how i met the rooster and upgraded my feet

that is, danilo "the rooster" gallinari, the newest of the new york knickerbockers.



suck it, isiah.

also, i'm now the proud owner of a pair of hyperdunks, the flyest and most revolutionary basketball kicks in the entire universe, only sold in this country at the niketown in las vegas, and now currently wrapping my ankles. here's my colorway:



suck it, sneakerheads.

how i couldn't even imagine how deeply this hurts

i remember when the mets let darryl strawberry go. i was distraught. and the day lawrence taylor retired? heartbreaking. when the knicks traded patrick ewing, i understood why, but it still sucked.

however, i never lost the mets, giants or rangers. i still had the rest of the team to root on, still had the home games to attend, still had the emotional chains that pulled harder when the season drew on.

i can't imagine how a sonics fan feels right now.

after 40 years of allegiance, of fathers and sons and grandsons going to see wilkens and chambers and payton, of living and suffering with almost great teams and hopeful rebuilding stories, of arguments between fans and high-fives with strangers, suddenly it's all gone - and neither side who argued the case cared at all about the people who cared most about the team.

one on side, there's the utterly detestable clay bennett, the dick dastardly of this two-bit organization, who lied from his first day as owner and continued to act in poor faith throughout any sort of faux negotiation and never cared to keep his customers happy - and seemed to mock the city and their citizens at every moment.

and with him there's david stern, who as j.a. adande wrote should never be allowed to run another hypocritical "NBA cares" commercial, who decided to make the implausible business decision to move one of his franchises from a global city to one most americans will never think of visiting. and he did this by endlessly belittling the home that cherished it for forty solid years.

and then there's the city of seattle, who honorably never gave in to david stern's blackmail for a new arena, but then decided that although there was no money amount that was acceptable for losing a civic treasure, still settled for $45 million.

nobody gave a shit about the people who buy the merchandise, wear the jersies, lose their voices while chanting and spend their free time and money obsessing over the one thing that, no matter where their lives might lead them, would always stay constant.

nobody cared about the family stories and arguments or the conversations in local pubs. or the hopes and dreams neighborhoods had for the kevin durant era. or the way a basketball team can pull a city together, no matter how many consecutive rainy days it might have.

and now, all of it is gone, buried underneath the scars of legal documents, empty lies and bitter insults.

you know, i understand fully that sports is business. i get that totally. no denying. but i never thought it was bad business.

but i never thought that an NBA franchise with 40 years of equity in a global city would be moved simply to repay a favor to a friend.

i never thought that an NBA arena in the middle of the city that was renovated just ten years prior would be seen as "antiquated" and "unable to house a professional franchise" and would be the cause of a team leaving their city.

i never thought that seattle could actually lose a team to oklahoma city. and that david stern and the NBA would actively encourage it.

i never thought that the NBA would let it happen.

i never thought it would come to this.

but it did, no matter how incredibly bad for business it is.

the NBA is a weaker league today. seattle is less of a city. clay bennett is the new art modell. david stern is a hypocrite who is losing his fan base through an endless series of arrogant decisions.

and oklahoma city is still irrelevant, no matter what the NBA will have you believe.

and it's a shame that the shameless should have the day.

how i hope this nba draft review makes up for my recent negligence

sorry i haven't been writing as much. getting married will definitely crimp a writing style.

here's what i think about last night's nba draft:

i think the knicks did alright. we're gonna suck next year and the year after, and we need to dump salary, so we might as well draft a kid who has a good chance to be a stud in two years or so. until we get rid of marbury, curry, randolph, crawford and richardson, this train ain't moving anywhere. and since there's probably no nba gm stutarded enough to trade for any of them (although i'm probably overestimating the lot), we might as well just ride it out.

one last time: damn you, isiah.

the nets did well, i thought. a starting five of devin harris, vince carter, yi, boone and brook lopez isn't half bad. and with ryan anderson, cdr, sean williams and some other interesting pieces off the bench (and if krstic ever comes back, all the better), they'll suck, but it'll be a promising suck - especially when they've cleared out a ton of cap space for lebronmania 2010.

and we have the warriors, who drafted 6'10" 190 lb. anthony randolph. i swear when his profile came up during the telecast, it said, "must improve: ribs". don't we already have this guy on our bench? isn't he named brandan wright? and didn't nellie not play him? and doesn't nellie have a problem playing andris biedrins, who is light years away from where this kid is and would actually be a big contributor for any other team? i think we could have used a point guard - because with this being nellie's and baron's last year, we might as well be all system's go.

and that's especially since portland's gonna win the whole damn thing for ten years straight.

so that's my review. i promise to write more, now that i have this strange item called "spare time" hanging all around me.

