Plissken al Zumbador

Yes, we haven't really tended this garden much lately. But that really doesn't matter, because we have the greatest thing in the history of the site to share with you. Someone by the name of "marcosfs," aka the greatest-ever member of YouTube, has posted the video that gave this blog its name. And it's in Spanish.



We watched the movie tonight for the first time since christening this blog, and it is clear that we chose well.

Oh, and now that our teams are out of the race, maybe we'll restart this thing again and become the first-ever NBA blog dedicated solely to the offseason.

Synthesizer Guide Book on Fire

Anyone who reads this blog has probably figured out that we ripped off our post format from FreeDarko. That decision was mostly grounded in homage; we think it's one of the best sites on the internet. But the homage carries value beyond the respect we have for the blog. Quite simply, their format denotes a particular way of writing about basketball, and, in most of our posts, we've tried to use that intellectual, freewheeling approach.

So I announce with great pleasure that, beginning Wednesday or Thursday, we will start writing somewhat regularly for FreeDarko. This is a huge honor, obviously, and we could not be more excited. Given the respect we have for the site, we can only hope we don't screw anything up too horribly. Much thanks to everyone at FD, of course.

Some of you might be wondering what this announcement means for Plissken. Let me be frank: this blog is still very much a functioning website, but this new gig will obviously funnel some of our resources away from here. Things shouldn't change too drastically, though, and the good news is that I highly doubt many readers of our site don't check out FD on a regular basis. (If you don't, then shame on you.) Plus, at the risk of giving too much away, Big Plissken Announcement #2 will address this concern.

If you're visiting our site for the first time, welcome. As I said up top, we write somewhat heady posts about anything related to basketball. We also have an unnatural obsession with Marco Belinelli, and for some reason I write more posts about mascots than any sane man should. I hope you like the site and come back often.

Other brief, less exciting news:

- The fine folks at We Rite Goode invited us to be a part of their NBA preview, which solicited input from a great number of excellent writers hailing from all areas of Blogburgh. Our individual previews of the Warriors (me) and Lakers (Carter) are not yet up, but they have posted this fine introductory piece that details everyone's record predictions. They will be updating this entire week -- highly recommended. I'm sure we'll link our bits here when they go up, because we are whores.

- Speaking of NBA previews, we're going to write one within the week. I know that makes us significantly late to the preview-writing game, but I don't think it will be too much of a problem. We're trying to do something different, so groove on the idea of what that might be while you wait.

Light to No Coma

We've been pretty poor about posting lately, and for that I apologize. Sadly, this is not a real post, but I did think it important to let people know that we're alive and thinking about basketball. Blame literary theory, if you want a reason for my relative absence. (Carter will have to come up with his own excuse.)

Anyway, Plissken is far from dead; if anything, these next few days/weeks will be a period of great growth for us. We'll be making the two biggest announcements in the short history of our site soon. Believe me when I say that these bits of news are both very important and that we could not be more excited about the prospects that both entail. Unfortunately, I can't go into detail now, but you'll know soon enough.

Have no fear -- we'll be back with real posts shortly. My first one will probably be about the unfortunate Brook Lopez situation, if you want something to look forward to.

The Annexation of Puerto Rico

No, this is not another post about last night's USA/PR game. I have recently been drafted by Jason Gurney (who goes by the clever alias "Jason" in our comments) to write a series of posts over at Ballhype about "17 Games," a new game they've created involving weekly NFL picks. (Yes, I like other sports, too.) There's a celebrity blogger group (featuring such Blogburgh stalwarts as Jamie Mottram and The Big Lead) for which I'm serving as an "up-and-coming" embedded correspondent. Essentially, that means I'll write weekly updates on the group and NFL-at-large. My first post, a preview of the competition, is up now.

Fear not, readers who don't care about football. This gig will not change my posting patterns here in any way; if anything, it'll probably make me take this whole blogging thing that much more seriously.

Site updates: I don't know how much more I can say about the Tournament of the Americas, but we should have a post up at some point later tonight on a topic of importance. Plus, if I were to write something on the Uruguay game happening right now, I would probably just laud LeBron the whole time. His first half was unreal.

Anyway, I'm heading back to the obliteration of Uruguay. Again, we'll be back later tonight.

We're Not Just Kids, To Say the Least

You wouldn’t know it from our first chunk of posts, but Plissken is also a college basketball blog. As much as we both love the NBA, college ball provides its own pleasures, and the viewing experiences differ wildly.

