The Greatest Day

I intended to post this little piece on Thursday evening, however things began to get carried away with how good the games were and how long my writing became so I had to postpone it until today.  This is supposed to serve as a bit of a running commentary similar to what Bill Simmons put up on ESPN, but mine has the benefit of hindsight and editorializing, so in the end I think it will be more entertaining.  This past Thursday was far and away the best opening day to an NCAA Tournament of all time.  The level of excitement and the number of close games was astounding - it was literally one after another.  The first day of the tournament is already one of the best sports days of all time, but this took it to another level.  Combine that with a Heat vs. Magic game on TNT that went into overtime and new episodes of the Office and 30 Rock and this was the most TV I have watched in a long time.  Needless to say, my brain was fried the next day at work (8 days left).  In any event, let's get to my log of the action.  I had a meeting in the morning, so I was a little late to the first games, but that doesn't really matter:

2:30 PM

- The early afternoon games have already been exciting. Notre Dame loses to Old Dominion. A classic 12 seed versus 5 seed upset. Villanova is in danger of being upset by Robert Morris as well in the always embarassing 15 seed over 2 seed game.

- Scottie Reynolds (Villanova) looks tentative and Villanova continues its slump. Apparently Scottie was benched for a team infraction.  Benching your star player for a tournament game because of a team infraction - unheard of! Who says college coaching is dead?

- At the three minute mark now. Nova is starting to get calls on Scottie Reynolds' drives. 2:10 left, Scottie makes two FTs to cut the Robert Morris lead to 55-53.

- Meanwhile, Florida and BYU is in OT.  They are tied at 87 and Florida has the ball with five seconds left. They run a terrible last play for a tip in off the glass and that game is going to double OT.

- Robert Morris turns it over and Reynolds gets another call at 1:48 on a reach in foul.  Reynolds makes the first FT. 11 of 11 from the line. 55-54.  He makes the second.  We are tied up.

- Robert Morris gets it across half and now Nova gets called for a foul off the ball. 1:34 left.  Karon Abraham, 85% free throw shooter misses the first shot. Classic.  He makes the second. 56-55.

- Reynolds gets a screen and drives through the lane.  He gets tied up but he flails and gets another foul call.  Reynolds goes to the line.  He ties it with the first. Misses the second. 56-56.

- On the other end, Abraham drives, cradles and pumps the ball back - beautiful layup! 58-56 Robert Morris. However, Nova comes right back down and lays it in. 58-58.

- Abraham brings the ball across half, drives and puts up a floater that misses.  Nova gets the rebound, Reynolds takes the ball cross court and calls time. After the timeout, Scottie holds the ball until there are ten seconds left on the clock.  A high screen comes, but Reynolds gets trapped.  He scrambles to drive the lane and lays the ball up only to have it swatted into the seats.  Nova ball underneath with 0.9 remaining. I start to feel guilty seeing the sun outside.

- Backside lob by Nova. Perfectly executed, but its blocked by Robert Morris! We are going to OT.  Two overtime games in the first two hours of the tournament.  This is unheard of!

- Nova strikes first in OT. 60-58.

- After a Robert Morris miss, Nova feeds it inside to one of their big men (what? I'm not an expert. I don't know everyone. That's what I don't work for ESPN apparently) for a pretty bank shot.  Nova is up 62-58.  This looks like a classic tournament "favorite was sleeping for most of the game, but woke up in the end to avoid the upset" swing.

2:56 PM:

- Meanwhile, in the Florida vs. BYU game, BYU has pulled away from Florida 97-90, which looks like it will be the final. (In hindsight, I am bummed I missed this game because I heard how BYU's star Jimmer Fridette - yes, his real name - put on quite a show, scoring 40 plus.)

- In the second slot of games, 13 seed Murray State is playing 4 seed Vanderbilt close and winning 17-16 with about 11 minutes left.  14 seed Sam Houston is playing 3 seed Baylor tight as well, leading 8-3 at the 17:20 mark.  These kind of scores happen in a 3/14 or 4/13 game.  In the first half, the lower seed surprises the favorite until the favorite wakes up and pulls way late in the first half or early in the second half.

- Back to Nova/Robby Mo.  Nova has gone up 6 after two FTs and looks like they will take the game. Then, Robert Morris makes two free throws to get the lead back to 4. They benefit from more sloppy Nova play and get the ball back with 2:19 left.  Abraham jacks a three and misses, but Nova fouls on the rebound and sends Dallas Green to the line.  He clanks the first, but nails the second. 64-61 with 1:45 remaining.

- Reynolds holds the ball and the shot clock is down to 9.  Sloppy play ensues and Redding (Villanova) throws a up a desperate pass at Reynolds, who pumps and drills a three! Just his second FG.  He is 2 of 15 for the game. Ouch. 67-61.

- Robert Morris quickly makes a layup and the score is 67-63 with 52 seconds left.  Robert Morris tried to tieup Nova. One ref calls a jump, the other a foul.  Its ruled a foul and Nova goes to the line. The Robert Morris coach's head is about to explode. He actually fakes leaving the game, but comes back.  What did we do to deserve this basketball gods?  Stokes (Villanova) makes the first FT and misses the second. 68-63 Nova.

- Robert Morris takes it down and Abraham tkaes a shot through a double team and gets bailed by a foul call. He makes two FTs. 68-65. In other scores, the Baylor/Sam Houston and Vandy/Murray State games are still close at the 13 minute and 6 minute marks respectively.

-  Nova inbounds and the ball is stolen by Robert Morris!  They make the quick layup. 68-67 with 35.5 seconds left.  Robert Morris has no timeouts left. This is insane. I will need at least 60 beers today to keep pace with the excitement.

-  Nova breaks the Robby Mo press perfectly for a wide open layup for Yarou. However, Abraham chases the play down and fouls Yarou before he can convert.  Yarou makes both FTs.  70-67 with 28.8 left.

- Robert Morris inbounds and Abraham breaks the defense for an open layup but is rejected! Nova gets the loose ball and pushes the ball out to an open Redding who doesn't take the wide open layup! He chooses instead to dribble the ball and run down the clock.  Robby Mo fouls!  Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery are baffled at the commentators booth.  I haven't heard Verne this puzzled since he did play by play for Happy Gilmore's first PGA event.

- Redding misses the first FT. Classic.  He makes the second.  71-67. Robert Morris pushes the ball up court and Abraham chucks a long three.  He nails it! 71-70 with ten seconds left!

- Nova is fouled immediately and Reynolds goes to the line.  He is 2/15 from the field and 13/14 from the line.  He makes both shots. 73-70 Nova.

- Robert Morris has the final shot, but in a poorly executed final play they miss a long three.  Villanova escapes and Bill Raftery tells us that Robert Morris only lost on the scoreboard. How true.

-Meanwhile, Murrary State and Vandy are as close as it can be. Murray State is up 33-31 with 2 minutes remaining in the first half and Sammy Houston is still playing Baylor tight. Sammy Morris is up 17-16 with 8:36 left in the first.

- Sam Houston has a player on their team that wears goggles.  Haven't seen those in awhile.  In fact, his name is "Goggles" Clavell.  Goggles + Upset Special = Must Have.  Baylor ties it up with an Anthony "Tony" Jones dunk.

- Sam Houston steals, Ray Murray takes the ball down and misses a layup. Baylor with terrific ball movement and another vicious slam by "Large Pie" Tony Jones.  20-18 Baylor.

- Ray Murray clanks a three for Sam Houston.  They are 1/11 from three so far. Not a good trend.  Rebound by Sam Houston.  Brown passes to "Goggles" Clavell.  He makes the layup! And one.  21-20 Sammy Houston.  They steal the ball from Baylor and make another good pass inside. Basket interference. 23-20.

- Greg Gumble switches us to the tip of Kansas State vs. North Texas.

- At the half, Murray Brothers State leads Vandy 36-30.

- K. State is up 3 early. Pace of the game is extremely fast in the early going. 5-0 K. State after a baby hook.

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4:11:

- Oops. Took a little break to set up my pod-casting recorer.  A Tascam DR-07.  I'm going to use this thing to bring you the most innane, yet interesting podcasts invented by man.  That last phrase has probably been said by over one million idiots in the 20-50 range.  Large age range, but still. So, for an update:

           - K. State on a huge run to open up a 30-17 lead.
           - Murray State leading Vandy 51-50 with 7:56 left.
           - Baylor up 34-37 on Sammy Houst with 17 minutes left.
           - St. Mary's and Richmond have tipped off.  7 seed Richmond Spiders are up 19-17 on 10 seed
             St. Mary's. All the games so far today have  been tight. Absolutely unheard of.  It fits in with
             what the analysts said: this year's tourny would be wide open with no true dominant teams
             besides Kansas and Kentucky and even they aren't so traditionally dominant.

- K. State may be the first team to win big today.  I did not see one of their games during the year, but their guards are controlling the gaeme nicely. 15 of their 35 points coming from the backcourt.

- RepoMen.  Repossessing organs.  Forrest Whitaker and Jude Law.  "You and me, we always gonna be Repo."  I am onboard while being simultaneously baffled.

- Pullen (K. State) drives and makes a terrific pass to Kelly behind his head. Kelly can't handle and lay the ball in. Shame. Meanwhile, #17 on North Texas looks like a young Jay-Z. (Speaking of which, last night in Time Out there was a Brooklyn vs. Manhattan quiz. Who is more prototypical New Yorker? Woody Allen or Jay-Z? Come on. More choices?)

- Clemente on K. State steps back and swishes a long three. Clemente and Pullen. Important names to remember because guards make an NCAA tourny run for a team. Also good interior play, low turnovers and good defense - so really everything done well.

- Peter Venkman State still  up on Vandy and Sammy Houston takes takes a 42-40 lead on Baylor with 14 minutes left. Back to K. State and North Texas, Clemente nails another three.  K. State is hot.

*Side note: how good was Dan Akroyd at making up names for movies.  Ghostbusters has a slew of amazing names and Spies Like Us is a clinic in hilarious named characters.  Look up movies Akroyd has written and you will find amazingly named characters.  It is a dying art in comedy and movies.

