By Albert Samaha

Columnist

Albert’s Axioms Volume 2:

In my nearly 20 years of life on earth, there are four things I have become good enough at doing so as to allow for justified bragging, one of which I cannot mention in this venue. The other three are changing the channel back to a show the millisecond before a commercial ends, mixing a bowl of pho, and providing the literate public with these enduring axioms…

Axiom 1: The Atlanta Hawks are totally bush league. Remember last year in the playoffs against Boston when their shot clock wasn’t working so the PA guy had to count from five seconds and down on the microphone? Well in game one of the first round against Miami this year their roof was leaking onto the court. In game two their live hawk mascot escaped from wherever it was supposed to be and flew wildly around the arena, perching on the backboard at times. Come on Atlanta, it’s the freaking playoffs! Your showcase to the world! This may be the worst example of professionalism since Michael Scott accidentally leaked the photo of him and a topless Jan in Jamaica.

On a similar note, my buddy Jack and I shared this text message exchange during the hawk incident:

Jack: In the second round they’re probably gonna train it to attack LeBron.

Me: How many hawks would need to attack LeBron each game for Atlanta to win that series?

Jack: The over/under is 85. I got the over.

Axiom 2: Correct me if I’m wrong but is there a more uncomfortable forced classroom situation than peer editing papers? I mean, you have two options: help them improve their paper but come off as an elitist know-it-all or lie through your teeth and tell them you think their paper is great in order to save face.

Axiom 3: Have you guys seen this new infomercial guy? The one with the Backstreetboys-style head set? The one from the ShamWow Towel Commercials? This guy is younger, better looking, and more charismatic than legendary infomercial guy Billy Mays, whose long reigning Monopoly hold in the industry is apparently over. So basically, Billy Mays is Mel Kiper and this ShamWow Headset Guy is Todd McShay.

I do like the way Mel Kiper says Orakpo, though.

Axiom 4: Did you see that Rachel Nichols E-60 piece on Alex Ovechkin? Did you see the fear on the face of the DC Caps GM whenever he talks about AO’s hedonistic lifestyle? How many shots of Jack does he have to down every night knowing his franchise's messiah roars down the highway at 180 miles per hour in his brand new SL65 Benz? 18? 19? I guarantee it would be enough alcohol to get on the Wall of Fame at “Fred’s Mexican Restaurant.”

My new resolution: Become a hockey fan. After the AO E-60 piece my buddy Dane and I decided to jump onto this NHL bandwagon. We even looked into fantasy hockey. I’ve attempted excursions into the hockey world before, even going as far as renting NHL 2k6, and yet to no avail. Hockey remains a dark cavern of obscure regulations and oddly pronounced surnames.  

Axiom 5: Greg Popavich got knocked out of the first round just to see how it feels… stay thirsty my friends.

Axiom 6: The first thing I look at in a girl is her feet. People ask me why all the time. Time to set the record straight: The feet are the most ignored, rugged, over-utilized body part. If a girl has nice clean feet, then it is a good sign of her overall hygiene. So there you have it.

Axiom 7: Jeffrey Hammonds Theory: When you inexplicably dominate with a player in a video game so much that you start to think they are better than they are in real life. The namesake of this theory is Jeffery Hammonds because of his absolute dominance for me in MVP Baseball 2004. I was literally hitting like 2 home runs a game with him. For some reason I had his timing down to a tee; there was something about his stance that allowed me to just bash the ball.

As a result whenever I was at a real life Giants game that season and the Giants needed a big hit I would openly scream “Pinch hit Hammonds!” and everybody in my section would look at me with the same face Lo gave Audrina after she found out Audrina slept in the same bed as Brodie (By the way are we really buying the claim that they just “slept in the same bed?” Really? That’s like Tim Floyd claiming he just gave Ron Guillory a thank you card).

I’ve had this same experience with Al Harrington, Noah Lowry, and Carlos Francis as well. This year I have added some new members to this exclusive club: Giants first basemen Travis Ishikawa and Warriors’ Italian superstar Marco Belinelli.

Let’s talk some Houston Rockets for a bit:

Axiom 8: Shane Battier looks like JD from “Real World: Brooklyn”

Axiom 9: Von Wafer reminds me of Max’s friend in “A Goofy Movie”

Axiom 10: The Houston Rockets provide the best interviews in the NBA by far- they never fail to provide a ridiculous amount of unintentional comedy. Shane Battier may be the only NBA player who could quote T.S. Elliott in any given interview. No player provides greater insight into the game. Craig Sager is like a fat kid at a buffet when he gets to interview Shane-O after a game. He asks the rare fourth question in the post-game interviews with Battier. He knows he can’t pull that off with anybody else.

Then there’s Yao. Yao has great comedic timing. I bet he’s absolutely hilarious in Chinese. Regardless, he embraces that English is not his first language and jokes accordingly.

Finally, they have Ron Artest, the most entertaining interview in sports. He always has great anecdotes from memory lane, he’s always shouting out his boys and he always relates everything back to his neighborhood pick-up games. Also, and I mean this in all seriousness, he shows minor symptoms of autism- he doesn’t have the empathy of knowing the connotation of what others are saying and takes every word literally. Three highlights from the playoffs come to my mind:

1) When Ron refused to admit Kobe is the best player he has ever defended despite Craig Sager’s best efforts at leading questions. Instead, RonRon strongly maintains one of his homeboys from the hood is still the best player he has ever defended. Unfortunately homeboy is in jail.

2) When Sager and Chuck were joking with RonRon about his bad haircut, RonRon adamantly defended himself and proceeded to give a superfluously long winded tale to justify his ‘do.

