On his debut for the Milwaukee Bucks, commentator Jim Paschke greeted Ruffin's entry into the game with an extremely poetic speech. Speaking largely to his co-commentator, who was waxing equally lyrically about the Ruff, Paschke liberally soaked him in adjectives depicting Muffin's brilliant qualities, and why he was a wonderful addition to the team.
In one long run-on sentence, Paschke praised Ruffin for his "professionalism, veteran savvy and class", while also citing that "he just know how to play the game, he's steady, he won't try to do too much, he'll work hard and cheer loud".
In short, Paschke filled out the entire "Good Things You Say To Try To Excuse The Presence Of Truly Awful Players On Your Team" checklist of the commentator's handbook. I mean, he worked it all in there. Every last morsel. Well played.
It's a good checklist to have when you're describing Michael Ruffin, for he's perhaps the reason for its existence. Ruffin is, without equal, the worst offensive player in the history of the NBA, averaging 5.6 points per 48 minutes for his career. Five point freakin' six. For comparison's sake, people's other choice for the worst offensive player of our era - Ben Wallace - averages 10 points per 48 minutes for his career, and once averaged 9.7 points a game for one season. Ruffin's highest is 2.6ppg. In 19.5mpg.
I mean, really. There's bad, there's catastrophic, there's inexpicable, and then there's Michael Ruffin's offense. He simply cannot score the ball.
Ruffin knows this, however, and doesn't take shots. All the things the commentators said about him above may have been the ultimate spindoctoring, but they are also true. Ruffin's attributes to a basketball team stem from his strength and interior defense. Not a shot blocker or an athlete (in fact I may have never seen him jump), Ruffin will still endeavour to ruin your day if you foray into the paint, and he also holds a good rebounding rate for his career. He is a good offensive rebounder, and a solid defensive one, and even though the foul rate is a direct by-product of this, he will give you some boards, some strength and some energy. And yet, he's just that damn redundant on one end of the floor that you have to wonder why the hell he's there.
Still. At least he's a good citizen.
- 4th April, 2009.
Anagram: "Huffin' Miracle," what it will be if Muffin ever hits a three.
Note: As you can probably tell,
some of the nicknames were made up. Many are genuine, though, and they
are only made up in the instances where a real one couldn't be traced.
Many given nicknames are of common usage, but some are also sourced
from lesser known sources - these sources are not often cited, not because
I hate the people involved, but because there's too many to do so. For
argument's sake, just assume that the unfunny ones are mine.
In the event where more than one agent is listed, this is because the
player has more than one agent. Simple, really. This is rather commonplace
- a lot of times, a player will sign with a big agency, and they will
have both primary and secondary agents from within that agency to handle
their affairs. (Where that happens, the primary agent is listed first.)
Also, foreign players tend to have both American and domestic agents.
Where the details of such are known, they are listed. It's essentially
like a fun multiple choice game, except without the "fun", "multiple
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