- Watching Sam Houston  play Baylor, I have to wonder why there is no BBQ chain called Sammy Houston's.  Couldn't you see a Sammy Houston's in Times Square next to a store selling Heath Ledger Joker shirts, or on an Interstate 10 rest stop? No?

- K. State takes a 41-25 lead into the half on North Texas.  Pullen and Clemente have 11 apiece.

- Undercover Boss is just a sorry replacement for the seminal TV reality show, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. Ah, 2004. Simpler days.

- And Lamar Odom is everywhere. He wins a ring with the Lakers, marries a Kardashian and all his endorsment offers come in.   I always liked the guy.

- We're back in New Orleans watching Sammy Houston's Baby-back Ribs take on the Baylor Thoroughbreds - er, Bears. Sorry, the colors confused me.

- Ladders.com commercial.  I know a dozen people who got jobs at the Ladders in the golden employment age of 2007.  Sadly, I was not hired when I applied in the fall/winter of 2007. Sadly?

- Baylor hits a long 2. Tied at 46.  Two minutes left and Peter Venkman State is leading Vandy in San Jose.

- Festus Ezeli misses two FTs with Vandy trailing 62-60.  Murray State misses a layup and Vandy gets the rebound. They call a TO with 1:55 left.

- Tony Easley on Murray State gets called for a block and fouls out. That puts Vandy star player A.J. Ogilvy on the line.  He hits the first and misses the second. 62-61. Murray State calls TO with 1:36 remaining.

- Shot clock winding down and Murray State's Danero Thomas makes a clutch fadeaway jumper. Vandy answers immediately with a nicely executed Ogilvy layup.

- Meanwhile, Baylor has pulled ahead of Sammy Houston's Slow Cooked Brisket, but Sammy comes back with another order of Pork Belly. 50-49.

- Murray State 64. Vandy 63. 49 seconds left. Murray State is moving the ball to run down the clock.  Shot clock at 10.  Dribble drive by Isacc Miles (Murray State) and a baseline pass is intercepted by Vandy.  Timeout with 22 seconds left.  As Verne Lundquist would say, "Oh my!"

- Vandy sets up a perfect backdoor through Ogilvy. He dishes it to Jermaine Beal who goes for a dunk and is fouled. No basket. Beal makes his frist. 64-64.  Murray State tries to freeze Beal with a timeout.  Meanwhile, Murray State's team name is the Racers.  I like it.

- Beal sinks the second. 65-64 Vandy. 12 seconds left. No timeouts for Murrary State.  They bring the ball down and miss a long three.  The ball bounces off Vandy.  Murray State ball with 4 seconds left.  Timeout Vandy.  Murray State will take the ball out underneath.

- Murray State inbounds the ball. Isacc Miles gets it.  He trips up on the dribble and passes it to Danero Thomas who takes a dribble and step in, pulls up and NAILS IT AS TIME EXPIRES! 66-65 Murray State.  The upset. The Murray Brothers are going to the second round, even the brother who played Freddy Rumsen on Mad Men! Jesus, another great ending.

-Back in New Orleans there is 3:20 left and Sammy Houston and Baylor are tied at 55-55.  Sammy Houst has the ball. They spread the Baylor zone and miss a jumper.  Baylor comes back with a nice pass to the interior for a dunk. 57-55.

- Sammy Houston loses it at the other end.  Baylor comes back and Lacedarius Dunn makes a turnaround jumper.  Gotta love Lacedarius! 59-55.

- Sam Houston makes a bad decision to go for a long three that clanks off the rim.  1:24 remaining.  They foul Baylor and they miss at the line, but Sam Houston throws the ball away. Lacedarius Dunn comes back with a dunk. 61-55.  Sammy Houston misses another shot and fouls.  The wheels may be coming off here. Dunn makes two FTs. 63-55 Baylor with a minute left.

- Quick pass underneath for Sammy and a layup.  But Baylor comes right back and Dunn is fouled.  Dick Enberg (the legend) tells us that "Goggles" Clavell had a great game.  Dunn makes both FTs. 65-67 with 46.6 left.

- Clavell picks up a miss and makes the layup. He is fouled! And one chance. Lacedarius fouls out. Clavell misses the FT and Sammy fouls immediately. 65-59 with 30 seconds left.  Will there be BBQ in round 2? Baylor makes 1 of 2 at the line.

- Crow on Sam Houston misses a 3. Baylor fouled. 66-59 with 21.4 left. Baylor makes both. 68-59. Sam Houston misses another three and Baylor dribbles out the clock.  68-59 final.

- Back to Providence. St. Mary's and Richmond. St. Mary's 41, Richmond 40. 16:51 left. We are with Raftery and Lundquist, which is a great commentator pairing.

- St. Mary's takes a 43-40 lead. Gonzalvez (yes, correct spelling) on Richmond with some nice dribbling, gets inside and makes a tough layup.

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7:11:

- Back from the News Break between early sessions and the late sessions as well as some dinner.  Missed the ending of the St. Mary's and Richmond game, but I heard that St. Mary's was extremely impressive.  A team to watch for in round 2.

- Now we get UNLV and Northern Iowa who are underway and tied at 8.  A classic 8 vs. 9 matchup between two historical rivals.

- Northern Iowa is setting the tone early for some offensive glass dominance.  10-10 as CBS takes us back to Providence for Georgetown vs. Ohio. I caught a couple Georgetown games this year and they have looked either dominant or terrible.  It hinges on Greg Monroe, the talented and enigmatic center.

- Ohio moving the ball well and Tommy Freeman from Muncie, IN makes a 3. Ohio 3, G'Town 0. Julian Vaugh on G'Town answers with a nice post move and lay-in. 3-2. Basset of Ohio nails a jumper. 5-2. Freeman misses for G'Town and Ohio pushes it. They move the all around the point and find an open shot. Miss. They look extremely sharp, though.

- G'Town throws away an inbounds pass. Basset with a breakaway layup. 7-2 with 16:30 left. G'Town misses again. They do not look good at all.

-8-2 with 16:00 left and Wright on G'Town makes a 3. 8-5. That might wake G'Town  up.

- A couple of sloppy possessions by both teams. G'Town in transition. Wright bobbles it but pushes the ball to Monroe just in time. Monroe makes a layup and is fouled.  He misses the and one and Ohio comes back with a 3. 11-8 with 14:30 remaining.

- Monroe posts up and spins baseline for a reverse layup.  Very pretty move. 11-10 Ohio.

-G'Town inbounds and Hollis Thompson makes a corner three. 13-11 Georgetown.

-Meanwhile, UNLV is holding off Northern Iowa 24-20.  That may be a close one as well. Kentucky already has a 15 point lead on East Tennessee State University. Over.

- G'Town comes back with a transition layup by Wright and then Ohio executed a picture perfect baby hook.

- Back from break, Wright has the ball and Georgetown is in transition. Ohio defender strops him  but then leaves his assignment. Wright takes the long, open three. Nails it. Ohio moves the ball, winding clock down. They find an open man and nail a three. 20-18 Ohio. 9:30 remaining.

7:49:

-Ohio's ball movement is excellent and it results in another open shot.  22-18 Ohio. 8:23 remaining.  Georetown with another turnover.  Ohio takes possession again finding the open man. Freeman for three. Nails it. 25-18. Ohio. Timeout.

-After the timeout, Monroe with a great drop step and spin layup. On the other end Ohio turns it over.

8:27:

-After I doze off for a few minutes (sorry, post-dinner food coma) its G'Town down 48-36 at the half. UNLV is up 36-35. CBS has put Marquette vs. Washington on. Marquette is up 31-30.

- Isiah Thomas for Washington (nope, no relation) nails a three. 33-31 Huskies.

-CBS shows us clips of Armon Basset's excellent play in the first half.  Very few Armons out there. The last one I heard of was Armon Tanzarian and his reign of terror in Springfield.

- Back to G'Town and Ohio. Ohio continues its terrific ball movement. Open shot. 50-36. G'Town follows that with a turnover. However, they recover with a steal and dunk by Jason Clark.

- Monroe is stripped by Ohio who takes the ball the length of the court. Foul on Georetown underneath. 17:52 remaining.

- Kentucky is giving us the obligatory 1 seed vs. 16 seed blowout.

- Cooper of Ohio steals the ball from Wright. Cooper takes it down and delivers a beautiful alley oop. The crowd is up and is definitely pro-Ohio.  53-38.  The ugly G'Town has definitely showed up tonight.

- Back at the G'Town/Ohio announcers booth, Lundquist sells a Raftery joke. Sometimes these guys like each other a little too much.

- Wright (Georgetown) steals the ball, fast break, layup  by Freeman. 53-42 Ohio.

- Switching channels during commercial and watching clips of Heat vs. Orlando on TNT.  "The magnificent" Dwyane Wade says Doug Collins.  You know times are tough when it appears that Wade's  best friend on the team is Quentin Richardson.

- Second half underway in the No. Iowa and UNLV game.  Northern Iowa up 45-43.  Washington and Marquette are tied at 41 with 46 seconds left in the first half.

- Big call in the Ohio/G'Town game.  Monroe makes a bucket and there is a whistle.  Offensive foul on Monroe.  G'Town is down 13.

- Basset comes the other way and nails a step back three. 58-42 Ohio.  They look good as Raftery skats, "a rat-a-tat-tat."

- Magic-Heat. 56-54 Miami in the third. Underrated story this year: Dwyane Wade is an excellent passer.  Very much ignored.  His season this year is like 2005-2007 Kobe, except he can pass.

- Wade posts, draws double, spins baseline, drives in traffic and dishes to Arroyo for an open two. He gets it.

- Switch back.  Foul on Georgetown underneath.  Ohio headed to the line. G'Town looks disinterested.

- Monroe slashes nicely for a big man, dishes to Wright for an easy layup. 59-44 with 14:20 left.

-Marquette up 43-42 at the half and just as I am thinking it, CBS switches to the UNLV/No. Iowa game. 50-48 Northern Iowa. UNLV is pressing No. Iowa. I can feel the old blisters forming on my feet. What?

- Northern Iowa with some great ball movement and an open 3.  Their fans are holding up giant heads of one of their players who look like Bobby Boucher from The Waterboy. I like it.

