#lust sans defense squad

[probablycinder]

💜Happy Birthday to Underlust!💙

Sadly, I didn’t have anything drawn for Lust or even planned, I’ve been working on my Lust variant (Willow) lore and putting everything together for him slowly and surely. So, the best I can do for right now is say Happy Birthday! :]

(Note: No, I don’t support the person who had created UnderLust, which is one of my reasonings of having my own take on everything in the AU.)

[fandomsoda]

Mild angst warning//

Getting so fucking sick of seeing people say shit about Lust and shun him. And getting so sick of people abandoning him. He deserves so much better.

[Pro/shippers and supporters of the original creator DNI!]

[glitterscale]

FABIANO FANFICTION (17)

Fabio’s POV

5 years later

 Wow, a few things have passed since the last time you’ve heard of me. Let me briefly summarize them for you:

-          First and foremost, Cristiano and I have found each other. Well, we kind of did. Even though you might have heard from the media that Cristiano has made three new children and won over a new girlfriend, we have confessed our love for one another. I tell you that it was an emotional and overwhelming moment for me which I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. Yet, I’m still with Andreia and he with his new girl Georgina, who is famously known as ‘big love’, but we’re all living in Madrid next door to each other in order for me to still be able to steal his apples (and more of course…). However, since the incident with Maria it had become clear to us that it was better to love each other in secret. Not even Andreia knows about us.

-          Apropos Maria, he is still at Real but his skills got worse. He barely makes the squad anymore which may also be a result of our new coach.

-          Yes, you’ve heard right. We have a new coach. Or rather a new old one: The one and only Zinedine Zidane. He used to be our coach one season ago resulting in us winning the Champions League three times in a row, however, he quit after the last season. Now, he’s back and stronger than ever.

-          If you almost stopped reading because you were scared that Mou was gone – don’t be! He is now our assistant coach. Whether or not he likes his new role is up to debate but more about that in the following chapters.

-          The new coaching duo Zizou and Mou have turned the whole squad upside down. The only remaining players you may still recognize are Di Maria, Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Varane and the German guy Khedira.

-          We have got another German import called Groteska (or is it Goretzka? … No, I don’t think so…) whose playing in the defensive midfield – be aware of his curls!

-          It’s not only Germans who made the team but we’re a very international Real Madrid in fact.

-          We have three Brits: our new goalkeeper Jamie Dornan (San Iker has retired ... or is he still playing? I’m not sure) who keeps saying that he has a very special taste. I think he doesn’t like fish. The other British guy played for a Real Madrid more than a decade ago. You may remember him as David Beckham. He is now working in our marketing department as he is too old to play football. He has reformed a lot already. On matchdays, he sells strawberry banana smoothies and after I requested it the menu also lists fish bone smoothies now. The last British guy is Ruben Loftus Cheek who has not only nice cheeks but also long legs and brown skin. He will also be a huge part of the upcoming chapters… Stay tuned!!

-          Loftus moved over from Chelsea London alongside Eden Hazard who hopefully every one of you know. He’s Belgian. He is short – but not shorter than me and quite handsome. I think, he and Ruben would make such a great couple. Unfortunately, their communication seems to be a bit complicated … Cristiano and I had better luck with this…

-          Zizou has pulled his strings and made the signing of a very promising talent possible: Kylian Mbappe who is French and young but very skilled.

-          The last two signings are the defender David Luiz and our new media spokesman Ingo Zamperoni.

-          Last but not least, it was the legendary number 7 Juanito who has watched our Club’s every move and still is!!

 So, now back to business. It was a rainy day in Huesca when I woke up early in the hotel room. (Yes, Huesca – I don’t know where that is but Cristiano told me that it was somewhere in Spain which kind of makes sense considering we’re playing in a Spanish League.) I heard the rain falling when I turned around in my bed to face Cristiano. There he was – the Portuguese hero, legend, and sex symbol lying 10 centimetres away from me. I was about to touch his face when someone knocked at the door.

“Cristiano, Fabio! Hallooooooo! Cristianoooooooo, open the door!”

I got up but before I opened the door I asked nervously “Hello? Who is there?”

