Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Here's a new documentary on Los Angeles gangs directed by Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Zboys, Riding Giants), produced by Baron Davis and narrated by Forest Whitaker.

Based on this trailer it looks pretty promising. You can order the DVD now at cripsandbloodsmovie.com.

Steve Nash + Baron Davis = Step Brothers

This is an entertaining clip of BD and Steve Nash doing a spoof of the Step Brothers movie (which is great) that just came out. I have to admit the friendship between the L.A. native "Boom Dizzle" and the Canadian white guy Steve Nash is quite the intriguing dynamic.

Peep Nash's dancing at the promenade, it's the best part.

No wonder BD signed with the Clippers

Here is one of L.A. finest aspiring musicians, singing his ass off to Baron Davis before yesterday's signing.

Boom Dizzle must've seen this while he was contemplating that $65 million.

The Baron in Red

Yup. Boom Dizzle to the Clips by all accounts. Looks like it's showtime in LA, quite literally since BD and Brand are dabbling in the movie industry. This is a win-win-win situation for B-Diddy. He gets to come home. He gets to play on a more conventionally structured and already somewhat formidable team. And he gets to not have to commute so far for his other job.

You've gotta feel sorry for the Warriors though. Their whole game-plan and team were built around Davis' talent for fast-break shenanigans. Now they have nothing. Even on the outside chance that Agent Zero signs with them, plugging him into the hole left by Davis probably won't help the Warriors very much. Arenas isn't half the playmaker or defender that Davis was and definitely cannot compete in the Awe-Inspiring-Beard arena. Looks like another decade of fishing in April for the Bay area crew.

PS: Despite the plethora of nicknames that Davis has already collected, can we start calling him the Red Baron now? Please?

Where are the Clippers sailing to?

It's not easy being a Clippers fan. If you believe/believed that the Red Sox were cursed, then it probably wouldn't be too hard to convince you that the Clippers are cursed too. Their history is long and un-illustrious with occasional moments of success followed by stretches of enormous suck-titude. But their time will come eventually, wont it? Every team's time comes eventually...right?

Back in 2000, with my brief cricket career having just ended due to injury and burnout, I turned to basketball full time. I had stopped following basketball following Jordan's second retirement and I now found myself without a team to support. Because I had not yet lived nor even considered living in the US I was not tied to the "normal" rules of hometown favouritism. Eventually I settled on 4 teams. The 76ers, the Timberwolves, the Mavericks and the Clippers. Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett were possibly the easiest people in the world to root for and the Mavericks were easily the most exciting team in the league.

The Clippers however, they had real potential. They had everything I thought a young, up-and-coming basketball team needed. Quicksilver ball wizards (Keyon Dooling), imposing big men (Michael Olowokandi and later, Elton Brand), high-flying swingmen (Darius Miles and Corey Maggette), Dead-eye shooters (Quentin Richardson) and Lamar Odom, who seemed capable of doing everything his teammates did, and then some. There were flashes of brilliance and the promise of long-term dominance. Here was a team with all the pieces in place. They were young but they would grow together, learn together, win together. I was convinced that they would be the most powerful force in the league in the new millenium.

Of course, this didn't happen. Olowokandi was a bust, Dooling and Miles were injury magnets, Richardson was solid, but always attracted the "toxic to locker-rooms" label. And Odom. We shall probably never know what is wrong with Odom.

The only player in that group who really worked out was Maggette. Maggette has had a fairly impressive NBA career. He's been a satisfyingly professional and occasionally electrifying player in LA. Which is why it stings a little that perhaps the only way for the Clippers to move forward now, is to let him go. To not re-sign him when he opts out of his contract in july. Without Maggette's contract on the books and with Brand apparently willing to take a pay-cut the Clippers have a serious chance at hooking Baron Davis which could make their line-up for next season look something like this.

PG - Baron Davis
SG - Cuttino Mobley
SF - Al Thornton
PF - Elton Brand
C - Chris Kaman
Bench - Brevin Knight, Eric Gordon, Tim Thomas, DeAndre Jordan (even though he's the ultimate proto-Bynum right now)

That's a playoff-worthy team right? Barring injuries (which, considering Davis and Brand's histories, are more than likely) I don't see why this team wouldn't make some noise in the postseason. The bench is a little thin, but Knight is a solid backup PG and Eric Gordon looks like he'd be perfect doing what that other Gordon fellow in Chicago does. All they need are some last-minute veteran big-man free agents and they're set.

Maggette's leaving LA will be the end of an era in my eyes, but it might be the beginning of a new and better one too, for all parties concerned. That's why I'm holding on to my Clippers banner for just a little while longer.

Boom Dizzle in college

A lot of y'all didn't get to see B.D. before his knee surgery either because you're too young, you weren't on the west coast or you were just sleeping.

Dude was sick from his days at Crossroads H.S. in Santa Monica to ... well, he's still sick. But there was a time when he hadn't had a knee surger yet and he was on the court doing things that no one else was doing.

Here's a short clip of Baron Davis realizing his potential at UCLA.

Daily Dunk: Baron Davis

CrookedStraight fave Baron Davis has plenty of game to go with his sense of humor, and here he gives Andrei Kirilenko an extremely up close and personal view of it.

Gotta love Baron

This is a good play on the NBA commercials for Sandler's new movie.