- UNLV breaks a trap, but Chase Stanback is fouled by Kerwin Dunham. Which one of those guys is black?

- UNLV steals from No. Iowa. They launch a three. No good. 53-49 Northern Iowa with 7:49 to go.

- Back to Miami and Orlando. The Magic have taken the lead 67-60. Of course.  Beasley with a miss. What can you say about him? Terrible.

8:55:

-Coming to a critical period with no TiVo. New Offic starts at 9:00.  I think D-Wade may suffer tonight. Tonight (shock!) priorities go: NCAA Hoops, comedy, NBA. Normal priorities: 1. Writing/beer, 2. NBA, 3. Comedy.

- Northern Iowa with a steal and Adam Koch with a layup and the foul. Northern Iowa on an 11-1 run. 6:49 left.

-Northern Iowa is playing tremendous defense, but UNLV gets a putback and then a steal. Chase Stanback (black or white?) nails a three. 58-54.

- The Office is on. It may be jumping the shark this season.

- UNLV gets the halfcourt trap and Northern Iowa has to call timeout.

-UNLV on a 7-0 run now as Stanback gets white-hot. 58-56 with 5:09 left.

9:07:

-Kwadzo Ahelegbe on the line for Northern Iowa.  He makes both FTs. 60-56. Timeout UNLV with 5:03 left.

- UNLV has cut the lead to 62-61 as Stanback continues his hot hand. UNLV are using the press very effectively. Northern Iowa is flustered. They lose the ball, get it back and there is a tie-up. Possession goes to UNLV.

- Back in Providence, Georgetown has cut the lead to 7. 81-74 with 4:35 left.  Basset misses a long three. G'Town gets the rebound and brings the ball down and they are fouled.  However, the one and one misses.

- Cooper makes a three for Ohio.  They have 13 threes in the game.  The lead is ten. Foul on Ohio and we go to timeout.

- One of two freethrows made. 9 point Ohio lead with 3:30 to go.  Cooper drives for Ohio and makes a terrific one-handed scoop.  86-78 Ohio. 2:00 left.

- Georgetown has to foul Cooper. He makes two. 88-78. Georgetown misses and it looks like Ohio is going to take the game.

- We switch to UNLV/No. Iowa.  66-63 Northern Iowa leads with 1:09 remaining.  Shot clock violation against Northern Iowa. 57.2 seconds left.

- UNLV ties it with a three by Belfield who then makes the steal but goes out of bounds. No timeouts left for Northern Iowa. 35 seconds left.

- Northern Iowa will hold it for the last shot.  UNLV can't foul.  Northern Iowa is backed up near half court, but Ali Farokhmanesh nails a long three! 69-66 Northern Iowa.  UNLV takes it down court and it is tapped out. Officials are trying to figure out how much time to put on the clock. They decide on 1.6 seconds.

- As we are in timeout, Marquette has opened up on Washington, 60-47 with thirteen minutes left.

-UNLV inbounds. Three point attempt is too late. No good anyway. Northern Iowa advances.

- We're back in Providence. Ohio is up 93-80. Georgetown brings the ball down and travelling is called on Wright. Georgetown is going to play the foul game with 56.2 seconds left and down 13.

- Washington has cut Marquette's lead to 8.

- Switch to 30 Rock. Liz Lemon making some great Philadelphia Eagles snowball throwing references.

-"This is for you, Don Goose" - Jenna on 30 Rock.

-Switch back. Washington makes a three. 62-58 Marquette is barely hanging on.  Washington with a steal and it is tied-up. Jump ball, possession stays with Marquette. Marquette with a crazy shot off the glass. Butler with the putback. 64-58. Washington at the other end - a three! 64-61. Eight three pointers for Washington.

- Haywood for Marquette with a catch and shoot. Drains it. Very pretty shot, very tough.

- It is strange hearing Isiah Thomas' name being repeated over and over.  Washington nails a long jumper. 66-63 Marquette.

- Marquette has missed a few layups and Washington comes back down the floor. Thomas to Pondexter. Layin. 66-65 with 6:43 left.

- 30 Rock back on. Frank is rocking a Pumps t-shirt.  Maybe repping the sleazy Williamsburg strip club on Grand Street?

- "I got a lot of flack for playing the pig that ate Babe," - Jenna.

- Marquette inbounds. Hayward witha  tough bank. 71-69 with 5:41 remaining.  Marquette with a miss. Thomas buries a three for Washington! 72-71.  Marquette loses the ball. Timeout with 4:59 left.

- 30 Rock: Settling soul mates. Some classic lines. "I've played Monopoly alone." "You can make me look less gay at work functions."

- Good defense by Marquette. Steal, drive, dish for an open three! Nailed! 74-72 Marquette. Marquette continutes to play good defense.  It looks like they make a clean block, but are called for the fouk.  4:15 left. Quincy Pondexter at the line.  He makes both freethrows. 74-74. 4:11. Marquette works the ball inside. Shooting foul on Washington.

- Switch back to 30 Rock. "Its a Lizaster." "At one time my obituary was going to say, 'Young CEO dies in casino orgy fire.'"

- Marquette  at the line. 3:54. Jimmy Butler makes both. 76-74 Marquette. 3:52 left.

- Isiah Thomas goes for a nice reverse layup, but its blocked out of bounds. Washington ball.  Washington with several offensive rebounds but can't make the follow-up.  Butler with a rebound, he slips. Travelling called. Washington ball. 3:12.

- Pondexter working for Washington, misses, follows his own shot. 76-76. 2:34.

- Marquette has the ball. Acker drives and is fouled.

- We may need Isiah Thomas in this tournament so that announcers can oversay his name for nostalgia.

- Acker makes both FTs. 78-76 Marquette. 2:26.  Marquette presses. Foul.  Washington makes both FTs. 78-78 with two minutes remaining.

- Hayward with a long three for Marquette. Misses. Washington has the ball with 1:40 left. Marquette strips it! Tieup. Jump ball to Marquette. Marquette turns it over on a missed pass! 59 seconds left.

- Isiah misses the long three. Rebound Washington. 30 seconds left. Washington to hold. Seven seconds on the shot clock.  Pondexter with a herky jerky move. Banks it in! 80-78 Washington with 1.7 seconds left. This is getting ridiculous today!

- Kansas down 0-2 with 17:32 remaining!

- Marquette misses the last second shot. Huskies win 80-78.

- Miami and Orlando are in OT. 101-100 Orlando.  Wade takes a three and misses. Carter posts on Dorrell Wright and makes the turnaround with the foul. 104-100 Orlando.

-Lehigh is leading Kansas 10-4. Slightly surprising with 14 minutes left.  Carrington of Lehigh with a beautiful bank shot. 12-4.

- Back to Heat/Orlando. Wade drives, gets fouled and almost makes the shot. Wade has 35 tonight. Makes both FTs. Heat follow that up with good defense, but Lewis gets to the corner and makes a 3.  That puts the nail in the coffin.

- Back to the tourny.  Tennesse and San Diego State are in a close one. Tennessee is trailing.

- Collins with a three for Kansas. Miss. KU is cold.

- Maurice Morris knocks down a three for KU. Morris follows that with some good defense. He knocks the ball away. Tie up. Lehigh ball.  KU keeps up pressure. Lehigh throws it away. KU makes the layup. 12-9 with 12:20 left. Lehigh works it in. Offensive foul.

- KU works it inside to Aldrich.  Aldrich makes the layup and is fouled.  Chance for a three point play.

- Aldrich completes it.  Morris and KU are coming alive. 17-16 with Kansas looking good, this could get out of hand.

- San Diego State and Tennesse are embroiled at 14-11.

-Xavier Henry makes a three for KU.

-Collins drives in and makes a floating layup. KU up 21-14 with 8:10 remaining. Lehigh is going cold. They can tell Kansas is ready.

-Tennesse and SD State are at 22-21 with 6:14 remaining. CBS wants us to have a long look at KU, though.  Lehigh is just losing it. Amazing how fast Sherron Collins is.

- Tayshawn Taylor with a steal and a nice soaring dunk.

- Finally Lehigh makes a three. Foul on Kansas. 5:45 remaining. 25-17.  Lehigh with a long two. 25-19. Another offensive foul on Kansas. That's two on Cole Aldrich.

- Carrington makes an awkward hook. 25-21 Kansas.  But a foul on Lehigh. KU misses both shots.

- Carrington with another great move and a nice fadeaway jumper. 25-23.

- Scoreboards: Texas and Wake tied at 30 with 2:00 minutes left in the first half.  Tennesse up on SD State 30-21 with 2:10 left.

- KU makes one FT. 26-23. Travel on KU. Long two from Lehigh. 26-25.

-Xavier Henry throws it away for KU. Lehigh answers with a turnover.  Collins drives and is fould by John Adams. Gotta love the Patriot League.

- Collins makes 2.  28-25. KU with a strip on Lehigh and Collins makes a 3. 31-25 KU 1:35 left in the half.  Lehigh needs a bucket and they get a tip in by McCullem off a Carrington miss.

- Texas and Wake at 38-35 with 1 minute left.

-Tennessee and SD State 32-26 with 52 seconds left.

-Lehigh gets the ball down to Carringon who makes an outside drop step and makes a sneaky layup.  31-29 Kansas. Collins answers with a drive and a perfect reverse layup.

- Off a Lehigh miss, Collins drives and dishes for a KU layup.  35-29 Kansas at the half.

- We switch to Tennessee and SD State. Prince with a strange pump bank shot but he makes it. Tennessee up 34-26 with 2.2 left in the half.

- Texas up on Wake 38-37 at the half.

- Draper is doing Mercedes commercials.  Soothing until Mad Men Season 4.

- New Mexico and Montanat. 17-17 with 8:54 remaining. Two states I have spent time in. I almost camped right next to a prison in New Mexico, but my friends and I decided against it. The uniform matchup here leaves a lot to be desired though.  Almost made me forget that it was a 3 seed vs. 14 seed matchup tied at 17.

- Back from the half to Lehigh and KU.  Kevin Harlan gives us a litany of stats where KU is outplaying Lehigh, but Lehigh remains within 6.

