to the defensively horrendous Kings. To do that he decided to practise for one month before the regular season starts, in order to get to know the players and get them accustomed to the new system. I thought that was wonderful, at last we got a coach with passion and the will to win, who does not accept losing. I grew fond of Coach Malone right from the start. 

The season started and story repeated itself. The team keeps losing, but this time it is ok, as the organization knows where they were headed, they knew they are rebuilding. They also knew that some trades had to happen in order to reach the top. Our first newcomer was the former number 2 pick, Derrick Williams, the high flying, former Arizona Wildcat. The Kings sent Luc Mbah a Moute to Minnesota in return. Derrick struggled for most of his career and looked for a fresh start. His main problem was that he didn't know which position he should play, the small forward or the power forward. But the Kings needed help in both positions so it didn't really matter. DWill started for Sacramento and looked like he started to figure things out as his minutes increased and so did his statline. He scored a career high 31 points in a victory against the Dallas Mavericks.

On December 9th the Sacramento Kings traded Patrick Patterson, Greivis Vasquez, John Salmons (Finally!!!) and Chuck Hayes for Arron Gray, Quincy Acy and Rudy Gay. I did not like the trade when I first read about it on Yahoo. Rudy was shooting a career low 38% from the field and scoring 19 points. That's awful. And also,he is making around 19mln$ a year. Grantland's Bill Simmons called him "the Rudy Gay hemoroide". Everyone was asking the Kings what were they thinking, including me. But Rudy proved all the doubters wrong. He played only 15 games for the Kings, but he has already shown tons of improvement, averaging a career high 20 points and doing so, while shooting a career high 52% from the field. That is impressive. The only downfall of this trade is Rudy's contract in my opinion. 19mln$ is a lot of money that could go into someone else's pocket. As I am writing this, Gay is currenlty injured with a strained Achilles and has already missed 3 games, get well soon Rudy, we need you.

Let's focus on our star player DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins, who is having an All Star type of seaso and will turn out to be the best center in the league in the next season. Mark my words. Right now it is Tuesday, January 28th and the coaches from around the NBA are set to pick the All Star reserves. Boogie is averaging 22 points and 12 rebounds. He is playing like an All Star but I still think the coaches are not going to pick him. Why's that? Because the league made him play the villain role. DMC has a bad reputation with the refs and some other players, getting technicals at almost each game. It's unfair. Boogie matured, when I am watching Kings basketball and see some players pushing DeMarcus to the ground, elbowing him I think: "Oh my God, he's gonna explode and get ejected, f@#k..." No. Instead he walks away. I just wish the league would appreciate the talent that Boogie brings to the court and passion he plays with. He just wants to win. You know what? I'm going to say it: DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins is the best center in the NBA right now. Yep, I said it. Don't believe me? Watch how he is playing. He can block a shot, rebound it, dribble the ball upcourt and pass it to the open man. Which big man does that? Dwight? Dwight has been playing nothing like the Superman we know from Orlando, the injuries hit him hard. Roy Hibbert? DMC dropped 31 points on him and he calls himself Defensive Player of the Year? Marc Gasol? Nah, I don't think so. DeAndre? Nope. Maybe Marcin Gortat? Yeah, I wish... There is no better, more skillful big manin the league. Period. DeMarcus Cousins will be a dominant force for years to come.

As I am writing this, the Sacramento Kings once again have the worst record in the Western Conference with 15-29. But as I said, it's ok. We have to be patient. With the upcoming draft set to be the best draft class since 2003, I have to say, our future looks really bright. With Isaiah, Ben, Derrick, Rudy, DeMarcus (and maybe Jimmer) I hope the team will one day be called the Kings of the NBA. As for right now, all we can do is wait and watch as this young team blossoms into a potential championship threat to the NBA powerhouses like Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat or the Indiana Pacers. Patience is key, my friends.

