Debuting later - some stuff. Keep your eyes firmly peeled on the mid 90's menu to the left and mash refresh religiously - eventually you will be rewarded.
- Lukasz Obrzut was a very insignificant player in the D-League last year, averaging 3.1 ppg and 2.4 rpg over 38 games with both the Bakersfield Jam and the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Before that, he spent four very insignificant years with Kentucky, never averaging more than 2.0 ppg and 1.8 rpg. Now, he's in Poland, averaging 5.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.9 fouls per game for the powerhouse that is ISS Sportino Inowroclaw (and by "powerhouse", I mean "team in third last place"). How very insignificant.
- It was only a few short years ago that Michael Olowokandi was a starting centre in the Western Conference Finals. Things have changed wildly since then - the money dried up, as did the few skills, and a season of playing for the Celtics on the minimum salary (Kandi didn't need the money, and did it just to prove to himself that he could...apparently) was the last she wrote. Kandi is about to turn 34 with a lenghty history, and I assume him to be unofficially retired.
- In lieu of any Greg Ostertag news, here is a video of him losing at table tennis to a sharply dressed pre-teen.
- Andre Owens is with Red Star Belgrade (Crvena Zvezda), averaging 11.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists a game in the Adriatic League, and 10.6/2.7/2.3 in the Eurocup. Owen was also recently the victim of an attack by a fan - or at least, a really bad attempt at one - and you can read about that here
- Olumide Oyedeji is in China, which is good news for us all. Playing for Shanxi Zhongyu, Oyedeji averages 20.4 points and a slightly staggering 19.4 rebounds per game. The assists, steals and blocks numbers aren't bad either; 2.8, 2.2, 1.6. Oyedeji has had 37 double doubles in his 39 games, and has not had less than 10 rebounds in any game; in the two games where he missed a double-double, his stat lines read:
That's prime Ben Wallace territory, that. They should have known that it was going to go well when Oyedeji put up 23 points, 24 rebounds and 9 assists on his debut. Do you love reading these numbers? Me too. They constantly s*** on all these "faceless player averages 7 points and 3 rebounds in some obscure European league" entries that I have to write. They pale in comparison to this. 19.4 rebounds a game! 7 offensive! Averaging 45 minutes a game! Good times. Very good times.
- Robert Pack hasn't been heard from since his entirely unexpected stint with the Toronto Raptors in 2005 preseason. That was three and a half years ago now. He is now a travel agent (true story), and was an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs's entry at the 2008 Rocky Mountain Revue.
- David Padgett went to training camp with the Miami Heat, signed a contract immediately after it (essentially this meant just signing for training camp really early), didn't make the team, and was waived. He has not signed elsewhere since, presumably living it up on his $35,000 guarantee.
- After Scott Padgett's NBA career ended abruptly after a trade to the Memphis Grizzlies and a subsequent waiving, he signed in Spain for about two weeks with CB Granada. This was back in April 2007. He has not been heard from since. He's not a missing person or dead or anything. I just can't find any news on him. He probably does real estate now, though. They all do.
- Milt Palacio is the starting point guard for Khimky in Russia, averaging 6.4 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists in the Russian league, alongside 5.2 points, 1.7rebounds and 3.5 assists in the Eurocup. I watched Milton play the other day, and if any Jazz fans out there are wondering in Fellatio still hits the underside of the backboard with his layups.......yep! More good times.
- Adam Parada's last 5 basketball destinations are as follows - Mexico, Philippines, Sacramento Kings, Jordan, the ABA. One of those is not like the others. Parada currently finds himself in Japan, playing for the Mitsubishi Melco Dolphins. The Japanese league is not like the Chinese league, for not only are the team names intelligible, but there's also not nearly the wealth of fringe NBA talent in it. However, this doesn't mean that Adam Parada can't still be brilliant, and he doesn't let us down, delivering a scintilating 13.97 points and 7.8 rebounds a game.
