Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor?

Again, it's been awhile since my last update. This time it's because I was very sick for about 2 weeks. Blech. Some older links are mixed in here, mostly because I found them interesting and/or important. Enjoy!

The Suns
Saturday's Game One loss against the Spurs was pretty hard to take. To lose a 16 point lead and have it go into two overtimes (one of which happened on a 3-pointer from a 7-footer) before finally losing on a last second shot? Just really hard to swallow. In the post game interviews, the Suns all looked so sad. Shaq was barely audible, and Hill looked like he probably had been crying. It broke my heart.

May Tuesday's game go much better, without dumb fouls and dumber luck.

Game recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

It looks like Diaw is key for this first round matchup (and in my mind, the entire playoff run).

Unrelated to the playoffs, Barbosa met Shaq first when he was 7 years old. They shook hands, and then Shaq broke LB's gym's backboard. It didn't get fixed for a week and a half.

Other NBA
Apparently the new owners of the Sonics had no intent to keep them in Seattle, no matter what they told the NBA or the previous owner. I know this is old news, but it's important context to the fact that the NBA team owners approved the Oklahoma City relocation. A few things stood out to me in the second article.

One: Clay Bennett hopes no one understands the concept of context. Bennett said his words had been misinterpreted. When he wrote, "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can," he meant he was determined to find a way for the Sonics to remain in the city. Ha!

Two: Bennett is...facing a class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave. Crazy!

Three: And this week former team owner Howard Schultz announced plans to sue to get the team back, saying Bennett did not make a good-faith effort to secure a new arena deal as he promised when he bought the team in 2006. I'm glad *someone* is paying attention to the emails from the first article, since David Stern seems to be so prone to flattery. Even if Seattlites don't like Schultz either.

The Nuggets had major bus problems on the way to game one. Bad omen there with black smoke and everything.

Isiah Thomas finally got fired, but he's been kept around seemingly for kicks. My friend Anna suggested that this may be to avoid paying out the nose to let him go. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's (mostly) gone to stop the poisoning of that franchise (and the league as a whole).

FIBA and Other International Ball
Here, have an overview of Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic games themselves.

Brazil is optimistic about their chances to get through the Olympic qualifiers. I'm definitely rooting for them.

Tiago Splitter's sister, Michelle, has been dealing with leukaemia for awhile, and recently had a recurrence. I hope her health improves.

Shabtai von Kalmanovic treats the members of his basketball team (Spartak) really really well. That includes Dianna Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Tina Thompson. He has a little more than a smidge of smarm though.

Becky Hammon signs with the Russian national team to play in the Olympics. This was weird to me, until I read that article. She's right, her choices were to sit on my couch and watch the Olympics, or play in the Olympics. It made it an easy decision.

The WNBA
The WNBA draft happened while I was not busy maintaining this blog. It was a pretty awesome (if semi-predictable) draft, and the Mystics got a pretty good (and local!) pick-up in Crystal Langhorne.

The Seattle Storm (who are my preseason guess for a championship) recently entered into a sponsorship deal with Olivia Cruise Line. This is (probably) due in part to their off season pick up of Sheryl Swoopes (longtime spokesperson of Olivia). This is the first time that I know of that a WNBA team has officially entered into any kind of partnership with a high profile member of the lesbian (or gay) corporate community. However! Their press release on this cracked me up and not in a good way. The only time that they mentioned anything about the GLBT nature of Olivia was when they mentioned famous personalities that had been involved with the company in the past (and present). Entertainers and athletes aligned with Olivia have included stars such as Melissa Etheridge, Heart, KD Lang, Missy Higgins, Paula Cole, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and the Storm’s own Sheryl Swoopes. No other GLBT mention, even though olivia.com literally announces that it's "Where Lesbians Go."

The New York Liberty are going to play an outdoor game this year. It marks the very first regular season game of it's kind in pro-ball. Male or female.

Tamika Catchings is working hard to rehab from last year's torn Achilles Tendon. She wants to help win the Fever a championship, and she really really wants to play in the Olympics.