- Collins in to Aldrich. Layup. 37-29. Watch for Aldrich.

- Bad baseline pass by Lehigh picked off by Xavier Henry. Collins with a nice crossover but misses the layup.

- 3 pointer by Lehigh, but Maurice Morris answers with a layup. 39-32 KU.

- Harlan asks, "In the tournament you have to have urgency don't you?"

- Xavier Henry gets a rebound and goes to coast to coast. 41-32 KU. They are pulling away quickly.

- Wake up on Texas 44-38. Tennessee up 37-28 on SD State. Montana up 22-17 on New Mexico.

- Lehigh misses and KU takes it down and Xavier Henry makes a pretty floater in the lane as Harlan and partner talk up his skills.

-Lehigh makes a pair of FT. 43-34. 16:55 remaining. Travel on Xavier Henry. Chance for Lehigh here, but they almost turn it over. Long three from C.J. McCullen for Lehigh. Aldrich answers with a dunk. 45-37.

- Missed 3 by Lehigh. Tap in by McCullem. 45-39.

- Collins answers with a three. 48-39.  Tough inside pass by Lehigh. Kansas steals and Xavier Henry lays down an NBA drunk in the lane. 50-39. Lehigh follows with a three. 50-42. KU turns the ball over and Lehigh makes a layup. 50-44.

11:21:

- Wake pulling away from Texas 54-42. Tennessee and SD State are tight. Tennessee is up 39-37. Montana up 28-27 on New Mexico at the half.

11:39:

- Tyrell Reed nails a three for Kansas. 56-44. I always like Kansas because of their UNC connections.  This year they seem extremely deep (Ed note: Clearly this was written on Thursday. Oh what a difference two days make in the NCAA Tournament.)

-The superior athleticism of Kansas is starting to show at the 10:25 mark.  But Lehigh nails a three. 58-49.

- Morningstar nails a three for KU. 61-49.  Collins is showing his ability to get wherever he wants to on the court. He dishes to Reed who nails another three. 64-51. 9:19 remaining. KU looks in control so we switch back to Providence where Tennessee is up 44-43 on SD State. 9:44 left.

- SD State takes the lead. "They are back back up!" exclaims Verne Lundquist.  You can tell that he loves this time of year - maybe too much.

- Tennessee takes the lead as J.P. Prince makes two FTs. 46-45 Tennessee.  Offensive foul on SD State as Prince takes a vicious elbow to the face.  In a funny moment, Wayne Chism "kicks" Prince on the floor.

- Is RepoMen going to be good? No, right?

- This SD State/Tennessee game is hard to watch. I have seen a few Tennessee games this year, but it seems like they always play games that finish with a score of 60-52. They also always have really athletic and long players that play very loose and sloppy.

-Nice inside pass by Tennessee ino Chism for the layup. 48-45 Vols. Hopson nails a three. 51-47 Tennessee. 4:21 left.

- Gay on SD State with the lefty layup. And one.  He makes the FT. 53-50 Tennessee. 4:08.

- Tennessee is at the line with two FTs. Another questionable loose ball call called. Tennessee 55-50 with 3:20 left.

11:58:

-Wake leads Texas 68-62 with 2:10 left and New Mexico has taken the lead on Montana 38-32.  Tennessee gets called for an offensive foul. 55-52 with 2:38 left.  SD State travels. Tennessee inbounds to Chism and Chism loses the ball by making a terrible behind the back dribble decision.

- All of a sudden, we are switched to Wake and Texas. Wake is up 67-64.  Brown of Texas hits a three. 67-67. 49.3 seconds left.

- Back to SD State and Tennessee. 57-54 Tennessee. 57 seconds left.

12:04:

-Foul on Tennessee.

- Back to Wake an Texas. Wake is up 68-67. Texas drives and there is a dish for a layup, but its blocked. Tieup. Wake ball.

- Back to  Tennessee and SD State. Tennessee is up 57-56. Prince misses a FT but Chism with the rebound. 30 seconds left.  Tennessee moving the ball.  12 on the shot clock. Ball movement to Goings who makes a three! SD State comes down and Tennessee fouls on the three point shot! Wake is going to the line to shoot three free throws. 9.5 seconds left.

- Gay makes the first. "He's a net guy. He doesn't touch the tip." Vaguely erotic.

- 13.6 remaining in Texas vs. Wake.  Wake turns it over on the inbounds pass.

- SD State makes two of three FTs. Tennessee and SD State. 60-59 Tennessee.

- NM has pulled away from Montana.

- Back to Texas and Wake. Damien James drives and there is a blocking foul on Wake.  9.9 seconds left. James makes the first FT. Tie. James misses the second.  Wake drives down and loses the ball. Texas picks it up. Half court shot. No. Another overtime.  I can barely write or think anymore.

- In Tennessee/SD State, Chism makes two FTs. SD State with three seconds left goes for the three to tie.  No! Tennessee winds.

- Texas and Wake in OT. Wake misses a floater. Texas works it inside.  Ragged baseline jumper is good. Wake comes back with a three. Miss. Tip back. Miss. Texas gets the rebound and works it down inside on the other end for a layup. 71-68.

- Texas steals the ball and Jordan Hamilton hits a three. 74-68. Texas steals the ball immediately. Damien James for a dunk and is fouled. 3:04 left. James makes both FTs. 76-68 Texas.

- Wake converts a follow-up dunk. 2:43. Texas misses a three and there is a loose ball foul. Wake Forest makes the first of the one and one. They make the second. 76-72 Texas.

- Brown makes a long jumper for Texas. 78-72. 1:49 left.  Wake can't get going on offense. Loose ball picked up by Texas.  1:25 left. Texas has the ball, but Brown is called for a charge.

- Wake shoots a three. Misses but the follow up is good. 78-74 Texas.

- Texas misses two FTs. 78-74 with 49 seconds left.  Wake misses a three. Damien James grabs the rebound with 35.4 left.  From what I have seen, this has been a sloppy game. Wake  fouls Texas. First FT is made. 79-76. Second FT made. 80-76. 28.2 seconds remaining.

- Wake takes the ball down. Open 3 by Wake's Gay. Nails it. 80-79 with 15.9 remaining.  Dick Enberg says, "Oh my! Overtime!"

- Wake fouls Texas with 10 seconds left.

- Meanwhile, Montana has crawled back to 53-52. One after another with these ridiculously close games.

- Texas misses both FTs and Wake comes back and nails a three! Unbelieveable. 82-80.  Texas for the last minute shot. No good. Jesus, let me sleep.

- The Montana/New Mexico game has sucked me in like this is Godfather Part III.  New Mexico 57, Montana 54. 1:50 left.

- Montana misses a layup. Out of bounds to Montana. Inbounds, baseline jumper is good. 57-56 with 1:25 to go.

- Montana commits a blocking foul with 1:22 left. New Mexico at the line. Dariese Gary makes the first. He makes the second. 59-56.

12:38:

- Montana is moving the ball side to side.  The ball is almost stolen and then actually stolen by New Mexico with 52 seconds left.  Timeout, New Mexico.

- Montana fouls New Mexico with 42.4 seconds left. Dariese Gary misses the first. He makes the second. 60-56 with 30.4 left.

- Montana inbounds the ball. They drive and drop-off for the layup. The shot misses, but there is a foul. Two shots. 22.4 seconds to go. One of two free throws are made. 60-57. Montana fouls before the ball is inbounded. Dariese Gary for New Mexico misses both FTs! Montana drives down at the other end, but they miss the layup.  They have to foul New Mexico with 13.5 seconds left.

-Roman Martinez at the line for New Mexico.  He makes both FTs. 62-57 New Mexico.

- Montana takes the ball in.  They attempt a three. Miss. Second chance. Miss. New Mexico winds.  Dear Lord what a day. Can it be this good again?


I exhausted myself scribbling out those notes and I just exhausted myself typing them up. Of course, Friday was a solid day of action and then yesterday we had two big upsets with Villanova and then Kansas both getting upset.  This tournament is really wide open at this point as the main storylines become:

1. How mediocre the overall competition is, which breeds all of these exciting games; and

2. John Wall vs. Evan Turner. Who will be the #1 pick in the draft? Depending how well each of these guys play in the tournament could decide who is picked first.  Kentucky is extremely talented and could take the entire thing at this point from what I have seen of them. I haven't seen Ohio State in the tournament yet, but you can't rule out Evan Turner.

Anyway, that's my take on the tournament for now. I am going to try to enjoy the beautiful weather today and the games later on.  I'm going to get the first podcast up this week and then try to do one every week going forward.

Just stay with me here.

Cleaning House

I've been extremely busy at work this past week or so as I began to wrap up my (graceful?) exit into whatever step will be next for me, so I apologize for the lack of posts and new material for you all to read.  Alright, so I lied.  I don't have a job and I haven't been busy, I've just been watching Wainy Days nonstop and haven't gotten out of bed until now, because its too funny and depresses me.

The funny thing is, both of those things are true.

This post is just to clear out some random things I have been thinking about over the past few days. We will get to the new material later on this week such as a music post focused on the Rolling Stones, which will dare to not be trite and cliched - hopefully that achievement will occur; a new humorous list ranking something irrelevant to you, but relevant to my manic brain; a brief look into some of the raw material for my next story; and perhaps that long played up book post I have been referring to that will run-down Thomas Wolfe, A Fan's Notes, and the recently (last year) published Family Album.

For now, however, it is time to clean house:

-Have been catching a fair deal of Kobe playing lately.  The Heat vs. Lakers game on Thursday night on TNT was tremendously entertaining to watch.  Kobe was unbelievable.  He was literally channeling Michael Jordan circa 1997/1998.  It is a little eerie to watch being an incredible (who isn't?) Michael Jordan fan.  His ability to make clutch shots is absolutely unparalleled in the game right now.  He seems to hang and fade back just far enough on his jump shots to elude the defender every time, much like a latter day Jordan.  He has also refined and perhaps perfected his pivot moves to the same degree that Michael did as well.  You have to observe closely as Kobe doesn't rely on his speed or complete athleticism anymore. He relies more on cunning, body control and the vast language of the game that he has accumulated.   I have been a begrudging Kobe fan throughout his career, but it is becoming easier and easier to like him as you realize what a student of the game he is and with what knowledge he brings to it.  He still remains calculated and artificial in a way that Michael never was, even though Michael constantly put the brand of Michael Jordan instead of the actual person of Michael Jordan.  There was just something about Michael's version of will and his competitive streak that rang truer than Kobe's does.