“Fabio, you idiot. You not know my voice? It’s Sami”

“Who?” I asked. I didn’t know a Sami. “Khedira. Boy from Germany!”, the man said. “Ah okay!”

I opened the door and let the German in. Before I could stop him, he stormed into the room and stopped almost as fast in front of the bed looking at a very naked Cristiano whose blanket had fallen to the floor. There we were. Standing around the bed, both unable to move staring at Cristiano’s manhood.

Moments later, someone entered the room. It must have been Zizou because he said with a French accent: “Cristiano, I hope you don’t mind getting dressed and coming to the conference room? Now?!” He continued in a calm voice: “Fabio, Sami, please just don’t make a scene and go, too. I think Cristiano is able to dress himself!”

 I was sitting in the conference room with the good-looking British / Irish guy next to me. “Hi, my name is Fabio!”, I said. “Man, I know. We have been playing together in one team for a little over a year now.” Oh really? Instead of apologizing and fixing the situation (something that would have been impossible anyway because of my bad English), I pointed at my ear and said: “We must hear Zizou!”, to underline my statement, I also pointed at Zizou. Hopefully, the British / Irish guy had understood that.

Zizou started talking about tactics and about our opponent Huesca. I was unable to concentrate because I missed the breakfast and was lusting for fish already. It was when Zizou began to talk about the starting eleven that Cristiano entered. He looked around and targeted the seat next to me. However, it wasn’t the seat on the right taken by the Irish / British guy but the one on the left where Real Madrid’s new signing and promising English talent Ruben Loftus-Cheek was sitting. “Move!”, Cristiano said kind of rude. Instead of replying something, Loftus just smiled at him. “I said move!”, Cristiano said again. Loftus got up as slowly as he probably could and placed himself in front of Cristiano. The whole conference room gasped. Loftus was one head taller than Cristiano and therefore made him look like a child. “Oh god, just sit down. I need a seat close to the mirror, anyway!”, Cristiano said and went into the opposite corner.

That’s how the 2019 / 2020 season started. When we set foot on the pitch in Huesca the sun was shining again, and I was sure that this was Juanito’s doing. The appearance of his spirit promised a very exciting season ahead, of that I was sure. Yet at that time, I didn’t know about all the drama that was awaiting us in the upcoming months…

[flauntpage]

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human's ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they've already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It's here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human’s ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they’ve already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It’s here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[probablycinder]

! First Post !

Hello and Welcome to my Tumblr page! This might be my first and only post, (for now). Though, I may post more-so things of my character here, Willow.

Willow is a variant of Lust Sans and more-so inspired of another variant too! There isn’t too much about them just yet, but I’ll make and say as much as I can and will let everyone know sooner or later when I make a character sheet for them maybe, for right now, you get a close-up on their eyes and glasses basically

(Also sorry, I’m new to tumblr and don’t know how to use it well!)

[probablycinder]

I now present to all (or half) of you, half-body sketched Willow!Sans

I know, I know. I said I was working on a full-body reference, but it IS difficult a bit cause I am still struggling a bit to draw within learning how to draw poses and everything. Though, probably the closest you will find Willow’s reference is just by using Gacha for right now.

I also have so many more ideas but its gonna take so much time WAAAAAAAA-

I still love Willow tho with all my heart he’s my baby <3

(You guys could probably ask questions if wanted about Willow while I try to figure out what to do maybe, might show some other OC’s soon too!)

[probablycinder]

I’ve drawn Willow again :3

Here’s without the overlay

This might be my kast post for a while considering I’m busy-busy with other stuff I’m trying to do, sorry the drawing might seem shitty a bit or anything, I’m still learning to draw and shade and all that good stuff! I was even planning to do a Q&A with Willow but feared I would be burned out quickly, so you guys could just ask questions and maybe respond when I can!

[flauntpage]

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human's ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they've already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It's here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human's ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they've already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It's here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[flauntpage]

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human's ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they've already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It's here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits

What is the experience of waiting like for you? Standing in a line at the store, feeling person after person walk up to the counter and walk away, stepping forward, just sort of sitting there as time ticks by. Some people are driven nuts by this. Some people accept it as a fundamental fact of modern life and can distract themselves from the monotony by scanning magazines, thinking about candy, whatever.