The Sacramento Soon-To-Be-Kings: Part II

NBA Draft Class of 2012 was looking very promising and was bursting with potential. My 3 favourite players from the draft are Andre Drummond, Damian Lillard and Thomas Robinson. The Kings had 7% to get the 1st overall pick, so I didn't get my hopes to high, i just wished they would get the top5 pick and pick Thomas Robinson, a player which I loved in Kansas and for whom I shed a couple of tears after I heard his story about his mother and grandparents passing away. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up. As I wished, the Sacramento Kings got the 5th overall pick. 

The #1 pick went to New Orleans and everybody knew who would they pick, Anthony Davis, the young phenom from Kentucky. His teammate Micheal Kidd-Gilchrist went to Charlotte with the 2nd pick, Bradley Beal from the University of Florida went to the Wizards and Dion Waiters was selected by the Cavs. I was confused why nobody picked up Thomas Robinson, a guy which led the nation in rebounds, led his Kansas team to the NCAA, is super athletic and was projected to go 2nd overall. Fortunately my Kings drafted TRob. The first thing that popped to my head was: "Oh my God, Thomas Robinson and DeMarcus Cousins in one team? We will have the most dominating frontline in the NBA for years to come! Woohoo!" But yet again, I was wrong... Robinson showed glimpses of the dominant power forward,but he wasn't given enough minutes. The Kings were still in rebuilding mode, so why not give the rookie a starting spot and bring Jason Thompson off the bench? Nope, Coach Keith Smart had a better idea, leave TRob on the bench and let his potential go to waste. I was really dissapointed, because when Thomas did play, he showed glimpses of a dominant power forward he could become. Midseason came and Sacramento made another dumb trade, trading Thomas Robinson, Fransisco Garcia, Tyler Honeycutt for Boogie's college teammate Patrick Patterson and Toney Douglas. I could't believe it. Why would you trade your 5th overall pick who is only 21 years old and can develop into a really good PF?Why? Well to keep DeMarcus happy I guess. There have been reports saying that the Kings wanted to bring one of Cousins' college friends to make him happier (Looking in retrospect, that move looks even dumber, considering we traded Patrick for Rudy Gay). Apart from that Tyreke's numbers still dropped and it looked as we weren't going to resign him during the off season when his contract expires. Boogie still had some spats with the referees, coaches and teammates but all that mattered was that he stayed a King. 

After another dumb trade and losing season a new hope arrived for the Kings in form of an Indian billionare, Vivek Ranadive who bought the team from the infamous Maloof brothers, decided the team will stay in Sacramento and had already plans to build a beautiful new stadium. Mr. Ranadive is the man who will bring greatness and success back to the Kings and the team will finally live up to its name. Vivek brought a lot of changes, hiring new coaching staff with Mike Malone as head coach and bringingShaquille O'Neil who bought a small part of the team and will mentor young DeMarcus. Things look pretty well,down in California.

The Sacramento Soon-To-Be-Kings: Part I

I believe the Sacramento Kings could potentially be a top 5 team in the Western Conference in a few years. Their core of young nucleus is unlike any other in the NBA. They have a really bright future and since I am a Sacramento Kings fan, why not write a post about them?

I started following what's going on in California's capital in around 2010, during Tyreke Evans' sophomore year, and DeMarcus Cousins' rookie campaign. To tell you the truth they sucked back (and still do unfortunately), they didn't play well as a team, but the individual skills were there. Seeing Tyreke euro-stepping his way to the basket, or putting defenders on skates was a thing of beauty. And Boogie, who would muscle his way in, take some ill-advises shots, grab 12 rebounds, showed signs of greatness. You could compare them to a poor man's Lakers, during the Shaq-Kobe era. The biggest difference was that they weren't back-to-back champions... at least not yet.