- Staying on the Heat vs. Lakers game, Dwyane Wade was absolutely phenomenal.  Check out his line from the game:

                        Min   Pts.  Reb.   Ast.   TO    Stl.
03/04    LAL    42     27     5       14       6        1


You also just have to look at his line from the game before:

                     Min  Pts.   Reb.   Ast.    TO   Stl.
03/02    GS    37    35      6        12       3      4

That line is seriously insane. No one fills up the stat sheet in such a complete way as Wade does. Not even Lebron. It's just painful to watch his team. Wade has to do everything for that team every time up the floor and every time back down the floor on defense.  Wade is working so hard that even Kobe said after the game that he needs help.  I like Wade playing in Miami even if the fans are frontrunners and it is sort of disgusting how the arena always looks half empty when one of the top three players in the world is playing for their team. I like it because its good to have  star in a popular city like Miami where he has already won one title.  He just needs help or he needs to get out, because I can't see him continue to waste his tremendous efforts for a team that is barely making the playoffs.

- I'm also getting excited for the upcoming 30 for 30 Documentary on ESPN called Winning Time.  If visiting that link doesn't excite you, then I just have nothing to say to you ever again.

- With the nice weather this weekend I got a chance like most people to do some walking around my neighborhood and I have to say that Brooklyn is extremely enjoyable on sunny, low 50's days like this past weekend.  I got out and enjoyed some Stumptown coffee at Second Stop Cafe and then also got to play some pickup ball with high schoolers at McCarren Park. They only slightly insulted me by murmuring that I was the "whitest (racial slur deleted) in the gym."

- Listened to the latest Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman podcast where they touched on a lot of interesting points about race, basketball, Lost and the Wire.  I recommend checking it out.

- Also checked out that show How to Make it in America this weekend also. I can't decide if its terrible or not.  It is absolutely the east coast Entourage and it does remind me of a few too many people I know and interact with.  However, you can't deny a show that has a strange easiness to it, especially when you are hungover.

- Caught the Oscars last night and thought they were funny as hell.  All the winners just seemed strange to me.  Maybe because I didn't see so many movies this year and I even saw one movie this year (Moon with my man Sam Rockwell) just to go somewhere cool to sleep.  I did see Up In the Air and thought that was a good movie. I liked the younger girl in it.  All the girls looked good at the Oscars last night.

- One thing about the Oscars. When I was watching it, I was secretly hoping that the Academy would pull a classic WWF move, where the award is given for Best Picture, but then the presenter of the award hits the winner with a chair and either a) takes the award for him or herself or b) takes the award and gives it to the winner from last year (in this case Slum Dog Millionaire) and declares to the world that they were in cahoots the whole time.  I feel like this would spice up the Oscars a little bit.  Then again, what do I know. When I see two people present at the Oscars I assume they are married. And yes, sex has no bearing on that.

- The comedy sketches will be coming soon. However, I also want to develop an idea I came up with last summer for a series of videos called Caught! This idea is comprised of a series of short videos of people doing mundane things, but getting "caught" by somebody. An example would be "CAUGHT! Using the dimmer switch," or "CAUGHT! Licking ice cream off of a spoon." I think this would catch on very quickly. It's either that or the other idea I have had recently for a character with the catchphrase "I'll eat that."  Have to develop that a little further.

That's all the random thoughts I have cleared out for now.  Look for the Stones post up tomorrow night as I frantically try to jot down some initial notes tonight to get kick started. Keep yourselves safe, enjoy the weather, and let your souls rage out to any Talk Talk albums you can get your hands on so that you can stay as un-Tiger as possible.

Now, the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:


James exhaled and passed his hand through his hair.

“People love you for something else and I can’t see it so clearly right now.”
If that was what his father said to him, it was difficult for James to imagine what his mother would say to if she saw the way he was acting.  He knew that Eve saw the difference, she’d confronted him about it the night before.  However, she let him off the hook easy.  She loved him in the way that only a soul mate could.  Eve would be satisfied with his stammering answers about his family, because she’d do her best to be right there with him.  That is why he married her: she challenged him in the ways he needed to be challenged. She respected what he truly wanted, because she knew him and knew that he didn’t want anything easy, but in the end she loved him and would let him off the hook – not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

James wasn’t sure what his mother would do.  She had raised him to be a man, a well-rounded man.  She wanted him to treat women with respect, he treated women with respect.  She wanted him to seek the good in the world, he tried his best to seek the good in the world.  She wanted him to be humble, he was humble when he wasn’t drunk, and even when he was, very rarely was he brash.  His mother had dressed him in a red bow-tie when he was a baby.  There was a photo of him wearing it from Maggie’s fifth birthday party.  Their parents had sat him next to Maggie when she was going to blow out the candles.  Maggie wanted her friend Nicole to sit next to her.  The picture was of Maggie with a frown, cake on her hands and James, in his red bow-tie and vest, smiling with cake frosting all around his mouth and cheeks.  Ben stood behind Maggie.  That photo always made him tear up with both a sense of joy and of sadness.  There was a joy in looking at himself as a child dressed up properly in a man’s clothing.  The red bow tie became more than an accessory, it was a sign of his mother’s care, her embrace of motherhood.  She had loved his little body  and cared about his entrance and his appearance in the world.  However, there was a sadness because that little boy in a red bow tie now wore red ties, blue ties, and nice grey coats to work and he was a man, but he could not face the fact that he had created another life.  There was a piece of him growing inside of Eve, a new child who he could dress and shape in his own image – but he wasn’t sure if he liked that image.

What also made James sad when he thought of the photo and of his mother was the that the fact he had a worn a bow-tie as a child only reminded him that maybe his whole life had been formed by his mother’s vision of what it should be.  And it wasn’t only true for him; it was true for Maggie, Tom and Liza.  Maggie was the first child and a girl, which naturally made Rose take an aggressive approach towards parenting.  She didn’t know how to be a mother, there was a feeling inside of her that felt very natural, but she didn’t know what to do in each circumstance.  So she tried very hard to make Maggie into a sweet little girl, which was easy to do because she was very striking and cute with her red brown hair, especially when it was pushed up in  pigtails.  However, what she failed to realize, in those early days, with all of her intuition was that it was Maggie’s spirit that defined her, the non-feminine, non-sexual fire that always kept her seperate.

For Tom, perhaps she had indulged him too much.  James thought of how Rose was always protecting Tom.  She never pretended that he wasn’t guilty of being odd.  When Tom’s friends’ mothers came over to report that Tom had told their sons there was no Santa Claus or when their CCD teacher called and told Rose that Tom had stated that he did not believe in God but only the air, Rose always made him apologize.  She made him come to the door or come to the phone no matter how old he was.  However, afterward she would always pet his hair in a strange way.  James could remember sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework when Tom had to apologize for telling his friend Jeremy that he didn’t care what it would be like to be an NFL wide receiver, he only wanted to know what it would be like to be dead.  Tom was seven and James was fourteen.  Tom had apologized to Jeremy’s mother and Rose kneeled in front of him to make sure he understood how serious she was about him saying upsetting things to his friends.  But then they walked back in the kitchen and she pet his head; it was some symbol telling him that she knew he was different.  James never wanted to let Tom have that, though.  Tom was too smart not to know the things he was doing; he knew the way the world worked, yet he did these strange things, not out of some kind of malice, but simply because he saw the world.  And the way he saw the world was his way and although he  knew all the different ways the world could be  and was seen, he never let those ways intrude on his vision.

He wondered if Tom could survive in the world.  Despite the fact that Tom stuck to his view, he was extremely sensitive to other people and their pains and struggles.  James felt that was something they had in common.  Yet, there was a small difference that seperated them.  James wasn’t quite sure what it was.  He knew it had something to do with their mindsets.  Tom took everything to heart and had difficulty differentiating the empathy he felt for others with his own pains, fears and ambitions.  James knew where the lines ended and where he could do nothing more than help – his short coming was never knowing when to quit. There was something abstract in the way Tom related to other people and the world.  James remembered a conversation he and Tom had a few years before.  James had been home for Labor Day and Tom was going back to school the next day.  They stood at the edge of the garage door, where the white concrete met the black tar of the driveway, there were a few leaves already stuck in the divot between the two.  They stood drinking beer and listening to the crickets. James remembered the eve of the first day of school from when he was a child, he smelled the slight coolness of the air and his heart beat  uncontrollably.  His mind was wandering away, thinking about how he hadn’t changed so much since he was a student.  Then, Tom had spoken.

“Jimmy,” he said.

James laughed. “Yes, Thomas.”

Tom bowed his head and looked out into the dark.  James tried to follow his gaze but the darkness pressed and all he could find was a backlight glowing from the neighbors yard.  He didn’t know what Tom saw.

“Do you ever get that feeling when you smell the freshness of the air?  I mean the freshness of a cool summer night?”

“Yeah, you mean that school day feeling?”

“No,” he paused.  “I mean.” He stammered. “I mean, I mean, that feeling that makes the edges of leaves strange to you.  That you don’t understand exactly why they’re there, or how they live and make air and make the world go on the way it does.  Then you keeping thinking about their edges and you remember school, and you remember a sunny day in summer and always wanting to flop down underneath them in the shade and not care about anything else in the world.  When I smell that air, when I smell the trees or the night I think about how nice it would be to just lay down under a tree and just die.  Become part of the rest of it, you know? Not walk around to smoke cigarettes and drink beer, just cry and fall and lay down and die to become a leaf too.  Or a piece of grass.”

James didn’t know what to say.  He felt strongly that the throbbing feeling in his chest was the same feeling his brother was talking about, but he simply couldn’t see it in that way.  So he pat and held Tom’s shoulder.

“Its funny to get older, Tom. All of that is the good stuff, though.  Summer days and nights growing up around here.  Those are all the things you remember.”

