The Panel Of Genius: August, Part One

You know what there's too much of on this blog? Me. To reduce that, I have assembled a panel of geniuses to weigh in on random sports and pseudo-sports questions. I naturally call them "The Panel of Genius". This round, the panel is (in no particular order) Vish, Ali, Winston, Justin and Leo. Their credentials are at once unimpeachable and non-existent. I gave each panelist 6 questions to answer - the answers were uniformly genius, so I've decided to run all of them and break it up into two parts. Here's the first 3 questions.

My least favorite type of guy to play pickup basketball with/against is the guy who sweats profusely, and then insists on playing the low post and creating tons of contact with his sweat. What is your least favorite/most hated type of pickup player?

Vish: The out-of-control point guard who thinks he is good...small, about 5'7", 130 lbs, fastest player on the court, but plays out of control. Runs into people, calls 45 fouls a game, puts up 30 shots, airballs most, but makes a few lucky plays, thus justifying the out of control play. Wears clothes that are 8 sizes too big, including an insane amount of headbands and wristbands, talks too much trash and genuinely thinks he is the best player on the court. I hate this guy mainly because he thinks he's a 9/10 when in reality he's a 5/10.

Ali: I hate the over trash-talking point guard that sucks ass but thinks he's good because his team wins (not on the count of his skills, rather his teammates'). This is probably going to be a by-the-position answer as I tend not to have to guard sweaty lost post dudes.

Justin: The guy who's just a little too intense and ends up causing 1-2 injuries a game, whether it is by stepping on someone's foot, throwing an "accidental" elbow, or diving for a loose ball and crashing into someone else who didn't think it was Game 7 of the NBA finals. This guy also claps his hands a lot and screams "DEFENSE! YEAH! COME ON, COME ON, ROLL TO THE BASKET! THAT'S THREE SECONDS!"

Winston: Ooh, this is tough. I think it's a tie between the guy that calls fouls on every play or the guy that says "and one" and misses the shot. I'm usually the sweaty low post guy so I don't care about that.

Leo: For me, this answer to this question has always been a primary antagonist of my basketball insecurities: The Asian Sniper. I've always hated, hated the asian sniper for two real good reasons. First, I'm always guarding him because others think that I might be a sniper myself (a fusion of the "takes one to know one" and "all look same" cliches). The Asian Sniper is extremely hard to guard because his whole game is built around being sneaky and the unguardable "catch and release." Furthermore, he only shoots threes and and can't miss and so it's inevitable that he will make me look bad. Second, going back to the "I might be one myself" point, I am often mistaken for this man because (1) my other skills are thin (2) I am not particularly tall (3) I am Asian. I remember one pick-up game when I was playing with 4 white dudes and on the first set, they inbounded the ball to me as if I was the obvious choice for point. This struck me as extremely hilarious and disturbing since none of them had seen me dribble and playing the point is obviously the farthest thing from my natural position: role player. A few other times I remember the opposing team pointing at me and being like "don't leave that kid alone in the corner," which is is also hilarious because that's like Avery Johnson pointing to Nick Collison and being like, "don't let that man out of your sight for a second." Needless to say, on all those days my true colors showed themselves very, very quickly and I ended up disappointing my teammates and lowering my self-esteem.

Is it unfair that the United States always gets one team in the final of the Little League World Series?

Ali: I was thinking about this the other day and I couldn't wrap my head around how this fair.

Winston: I know absolutely nothing about the little league world series. I'm not even sure if you mean min. or max. one team. I don't think the U.S. should be treated any differently than other countries.

Leo: I'm not sure this is that relevant a question. Intuitively the answer is "of course it's unfair," but I don't think the original design was for it to be an Olympic-type tournament, but probably like the actual world series. With the blossoming international sports scene, it was redesigned to its current format. However, what I do find frustrating is that in its current form we have really zero way of knowing who the best team is. I mean I guess you could say we know from the international semi final who the best "non-U.S." team is but the championship game itself gives really no information about where the U.S. team measures up. I'd almost prefer if they would mix the two brackets (in a way making it more unfair) but at least giving us more U.S./World competition.

Justin: Yes. We're a huge country - why can't we put together the U.S. all-star team and enter the tournament like everyone else? (Side note here - I think the perfect little league team would be composed of 9 hulking, 5'10" 13 year old power hitters who look like they are 19. This assumes one of them could pitch, of course. There is no defense in the games, you can't steal bases, and the umpiring is horrible, so why not just try to hit homers every at-bat?)

Vish: I thought so a few years ago, but countries like Saudi Arabia have like 1 league and send them the the qualifying rounds to make it to the LLWS. Meanwhile [Palos Verdes, CA] had 4 leagues, with each league going to district finals and then through state, etc. So basically not so much, because we have so many more little league teams and leagues than other countries.

Do you think Danica Patrick is hot?

Winston: Yes, if I saw her on the street, I would think she's hot. Looking at a bunch of straight on head shots, she looks a tad little masculine.

Vish: For an average person, shes alright. For someone in the entertainment spotlight, no. I think she gets overrated because shes not butch like most female athletes, but she's not super hot.

Justin: Not really. I was briefly excited when she splashed on the scene, but the novelty faded. It would help if she was in a real sport and I could see her face when she is competing in her sport.

Leo: On the binary scale Danica is obviously a 1. Compared to other hot celebs, Danica is definitely "nothing special." And of course compared to the average US 21-30 female, she is very attractive. However, none of these statements gets at the question you're trying to answer. Knowing that Danica is worthy enough for a one night stand does not say anything about her worthiness.

That answer is much more complicated. Here is mine:
Danica Patrick is less than Maria Sharapova is less than Anna Kournikova
Danica Patrick = (Amanda Beard + Nathalie Coughlin) / 2
Amanda Beard + Nathalie Coughlin is less than Anna Kournikova
Danica Patrick + 1996 Katarina Witt + (Gabriel Reece)^1/2 = Anna Kournikova (pre-Englsias, stretching her quads at Wimbledon during her semi-final run)
Danica Patrick = 80% Jennifer Connelly

Ali: I'm going to say no.

Thanks to everyone for participating, stay tuned for the even better Part Two of The Panel of Genius!