how superman does indeed exist

if you haven't seen the 2008 nba slam dunk contest highlights, then you best be catching up. and you don't have to even like basketball to appreciate their creativity, hilarity and impossible athleticism.

it's truly fantastic sports entertainment.

and dwight howard is my hero.

how the nba used its vertical leap to jump about seven sharks

does anyone else notice that the nba is much more interesting off the court than anything that happens on the court?

you know, outside of lebron's game 5, yawn. but all the nasty off court stuff? terrible. but entertaining.

from kobe's eventual holdout, the horror stories from vegas, the hawks' embarrassing ownership issues, seattle having their team extorted out from their city, a continuous stream of player arrests, anucha browne sanders' testimony eviscerating isiah and stephon, the knicks hitting an all-time low and now, greg oden's microfracture surgery, the nba could not be any lower.

and i didn't even mention the tim donaghy ref scandal.

and the year's not even over yet. seriously, if you thought vegas was a mess, then consider that they've got the next all-star game coming up in new orleans.

the entire league - from players, refs, upper management, organizations, integrity to perceptions - is imploding before our eyes. what a horrible collapse it's been.

i can't wait for college hoops.

how the NBA will be in a no-win situation for a long time

the realization that the NBA had an official who may have fixed games is a complete nightmare for david stern, mostly because it's providing fodder for the majority of fans who believed that the refereeing was already shady to begin with.

now, there's proof.

when dwayne wade was awarded with foul after pseudo-phantom foul in the 2006 finals, when star players and the best teams were given beyond the benefit of the doubt when they didn't deserve it, when whistles were swallowed at random times (or at crucial moments), when certain notoriously favorable referees were called upon to officiate certain games in which it would benefit the league for playoff series to be extended, well, there's no shortage of conspiracy theories floating around, despite the denials.

what can david stern do? even though it might just be a solitary issue, the perception is that it's not. can the whole of them be incompetent? well, here's one that wasn't, so how about the rest, right?

how stringent can he further the existing officiating standards without making them robotic? aren't they already scrutinized?

and yet, despite the grading already in place, one was dirty. and they didn't know.

so, despite stern's dismissals, he can't point to his referee judging system anymore. that has failed. and despite his dismissals of crazy conspiracy theories, he's got a criminal investigation on his hands.

every questionable call from now on will be fixed, whether it is or not. every human judgment will be because there's money on the line, whether it is or not.

the wolves have a nice flesh of meat to chomp on.

from microfiber ballgate to the murderous all-star game weekend in vegas to a crappy finals that could have been averted by reseeding, the commish hasn't done a very good job running the league recently. now here's his biggest challenge, and for once, it's fair to ask if he's up to meet it.

how it's a shame that NBA teams are left in the hands of mental midgets

i'm currently watching game 6 of the cavs-pistons series. the only reason i'm torturing myself through this is because i'm watching it on this.

the sports guy wrote a hilarious article today about how incompetent the coaches are in this series. and i gotta say, in high definition, their complete lack of intelligence and savvy is staggering.

allow me to rant.

cleveland runs two plays: clear out for lebron, and lebron/varejao pick and roll (hold the roll). in actuality, they are not bad plays. they've got nothing on that team. okay, you're completely eliminating lebron's greatest skill (his passing), but other than him, this team is atrocious. he's your only hope.

okay, it's the fourth quarter, so the call is to...wait for it, wait for it...clear out for lebron, and detroit counters by playing him straight up. of which lebron counters by dunking it in their grills. over and over and over and over and over again. every so often, for variety's sake, they run the pick and roll, and when varejao rolls, his defender follows him to the hoop.

why would the pistons follow varejao? i don't know. he's not getting the ball. you would double lebron right? right? anyone?

so, okay, he's on fire and he's abusing his defenders. detroit refuses to double. so they should go zone, right? i mean, you want the other guys to shoot, right? why not pack the lane and force lebron to dish once he gets past his defender? makes sense, no?

no. just one dunk after the other, practically unimpeded. one on one. they're inviting lebron to abuse them.

while this one man offensive avalanche is happening (with a golden invitation by flip saunders), mike brown (the "coach" of the cavs) is substituting offense for defense. why? your offense is lebron going 1 on 1. he IS your offense. why are you substituting at all? shouldn't you just keep your best defensive players in the game? why put yourself at risk of not having your best defensive ballplayers in at the end of the game? your best "offensive" players are just standing around. your best defensive players can do that too, right? right?

finally, after 16 straight dunks or so, the pistons decide that it might be a good idea to leave varejao alone on the pick and roll and double lebron. i know. genius.