Tom turned away from the distance and looked at him.  His lips were pursed and his eyes were wide.
 
Then his face focused, his lips tightened and he frowned.

“Are you afraid to get married?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you love Eve?”

“Yes. I do. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing,” Tom looked away, back out into the dark. “That must be nice.”

James stared at the side of his face and took a drink of his beer. 

“People love you for something else and I can’t see it so clearly right now.”

The phrase caused his stomach to churn again.  He shook his head unconsciously and stood up.  It occurred to him that he and Eve had been kneeling too long.  James took Eve’s hand and they walked back to the chairs.  James shook his head again, he hadn’t even thought of Liza.  He looked at her in profile.  She looked like Tom in a way.  They had the pointer features.  He admired her chin and thought, poetically, that it looked like a crescent moon.  James noticed her smoothing her skirt against her thighs,  her hands moving out from the center where the thighs touched while her knees nervously bobbed. He shook his head once more as he sat.  There was too much to pay attention to and that was one of the reasons he had always hated coming home.  He imagined each of the people he loved in a list and could not help seeing the boxes next to each of their names, the boxes that his mind would check off when he felt he had satisfied them, or satisfied his idea of what they needed.  James hung his head for a moment and then looked up at his father.  He wanted to tell him he would be a grandfather.

Grateful Deadline

If there are two things that I love, they are Jam Jerry and the Grateful Dead and the NBA.  So, of course I enjoyed this last week of NBA trade speculation.  How do the Grateful Dead fit in you might ask? I was listening to a lot of From the Mars Hotel the past week - especially album closer, "Ship of Fools."

As far as the trades go, there were a few big ones.  The most notable perhaps being Antawan Jamison going to the Cleveland Cavaliers. There was a lot of speculation that Amar'e Stoudemire was going to be traded from the Suns to the Cavs in an attempt to keep Lebron in Cleveland past this upcoming summer, however that did not pan out.  In the end, it was decided that Antawn would be a better fit for Cleveland and I have to agree with this decision.  Antawan will stretch defenses with his outside shooting, whereas Amar'e would only pack them further in.  This will play well with Lebron's ability to penetrate and kick.  Also, Antawan is a much better defender than Amar'e.  He may be older (33? Wasn't it 1998 just yesterday?), but he has consistently put up 18-20 points per game over his entire career and pulled in about 8 rebounds per game.  Of course, I've been a huge fan of Antawan's since he was a UNC boy.  He was an All-American low post player when he was at UNC, but developed an extremely effective outside game since moving to the pros.  Unfortunately, he has played on many mediocre teams throughout his career and was involved with the underachieving disaster that were the Washington Wizards - now a crazy amalgamation of bench players, Josh Howard, Al Thornton, and a bunch of free salary space.  I'm not a big fan of the Cavaliers and I always have to reluctantly admit to Lebron's transcendance since I am firmly entrenched in the Dwyane Wade camp - better overall player, better competitor, better crunch-time player - but with the addition of Jamison, they become a much more likeable team to me and I believe they do have what it takes to handle the Lakers.  They can easily stick Antawan on Odom if they meet the Lakers in the Finals.  He can also provide some help defense on Gasol and will give Artest trouble if the Lakers try to stick him on Antawan.  It was a savvy pickup.

Other trades included the Mavericks picking up Caron Butler and Brendan  Haywood from the Wizards in exchange for Josh Howard and Drew Gooden (O, lost days of Kansas!) and some other irrelevant trade pieces.  This move makes Dallas significantly better.  Butler gives them all the tools that Josh Howard did with less of Howard's lackadasical tendencies (aka not showing up).  Haywood is another UNC product who provides the Mavericks with an improvement to their interior defense and also helps their rebounding numbers and can give around 10 points a game.  The Mavericks may not be able to overtake the Lakers and may still have trouble finding a way to stop Carmelo if they meet the Nuggets in the playoffs, but they have enough pieces in place now to make a run and to hang tight in a series - and that is all you really need as the Mavs found out in the 2006 Finals when they lost to the Heat (OK, there may have been some questionable officiating and lucky breaks thrown in that equation as well).

The fraud known as Tracy McGrady ended up on the Knicks and looked good in his debut.  It remains to be seen if the Knicks will keep him and his huge contract on the roster into the summer. They picked up McGrady in order to dump his salary in an attempt to lure Lebron and another top notch free agent this summer.  I hope they dump McGrady and let him scratch his way onto another team.  The way he quit on Houston last year with his decision to have surgery was inexcusable.  He has been an overrated player for most of his career (maybe not 2000?) and never delivered anything when it mattered.  I never usually sound off about NBA players, but McGrady deserves it.

The other big trade was the Kings sending Kevin Martin (terrific two guard scorer in the mold of Reggie Miller and Rip Hamilton) to Houston in exchange for Carl Landry (a shame they had to let him go, because I liked him on that front line with Scola, those guys were tough, young and hustled) and a few other pieces.  This was a necessary trade for Houston because they needed to pick up scoring and Martin will certainly add that, and it takes pressure off of Aaron Brooks to score and allows him to focus more on distributing the ball from the point.  I don't know if they have enough left to make a push for the playoffs this year because the West is seriously deep (Jazz getting hot, the Thunder just continuing to surprise with how good they and their high level of team chemistry for being so young), however, if they draft smart and get a healthy Yao back next year, they may be able to make some noise as a higher seed.

In sadder news, the Celtics (I don't know why I've gotten so attached to the Celtics in recent years, I think it stems for my love of Kevin Garnett and watching him in his 2003-2004 MVP season playing against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals when I was the last one left in my dorm.  Everyone had left me all their remaining beer, which added up to about 70-80 beers, so I polished them off the entire week watching basketball and listening to the Beach Boys, namely Friends and Sunflower. I sang very loudly out my windows and enjoyed the sunshine coming in.  My friend Miles even stopped by on one of the last nights - his mom had a family friend in town and they had stopped over there for a few nights on the way out of town - and we drank beer and whiskey and had a walking adventure around the back roads of Saratoga Springs) gave up Eddie House and some bench players to pick up Nate Robinson.  This trade is basically a wash and doesn't achieve anything for a Celtics team that seems to be floundering in a precarious position since the guards are changing on the team.  Rondo is clearly their best player and one of my top ten favorite players to watch and yet he doesn't have the crunch-time chops yet and still feels the need to defer to Pierce, Allen and Garnett more than he should.  He is developing a devastating behind the back fake and some of his curling layups are just absurd.  Once he can make foul shots and never miss his tear drop in the lane, he will be as close to unstoppable as any other point guard - namely, Chris Paul.  However, there is an awkward shifting of the team focus on the Celtics and I don't see them organizing it at any time soon.  I may be wrong and maybe the team roles and identities will fall  into place, but as for now, there is a cause to be concerned if you wish the Celtics the best - and I do.

This bit about the Celtics has me thinking about something I touched on in my recap of the Super Bowl - its the accepting or grasping of one's role and one's part in history that is so prevalant and essential in sports - although, it is essential in art and nearly everything else as well.  I don't know if I have the time at the moment to correctly articulate it and I think it would be better suited to an entire separate post.  There have been plenty of examples of it in contemporary sports, the rise of Lebron and the rest of the 2003 draft class, this 2009-2010 Celtics team,  Federer's dominance in tennis and the inability of any of his peers to try and rise to the opportunities that sport and history have given them to try and etch their name in stone and of course Peyton Manning and his recent defeat in the Super Bowl.  This is all tied into something greater about how we interact with time and what history means in order to reach our potential and to prolong our respective creativities and ability to give to the world and make the most of the materials we are given to work with.  I think I'll let you figure out where I am going to go with this and meanwhile formulate a more polished column to describe it to you all.

In new related to this blog, I want to point out some new additions to my links.  These are part of some Brown University graduate acquaintances I have picked up from my friend Janelle Sing.

The first link is one that I meant to put up a long time ago.  Her friend Phoebe (don't know last name) has a food blog that has generated some steam and even a cookbook deal, it is called Big Girls Small Kitchen. I went to a Chili Throwdown that Phoebe competed in back in November and she placed third from a panel of judges with a damn good chili.  I'd check out the blog/website as it is very helpful even for a dude like me (albeit World's Coolest Dude 2007).

The second link is from a friend of Janelle's I just met named Geddes.  She keeps a blog called Officially an Artist where she posts much of her art work.  She has some great stuff up there including some work that she and Janelle did this past weekend in Providence, which is an excercise called 12 paintings in 12 hours, which is exactly how it sounds.  I believe this is a great excercise, just as Kerouac's bop-prosody and spontaneous were perhaps better as excercises than as a style to build a collection  of work on.  "First thought best thought," as Kerouac said, is admirable, but not necesarrily successful when it comes to art.  "First though best thought" is important for actualizing work, to making your concepts and ideas hard truths that can then be manipulated and molded into a higher art, the art that steals, and shifts in the shadows of prior and current ideals, and finally transcends to to encompass those values and pillars of life, love and the universe that never go away.  In any event, it is a good excercise to be productive and if you look at the blog, you will see that Geddes is certainly productive.

Ok, that's it for me today.  This week we will have all my history and grasping of the moment ramblings, some gushing for the Walkmen and the continued overall greatness that is Puddles of Myself.

Now, the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt:



Douglas Bryant looked at Ben O’Donnell with his hands around his youngest daughter and that enigma of a son – the one who tried to off himself.  He’d seen him take that drink from his flask.  It took everything in his power not to go over there and scold Ben O’Donnell, even if it was his own wife’s funeral.  However, that’s what made the Bryants who they were – cold composure. Funeral Director Bryant checked his watch.  He’d give the general attendees a few more minutes to pay their respects before he ushered them out and allowed the immediates (Rose’s nuclear family) to pay their respects privately.  Then, when they were ready, even that drunk, they’d have the body transported past the house andthen to the place of rest – which was to be out in Calverton if he was not mistaken.  He didn’t quite understand why they were not going to have the requiem mass as most Catholics did.  Especially when he knew that Rose O’Donnell was a dutiful parishioner at St. James.

