Recap of Events
I’ve been out of commission for about a week. For that, I am sorry. However, per usual, I have a plethora of excuses. I recently put in my notice that I will no longer be an litigator working primarily in insurance defense cases. That’s right, I will not be working for the ‘man’ (or ‘those big, bad insurance companies) anymore. Nope. Unfortunately though, I will not be going into journalism, nor have my postings drawn the attention of NBA franchises to the point that I am making the move to a front office gig. Instead, I will be going into the transactional side of legal work. I’ll work primarily in real estate deals, which should benefit me and the lady friend a great deal financially.
Also, I returned from my bachelor party in Las Vegas on Sunday night, and you could say that I am still recuperating. No, I will not share ANY stories with you guys. I will advise that spending a night at Club Tryst (and going VIP with a table and “bottles”) is highly advisable. Also, spending 10 hours poolside at the Palms on a Saturday with Weeman from Jackass and the Apple computer commercial guy (with a bucket of the beverages of your choice) is highly advisable, but your skin will hate you for the next 5-7 days (especially if you have that Casper the Friendly Ghost complexion).
Oh, and there is that little thing called a wedding that we are planning. I’m down to three weeks of bachelorhood. It is a sad, sad time. However, one of my groomsmen has guaranteed that there will be a car with the engine running and handles of choice beverages waiting outside the church if need be. (He’s the guy who set me up with the lady-friend, long story, so I doubt he will follow-through).
One story I will share from my weekend is the fact that I had the opportunity to fly next to the new head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Reggie Theus. Great guy, because he actually answered every question that the in-flight friend in front of us wrote down for him, but because he just sat there and talked to us. It looked like he enjoyed it as much as we did. He was a little impressed with the hoops knowledge yours truly dropped on him.
(Quick sidebar) Anybody who knows me will verify that most of the knowledge I tend to drop on this site comes completely off the top of my head. Unless I hit you with a list of stats, like in the Kobe season stats rant or the Timmy/KG comparison pages, I’m throwing things out without any research. Reg was pretty impressed that I was asking him about his days with the Bulls, Heat, and Kings both in Kansas City and Sacto. (By the way, look for the powder blue throwbacks for the Kings this season, and do not expect many eyesore gold uniform sightings. I begged him for those two things). I also hit him up with some quick knowledge about his roster, specifically NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams; his days at UNLV under Tark, announcing NBA games, and much more. Return to story:
I do not want to misquote Reggie, nor do I want to turn this into an interview session that he did not know about, so I will just give you a couple of positive quotes about some of the things we talked about. Let’s just call this the ‘Cliff Notes’ version of my flight. (Keep in mind, these are not EXACT quotes, rather condensed versions).
Reggie on:
-NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams: “He’s an athletic freak. An absolute freak. He just cannot shoot or score yet. He has to learn that I won’t yank him out for doing everything else, like rebounding, hustling and blocking shots.”
-playing in Italy: “It was tough, because, at the time they always pinned the losses on the American players. If we lost it was my fault. I was averaging 30 a game and leading our team in assists, but it was never enough, even if the Italian guys were only putting up 9 points a night. After one season, I asked them to buy me out, because I didn’t play 13 NBA seasons to be the scapegoat all the time.”
-the eyesore gold Kings jerseys: “I’ve heard that they were bad from a lot of people. I don’t think they won a game in those things last year, so don’t expect to see them very often.”
-on the suggestion to go throwback powder blues: “I like that idea. Wear the blues with the names under the numbers. That would be pretty cool.”
-on announcing NBA games: “It’s the greatest job in the world. I felt like I was robbing them. I’m going to watch the game anyway, and they were paying me to talk about it. I loved it.”
-on why college coaches struggle at the NBA level: “In college, the head coach controls everything and can manipulate or will a player to do what the coach wants. You cannot do that at the NBA level, those guys (players) will not go for that. You will lose them that way.”
-on Spencer Hawes: “He has tremendous feet. It is really impressive. He will struggle some early, because he is so young and raw, but his footwork is amazing.”
-on Ron Artest: “Nobody realizes how big he really is. He’s like 260 lbs. of solid muscle. He’s a tree out there. … He’s got some things going on, and I know that at some point during the season, he will have his issues, but that is to be expected.”
-on college life as a basketball star at UNLV: “If I told you everything that went on, I’d have to kill you.”
Quick hits:
- I am excited about the new era of basketball in Boston. Watching Garnett’s passing ability with a real shooter in Ray Allen will be great. No longer will he be kicking the ball out to Marko Jaric or Trenton Hassell. Now he will be feeding dimes to Ray Allen, only the prettiest jumper in the NBA.
- Too many people are saying that Boston lost it’s depth by dealing five players to Minnesota. I don’t see that. Theo Ratliff was not going to see any minutes this year, and neither was Bassy Telfair. If anything, they lost two key components in Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson and one erratic scorer in Gerald Green. Ray Allen was already going to eat up the minutes for Green and Gomes will be replaced by Leon Powe, who will give them the exact same style of hard-nosed, glue guy hustle. Now, Rondo will be forced to develop his game, which is a good thing. Watch for him to make a jump to a Second Team All Defensive player this year. And there will plenty of vets looking to hook up with Boston now. P.J. Brown should sign with them soon.
- Switching gears: The Braves should lock down at least the Wild Card spot in the N.L. now that they added Mark Teixiera to their lineup. McCann will see a ton of pitches hitting behind the switch-hitting first baseman, which is a great thing. And the Braves added the one thing their offense was missing, production from the first base position. Was giving up Saltalamaccia a lot? Yes, but he is probably better suited for the A.L. anyway, so he can catch some and play a lot of DH. He certainly was not going to see a lot of innings behind McCann. Also, Dotel will give them some great set-up production, like he did in Houston as Billy Wagner’s set-up man. He belongs in that role, because he is too much of a head case to close games.
Enjoy the weekend, because A-Rod and Bonds will both reach their milestones very soon.
