TWTW's Pistons v. Cavaliers Preview

Danville, Kentucky -- There's no better feeling than picking up your first pay stub at a new job. The nineties were not kind to me. NAFTA battered and bruised me -- I was more crestfallen and defeated than Grant Hill's ankles. In 2005, after a few years of aimlessly bouncing around dead-end jobs, I had a gut feeling that the housing market was the place to be. I got myself an online degree in real estate, and hit the mean streets of Danville to sell houses, eager like I was fired from a cannon. It was beautiful, folks. And there was no feeling more rewarding than spending my hard-earned wages on the best appetizers and bourbon a Danville man can buy. The most important part of my successful real estate venture was that it proved hard work pays off. When faced with unemployment and bankruptcy, I did what all true Americans do: I went back to work.

The Detroit Pistons of 2000-2009 were a team that was all about going to work. They didn't have the flash or the star power of teams like Kobe's Lakers, but they wore opponents down with hard-nosed defense and their grinder mentality. Seven years ago, an aging Pistons team's reign of dominance came to an end when King James unceremoniously dethroned them in the first round of the playoffs. After many seasons of irrelevance, the Pistons are finally back in the playoffs. Seven years later, LeBron must suppress an upstart young Pistons team if he hopes to advance out of the Eastern Conference and vie for one more rematch vs. the San Antonio Spurs or nerd-darlings Golden State Warriors.

Lots of folks these days love to rave about the quality of the Western Conference while disparaging the East. The Western Conference may have a better TS%, shiner PER numbers, more VORP, and Steph Curry, but for all their glitz and glamour, they lack the tenacious grit of the East. Folks, it's good to see two blue collar towns like Cleveland and Detroit squaring off in the playoffs. Here are the key factors that will determine the winner of the series:

MOMENTUM

Folks, the Pistons have all the momentum in this match-up. Fresh off a 112-110 victory over the Cavaliers in the last game of the regular season, they've already set the tone for the series. In addition, the Pistons won the season series 3-1. The city of Detroit is united behind the Pistons, thrilled to see their team back in contention. The city of Cleveland is not united behind the Cavaliers: folks from the mistake on the lake are more preoccupied with the looming threat of political violence as the 2016 Republican National Convention nears. The Cavaliers have limped into the playoffs, reeling from humiliating losses to the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, and pitiful Chicago Bulls recently. Not to mention, the team is in disarray: at the moment when LeBron needs to lead the team, he won't even follow the Cavaliers on twitter. LeBron wants OUT of Cleveland again, which may put the Pistons back IN to the Conference Semi-Finals. Advantage: Pistons.

COACHING

This first round match-up also presents an intriguing coaching showdown: the veteran Stan Van Gundy versus the unproven Tyronn Lue. SVG has the Pistons united around a single purpose: winning. In Cleveland's Game of Thrones, Lue is just King James' puppet. SVG has tons of playoff experience and once coached the Orlando Magic to the NBA finals; what Lue knows about coaching in the playoffs, SVG could fit into his eyes with little to no discomfort. Advantage: Pistons.

POINT GUARD

Kyrie Irving is the most overrated thing to come out of Cleveland since the Indians. He cares more about his scoring numbers than making his teammates better. Meanwhile, Reggie Jackson is one of the game's clutchest. Advantage: Pistons.

PLAYOFF EXPERIENCE

While the Pistons have more heart than the quarreling, in-fighting Cavs, they are greener in the gills. They could be mentally unprepared for the challenge that awaits. LeBron alone has played more minutes in the playoffs than the entire Pistons roster. The Pistons might not be ready for the spotlight. Advantage: Cavaliers. 

BENCH

The Pistons bench is depleted like my finances after a trip to the Casino. There will be no cavalry or reinforcements off the bench: just the rotting corpse of Steve Blake. Advantage: Cavaliers.

FINAL PREDICTION

The Pistons have a lot going in their favor. They're young, scrappy, and hungry. Andre Drummond vacuums up rebounds like I vacuum up mini corn dogs at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Yet, the Cavaliers have rings. They also have LeBron James, who in my opinion, is still the game's premier talent -- jacking up threes doesn't impress me, Steph. Kevin Love is a great player, though these days he seems to care more about making bad State Farm commercials than refining his game. I predict the Cavaliers will win in 5 games.

