It’s summer, a period time when I have lots of short thought bursts, but few actual long-winded things to get at. Sometimes old thoughts need to leave the cranium so new thoughts can enter.
–In part because we were inundated with coverage, I kept my Finals-related musings to myself. No more…I picked the C’s because of team defense, and lo and behold, voila, team defense wins a championship. It wasn’t really all that surprising. Recently, when Jay’s “Money, Cash, Hoes” came up on my IPod shuffle I started thinking about the line where he spits, “Sex, murder and mayhem, romance for the streets, and I’ll tell ya, it’ll be the best seller.” The Lakers, picked by most of the “experts”, were so the best seller. Their dominance leading up to the Finals along with their leading man’s rep (sex, murder and mayhem) overshadowed the team that won 66 games, beat them twice during the regular season and boasted the personnel to get the job done. Silly experts and their shortsightedness! 20/20 is blindsight. This was only exacerbated by their fans, many of whom seemed to be counting down the victories like it was some sort of Western Conference birthright.
–During the Finals I couldn’t stop thinking that Kobe’s performance from the floor was a lot like D-Wade during a T-Mobile press conference: “yeah, Chuck.”
ZING!
You missed me. Admit it.
–Marc Stein: Please invite me to play next year’s Steve Nash charity soccer match. We can guard each other, so that we both end up looking better than we would otherwise. Plus, how many other basketball writers have ever covered Real Madrid and could serve as Leo Messi’s de-facto on-field translator?
–Ethan Jones, on who his favorite basketball player is: “LeBwon Bwames”
–Get well soon, Brian Windhorst.
–Congratulations to Spain, and to my main man, Fernando Torres. With Rafael Nadal’s thrilling triumph at Wimbledon, I’m thinking we should feed Team USA a steady diet of paella mixta this summer.
–When Steve Nash hits an out of shape Shaq in the mouth with a pass during training camp, will he ask: “How does my pass taste?”
–CDR, welcome to the swamp. Most of us think more highly of you than the people that made picks 20-39.
–My favorite quote of the women’s NCAA tournament that I’ve been meaning to mention for a while came from Stanford’s Rosalyn Gold-Onwude: “I’m a pretty big dork. I’d like to think I’m the cool dork–the kind that you’d like to hang out with.” Smart and honest. You go, girl!
–Love the Gerald Green to the Mavs signing. Hopefully, Cubes and Carlisle curtail his poor eating habits, perhaps symptomatic of a larger problem. Seriously, every time I saw Green pregame, he was snarfing down some chicken tenders and fries. And, yeah, I know that tons of NBA youngsters chow down unhealthy arena food before games like they wanna be sportswriters, but I knew Green needed to change his ways when he blew out a cupcake during this year’s dunk contest. When your first two seasons can be at best described as “calorific”, you need to find some whole grains to go with the supplemental veteran leadership.
–Wait, so you mean Baron Davis and Eric Gordon will play in the same backcourt? Can they fuse themselves together and become Eric Davis, the first basketball player to spit chewing tobacco on the court after nailing a pull-up 28 foot three?
–Elton Brand to Philly? Here’s to spending more time watching live ball in Boston, Philly and DC next year than the tri-state area! Perhaps he jetted east because the production company he may have wanted to start with Baron Davis didn’t seem feasible. Two potential all-stars, both into film production, that could have lifted a dormant franchise back into contention spend a week texting and seemingly waiting for the inevitable and then it falls apart? I’m just saying.
–The JO trade is win/win for the JO. Even if he gets hurt, he he’s covered automatically by his team’s health care plan and his country’s plan. So jealous.
–If the Nets don’t have at least three or four dim sum nights for the media next year, I’ll be disappointed.
–The secret franchise that David Stern is about to launch to the moon has plenty of 2010 cap space. Hey, I have a great idea. Why don’t you go f*cking write about it?
