As most of you know, I am a huge fan of casino craps and last Friday night Bardey and I headed down to Atlantic City to try our luck at the tables. Neither of us had much success--though a late run brought me back within comfortable enough distance from even--but we did, as always, have a lot of fun. One of the best parts about craps is the table chatter. I am generally a supporter of chatter in any form, be it softball-, CB radio-, or craps table-chatter. Craps is one of the best forms of chatter because you'll yell out something ridiculous ("Six-Eight-Six-Eight-Fourrrrrrrrr!" or "Seven in Spaneesh!") and, if it comes out that way, you feel deeply that it had something to do with the quality and energy behind your yell, even though it was complete luck. However, when you're playing for several hours on end as we were, your chatter can get a little stale, so we started to dig into NBA player numbers to request from our shooters (i.e. yelling "Michael Jordan!" when we wanted a 5 since his number was 23 (2 and 3 adding up to five--I don't really need to explain this, right?).
Considering that we were fairly drunk and pretty tired, our player usage variety never got very extensive or creative ("Comeback Jordan!" would have been a clever one for nine, for example). With that in mind, I hit up basketball-reference.com to unearth some more numbers for our gamble-chatter pleasure. Here are a few of the possibilities I came up with, and I'd love to see a whole slew more from you guys in the chatter section.
"Snake Eyes" (1 - 1)
Chris "The Birdman" Anderson, 11 I'd have to be on coke to be cheering for a snake-eyes roll!
"Ace Deuce" (1 - 2)
Chris Paul, 3
Lamarcus Aldridge, 12
Tim Duncan, 21 Roll out those Big Fundamentals, shooter!
Note: I am not sure why you'd ever want a 3 unless you were playing a Field bet or something, and in all my times playing craps I've never understood what that shit was.
"Easy Four" (1 - 3)
Chris Webber, 4
Reggie Miller, 31
Wilt Chamberlain, 13 Max odds on the Stilt!
"Hard Four" (2 - 2)
Clyde Drexler, 22 Glide 'em on in there, shooter!
"Fever Five" (1 - 4, 2 - 3)
Junior Burrough, 5
Bob Cousy, 14
Jordan, 23
LeBron James, 23
Magic Johnson, 32 How 'bout a little Showtime, shooter?
Dirk Nowitzki, 41 You shoot well for a big man, shooter!
Wes Unseld, 41
Note: The Unseld would be reserved for a roll that hits the back felt on the fly, a la an Unseld outlet pass.
"Easy Six" (1 - 5, 2- 4)
Julius Erving, 6
Carmelo Anthony, 15
Kobe Bryant, 24 I'll take the rapist for 400, shooter!
Kevin Willis, 42
James Worthy, 42
"Hard Six" (3 - 3)
Scottie Pippen, 33
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 33 Skyhook those dice, shooter!
Larry Bird, 33
33 is clearly the best basketball number, huh?
"Natural" (1 - 6, 2 - 5, 3 - 4)
Lamar Odom, 7 (yet another usage for) Hey Lamar!
Pau Gasol, 16
Hakeem Olajuwon, 34 Bring me the Dream, shooter!
Greg Oden, 52
Note: for come-out roll use only.
"Easy Eight" (2 - 6, 3 - 5)
Tyrone Nesby, 8
Kevin Durant, 35
Darryl Dawkins, 53 Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk, shooter!
"Hard Eight" (4 - 4)
Derrick Coleman, 44
George Gervin, 44
Jerry West, 44 That forty-four would be Clutch right now, shooter!
"Nina" (3 - 6, 4 - 5)
Dan Majerle, 9 37 seconds!
Rajon Rondo, 9 RondOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
"Easy Ten" (4 - 6)
Walt Frazier, 10
"Hard Ten" (5 - 5)
Dikembe Mutombo, 55 [Wag finger disapprovingly at shooter]
"Yo" (5 - 6)
Yao Ming, 11
That last one is incredible. For those that don't know: in craps, to distinguish it from a seven, a roll of 11 is known as "Yo." In hoops, standing nearly 7' 7", a player wearing number 11 is known as "Yao." This is the sort of magical number shit that has kept the Chinese a bunch of primitive savages for ages, but you know what? I'm starting to believe.
Submit your own in the Comments section, por favor.
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ReplyDeleteit's also cool when muhammad ali is at your table so you can tell him to roll like a butterfly and shoot like a bee.
ReplyDeletegreat list, will be nice to have some more amo for next time. i don't really understand why tyrone nesby is on there - guess with no kobe 8 isn't a very popular number??
one of my faves you got in there is the glyde 22 - cause i got real tired of rooting for emmitt smith. and my early addition to the list is obviously sean singletary for the hard 8 - even though he may not even be in the NBA the next time we hit AC i will always think of him for 44.
i just really like tyrone nesby, and one time when i was high kind of came up with a whole character and voice for him where he was begging coach collins to give him more playing time and referring to himself as "t-nez." not surprisingly, a few years later when his (very short) pro career was over, he came out with a rap album under the hip-hop sobriquet of... t-nez.
ReplyDeleteI learned how to play craps once, and did it once. Then I forgot.
ReplyDeleteT-Nez was the best 22. You could throw a 22 with the Blackman Rolando. And although Bernard King made a name for himself with the number 30 alongside the Malone Bros, early on he was a 22
ReplyDeletet-nez was an 8, for the record
ReplyDeletedeadbeat...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ilchildsupport.com/deadbeats/tyrone_nesby.html
it's pretty insane that t-nez can owe $380,000 in child support for one child having paid as recently as last year. maybe points out some of the targeting of (black) sports figures in the court system. t-nez was never any kind of star, and is now out of the league. there's no way in hell that he can afford that kind of child support every year, nor any reasonable explanation for why such a huge sum would be required of him. my two parents combined would've made about that much in four years when i was growing up, and they were very comfortably supporting two children and themselves.
ReplyDeletefree t-nez.