so what does mike brown do? yep, you called it. keep on calling these insignificant pick and rolls (hold the roll). so, for no offensive advantage, he's basically giving the pistons a reason to double lebron. yes, he's inviting his own unstoppable one man offense to give up the ball. you know, because if he doesn't call the pick and roll (hold the roll), there's no double team. it would just be lebron and his man on an island.

by now, my throat is sore.

okay, there's 30 seconds left in overtime and we're tied. the cavs got the ball and just one timeout, so they burn it. why? for what? to set up lebron clear out? to set up lebron pick and roll (hold the roll)? to put in your offensive players so they can stand around? c'mon! you've got two plays. pick one. by burning the timeout now, you lose the reason to have timeouts: the ability to advance the ball to halfcourt if you get the last shot.

i repeat: by calling a meaningless timeout, you're forfeiting the ability to advance the ball to halfcourt later. and yep, that's what happened.

honestly, it's not as much of a basketball game as much of a comedy show right now.

lebron drive. lebron, pick and roll, (hold the roll). detroit doing nothing to stop him. his coach doing nothing to help him. 29 points in the 4th quarter and 2 overtimes, all done by calling two plays. hey, this is the nba.

the headlines will be all about lebron, and he was amazing. truly amazing. this was the performance the world was waiting for.

but it wouldn't have been without the combined amazing incompetence of their coaches involved.

how there are few things i've seen as sublimely and ridiculously athletic

as when baron davis threw it down on andre kirilenko during game 3 of the warriors-jazz playoffs.

my eyes have yet to return to their eye sockets.

how i'm sure that everyone is gonna applaud dirk

by the time you read this, you'll probably have also read or watched highlights from the dallas mavericks' improbable comeback against the golden state warriors, outscoring them 15-0 with 3 minutes to go to save their season.

and much will probably be said or written about how eventual NBA MVP dirk nowitzki lead them to this win.

you'll read that because people are idiots.

here's the real breakdown:

nowitzki was nowhere to be seen throughout the entire second half, when his team lost their lead, when they needed him most. before the final three minutes, he shot the ball twice in the second half - when his team was struggling. he was invisible.

still, he came through at the end, scoring 10 of those 15.

but here's the thing of it: he didn't win the game. golden state blew it.

you see, they didn't score in the final three minutes. without that, nowitzki is a player who folds, who disappears, who only shows up when the game is over.

if golden state doesn't stop rotating the ball immediately after baron davis gets trapped, causing the mavs to scramble to find the open man but being one pass behind the play that leads to a wide-open three, you know, doing the things that got them a 9 point lead and a 3-1 series lead, well, dirk's MVP trophy would be worthless right now, and his legacy tarnished.

i guess what i'm saying is that dallas' win had little to do with dirk nowitzki, even though that's all you'll hear.

if golden state continued to attack the hoop instead of milking the clock, if they continued to pass instead of holding for one, if they just kept on playing the way they played for 45 minutes, the stories would be totally different.

how nothing beats playoff time

i watched two great playoff games today in which i had rooting interest. the edge of my couch is completely worn out, and my voice left me for good sometime before dinner.

NHL: RANGERS over SABRES, 2-1 in 2OT

the rangers needed this desperately. we're just another win from tying this shindig up. it's funny how the stanley cup playoffs work: the rangers have been the better team during the past two games, but ryan miller has been insane in goal for the sabres. that's just the way the puck bounces.

this game was back-and-forth, artistic, thrilling and punishing. it's everything thats makes hockey great. and, with everything at stake, every crossing pass, every slapshot, every scrum outside the crease takes such heavy importance, and rushes your heart up your throat.

i wish the NHL could bottle stanley cup playoff games and market it throughout the season. or, better yet, just hype it up throughout the season to make it something even the casual fan would look forward to.

because, simply, it is worth looking forward to.


NBA: WARRIORS over MAVERICKS 103-99

it's amazing how, after 8 NBA seasons, dirk nowitzki has yet to grow a set.

the assumed NBA MVP plays like a scared pussycat. from fading away on all his jumpers (even from three), to passing up open shots, to hiding in the corner during crucial offensive sets and to letting drivers attack the rim unimpeded, it takes a yeoman effort to even notice that he's even on the court. and, of course, you won't find him in the paint. you can't trust him to lead a team to anything other than disappointment.

simply put, he sucks.

on the other hand, baron davis is playing like the best basketball player on the planet. and, when the point guard is playing out of his mind and is the absolute top dog on the court, he winds up making his teammates look like all-stars. he's personally responsible for this upset in the making, from his aggressiveness to power to speed to absolute daredevil attacks to the hoop and avery johnson doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to stop him (although going to a zone would be somewhat obvious). baron is everything nowitzki is not.

the mavs look like that good white suburban team playing their first game against a team from the city.

and the warriors are feasting on it.