Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The San Antonio Spurs & LeBron James

Good morning everyone.  I think that I'm finally coming out on the other side of my cold.  It seems nowadays that anytime that I get sick, it starts off with a sore throat, and it ends with me waking up or laying around watching t.v. and thinking, "hey, I should be doing something..."  When I am sick, I am perfectly content to sleep or do absolutely nothing because I'm convinced that rest is one of the best things for me.  Long story short, I decided to take a nap during the 2nd quarter of the Giants/Saints game last night, even though I had two fantasy football games riding on it.  That 'nap' ended up lasting for about three hours, and I ended up losing both fantasy matchups, playing against Saints in a game that New Orleans ended up beating New York 49-24. My fantasy teams are now 8-4 are 5-7, this being the 2nd straight week that I was 0 for 2.  For the 5-7 team, it was my 5th straight loss, so let's talk some basketball...

I hope that during the NBA Lockout you either adopted my attitude or were already inclined not to worry about things that you cannot control.  As I guessed, the owners and players agreed how to split up the millions of dollars sooner rather than later, as there were no 'Occupy Arena Parking Lot' protests filling up the concrete surrounding NBA venues, bemoaning the fact that professional basketball players would soon be going hungry...  I won't be writing a ton about basketball here in the near future because of the nature of my blog, with Mondays being dedicated to 'rambles', and Fridays being dedicated to football predictions, so I wanted to take the opportunity to touch on the sport today, and then when they start playing I'll integrate hoops into more of my writing.  For those of you who haven't heard (which I am guessing is probably a number hovering near zero), games will tipoff on Christmas Day, the start of a 66 game season for each team, with playoffs starting at the end of April, and the NBA Finals ending no later than the end of June.  I just wanted to forewarn you that living not too far north of the Alamo City, and having lived in San Antonio for a significant portion of my life, I am a Spurs fan.  I was privileged enough to have a ticket to every home game during the conference finals and the finals when the Spurs were crowned NBA Champions in both 1999 and 2003.  In 2005 I was living in Las Vegas and in 2007 I had just moved back from Vegas and decided that it was someone else's turn to go.  I should mention that in any season that I have attended a Spurs playoff game before the start of the conference finals, San Antonio has not won the trophy.  The memory that stands out above all others from attending those playoff games (and there have been many great ones), a moment which I am sure many of you will recall, was Sean Elliott's 3-pointer from the corner which beat the Portland Trail-Blazers in Game 2 of the 1999 Western Conference Finals.  After seeing the 'Memorial Day Miracle' fall, I was jumping up and down for about 30 seconds before I even realized that I was jumping up and down (at which point I continued jumping up and down).  If you have never been to a major sporting event, but you have heard sports announcers describe a stadium atmosphere as being 'electric', that was it.  The Spurs were trailing by double-digits very early, and that shot capped off what was a slow and steady comeback throughout the course of the game.  I have always enjoyed being a Spurs fan because the players don't have a history of throwing 'look at me' poses after every single bucket that they score (if you see emotion from Tim Duncan, you KNOW it's genuine), and you also don't see Spurs players in the news for being idiots on a regular basis.

I guess that brings us to LeBron James...  Here you have a guy who has been blessed with size, athleticism, and pure basketball skill.  What I can't stomach is that he feels the need to make it all about him.  Before the start of last season, when he agreed to be on an hour-long show to reveal where he was going to 'take his talents', and then when he participated in that smoke-machine filled, 'look at us' coming out party to introduce the new Miami Heat...  Well, let's just say that after rooting for the Spurs to win, I am cheering for any team who plays against the Heat.  He has always done the thing with the powder before tipoff, but he brought self-importance to another level last year.  It is also my personal belief that you might want to WIN SOMETHING before you start showboating...  Just as I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and you don't see me flooding my posts with Steeler-related material, you won't see my writing dominated by Spurs articles either (or anti-LeBron crusades for that matter), but I thought that you might like to know where my heart is since we will be having a basketball season.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, or even for any first-time visitors, I am satisfied with the way that things are currently playing out, and I will continue on the path that I began about a month ago.  You can expect to read new entries on Mondays, Tuesday, Thursdays, and Fridays.  Mondays are comprised of 'rambles', which are basically one-paragraph observations and rants and vents about everything.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays you will find articles here on various topics, sports and non-sports related.  Fridays are reserved for football predictions, and when the football season ends, those predictions will find other sporting events, like the NCAA basketball tournament.  During that 'downtime' for football season, I may start doing an all-sports 'ramble' on some Fridays, leaving the Monday 'rambles' for non-sports topics (knowing that I have at least two readers who would really appreciate that)...  :)  I do want to thank you for supporting this little venture - the relatively new 'Feedjit' ticker that I added shows that visitors from all around the United States (all around the world for that matter) have been stopping by, and I appreciate your interest.  There wouldn't be any reason to do this if someone wasn't being entertained or informed.  I hope that these next two days go smoothly for you and I'll see you again on Thursday.

                            


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