Douglas Bryant felt the wall against  his back.  Besides the moistness in his armpits, he was comfortable.  He looked at the O’Donnell family sitting together in the front row.  To him, it was a funny thing to have watched those front rows occupied by so many different families over the years.  There had been families stoic in their grief, others who calmly displayed their sorrow with tasteful tears, and still others who put on displays of distress that bordered on something maudlin.  Days and nights of mourning passed and then, if all concerned parties were lucky, no business or interaction had to be done again.  But the chairs remained sitting there in neat rows, and the platform always stood in the front.  These objects marked the space, cleanly and orderly.  And even with the passing of people in and out of the home, Douglas Bryant remained a fixture for them, for the town.  A person who provided a service of death – or more appropriately, memorial – or more optimistically, of closure.
Funeral Director Bryant took a cloth out from his back pocket and lightly tapped the back of his neck.  He checked his watch again.  He’d give them a  few more minutes.  Douglas surveyed the O’Donnell’s.  He did feel bad for them.  Rose O’Donnell was a kind woman.  It seemed as though she knew everyone in the town.  He could recall many meetings he’s had with her in Stop N’ Shop.  She’d catch him by the melons and ask how business was; how Frank was.  She’d even commend him on how he continued on in a line of work that faced him with such everyday sadness.  And he’d weigh his banannas and thank her for that.

It baffled him that a woman of her caliber could stay married to that full-time drunk, or how a son of Rose O’Donnell could try and drown himself in the St. George Creek.  Or, also, how the eldest, Maggie, could be the spitting image of her mother but be so flamboyant, such a rebel and so uncaring for a stable home life.  He’d seen her accolades in the Herald.  He’d also heard the announcement of her broken engagement.  In so many ways, the O’Donnell family was beyond Douglas Bryant’s understanding.  Especially the fact that they had only attended this final wake and that is was the sister-in-law, Erin, who had made all the arrangements.  Nevertheless, it was time to give them their space, it was time to give them their time.

Tom watched as Mr. Bryant walked up to the kneeler in front of his mother’s body.  He whispered to Mrs. Post who was kneeling with her sons Mike and Bryan.  Mrs. Post stood and fixed her long business skirt.  She ushered the boys along and they followed Mr. Bryant, looking uncomfortable in their blue and silver striped ties.  Tom closed his eyes take and seeee and listened to the sound of people exiting the room.  He heard coughs, shuffling of loafers on carpet, the thump of an odd chair leg or three.  With his eyes closed, Tom felt a growing presence within his stomach.  It was as if something were spreading and beating throughout his whole body.  I feel my heart beat rapidly. I feel it even though I didn’t see her when I walked in.  How could I have really hoped she would come? What is it that happened to us last night?  In that dark, the moistness of her chest skin.  My soul was hot – my soul was –is – a flake.  It wasn’t just his heartbeat, he felt the pumping coming from even the small roll of fat right above his groin.  In the darkness of his eyes, fluorescent squares gave way to shifting and grotesque visions of bodies.  He couldn’t control their ebb and flow.  He saw raw flesh, he saw the stink of carcass and the rise of flies in the air.  The form of the crucifix appeared too, but quickly flew out of the sight of his darkened vision.  Tom took a breath.  I breathe and pass the throbbing from my mouth to the air.  It feels like I am breathing too heavily.  I am strange, aren’t I, doc? With his breathing, came an ease.  He smelt the perfume of the flowers all around the room and, reminding himself that flowers did exist and that they were beautiful and fragrant, felt relaxed.  He opened his eyes and looked at the coffin.  His mother’s nose stuck up in profile.  Nothing in him told him what to do, so he felt the curiosity to look behind him.  Uncle Connor was still standing behind Aunt Erin who remained in her seat in the back; they were the only two left.  Tom bowed his head in the direction of his mother.  Then, he felt his father’s hand on his knee.

“What do you say we pray?”

“Sure, dad.”

“Who first?” his father asked.

I want to be the first one to go up.  I’m the one who killed mom, so that gives me the right.  Who would she’ve wanted to be first?

“Well, I’m the oldest,” Maggie said, “so I might as well…”

“No,” Liza said.  Maggie first looked surprised, but quickly smiled at her sister. “I want to be first.”

Maggie held out her arm towards the coffin.

That's What a Golden Age Looks Like: NBA All-Star Weekend 2010

 

The 2010 All-Star Game was a success.  Although the weekend was marred by probably the worst or one of the worst dunk contests of all time, the rest of the events held up. 

As I mentioned in my brief post on Saturday, the weekend started off right with the Rookie/Sophmore challenge on Friday night.  This game pits first year and second year players up against each other so that they may exhibit the skills that they are usually prevented from showing when they are on their actual teams and limited by veterans and limited minutes.  This game featured a ton of highlight worthy dunks and moves and was characterized by plenty of fast and loose action.  What this game showed was that in young stars like Tyreke Evans (Sacramento), Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City), Dejuan Blair (Spurs-next Charles Barkley like loveable persona), Brandon Jennings (Milwaukee), O.J. Mayo (Grizzlies), Eric Gordon (Clippers), and Brook Lopez (Nets – unfortunately) that the NBA will have plenty of marketable faces for years to come.  Out of the 18 players in this game, it is not a stretch to say that 9 or possibly 10 of these young guys will end up being All-Stars (Evans, Mayo, Gordon, Beasley, Curry, Blair, Westbrook, Lopez, Jennings, M. Gasol) and the rest will be almost at that level and at least likeable guys (Love, Flynn, Harden).  This has not often been the case with young talent in the NBA over the past ten years.  While I was watching the Rookie/Sophmore game, I muttered to my roommate, Erik Gundel,  “if this game is this good, I can’t wait for the actual All-Star Game.”  The league is once again building a solid foundation of players from winning college programs who learned under excellent head coaches.  Although, the “Lebron Rule” only keeps most of these players in college for a year before entering the NBA, I believe that they get a certain sense of discipline and perspective from having that one year of college experience as opposed to jumping just from high school to the NBA.  That is how the NBA rose to its golden era in the late 80’s and 90’s.  Guys went to college, played under winning coaches and in winning programs and then entered the NBA were they were humbled playing under greats like Magic, Bird, Dr. J, McHale, Parrish, Isiah and Jordan.  The same thing is happening now.  These young guys are all supremely talented, but they now enter a league where they have to face guys like Wade, Lebron, Kobe, Carmelo, Howard – legitimate stars who are larger than life and who have actual “good guy” personalities (yes, even Kobe in some respects).  This is all good.

Saturday night of All-Star Weekend is usually the most entertaining night because of the skills competition and of course the Dunk Contest.  This year there was an entertaining 3-Point Shootout with Paul Pierce winning in surprising fashion over Chauncey Billups and Stephon Curry, who I am sure will be in the contest many times. Steve Nash won the Skills Competition over younger players like Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook and Brandon Jennings.  Finally, Nate Robinson won the Dunk Contest in disappointing fashion of Demar DeRozen.  This year’s dunk contest featured too many obscure players in order to garner any actual interest or excitement.  The league really needs to figure out how to incorporate the stars back into  the contest in order to make it exciting.  There needs to be some kind of campaign within the ranks of the superstars where they talk each other into doing the contest again, otherwise the Dunk Contest may fall back into obscurity after its resurgence in the past few years thanks to Nate Robinson and Dwight Howard.

Now, the All-Star Game itself. I already broke down the merits of the rosters in my preview of the weekend and although the rosters were slightly tweaked because of injuries, the replacements that were put in were more than serviceable.  There are no two back to back weekends that are more similar or more entertaining in sports than Super Bowl Weekend and NBA All-Star Weekend.  With the record crowd of 108,713 on hand to watch the game, the NBA went for the true Super Bowl spectacle effect. Much has been made today in the aftermath of the game that the NBA cannot go back to doing the game in regular arenas and they should cater to the large domes, much like the Super Bowl caters to warm weather environments with excellent stadiums. I don’t know if I would get that worked up about the concept yet.  There is a certain novelty to the size and newness of the new Cowboys Stadium that may not be present in other domes.  I  happen to enjoy the touring aspect of the All-Star Weekend that allows each city with a franchise to play host.  It allows for crowd favorites and a certain pride for the history of each franchise to be showcased for good and for bad.  However, it is terrific to know that the NBA is able to draw a crowd of that size to witness its product.  It is something that is encouraging to a lifelong fan of the game and the league such as myself.

The actual game, too, was terrific.  The East seemed to have the game locked up with maybe not total superior talent, but a superior competitive edge (Lebron and Wade), until the West staged a late comeback.  Deron Williams’ mental error in fouling Wade when he didn’t have to ended up costing the West the game.  The final score: 141-139.  It had all the offense you could want and even some excellent defensive plays from time to time.  Each player had his chance to showcase his abilities and at each time there was one player whom you thought would take away the MVP: Carmelo early, then Dwight Howard, then Lebron, then Durant for a short period, then Wade, then Lebron, then Wade, then Lebron, then Wade, then Carmelo if he makes this three at the buzzer-NO!.

In the end, Dwyane Wade (my man) was named the MVP.  And with the line that he put up, there was no argument: 28 points (game high), 11 assists, 6 rebounds and five steals.  He simply did what he does all year round and play perhaps the most complete all around game in the NBA.  He and Lebron worked seamlessly together and put on a fantastic display of dunks, passing and (most importantly) defense.  Watching the two of them play together is truly amazing and it will be treat to see this continue for hopefully most of this next decade.  I don’t want them to ever be on the same team, because it is too much fun to watch them compete.  Even in the game, they were neck and neck with scoring and you found yourself rooting for each one to top the other.  While Lebron sat out in the second quarter, Wade upped his scoring.  Then, when Lebron was back in, he became more aggressive and you could almost sense he was thinking “gotta match Dwyane, gotta match Dwyane.”  I don’t know if there have been two players so closely linked in their styles and competition in the history of the NBA.  That is not to use “closely” as an adjective to describe their similarity in style, but to describe the scrutiny that each has  placed on them by the rest of the league and in their comparison to one another.  Wade edging out Lebron to win this award just ups the ante that much.  Lebron has two All-Star MVPs and one League MVP, while Wade as one All-Star MVP, one Finals MVP, one Championship and one Scoring Title.  These guys could go back and forth with the accolades and awards for years to come and we will be all the richer for it.  Especially if the NBA begins is climb back to the forefront of cultural consciousness as it once did when Michael Jordan ruled the court and the world.  I hope these two are able to bring it back to that level because then the world can be further exposed to the great personalities and talents that were on display last night from players such as Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Rajon Rondo, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, Chris Bosh and Derrick Rose.  These players are all terrific but they need the powers of Wade and Lebron to bring this game to everyone’s TV sets and not just to devoted, beerswilling fans like me.