- Finally, Jannero Pargo left the NBA for Dynamo Moscow to great fanfare, and then left Dynamo Moscow to slightly less fanfare after the team fell behind on their payments to him. (This hasn't stopped them from signing Brian Chase as a replacement, though.) Pargo since signed with Olympiakos, where his sole aim is to have a slightly more successful stint than Olympiakos's other former Hornet guard, Arvydas Macijauskas. Pargo has delivered on that (albeit only slightly), averaging 4.7 points and 2.7 assists in his three Euroleague games so far, after averaging rougly 13/4/5 for Dynamo.
Lamond Murray won't quit, and has recently signed up to play for the Los Angeles Lightning in the International Basketball league. Uniquely, they begin their season tomorrow.
Mamadou N'Diaye is playing for Zalgiris in Lithuania, where he averages 11.4 points points per game, 6.6 rebounds, and a damn fine 92% from the free throw line.
Boniface N'Dong averages 9.1 points and 5.1 rebounds a game for Unicaja Malaga in Spain.
Lee Nailon is playing for Lokomotiv Novosybirsk in Russia, where he is known as "Li Neylon". (Really.) Neylon averages 22.1 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, which is quite a lot.
Matt Nelson is in France playing for Toulouges. I don't know what he averages, because their is "en construction". That is French for "under construction".
Spencer Nelson averaged less than 6 points and 4 rebounds for Upim Bologna in Italy, before getting injured.
Brad Newley is playing for Panionios in Greece. I watched him play the other day (I do not know why Panionios versus Panathinaikos was on British television), and suffice to say, Newley's layups were a bit of an adventure. One of those bad adventures you hear about on the news. However, Newley is shooting 65% from two point range this season, so maybe it was just a blip. (Lonny Baxter beasted in this game, by the way. And the attendance was, literally, nil.) Newley averages 11 points and 1 assist.
Jared Newson played this season for the Cairns Taipans in the Australian league, alongside that Nathan Jawai fella that everyone likes. Newson averaged 13.4 points and 5.5 rebounds.
David Noel is currently having a trial with Barcelona, or at least that's what I concluded from this Babelfish translation:
"American eaves David Noel will be gotten up to the training of the DKV Joventut, where it will remain on approval during next the two weeks. The new champion of Glass ULEB has frees a seat of extracommunitarian after Lonny Baxter will let the equipment to average season to file by the Greek Panionios and the club decided not to replace to him immediately."
Moochie Norris spent this season in the CBA, playing for the Yakima Sun Kings. He earned All-CBA First Team honours after averaging 11.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 8.9 assists a game.
Lukasz Obrzut hardly plays for the Bakersfield Jam of the D-League. He averages only 2.1 points and 2.3 rebounds.
Michael Olowokandi has not played this season. Can you keep a good man down? No. Can you keep Michael Olowokandi down? Yes.
If your team didn't agree to an extension with its starlet young player this past offseason - such as is the case with the Atlanta duo of Josh Childress and Josh Smith, the Chicago duo of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, amongst others - then you've probably experienced a modicum of conversation as to whether that player will take the one year qualifying offer this offseason rather than the security of a long term deal, leaving the distinct possibility that your team will lose a key player and important asset, for jack shit in return. Talk of this possiblity happening is particularly widespread in the case of Gordon, who hasn't done much to deny it.
Let me half-arsedly set your mind at rest - it's really not that likely.
Or rather, it should be really unlikely. It might happen, but history suggests that it shouldn't. This is a list of all the rookie scale players to have accepted the fifth year qualifying offer in recent times, accompanied by a headshot for no reason other than cosmetics.
Season before free agency: 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 51% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 3.0 points, 1.8 rebounds, 36% shooting Season after that: 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 47% shooting
Melvin Ely is crap. He has had one year of non-crapness in 7 attempts. That one season was, conveniently, the final one of his rookie contract. Never justifying his draft position, this one year gave Ely the chance to make a bit of money, especially given that this was probably his only other chance at a multi-year contract. (Ely was 28 at the time, after joining the league at age 24. No one seems to remember this.) Ely took Charlotte's one year QO of $3,308,615 (which may or may not have been the only contract that they offered) in preference to taking Phoenix's multi year offer, or one from the Warriors.
Ely then played like his usual wank, and is now on a minimum salary contract with the Hornets.