At that time I didn't know much about the owner's or General Manager's role in a team, but I could tell that the Sacramento Kings were a complete mess. I realized that on the 2011 draft night when the Kings got the 7th pick and traded down to the 10th just to draft Jimmer Fredette and trade Beno Udrih for John Salmons' luxurious contract. I don't know why Sacramento's GM thought it was a good idea. For me it doesn't make any sense. Now don't get me wrong, selecting the big college star, Jimmer at #10 was not a bad idea, I just thing we passed on so many great players when we had the 7th pick and could have drafted one of these players: Kemba Walker, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vucevic, Morris twins, Brandon Knight, Klay Thompson, Iman Shumpert, Kenneth Faried, Jimmy Butler, Chandler Parsons. Oh man. Plus we got John Salmons who makes around 7mln$ a year and was never really productive for us. Now the internet and the media were pretty hyped about this Jimmer guy, who I knew nothing about, because I cannot watch college ball in Poland. But I could YouTube him. When I saw footage of Jimmer's games in BYU I was mindblown. This guy could pull up 3 feet behind the 3pt line and still make that shot, and also, he made it look easy. Many scouts predicted that in the best case scenario, Fredette could be Steve Nash 2.0, and in the worst case, a JJ Reddick 2.0. For a moment there I got excited and almost forgot about the fact that we could have had Kemba Walker, my favourite player from that draft. But then, the season started and as it went on, I started losing my faith in Jimmer and in the Kings organization. I thought that Jimmer's shooting would translate well into the NBA. Well, I was wrong and so were the Kings. Sacramento was losing game after game and lookes for help from anyone. At some point during the mid-season, coach Westphal put in Isaiah Thomas into the starting lineup. I had no idea who he was, and had no idea we drafted him with the 60th pick. Isaiah, aka Mr. Irrelevant, turned out to be a revelation for Sacramento. To this day I wonder why so many teams past on him, when he should have been a lottery pick. But that didn't matter, what mattered was that we finally got a solid point guard with high potential. Unfortunately this didn't solve our problems, we were still losing and were about to face an even bigger problem-DeMarcus got tired of losing. There have been reports that Cousins was a bad teammate, he was uncoachable, he was a cry baby and that he requested a trade out of Sacramento. I read about some possible trades involving the Celtics, Nets and the Lakers, I just hoped none of them would work out for Sacramento and hopefully they didn't. The reasonI didn't want DMC to leave is because he could turn out to be the best center in the NBA in a couple of year, he was a beast. The problem was with his attitude which was the reason why he was picked #5 behind guys like John Wall, Evan Turner, Derrick Favours and Wesley Johnson. See, a true big man is a rarity in todays game. Rarely do we see centers scoring 20-25 point a game, leading the NBA in scoring and rebounding, dominating each and every game. DeMarcus Cousins had potential to do so and as the season ended, Boogie was, thankfully, still a King but without his crown. Another concern about the Kings was Tyreke Evans, whose stats started to drop since his remarkable rookie campaign were he averaged 20-5-5 and joined the 20-5-5 club with some guys called LeBron James and Oscar Robertson. Tyreke had still problems with his jumpshot and didn't show any progress as his statline droped to around 15-5-3. I don't think we should blame him, it wasn't his fault the Kings organization had no idea what they were doing and how to take care of their players. Plus there was this still question raised upon Sacramento, whether or not the team will stay there or move to Seattle or Virginia. That can be also very troubling for a player, not knowing what is going on around him.

The Grammy Controversy

This post will not be about basketball or the NBA. Here I will focus on the Grammy Awards which took place recently and may have caused some controversy. As I logged in on my Twitter account I came across a couple of weird, some hateful tweets, directed at the Grammy's, espacially the hip hop/rap genre. You may have heard that Macklemore (the guy from Thrift Shop) won 4 Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song and Best Rap Album. Now the whole hip hop community/listeners (including myself) had a big problem with it, and here's why: because Kendri-ekhem- King Kendrick Lamar was nominated for these awards as well. In matter of fact he was nominated for 7 different awards, so I was sure he would win AT LEAST one Grammy Award. Well, unfortunetaly I was wrong. Now I know that this is not such a big thing and some people may have overreacted, but I still think this is something worth talking about. 