WNBA Transactions:
* Nikki Teasley, who was my favorite Mystic two years ago and who I still love a lot, is pregnant. I was all excited for her, b/c a little Mystic baby! But then she got let go, for reasons that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Raise your hand if you believe that. No, me either. Pretty crummy.
* Former Mystic, Stacey Dales retires from the Chicago Sky to focus on broadcasting.
* The Minnesota Lynx picked up Ashley Awkward. This is mostly notable because my sister will love her name. She came from Australia's WNBL, and it'll be interesting to see how she does in the WNBA.
* Sue Bird re-signed with the Seattle Storm.
* Yolanda Griffith gets signed to the Storm. Yes, they're collecting fairly old players, but I have the feeling that they're going to be really good.
* The Phoenix Mercury lock Dianna Taurasi down for another three years.
* The Mercury sign Yuko Oga from Japan. I don't know much about Japanese women's basketball (they'll be in the Olympic qualifiers in Spain in June), so I can't wait to see her play.

Say what you will, but that dog can shoot!

I turned on the television tonight for background noise as I got ready for work and Animal Planet was showing Air Bud. Now I understand that this movie is hardly of the highest quality, but how is it that I had never seen it before? Last year after the Suns had dropped out of the playoffs, I went on a basketball movie watching binge.

I saw so many basketball movies in about a month and a half, that I'm surprised my eyes didn't fall out. The Air Up There, Hoop Dreams, White Men Can't Jump, Glory Road, He Got Game, Coach Carter, Hoosiers, the list just goes on and on. But for some reason, I never saw Air Bud. (Or Space Jam, which needs to be rectified ASAP. But that's a different story.)

This movie is incredible. But even more incredible is how far you have to suspend your disbelief. Never mind that the coach for this middle school boys basketball team is a former Knicks player. (Because that's what I'd do after retiring from the NBA too. Yeah, right.) Never mind that the reason that Bud gets to join the team is because there "ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball!" Never mind that Buddy returns to his family just in time for the big game after being deserted (one imagines) miles and miles away from his home. Never mind that the bad guy is an evil clown who we are lead to believe beats Buddy with a newspaper and wants to sell him out to a beer company.

No, the plot point that I got stuck on is that the coach made Buddy a registered member of their team at some point prior to the big game. At some point, he was like, "what the hell, I'll add the dog to the roster. It can't hurt anything, and it'll be damned funny." Only, y'know, cleaner. It is a Disney movie after all.

I fully expected there to be a major plot point in which the other coach challenges Buddy's playing because he's not only a dog, but also not on the roster. And you can't substitute a player like that in the middle of a game. But no, there's a throw away line in which the coach says something to the effect of, "he's a registered player, he trains and travels with us."

Whatever.

All in all, though--a fairly entertaining movie if ridiculous. Plus, ever since seeing the Fisher King, I've really enjoyed Michael Jeter.

Emotional fuckwits!

I just woke up early from a dream that had me posting reasons that I'm angry at Barbosa. About how he's been lost and unable to connect on anything. Which is all true. And I am angry, but I think I'd rather not post about that.

I want to post asking why in a game like last night's, we played without Jalen Rose or Marcus Banks. A shooter like Rose with fresh legs? A player who has purportedly good D like Banks? Get them out there when we still had a lead. Rest the guys who looked so sloppy in the fourth.

I was so giddy and elated in the first half. It was like the team that I fell in love with last year in the playoffs was back. No one plays basketball like they did last year, not even this year's team. Last year everyone counted them out and they got so far playing such amazing and beautiful ball. They had so much to prove. This game was shades of that, and I really was excited to see them come out and do it again.

And then midway through the third they started getting tired. They started losing that beautiful lead. In the fourth when it was all gone, I thought I'd cry.

I don't know if I'm on the conspiracy bandwagon, that this was fixed by the NBA, but I can tell you that I think that it was an unfair ruling that did benefit the team that perpetrated the flagrant. I know that if Duncan and Bowen walked on that court following the Elson and Jones incident, they should have been suspended too. There is some bias in that, even if it's not intended to be game-fixing bias. If rules are rules and we should suck that up as Suns fans, then rules should be rules for everyone.

The latest I've heard about that (and this hasn't been confirmed, just word of mouth) is that Stu Jackson (NBA exec vp of basketball operations) said that Stoudemire and Diaw got their suspensions as a result of leaving the bench to participate in the near brawl, but that Duncan seemed to get up out of concern for Elson, and therefore wasn't suspended.

Do I really need to address that asshattery? No I didn't think so. (It does briefly bear mentioning that that's been Diaw's story about why he left the bench from the get go. He was worried about Nash.)