And most memorably,

3) When RonRon told the story about his friend getting killed by a steel bar through the chest after elbowing a guy in the face. RonRon told the story without missing a beat, as if he were describing his choice of cereal. He so suddenly dropped the bomb that the guy died- the reporters didn’t even know how to follow it up.

If I could have dinner with five people in human history, at least two of them would be current members of the Houston Rockets.

Axiom 11: Doing a PowerPoint for class is like washing your sheets: it’s not really pragmatically necessary, but if you don’t do it people will think you’re just lazy.

Axiom 12: Recent Text Exchange:

Jack: “Attention terrorists: if you ever need to torture me to obtain information, keep my eyelids open and show me a full length commercial free version of 'Kobe Doin’ Work'.”

Me: I refuse to watch that piece of gratuitous propaganda about that swine Kobe Bryant.

Jack: “Yea I’m not watching it either. I lost too much blood when I saw a clip and my eyes started bleeding.”

Axiom 13: If Stanford is the capital of 7 foot twins, then Oklahoma is the capital of sibling power forwards, where one sibling is serviceable and the other is the best player in the nation. It’s almost eerie. Has anyone considered the possibility that the Paris sisters are the female doppelgangers of the Griffin brothers?

Axiom 14: So San Diego High junior forward and super-prep Jermey Tyler is forgoing his senior year of high school and commitment to Louisville to play abroad. What are the chances Sonny Vaccaro wakes up one morning to find a horse’s head in his bed courtesy of Rick Pitino? 12 to 1? 6 to 1?

Axiom 15: Speaking of ridiculously good prospects from San Diego, STDSU hurler Steven Strasburg is apparently a hyper-mix of Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Sandy Kofax, and Henry Rowengartner from “Rookie of the Year.”

Seriously though, in an ESPN video essay Buster Olney said that scouts claimed Strasburg is a “better prospect than Mark Prior was, even a better prospect than David Price was… He’s better than AJ Burnett Right Now.” A couple of weeks after Olney's piece, I saw a roundtable discussion on Baseball Tonight about Strasburg and an analyst (It may have been Orestes Estrada) said “Strasburg is already better than AJ Burnett at this point." Somewhere AJ Burnett is sitting on his couch screaming “WHAT THE #$%&!?!?” When did AJ Burnett become the barometer for the prowess of a pitcher? I mean it just seems so arbitrary. If Strasburg is better than AJ Burnett than he’s also better than, say, Ted Lilly and Bronson Arroyo, and Jason Marquis and, oh I don’t know, half the pitcher in baseball!

With that being said I am a huge proponent of continuing this phenomenon. Steven Strasburg is better than AJ Burnett right now! Pass it on! Tell your friends! Spread the word!

Axiom 16: Is it possible MTV is hyping Asher Roth more than TNT hypes up Tyler Perry’s “Meet the Browns”? 

And while we’re on the topic of MTV, does anybody else watch “Taking the Stage?” I always catch it on at like 3 in the morning and I am inexplicably addicted to it. It’s like how sometimes, for reasons that escape you, you are totally into this marginally attractive girl. You don’t tell any of your friends about her and whenever you hang out with her you pull your hat down over your eyebrows so nobody recognizes you. You don’t know what it is about her that draws you,  you just know that you are drawn.

Let’s just move on…

Axiom 17: I want Edge James as my strength coach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NteKBunLGys

Axiom 18: For 19 excruciating months Reggie Miller has tried enormously hard to get into the Kenny and Chuck TNT crew. All of a sudden Chris Webber comes in and does it seamlessly. You can tell Reggie has turned up his efforts a notch as of late, pulling out all the urban slang and corny jokes in his grab bag of vernacular. We all know that kid in our social circles. Reggie is that kid.

Who has tarnished their post-career image more Isaiah Thomas or Reggie Miller? Let's think about this for a second. I mean, we just see Isaiah as an incompetent GM and a bit of a sleazy chauvinist.  On the other hand, we see Reggie as an abrasive personality who’s trying way too hard to make you like him. I think the latter is worse. We can forgive professional incompetence and occasional misogyny, but we cannot tolerate social ineptitude. It’s too bad too because I love Reggie Miller. I guess not everyone can be the Glove and C-Webb.

One last thing on Reggie Miller: Reggie Miller has a mailbag… That’s it, I can’t let Reggie Miller journalistically out do me- I am officially initiating the Samaha Certified Mailbag.  I’m serious about this. Send your questions, comments, and concerns to:

samahacertified@gmail.com

Axiom 19: Rajon Rondo is the second best point guard in the league behind Chris Paul. Nobody in the NBA is more active on the court than Rondo. Rondo creates so many extra possessions for his team just by his relentless nose for the ball.  (Tom, I know you’re reading this. Remember the Great Debate of April 08: Rajon Rondo vs. Deron Williams. Are you ready to jump to the Rondo side yet?)

Axiom 20: James Harrisonisms you can apply to everyday life:

“No I won’t take a picture for you guys. If I didn’t have hands you would ask somebody else.”

“No I won’t have sex with you. If I wasn’t good looking you wouldn’t be interested.”

“No I won’t help you with your homework. If I wasn’t smart you wouldn’t be asking me.”

“I don’t feel the need to go to your birthday party. I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal to me.”

“I don’t feel the need to go to class today, professor. I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal to me.”

Harrison: “Excuse me Mr. President, my brother was wrongly accused of a robbing a bank in Hollywood last July. He’s in prison right now serving a 25 year sentence. I have a video tape proving he was with me in Pittsburgh the very same day, though. But the judges and lawyers refuse to listen. Can you please give him a pardon?”

Obama: “Well James, as far as I’m concerned you would be asking John McCain if he had won.”

And if ya don’t know now ya know…