The mixture of  aging veterans (leadership and poise), rising veterans (awe, grace, envy or the “I wanna be like Mike Effect”), and young players (hope, skill, potential) that is present in the NBA right now is bound for success.  All of these aspects were on display this past weekend and it left me, while I was watching the All-Star Game on Sunday Night, mumbling “Now things are finally back in order.”  And this year more than I ever I truly believe it.  After a decade of trying to fill the shoes of Michael Jordan and restore order to the league, it seems that the solution is not to find the next M.J. per se, but to find a level of competition, sportsmanship and personality for the league that will breed the next M.J. or transcendant player.  Lebron may be that player, Wade may be an M.J. copy and neither of them will ever be the “next M.J.” but they are laying and have laid a foundation for the league to be that great again, for the league to produce players that have the competitive fire, the knowledge of the game and the extreme level of skill that the majority of the stars in M.J.’s era had.

We will never get Michael back again.  But we can get his league back again.  And in many ways, that is a much better reward.

NBA ALL-STARTLING GAME 2010

Hahaha.  Ok, so I am already a little off my schedule, which I set up for myself on the last post.  What can I say? Things come up and I've got to take care of them, but I still care about and love all of you. So, I unload onto you, my breakdown of the 2010 NBA All-Star Team rosters.


After the All-Star lineups were released, I looked around and realized that before my very own cliched eyes, the league that I love is suddenly full of high level talent again.  I had the vague sensation that my wishful thinking was coming to reality, but this point was emphasized not just by the All-Star lineups, but also because in his column last week on ESPN.com, Bill Simmons praised Lebrown for his excellence in a "loaded league." And we all know that the man knows his basketball.


Now let's take a look at the lineups and each of their lines thus far this season:


East:
                              MIN     PPG     REB    AST     FG %

G Allen Iverson      31.5      14.6       2.7      4.2       45.2

G Dwyane Wade    36.5      27.2       4.8      6.2       46.9

SF Lebron James    38.5      29.4       7.2      8.0       50.2

PF Kevin Garnett   30.8      14.7       7.3      2.5       53.7

C Dwight Howard  34.9      17.5      13.2     1.5       60.1


PF Chris Bosh        35.9      24.0      11.3     2.1      52.0

SF Paul Pierce        36.0      19.1        4.7     3.5      47.7

G Rajon Rondo       36.8      13.9    4.3    9.6       52.7

G Joe Johnson        37.7       21.4    4.8    4.7       45.7

C Al Horford          34.5       13.5    9.7    2.2       57.2

SF Gerald Wallace 42.0        18.8      11.0   1.9       48.0

G Derrick Rose      36.5        19.7    3.7     5.9       47.4


West:

                                 MIN     PPG     REB    AST     FG %
G  Steve Nash          33.5        18.5    3.1       11.0      52.4

G  Kobe Bryant       38.4         28.2    5.4       4.7       46.2

SF Carmelo Anthony 37.9      29.7    6.5       3.3       46.4

PF Tim Duncan         32.5       19.8    10.7     3.3       52.6

PF Amar’e Stoudemire 34.5    20.6     8.2     1.0       55.3


SF  Kevin Durant    39.9          29.3     7.3     3.0       48.2

PF  Zach Randolph 37.4          20.9     11.6    2.0      50.4

G  Deron Williams  37.1          19.0      3.9      9.5      49.3

PF Dirk Nowitzki   37.9           25.1      7.8      2.5      47.6

G Brandon Roy      38.3           23.1      4.6      5.0      48.4

G  Chris Paul         38.7           20.4       4.6     11.2    50.4

PF Pau Gasol         36.4           17.6      11.0     3.3     53.4






I look up and down each of these rosters and I don't see a weak spot.  You may say Gerald Wallace is a bit of a fluke, but he is having a monster rebounding year and is always good for about 18 a game as you can see.  Plus, with Stephen Jackson now in Charlotte, the Bobcats have even become a somewhat interesting team who could make some noise in the second half of the season and are about a piece away from being a playoff team, which would a quite a coup for that franchise.

Now, this year you might call  Iverson a weak spot as well and as much as it pains me, you would be right.  He is having his worst season as a pro and you can see him deteriorating each time you watch a Sixers game.  To me, this has been one of the most painful aspects of this season.  There was nothing like watching a young Iverson.   He was the fastest player I will probably ever see and some of his off the dribble moves were just phenomenal.  Plus, Iverson is listed at 6'0" - and that is a generous 6'0" - and he used to finish off alley-oops and dunks like he was 6'5" or 6'6".  He was a freak of nature.  Too talented and provocative to be understood by a league that was still fascinated by Jordan.  Had he been embraced, they would have realized that he was made of the same stuff, except maybe he was a littler harder.  But maybe that's what made him so interesting, that he wasn't loved.  I'm not going to get into the psychology, but in any event, Iverson holds one of my two favorite bad ass moments in NBA history.  The first is in the 1992 Eastern Conference seminals. Knicks vs. Bulls.  Game 3.  The Foul Game.  Jordan and the Bulls are getting hammered by the Knicks in every direction.  Riley is instructing Starks, Ewing, Oakley, Mason and McDaniel to take the Jordan Rules to the next level.  Finally, in the third quarter, there is a loose ball at mid-court.  Jordan picks up the ball and drives to the paint.  Xavier McDaniel and Ewing jump to try knock him down, but Jordan evades, slides through them and lays the ball in as Ewing topples over into the photographers at courtside.  As Ewing tries to get up, Jordan stands over him pointing his finger in his face and saying something along the lines of, "Yeah mother fucker. Don't ever try that." No technical foul.

The second belongs to Iverson.  2001 NBA Finals. Sixers vs. Lakers.  Classic matchup, except the Lakers are juggarnaut defending champions and Iverson is the league MVP only because he dragged a bunch of marginal role players and Dikembe Mutumbo to the Finals on his hard work and prolific scoring.  Anyway, the game is right and the Sixers are looking to steal the first game at the Forum.  Tyronne Lue is guarding Iverson in the corner.  Iverson makes a move to the baseline, crosses him in the despicable way that he could from 1995-2002.  As he is crossing up, Iverson steps back, Lue moves to go with him, but can't keep up.  He loses his balance and falls towards the Lakers bench.  Iverson shoots as Lue falls, draining the shot.  Seeing Lue on the ground, Iverson takes two big, deliberate steps over Lue, eying him intensely as he does so with a look that says, "don't ever try to guard me or get close to me again.  You'll be out of this league in 4 or 5 years."  Check it out. If you don't get chills, maybe sports aren't for you.

Anyway, back to the rosters. Just take a look at the starting fives for each side.  Each is a Hall of Famer, save maybe, Amar'e Stoudemire.  You can't deny Lebron is having another MVP year and he did trump Wade in their showdown last week, but Wade is still better than Lebron.  You have Dwight Howard who is having a somewhat down year for him but who has been adding some significantly improved low-post moves to his game this year and of course, you have Garnett who is over the hill but still as smart a player as ever (if more hesistant than ever to go low post).  Bosh is having a career year and he is a reserve! Rondo is maybe having the top year for a point guard (alright, alright I know that Nash and Paul are out there in the West).  Have any of you been watching Rondo?  Sure he still makes some stupid plays, but his palm the ball layups have become one of my favorite moves to watch.  His hands are insane! Its like watching Jimi Hendrix hold the neck of a guitar.  He now makes at least 4 or 5 plays a game on average that make you say, "Whoa, he's really getting it." Derrick Rose has had an under the radar year mostly because of early injury, but he has started to turn it on as of late and may lead the Bulls to another second half surge  just like last year.  Joe Johnson and Horford have both been solid for a suddenly imposing Hawks team that could have also sent Mike Bibby (resurgence) and Josh Smith (slightly dipped numbers).  Pierce rounds it out and this year he's been the same as his whole career: tough, consistent, reliable, creative on the offensive end and a surprisingly tenacious defender.  He is another Hall of Famer on the roster.  The East could have also potentially sent the following: Ray Allen (Boston - always), Kendrick Perkins (Boston-underrated), David Lee (Knicks), Mo Williams (Cleveland), Stephen Jackson (Charlotte-switched conferences), and Danny Granger (Indiana - no room).  Maybe I am being too generous, but you get the picture.  We've got depth.

As I said earlier, the West is the same.  Four Hall of Famers are starting (sorry Amar'e) with one sure Hall of Famer (Dirk) coming off the bench and five possible Hall of Famers - fingers crossed - in Paul, Durant, Roy, Williams and Gasol (Roy, Williams and Gasol may be stretches, but they are damn good).  The weak spot here is Randolph who hasn't quite sold me with his inspired play this year - he's tricked us before - although, he has been a human double double and Memphis has been a terrific surprise and are continuing to surprise as we had into the All-Star break.  Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo (both Memphis) both had first half performances that could have been All-Star caliber in a more diluted year.  And Durant is bound to be battling Carmelo for years to come for the starting small forward spot, which could develop into an interesting rivalry over the years.  I'm actually surprised that no one has mentioned that possible storyline yet.  I'll pat myself on the back for that. Seriously, though, it is great to see a stand out college star like Durant developing into a stand out NBA star as expected.  It is talent and potential realizing itself that perpetuates greatness, that sustains a league and holds the imagination.

On a final note - Kobe.  He has really won me over this year.  Not because he is playing up the "getting it with my teammates" angle like last year, but because he is playing hurt and playing tough.  He has also really worked on his post-up moves and footwork and is playing like 1997 M.J.  It's really quite striking.

So that's it. The 2010 NBA All-Star game is going to be exciting and  I believe that it is going to be one that we remember and talk about for years to come as a great snapshot of where the league was and where it was going.