I discovered Macklemore in 2011, during the NBA lockout, when some YouTuber made a video called "Bring the NBA Back" and added Macklemore's song "Wings". The song was so good I decided to do a little bit of research on this new rapper. Back then Macklemore, Ben Haggerty, was an underground rapper from Seattle, making songs with his buddy Ryan Lewis. They didn't have much exposure at that time, I was the only one listening to his music and more importantly I enjoyed listening to his music. He didn't rap about how many women he slept with, how much money he has, etc. He rapped about life, his drug addiction, his beloved Seattle, consumerism, the pursuit of your own identity, he rapped about things that really matter. So I downloaded all his mixtapes and listened to them over and over again for like 3 months. Then I heard the news about his first studio album coming out "The Heist". A couple of weeks later he released a video for his new song from that album called "Thrift Shop". When I first heard the song I had some mixed feelings about it. It was catchy and all, but I didn't like the fact that it became so popular. I felt that he had so many better songs and people should listen to them instead of "Thrift Shop". But anyway, I decided to forget about that and wait for "The Heist" to drop. When the release date finally came upon, I quickly sailed to the Pirates Bay and downloaded the album. I was really, really hyped before opening iTunes and playing each song and I was really, really disapointed right after I closed iTunes. The reason why I was disapointed is because I expected to listen to some real hip hop and what I got was some pop tunes with annoying female vocals on the chorus'. Now I didn't completely hate the album, a few songs were actually good, Macklemore rapped a couple of good verses, but that's it. I do not consider "The Heist" to be a hip hop album, just because it has so many pop/radio songs on it. Sorry Macklemore, I thought you will be one of the upcoming artists which would change the game and save hip hop, turned out, you made it even worse. 

Now let's head over to Compton, California, to meet Kendrick Lamar aka KDot. The first time I heard Kendrick, it was on The Game's song "The City" in 2011, where he dropped some hot bars in one of the verses. I didn't pay much attention to him to be honest. Later on I came across his song "A.D.H.D." which really caught my ear. I was very impressed with his rapping skills, but it was not until I entered rapgenius.com did I see Kendrick's true greatness. The metaphors he was using were mindblowing and the message he wanted to pass on was so deep. Now normally I hate poetry in school, but deciphering the meaning of hip hop verses is nothing less than pleasureable for me. Kendrick's album "Section.80" is my go-to music right now. It is one of the most underrated hip hop albums of the decade, in my opinion. After listening over to all his albums and mixtapes I heard about Lamar's new project: "good kid m.A.A.d. city" aka GKMC. "Finally hip hop will get the classic album it deserves!"-were my first thoughts. And I was not dissapointed. Kendrick's new album has everything you need, some oldschool hip hop, and also some songs that can be played on the radio too. As I listened to GKMC song by song, I realized, this is like a movie without picture. This impressed me even more. Kendrick accomplished something amazing. Each song was a different chapter from his life, and that was Lamar's initial goal. He wanted to tell his story, but he didn't want to make a movie about him, so he made an album. It is said that GKMC is an instant classic, and I agree. If you do not know what hip hop is, listen to this, this is old school hip hop, this is rap. 

Now Kendrick may not give a f@#k about a Grammy like Eminem, we, the fans, feel like he deserve to be awarded for his briliant masterpiece. Someone on Twitter came up with an idea of creating a new category 'radio' and I agree. In that case Macklemore would win for the best radio song, best radio album and best radio performance. But what can we do? It cannot be undone. Fortunetely, I think we are witnessing a legend in the making, in Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and I hope to see more classic albums from him. While Macklemore? Meh, do your thing, just please don't rob Kendrick of any more awards, and stop apologing for your success. 

Here is a hilarious picture I found on grantland.com from Shea Serrano:

Get to know me

In my very first post i would like to introduce myself to all my potential readers. I am a 16 year old student from Poland, I am a basketball fanatic and I root for the Chicago Bulls and the Sacramento Kings. I love basketball, I love playing it, I love watching it, I love everything about it. That's why my blog will be mostly dedicated to the news and events occuring around the NBA (National Basketball Association).