Thursday, February 23, 2017

The Wire Comparison, Part I

Some of you may know, but I am a huge Bill Simmons fan. I know some other of you also enjoy him, so if you are wondering if I ripped this post idea off him, 100% yes. The other reason I decided to do it was because Carrie and I recently ran through all 5 seasons of The Wire so it is fresh on my mind. So here are my comparisons of The Wire characters, with a quote from them and PCTI participants:
"Thin line between heaven and here." - Bubbles
This quote is for PCTI. Don't know exactly what Bubbles meant, but to me, PCTI is about as close as you can get to heaven here on earth. 

Abe

"The game is the fuckin' game. Period." - Avon Barksdale
This one was pretty obvious: best player in the game is the guy that runs the streets. Avon is the guy that grew up on the streets of Baltimore and became the kingpin. He isn't the guy that gets worried over small details, but thinks talent and street smarts can win over. Abe has a similar mindset. I could imagine Abe saying that exact same quote on a podcast (RIP PCTI podcasts) so I thought I would use it for Avon's quote.

Wes

"'Failure to properly identify myself as a police officer.' Sounds like what I was guilty of most of my career, actually." - Pryzbylewski
Wes is Prez in the early years as Prez thought he should be a police officer, along with his father-in-law and others. He didn't excel until he realized he should try another line of work. Wes I think is also conflicted within PCTI. What is his role on offense? How aggressive does he need to be? Is he trying to improve enough to no longer be picked last each year? Does he even want to be involved? Questions he or others ask. Last year he showed signs of improvement before his injury derailed him, will this year be better? Or is he failing to properly identify himself as a baller?

Bruiser

Okay The point I'm making is this: Soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing” – Major Colvin
Major “Bunny” Colvin came on to the scene and made a big splash with his outside the box thinking with how his district would police drugs. He a Bruise seem to have some similar qualities: both seem patient (watch Bruiser post multiple possessions in a row with little touches), you don’t want to mess with either of them, and both want to help their “team” be successful. Colvin eventually takes the fall for his outside the box plan, similar to Bruise taking the blame for some PCTI losses. Will this be the year he gets back to All Tourney form and propels his team to a victory?

Donley

“I guess what I'm tryin' to say is... not everything comes down to how you carry it in the street. I mean, it do come down to that if you gonna be in the street. But that ain't the only way to be” – Dennis “Cutty”
Cutty was the former gangster that ended up getting out of the game and started helping young’ns stay off the street by boxing. Both he and Donley are physically impressive and are good with the ladies (pre-marriage*). Donley has always been all in on PCTI (well, except for that whole leaving early on Sunday in PCTI II) but now that he has 2 kids, will he still have the same dedication. “Not everything comes down to PCTI. I mean, it do come down to it if you gonna be in PCTI, but that ain’t the only way to be.” – Donley or nah?

Andrew C.

“Who we gotta fuck in this town to get a real office?” – Greggs
Andrew C.: “Who we gotta fuck in this town to get in PCTI?
Dan K.:

Rainbow:




Beas

“Nice doin' business with you, gentlemen.” – Michael
Michael is one of my favorite characters on the wire, and one of my best friends in PCTI. It is fitting they have the first name because they are both straight killers. Beas took care of Joe last year like Michael took care of Snoop in season 5. I think Joe even asked Beas “how my hair look, Mike?” during one of the games. Similar to the character, Beas is all business on the court and looks out for his own.

AHOP

“The things that make me right for this job, maybe they’re the same things that make me wrong for everything else.” – McNulty
You didn’t think I was going to write this post and not be one of the main characters in the show, did you? McNulty was a drunk who would show up to work hungover half the time. He also was a really good detective because he would do whatever it took to get the job done. I like to fancy myself the same way. McNulty also had a way of getting people to do their work better and hopefully I’m able to do that with some of my teammates.

Rainbow

“We're building something here, detective. We're building it from scratch. All the pieces matter.” – Lester Freeman

Lester was very unconventional when he started but was super talented. The same goes for Rainbow’s game. I played with him and DK in Dallas and as whacky as some of the moves he makes, he had me on skates a few times. Similar to Freeman, he seems mild manner on the surface but you quickly find out how passionate he is about winning. I like the quote because it basically is Bow talking about his game. He’s building it from scratch and ALL the pieces matter.

5 comments:

  1. Never watched this series, so no idea what any of this means. But appreciate the time you took to make the post.

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  2. This is genius. Especially since I started binging this a couple weeks ago.

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  3. This is the only post that this site has ever needed. LOVE.

    Although should Sabin have watched the show I bet he would think my shot selection mirrors my boy Stringer Bell's business decisions.

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  4. This post is in the running for Blog Post of the Year.

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