Fun and Good Highlight: JV’s opponents are already dead

Look, I was going to write about Kyle Lowry winning the Super Bowl. It makes perfect sense to write about that here, the column focused on the irreverent, happy going-ons in Raptor-land. It’s the obvious topic. Seeing Lowry happy is a lot of fun, he does goofy stuff like this:

He smiles like a madman:

And it’s especially fun because this game clearly meant a ton to Lowry, he literally boarded a flight to Minnesota immediately after the Grizz/Raps tilt on Sunday to get to the game on time. Philadelphia had only one major sports championship in Lowry’s lifetime prior to Sunday (’08 Phillies). The Eagles had never once won the Super Bowl.

But here’s the thing, I know next to nothing about football. I like the Eagles, because Jon Bois, one of my favourite people living right now, made a great pretty good video about an old Eagles team who showed an admirable commitment to workers’ rights. I dislike Tom Brady because I think he’s a big weirdo. As such, I should have been at least somewhat invested in this game. It’s just that whenever I watch football all I see is a big pile of underpaid dudes likely exposing themselves to horrific brain damage. Then a ball goes flying and someone either catches it or doesn’t. Then they probably cut to commercials. The rules seem like nonsense, the stoppages in play are incessant, I just don’t get the appeal.

I’ve still watched the Super Bowl for the past few years at Super Bowl parties, but this year the vast majority of my friends are in a different city from me, at school or working. With no one to watch it with I simply ended up skipping this years Super Bowl altogether.

So, even though I just spent 300 words writing about Kyle Lowry winning the Super Bowl, a fun thing you should derive happiness from, I cannot write about Kyle Lowry winning the Super Bowl. While the Super Bowl was happening I was watching Paprika, the final film helmed by visionary director Satoshi Kon prior to his tragic death, and thus it is only fitting that I should write about this tweet:

Cam is absolutely correct. This is precisely what Jonas Valanciunas shooting a 3-pointer looks like. I can picture it now:

CASEY: Do it Jonas! Show them the power of the Culture Change!

WRIGHT: With our new Culture Change Jonas can put the energy of all his teammates behind his shot, allowing him to generate a shot so powerful it’s worth three points instead of two!

POELTL: One day… I’ll learn to shoot like that too.

DRUMMOND: A 7-footer shooting from way out there?!? That’s not possible!!!!!

But enough of that, HQ doesn’t not pay me to write intentionally terrible Raptors fanfiction. Let’s (finally) get to our fun and good highlight, which isn’t actually a Jonas 3-point shot:

Look at Marc Gasol on this play, he actually starts to move his slow, enormous butt out to the 3-point line to contest Jonas’ hypothetical shot. And once Gasol starts to move his slow, enormous butt too fast in any one direction it becomes practically impossible for him to quickly stop and then start moving in the opposite direction. This is true of a large portion of the league’s centers (Jonas included) and it’s the biggest reason why Jonas’ incredible accuracy on 3-point shots is so fun and good for the Raptors. Either the opposing centre sits back in the paint and gives Jonas all the time in the world to charge up his shot, anime-style, or they slowly lumber out to contest, likely giving up a wide open dunk.

Once Jonas gets the ball on the 3-point line other team is, in the immortal words of that one dude from Fist of the North Star, already dead.