Pacers: Gully central
This West Wing marathon is seriously fucking with my head. . . I'm going on six hours, and suddenly it doesn't seem so important to bother with links (esp. from ESPN—if you don't read it yourself, why are bothering with this?), or get names, dates, centuries right.
Meet your newest entry into the Association thugstakes:
Grant Hill and Artest sit down for a network interview, and Grant says he'd have done the same. When is America going to admit that athletes are more like each other than they are average fans? Grant Hill is closer to, can relate more to, and is more likely to side with, Ron Artest than with you run-of-the-mill, mildly indignant NBA homer. I wonder if the same can be said of politicans and the people they represent; honestly, I think either answer would disgust me on some level.
If this ends up doing something to bring about a more nuanced understanding of the HAHH (check the archives-I'm sick of typing it out), Michael Smith's profile of Stephen Jackson (on the front page of ESPN.com at the moment) should do more than enough to polarize things all over again. Seems that the world's least likely San Antonio Spur (for the record, he got them that ring) still makes repping red a major factor in his fashion decisions, would never be caught dead in blue, did his dirt on the streets, and attributes his loyalty to Artest to his rugged background. Impressive that he's so unapologetic about it all, but dude makes Iverson look like pre-rape Kobe.
I like to think that this post has enough substance to it that I'm not obliged to provide links. Links are the poor blogger's cloak of legitimacy!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Bethlehem Shoals @ 5/17/2005 06:48:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
so true about jax getting us that ring, and nobody ever mentions this. everyone always talks about kerr, and refers to game 6 against dallas as the "steve kerr game," but no one remembers that before kerr hit a three in the 4th jax had already hit two of them. and they weren't even spot up joints--they were pull-up on the fly, "no, no, YES" shots. in that one season he became one of my favorite spurs of all time. i mourned his loss that offseason but not just because of my concerns about the spurs(his agent had him turn down a 3 year, $10 million deal, confident he could do better, but he ended up signing at league min for one year with the hawks). i just worried what would happen to jackson if he wasn't surrounded by guys as mature and professional as duncan and company.
for all of the spur-nerdiness, i think you have to give them credit here. i don't think we'd have the blessing that is jax if it weren't for the spurs. he went around the world and was never able to put it together until he got here. duncan looked after him like he would a little brother, and mike brown's only responsibility as our assistant that year was taking care of the kid from Port A. surround him with "nice guys" and he thrives. stick him next to artest and he's throwing haymakers in the stands. i can't imagine what would happen if he ever ended up in portland.
not having an anti-spur is cause for concern this year. we had elie in '99 and jax in '03, and i'm not sure we can win without at least one cat who's either too tough or too crazy to care about pressure.
that article was probably the best thing i've read on espn in some time. i think it has to elevate jackson into serious contention for "realest in the league."
i was going to contend that big dog is an anti-spur, but he's too boring and orthodox. he's kind of like the evil version of the spurs.
ha. yeah, i thought of him too, but he doesn't fit. "fat and lazy" may not be attributes associated with the spurs, but they also aren't the type of qualities that are gonna win you rings. i still think he might be helpful, but in a far less likeable way than jackson. jax would take big shots because he was too young and fearless to care about the pressure. big dog will take big shots because he wants to jack-it-up everytime he touches the ball.
Post a Comment
<< Home