NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: Texans, porn stars, and The Legion of Super-Heroes
Aug 15, 2019, 6:15 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
The week is winding down and we're coming up on the weekend, you ready?
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
Last week while talking about the Gulf Coast Blood Center, the good people reached out to me and pointed me to another awesome thing they're doing so I thought I'd bring it to your attention now. The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center is working with Team Liquid through the year and eligible people can win an Alienware Aurora Computer valued at $800. The campaign is called Heal For Real, and I like it. Get involved today.
OVERWATCH UPDATES
I haven't written about the Overwatch League lately because it was going very well for Houston and I didn't want to jinx it but the last few weeks have turned against them and we're back to our losing ways. After making the playoffs in Stage 3, we are now tied for 17th out of 20 in this Stage and are basically done for the year. The team has gone through a lot, including being sold twice, the ownership sold to a group that already owned an Overwatch team and therefore they agreed to run The Outlaws until they could find a new ownership group for them. They were sold again for $40 million dollars about a month ago and since then the losing has picked up again.
DALLAS ISN'T ALONE
The Texans can't figure out how to resolve the Clowney problem. Essentially what it boils down to is that now because they have missed the date to negotiate a long term deal with Clowney who has a franchise tag offer currently unsigned, he has a rather untradeable contract number. The goal now sounds like they are looking for offensive tackles and they would trade Clowney for the tackle who hopefully has a similar contract number. The problem is there aren't a lot of high priced tackles that teams are looking to trade away, mostly because high valued tackles are a lot like high value pass rushers, they're hard to come by. While plenty of teams would love to have Clowney for the right price, they might not be able to accommodate the roughly $16 million dollar cap charge for this season even if they had players to give up in a trade. This is a mess.
THE RETURN OF LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES
DC Comics and mega star writer Brian Michael Bendis are on the verge of bringing back one of the oldest and most confusing franchises in DC comics, The Legion of Super-Heroes. The massive team of super powered teens from across the universe, who work to keep the year 31st century safe by protecting the entire collection of United Planets. Because the team is based out of the future, their story has been restarted a couple of times due to large events during the history of various DC events. Changing costumes and characters and line ups and the stories that are told, the Legion has had several different looks and themes over the years. It's been several years since they've been featured and their last run ended quietly and there was a peep of some of these characters when DC did the Rebirth launch by having a few members of the team stranded in current times, however they never followed up with any of those storylines.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
Former porn actress Mia Khalifa revealed that in the three months she made adult films, she only earned about $12,000. Which isn't a lot of money and the notoriety has been linked to her forever. While she has been able to pivot all of this into a career of sorts as a "famous person" like so many others these days, she stated how limiting it had been job wise. Now I've seen before where she's bailed on interviews or gotten upset because they mention the adult films in her intro pre interview and honestly, I was always exasperated with her. It's the thing that kind of "broke" her into the scene and made it possible to write about whatever else she was doing or promoting at the time because she was already a "known" quantity and that's how this game works in a lot of ways. I don't have Johnny on the street on my radio show, I have people with a value to our topic on the show and those are going to be people established or relevant in some way. The thing that broke her in was adult films and honestly the better and more honest advice is embrace and pivot which it looks like she is finally doing. Good luck Mia.
Feel free to check out my brand new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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There was a conversation Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell had during training camp, the topic being all the teams that were generating the most preseason buzz in the Eastern Conference. Boston was coming off an NBA championship. New York got Karl-Anthony Towns. Philadelphia added Paul George.
The Cavs? Not a big topic in early October. And Mitchell fully understood why.
“What have we done?” Mitchell asked. “They don't talk about us. That's fine. We'll just hold ourselves to our standard.”
That approach seems to be working.
For the first time in 36 seasons — yes, even before the LeBron James eras in Cleveland — the Cavaliers are atop the NBA at the 25-game mark. They're 21-4, having come back to earth a bit following a 15-0 start but still better than anyone in the league at this point.
“We've kept our standards pretty high,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “And we keep it going.”
The Cavs are just one of the surprise stories that have emerged as the season nears the one-third-done mark. Orlando — the only team still unbeaten at home — is off to its best start in 16 years at 17-9 and having done most of that without All-Star forward Paolo Banchero. And Houston is 16-8, behind only the Cavs, Boston, Oklahoma City and Memphis so far in the race for the league's best record.
Cleveland was a playoff team a year ago, as was Orlando. And the Rockets planted seeds for improvement last year as well; an 11-game winning streak late in the season fueled a push where they finished 41-41 in a major step forward after a few years of rebuilding.
“We kind of set that foundation last year to compete with everybody,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Obviously, we had some ups and downs with winning and losing streaks at times, but to finish the season the way we did, getting to .500, 11-game winning streak and some close losses against high-level playoff teams, I think we kind of proved that to ourselves last year that that's who we're going to be.”
A sign of the respect the Rockets are getting: Oddsmakers at BetMGM Scorebook have made them a favorite in 17 of 24 games so far this season, after favoring them only 30 times in 82 games last season.
“Based on coaches, players, GMs, people that we all know what they're saying, it seems like everybody else is taking notice as well,” Udoka said.
They're taking notice of Orlando as well. The Magic lost their best player and haven't skipped a beat.
Banchero's injury after five games figured to doom Orlando for a while, and the Magic went 0-4 immediately after he tore his oblique. Entering Tuesday, they're 14-3 since — and now have to regroup yet again. Franz Wagner stepped into the best-player-on-team role when Banchero got hurt, and now Wagner is going to miss several weeks with the exact same injury.
Ask Magic coach Jamahl Mosley how the team has persevered, and he'll quickly credit everyone but himself. Around the league, it's Mosley getting a ton of the credit — and rightly so — for what Orlando is doing.
“I think that has to do a lot with Mose. ... I have known him a long time,” Phoenix guard Bradley Beal said. “A huge fan of his and what he is doing. It is a testament to him and the way they’ve built this team.”
The Magic know better than most how good Cleveland is, and vice versa. The teams went seven games in an Eastern Conference first-round series last spring, the Cavs winning the finale at home to advance to Round 2.
Atkinson was brought in by Cleveland to try and turn good into great. The job isn't anywhere near finished — nobody is raising any banners for “best record after 25 games” — but Atkinson realized fairly early that this Cavs team has serious potential.
“We’re so caught up in like the process of improve, improve, improve each game, improve each practice," Atkinson said. “That’s kind of my philosophy. But then you hit 10-0, and obviously the media starts talking and all that, and you’re like, ‘Man, this could be something special brewing here.’”