Whatever. I feel robbed by fate, frustrated by the outcome, and angry at Barbosa.

Tomorrow's game had better be awesome.

One nocturnal son of a gun

Contrary to a post that I wrote last month, until this morning I hadn't yet tried my hand at shooting my basketball (or anyone else's basketball for that matter).

So yeah. I'm not very good, which was my prediction. I'm gonna keep going out there and trying, but I don't know what my chance of improvement is without help. I got 5 baskets in a half hour. I had a lot of fun though. And really in the end, that's what matters. That and exercise.

I'm just glad that the Suns have learned to shoot better than I have. Even Marion's ugly free throw shot goes in more than eighty percent of the time.

The Mavs game was beautiful on Sunday. I just literally have no complaints about it. It was replayed last night on ESPN and I got to watch it in all it's glory again.

Tonight v the Grizz at 8pm EST. It won't be on TV and I'll really only be able to pay attention to the first hour or so, but I'm not too worried about it. Even if it is an away game.

This week is going to be kind of tough, with the four away games in six days (including the Spurs and the Lakers). But I have faith. They're a good team, and everyone's healthy (knock wood). I mean, I've been disappointed by them before, and I know enough about their franchise history to understand that they have the power to generally disappoint, but I still have faith. They can win.

I'm a little worried about Atlanta losing so much. I really want their first round draft pick. Although without it, maybe they won't trade someone big to stay under the cap.

New purchase

I just bought a basketball. It's a WNBA regulation sized outdoor ball. Let's hear it for the Oatmeal and Orange! I'm about to go to bed, and when I wake up, I'll be calling the curling club and finding out about when I can try it, and then heading off to try my hand at free-throw shooting.

Or at getting frustrated and gaining more respect for Steve Nash and his 89.5% free-throws. Whatever.

As for last night's game versus Minnesota, it was nice to rack up an 18 point win against a not terrible team after the previous two atrocities. But more exciting than that is the fact that Diaw had a great game with his 9 assists. I like when he plays up to his potential (obviously). Also Bell hit 6 threes. It was like he was on fire. He's just such an incredible sharp shooter from downtown.

D'Antoni even played 10 deep. Both Burke and Rose got minutes, and the lead grew with Nash out. Just so many good things about last night. The cherry on top is that we clinched the division title.

Now if Cleveland would beat Dallas tonight, I'd be very grateful.

Well, hello there!

Man, starting a blog is intensely intimidating. Especially a sports blog for someone like me (I'm very new to sports). So I'm going to start with something simple.

This picture is a good illustration of what drew me to care about this team. Yeah, their ball handling, speed, and talent are amazing (the end of this past week notwithstanding)--but what I love about them is how well they get along. How silly they are, and how much they just seem to have fun.

This picture (from suns.com) is just utter brilliance, from Alvin Gentry on the far left grinning from ear to ear as he watches them to Barbosa stealing food from Diaw's plate. I also love Pat Burke just being there. He's someone who rarely gets playing time, but he's eating with last year's Most Improved Player and this year's front runner (shut up, I can be biased) for 6th Man of the Year. The fact that they're having lunch in a restaurant that looks like I could afford to eat at is just the icing on the cake.

I feel like I should say something about myself to kind of set the tone for this blog. I'm obviously a Suns fan (even though I live pretty far from the Valley of the Sun). I just started paying attention to basketball last year during the first round of the playoffs. This team hooked me from the first jump ball, and I've been crazy about the game (and them in particular) ever since.

I pretty much got cable so I could follow them better without having to go to a bar every time there was a game on TV. I read everything I can about the sport in general and talk about it pretty incessantly. Even with all this being true, for some reason March Madness holds very little interest outside "Yay basketball!" to me. Probably because I'm not done paying attention to the regular NBA season yet. I feel like I'd care if it were September Madness.

The international game, on the other hand, is very exciting to me. I follow a couple teams predominantly (Brazil, France, Argentina, and when I'm feeling giving, Team USA), and may try to go to the Americas tournament.

I love the WNBA for so many reasons, I can't even begin to enumerate them here. Mostly I'm a fan of the Mystics, but that's due to location more than anything else. The only team I really dislike is the Connecticut Sun. But I'll go into that more in May-August.

For now, I think this bloated introduction entry is long enough. And...end.