Some people even manage to go a step farther and free themselves from the craving of the wait altogether. They stand still and observe their inner light, totally at peace with the line and its existence, allowing people to go without having the sensation of one’s life draining away bring them any stress at all. Certainly, I am waiting, they think, but I am also living, and this is a part of life that one accepts as one does all other parts of life.

This is a blog post about a Kendrick Perkins, who is standing in line, waiting. Perk is currently playing on the Canton Charge of the NBA G League (formerly the NBA Development League), averaging 12.8 points on 50 percent shooting, 8.6 boards, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 28.6 minutes a game, waiting for someone to ask him to play in the NBA.

Perk isn’t injured, or bad, or insanely old, or anything like that. He’s just Kendrick Perkins. For a hot second, in the wake of Tyson Chandler being the missing piece to a Dallas Mavericks championship, a sort of theoretical construct was assigned to Perkins: that of a defensive center who was older and tough, the piece a team needed to take the next step in the NBA. He appeared to be the defensive presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s dreams.

Unfortunately, Kendrick had a fucked-up ankle, was too slow to cover pick-and-rolls, and was an offensive liability who still somehow managed to manipulate Scott Brooks into giving him at least one post-up touch a game. He spent several years subtly ballasting the Thunder while the organization disappointed season after season, in ways small and large, until Kevin Durant left the squad to Russell Westbrook and his maniacal cult.

But Perk kept on working, the frame that people put on him, veteran, reliable, etc., etc., just barely waving around his large, angry face. LeBron James, who loves dudes like Kendrick—bad players with marginal utility who are willing to get into fights—got him on the Cavs after he finally washed out of OKC. Then the Pelicans, an organization built around the singular idea that being large and muscular makes you good at basketball, took a flier, and even managed to get him some minutes on a team that was comically shallow.

Perk never really got unplayably injured or any shit like that. He’s just… substandard. He’s big, but he is insanely slow, not that tall, his hands are no good, he misses foul shots. Kind of bad. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered all that much. There was a time when all kinds of big, plodding dudes commandeered NBA minutes because conventional wisdom was that you needed a center. Perk’s career started in that world, he signed a contract right as it ended, and then he played out the string in a world where that construct became more and more embarrassing by the day.

There’s a wonderful David Grann story about a 46-year-old Rickey Henderson playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs, hoping that a major league scout would take a look and see that, hey, he’s still got something in the tank. Rickey comes off as delusional but heroic, a lone warrior fighting against time and the decomposition of the body and a judgmental world that was all too willing to call him an old man. A baseball Don Quixote, in short, a wonderful avatar for a human's ability to never stop striving, to never give up on their dreams, even if they've already lived them out as much as a human possibly could.

Perk slogging away on Canton contains, truly, none of that beauty. It is a tenure lined deep with cynicism and none of the madness or joy that Rickey had. His team sucks in the G League, a league that is named after Gatorade. The G League is probably comfortably the fourth or fifth best league in the world, behind a handful of European leagues that employ weird auteurist coaches and the bloated, completely insane Chinese Basketball Association. It's here that Perk, playing against the kind of reedy little shooter who benefits most from being under the constant scope of modern NBA scouts, finally gets to live out the post-up dreams he’s lusted after his whole career, his heft easily plowing the small bodies of guys who are designed more for spotting up as deep as possible, which only impresses the most retrograded basketball consumer.

But it’s also the quickest way to get into the NBA, and that’s what Perk wants: for some team on the fringes, frustrated with its young players and haunted by its God-awful defense, to decide, beyond all evidence and reason, that the only solution to its weird, terrible problems is to sign a hulking mediocrity who won a Finals because he played with Kevin Garnett, teaching everyone that if you fly straight and, uh, play basketball horribly, you too can make way too much money while sinking every squad to sign you after the age of 25. It is the basketball they play in hell.

Kendrick Perkins Is Trying to Get Back into an NBA He No Longer Fits published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv