The Side Part: Breathing through a straw

USATSI

1.

Whenever I was in middle school they would sometimes trot out people to our classes for anti-tobacco demonstrations. They’d show you pictures of your lungs after years of cigarettes. They’d show people whose jaws were rotting away from all the chew.

They’d do this thing where they passed out straws to everyone in the room, have you put one in your mouth, then ask you to try to breathe. It was hard. The person presenting would then tell you that’s what it’d be like to breathe after a lifetime of smoking. Then you’d take the straw out and take full and deep breaths. Then you’d have a lot more “Just Say No” rugs throughout the school. This is sort of what it feels like to have Durant and Westbrook back. Fresh air again!

Regardless of the loss, it was great to see them moving together again. It was like getting together with old friends and realizing they’re still just as funny as they always were. All the inside jokes still have legs and it’s still a really good time to make fun of those people you used to make fun of.

Watching Durant come off pin-downs and pour in jumpers at the elbow was some kind of very happy reunion. Nobody got fat! His wife is pretty cool and I don’t mind hanging out with her! That jumper, how he Last Dunk In Space Jams his arm when it’s released…makes you feel good. Made me Burgundy out a little bit.

2.

I’m in a Facebook group called The Stromile Swift Almanac with several people. The cover photo for the group is an old poster with Larry Bird titled “Bird’s Nest” where he’s wearing Cons and sitting on a big bird’s nest that’s resting on the rim of a goal. Or that was the picture. It’s since switched to a Christmas themed Microsoft Paint-ed picture of Monta Ellis. “I saw Monta kissing Santa Claus!!” is the caption. Mike Kelly is the pun master.

It’s a place for a bunch of NBA fans who sort of know each other, sometimes not, to post things they see that they think the group would think are cool. Pictures of Metta’s panda shoes, discussions on whether or not that Hinrich foul is the dumbest in recent memory (it isn’t), crowd-sourcing whether or not it’s just okay to become a big Warriors fan right now because of how fun they are, so on. But then sometimes people get downright offensive.

A sample of the silliness: Is this a safe place to say you think Kyle Lowry is the best point guard in the league? Like better than Steph Curry and Chris Paul.

I responded with something along the lines of, “What about Russell Westbrook?” and I was met with, “I don’t view him as a PG,” and now we’re all in the midst of a discussion of the positional revolution and I’m comparing Westbrook to a brick wall on wheels, rolling down hill.

Tyler Parker’s Side Part runs every Thursday. Follow him on Twitter.