Even in defeat, 2016 is a victory for the Pistons. They have climbed the mountain. They have righted the ship. They have returned to the playoffs. They have gone back to work.

My return to work was short-lived. My time in the real-estate sector was great while it lasted, but like my time at the GM plant and my time on the oil rigs, it wasn't meant to last. Intrusive government regulation and the welfare state eventually brought us the 2008 housing market collapse and the Obama presidency. But with the Obama presidency in its waning days, things are looking up again in America. For the Pistons and millions of other job-seeking Americans across this country, it's time to go to work.

Trust Deficit: How Credit Cards Bankrupted Rubio

Danville, Kentucky -- The 1960s were a simpler time. No instant replay, no internet, no international free trade agreements. Cash was the currency of the land. Every now and then somebody would write you a check, but during my time working on an oil rig in North Dakota, we were consistently paid in cold, hard, physical dollar bills.

The strenuous nature of the job demanded that us oil-men be rewarded with cash. We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we signed up to work on a rig. It meant 16 hour days on the rig. It meant waking up at 4 AM to get to the drill-site bright and early. It meant long nights at the bar trying to numb the pain of burnt skin with whiskey and gin. It meant living in a ghost town, populated only by other lonely oil-men trying to make a living before boom-time became bust-time.

As I laid awake at night in my log cabin near the drill-site, I would often wonder if any amount of money could make the risks we took worthwhile. It was dangerous work. The toxic fumes billowing from the core of the Earth would sear and sting your lungs like a cigar from Hell. Some men fell 50 feet or more to an untimely end. Sometimes there were unsightly accidents with the drilling machinery, with gruesome results.

For me, the promise of a cash payment was worth putting my safety on the line. It was a tangible reward for the hard work that I put in. The feel of a crisp dollar bill on my black tarry fingers was a grim reminder of what I had done to earn this salary.

Kids these days will never know that feeling -- the feeling of a cash reward after a hard day's work. The advent of credit cards ruined it all. Millennials trade Bitcoins and use Venmo and Paypal, rendering cash obsolete. The physical, at-your-finger-tips nature of cash induced a sense of restraint and responsibility in young Americans. Credit cards encourage frivolous spending by making money seem out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

The best part about cash was that it was all yours. You were free to pocket it, spend it, or stick it under the mattress. Thanks to credit cards, you don't even really own your own money. You have to put your money in a bank that puts your money on a card. Folks, banks can go under like in '08, taking your savings with them. That's why I only deposit my money into a pillowcase.

Thanks to credit cards, some crook in Portugal can steal your identity to buy hundreds of dollars worth of potatoes and fish. Credit cards and digital payments have made wasting money easier and more convenient than ever before, but they've made us all vulnerable to cyber-crime and prevented generations of Americans from appreciating the value of tangible, crisp cash.

Credit cards ruined America. Credit cards ruined Marco Rubio. While Speaker of the House in Florida's legislature, Marco racked up a 6-figure tab on a credit card issued by the Florida Republican Party. We can only guess what Marco spent those hundreds of thousands of dollars on: extramarital affairs, wild nights at Miami strip-clubs, Dolphins tickets, secret trips to visit his comrades in Cuba, or a cocaine habit. What we do know is that the moment Rubio accepted this credit card from his GOP establishment sugar daddies was the moment that Rubio became a puppet. In exchange for going on shopping sprees with his sugar daddy's credit card, Marco would be a Manchurian candidate, beholden to his corporate masters.

Americans are faced with truly difficult choices this November. Nearly every candidate has a fatal flaw. Hillary emailed on the job. Bernie is a socialist. Ted's a Canadian. Donald is an Anchor Baby who bought into the myth that college is a worthwhile investment. Add Marco to the list. His use of credit cards disqualifies him from the office of Presidency.

Working on an oil rig wasn't just about the money. It was about a sense of independence. Working on an oil rig was about proving that if a man was willing to get his hands dirty, he could make a living in this country. By using the GOP establishment's credit card, Rubio sold his independence to corporations and became a financial dependent. Like my ex-wife at IKEA, Marco has been swipe-happy at the American people's expense. Marco has overdrafted from the credit card of our faith, spending his way to trust deficit. It's time to close the account.