Friday Blogging

By Sam Rubenstein

Have I not done any linking to blogs this week? How the time flies. I spent most of Monday through Wednesday on a work related trip to a mysterious land called Atlanta. The rumors of Lang being the mayor down there are all true. Everybody knows him.
I still can’t go into detail why we were down there but it was a lot of fun. We went to the Hawks-Bucks game and I got to see that fabled empty house up close. It’s rare that the hype lives up to the event, but Phillips Arena surpassed my expectations. We got there with about 8 minutes left in the first quarter (more on that in a second) and there were like 500 people there, tops. Very dramatic and tense game. More people showed up in the second half and the Hawks nearly didn’t blow it. But they did.

The reason we showed up with 8 minutes left in the first quarter was a perfect storm of traffic hell. You’d think that leaving New York City and heading south would be a way to get away from traffic, but no. It took the hotel valet a half hour to find our rental car. I thought Russ was going to Russell Crowe someone with his Sidekick. Lang stayed serene, like Ghandi. I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. I had just received the first real massage of my life (ballliiiinnnng?) an hour earlier, so I was pretty relaxed. Then, on our way to the arena we had to stop for another half hour a block away because a train was crossing on the tracks. Luck was not with us.

Other than that, there were many stops on the Lang Whitaker reality tour. I probably shouldn’t give any of it away in case he wants to turn it into a professional enterprise someday like Kramer. It was a fun couple of days. I’d never been anywhere in the south other than Florida and Louisiana. It’s a different world down there.
And now for some blog action.

Ohio State-Michigan? Overhyped. Jazz-Sonics, now that’s a rivalry!

(Actually I watch maybe 3 regular season college football games a year. And there is no way I’m missing this game tomorrow.)

Eddy Curry. Very frustrating. He seems to understand what his problem is as a basketball player and it’s something that can easily be fixed. So he’s saying oh well and continuing to do things in his own unsucessful way.

The Chris Mullin show. The Chris Mullin show!

Kobe’s website is linking to Khalid’s #1 ranking piece on him. Oh and tonight it’s Lakers vs. the Raptors. I believe Kobe might have had one of his better games against them last season. He claims not to have watched that tape. Well that would go against pretty much everything we think we know about him, and in that case it’s a very Kobe move.

Jones on the NBA preaches patience. No such thing in 2006.

Since Hilton Armstrong made that big free throw and offensive board to win a game the other night, hornets247 is hosting Hilton Armstrong trivia day.

Yes my favorite basketball writer is back! And he’s so great that they gave him his own AF1.

The Hater Nation with an understated take on the Maloof Brothers.