To give just one example, in college, a physically limited player can make himself a pretty damn good player (sometimes even an All-American) through hard work and the development of an impressive skill set. Fans don’t just tolerate these players—they become fan favorites. This relationship between player and fan works because (1) the player’s physical limitations suggest that these moments are his last as a golden boy and (2) the physical issues bring up the possibility that the fan, with a little more effort, could have turned into something approaching a collegiate star. (There are obviously many other reasons, but let’s leave those for another time.) Simply put, there is a finality to the actions of the college star (and I use that term with an emphasis on “college”) that the rare NBA-bound player will not experience until his last years in the league, and this observation becomes more compelling to the fan because he sees something of himself (however small, it will be something more than he will see in the superhuman athlete).


In the NBA, that less athletic, skill-dependent player is either terrible or, best case scenario, someone like Brad Miller, and no one wants to see Brad Miller when impossibly talented guys like Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant square off against each other almost nightly.


I don’t mean to suggest that the NCAA game is psychologically richer than the NBA game. In reality, both are deep enough for such a comparison to seem arbitrary and inconsequential. College ball is generally considered purer (for its proponents) or inferior—relating to quality and storylines—(for its detractors), but I think those distinctions miss the point. There are certainly many, many differences between college and pro basketball, but that doesn’t make the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball any less worthy of consideration as something more than a game than the NBA.

With that in mind, Carter and I will do our best to focus on the conceptual nature of the college game in our posts, although we will still tackle nuts-and-bolts issues. College basketball analysis too often focuses on RPI and preseason exempt tournaments when real analysis of the role of a student section stays unpublished. (Note: As much as we love him, Andy Katz’s annual list of the five-best student sections does not count.)


Due to our living situation and allegiances, a healthy portion of our NCAA posts will deal with the Pac-10, which also happens to be the early favorite for “Best Conference in the Country” next season. Expect a primer on the aesthetic experiences of following and watching every Pac-10 program within the next day or two.

I Will Rearrange Your Scales

Boston and Memphis weren't the only ones who have had to do a lot of soul-searching because of this draft. We here at Plissken have also been forced to face a difficult reality. Back when this blog was in its nascent stages, we made it our goal to focus on all the relevant basketball happening on the left coast. At the time, we assumed that meant discussing the Lakers, Warriors, and the Pac-10. We felt like we could comfortably ignore the Clippers, Kings, Sonics, and Trail Blazers without anyone really noticing our omission.

Now, a full 4 days later, the landscape of West Coast basketball has been totally rearranged, and to claim we were talking about all the basketball that mattered on this side of the Rockies without talking about the Trail Blazers and the Sonics would be impossible. So now do we:

a) Try branching beyond two NBA teams we were raised on respectively
b) Redefine our scope to be CA basketball and continue to rightfully ignore the Clips and Kings existence

I'm personally leaning to option B. Ty seems to prefer A. Likely we'll continue to focus mostly on the NBA teams we know and love best, but continue to discuss anything else going on in the world of basketball that interests us, which from now on will include Portland and Seattle much more frequently than it otherwise would have.


As a side note, anyone who suggests the Trail Blazers trade the pick (I'm looking at you Jon Barry) is a fucking idiot. First off, try coming up with a list of players that you'd sacrifice Oden straight up for. Honestly I'm having a hard time thinking of one. Kobe, Duncan, Garnett would all be tempting, but would you take 5 years of their prime against 10-15 years of Oden's? Even if that were remotely possible I still wouldn't pull the trigger.

Welcome to the Terrordome

Plissken at the Buzzer is a basketball blog focusing on the West Coast. We will discuss the Lakers, Warriors, Pac-10, and anything else that strikes our fancy. If that sounds reductive, it’s because it is, but these are the things we’re most qualified to write about and it would be stupid for us to focus on anything else.

Your hosts are Ty Keenan and Carter Blanchard, college recruiters for Indiana Basin Silt College and LaFonte University, respectively. Our name draws from Snake Plissken’s late-game heroics in Escape from LA, the finer of the Escape franchise/bilogy. Our goal is to be the second-best basketball blog in the world.

You may question the smarts of starting a basketball blog just as the seasons of our favorite teams have ended, but we were/are lazy and didn’t get around to it until now. Rest assured, finding topics to discuss will not be a problem. Expect updates this summer on the draft, recruiting, national team stuff (ok, maybe this not so much), and youtube. Lots and lots of youtube.

We believe that basketball matters. Hopefully this blog will help us figure out why.