Word of the Day

[lunar]

scouring through cyberspace today i came across this old article on basketbawful.com. Hilarious and sad at the same time. it makes me happy to see that he is finally seeing some time on the court.

Word of the day-Mario

Mario (mar'-e-o') noun. Denotes those occasions in which a player logs less than one minute of playing time and therefore fails to compile any meaningful statistics.

Usage example: Not surprisingly, Mario West was the 2007-08 league leader in Marios.

Word history: The word was coined yesterday -- May 5, 2008 -- by an anonymous reader who couldn't help but notice my season-long quest to point out Mario West's many sub-minute performances. "I think a trillion that doesn't even make it to the one minute mark should be officially nicknamed a 'Mario.' Trillions may be embarrassing, but a Mario makes you wish you became a car salesman."

The suggestion was absolutely brilliant, and sure beat the unofficial "sub-minute men" designation I had been using.

Additional information: Poor Mario. The guy appeared in 64 regular season games and averaged around four minutes per. He saw so little PT that there are only two pictures of him on his Yahoo profile page...and both of those photos show him on the bench sporting crisp, clean warmups.

Of those 64 games, he played less than one minute in 20 of them. Of those 20 games, he played 10 seconds or less in 11 of them, including games of 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds (three times), 5 seconds, 6 seconds, 8 seconds (twice), 9 seconds, and 10 seconds.

Mario Also appear in six of the Hawks' seven playoff games. He somehow managed to average exactly one minute per game, with games of 03:20, 00:31, 00:09, 00:20, 00:03, and 01:36. You'll notice that most of his PT came in Games 1 and 7, the two biggest blowouts of the series.

All I can say is, that's some damned cruelty on the part of Atlanta coach Mike Woodson. Forget free Darko...free Mario!

Update! Basketbawful reader Phenomenal Cosmic Power provided more fan brilliance with the following braingasm: "Might I suggest that a <10-second game be called a SUPER MARIO!? And then, what if 2 or more players each logged a Super Mario? SUPER MARIO BROTHERS?!" All I can say is: Done and done.

More additional information: Mr. Cosmic Power has taken a real interest Mr. West. An unhealthy interest, perhaps? That's not for us to judge. "I felt a litte bad for our boy Mario, so I dug up some more stats that I hope will cheer him up!"

Hawks winning % when Mario logs:

DNP - 33%

Super Mario - 45%

Mario - 50%

No Mario - 48%

More than 10 minutes (a Wario?) - 67%

"Wow. Talk about a direct correlation between Mario's playing time and the Hawks winning! I kid you not. FREE MARIO!"

[Dsinner]

The sad part is he's just another wasted talent riding the pine. Sure he has no offensive game, but there have been too many games this year when the Hawks needed a spark off the bench.

[DrReality]

He doesn't need to have offense. His defense can create turnovers to create offense.

[Gray Mule]

:angel19:

My hero in the latest Hawk victory.

He came in on a missed shot and SLAMMED it down!

He was on NBA's top 10 plays!

First time ---- ever.

This MIGHT earn him 2 minutes tonight. You think?

[bronnt]

Yeah, I've seen that before. Basketbawful has been using that one for over a year. If you read his blog, he actually has a daily tally of who logged a "mario" around the league, and if there were any "super marios," etc. The cool thing is that he almost always acknowledges 'Rio whenever he plays for over a minute.

[Theeyo]

This is hilarious! LOL

[frosgrim]

:angel19:

My hero in the latest Hawk victory.

He came in on a missed shot and SLAMMED it down!

He was on NBA's top 10 plays!

First time ---- ever.

This MIGHT earn him 2 minutes tonight. You think?

The really sad thing Mule is that when a bench guy has good game, Woody then sits him for the next 3 games. I really don't understand the logic, but it happens over and over again. Heck, Mario may not even be active for this game given the way Woodson works.

[BusBoyIsBack]

LOL

It's even so much funnier considering it's not a local site.

Poor Mario. Maybe if he works on his jumper he could actually average some PT