Season before free agency: 11.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 9.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting Season after that: 6.6 points, 3.3 rebounds, 42% shooting
Seattle dodged one hell of a bullet here, when Radmanovic turned down their exceedingly generous offer of a 6 year, $42 million. Why he did this, I don't know. Maybe he thought he was worth more. Or maybe he just hated Seattle. Either way, Seattle reacted, dealing him to the L.A. Clippers for Chris Wilcox, a far better player whom they managed to re-sign for half of what Radmanovic turned down.
Radmanovic did manage to somehow coerce a full MLE contract from the L.A. Lakers, a contract which totalled 5 years and $30.427 million. But, when combined with his qualifying offer of roughly $3.1 millionish, Radmanovic managed to lose almost $10 million on the deal, as well as save Rick Sund from himself.
Season before free agency: 11.1 points, 4.5 rebounds, 49% shooting Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 7.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, 44% shooting Season after that: N/A
Pietrus has always been a very flawed player, but with the onset of the new Warriors system under Don Nelson, many of these were able to be reasonably well covered up. In the fourth season of his rookie deal, Pietrus turned in comfortably the best season of his four year career, and was courted heavily by Miami. His agent claims to have had four teams offer their full MLE to Pietrus, which makes it odd that he didn't take any of them.
In the end, Pietrus was stuck with the one year, $3,470,771 qualifying offer from Golden State. From there, the inevitable has happened - he has regressed. His stats are backwards, his weaknesses are no better than they were, and his team just missed the playoffs. Suddenly, Pietrus's package seems less attractive. (Giggidy.)
Season before free agency: 9.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 47% shooting, 1.5 blocks Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 10.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, 45% shooting, 1.5 blocks Season after that: 8.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 49% shooting, 0.8 blocks
Two key things to remember with Stromile's choice to sign the QO:
1) It was for $6.2 million, more than he would have gotten on the open market for the first season of any contract. 2) Memphis made it clear that they would match anything, and wouldn't entertain many sign and trade offers. 3) He really, really didn't want to be there.
(That's three things, but you get the idea.)
Financially, Stromile either breaks about even by turning down the QO and signing a four year MLE deal (which was the deal he signed with Houston after the QO year expired), or he's maybe even slightly ahead on the deal. Unlike most players, his play didn't decline under the QO, and while his numbers have suffered slightly in the last three years, his play remains pretty good.
He did not get his wish for getting out of Memphis, though, as he was traded back there after only one season in Houston. Tough break.
Aaaaaand........that's everyone this decade. I would go back further and include players such as Michael Olowokandi (a pretty resounding example of why not to turn down extensions), but it becomes too difficult to find the right numbers, so I won't. Those 4 are the only rookie scale players to have taken the qualifying offer since the year 2000.
They're 1-4, with only Swift making the right move. (This is unless Pietrus is ridiculously, insanely fortunate.)
First off, it's pretty obvious that 4 people in 4 drafts is not a huge amount of people to accept the qualifying offer. That goes without saying, given that 124 people were drafted in the first round of those 4 drafts. But I said it anyway.
Secondly, note that the one to have made a decent decision to take the qualifying offer was a second overall pick, which had a huge impact on the size of the offer in question. For reference's sake, here is a list of all the qualifying offers for those fourth year rookie scale players from the 2004 draft who did not get extensions:
(Everyone else either got an extension, or have already been waived.)
Not all of these players will get a qualifying offer, because the team does not want them for that price, or indeed any price. In two cases (Swift and Livingston), the qualifying offer might actually be an advisable route, given the serious injuries from which both are struggling to recover. But only in a few cases is the qualifying offer of a significant threat to be a viable option: Emeka Okafor (who turned down a 5 year, $60 million eztension), Ben Gordon (who turned down a 5 year, $50 million extension), and maybe some of the lower players (Allen, Telfair).
Bizarrely, Okafor and Gordon have both had worse years since turning those extensions, which could mean anything. It could make them more likely to take the security while they can still get it, or it could make them more liable to have a third attempt at a successful contract year push.
The other factor here is the deep free agent class, that affects everybody in this list. Pessimists theorise that this may mean more players take the one year QO and make themselves available for the 2009 free agent market instead. Optimists might say that instead, because of the lack of money out there, those offers from their current teams suddenly look alot more lucrative and sensible. You can probably guess which of those two schools of thought I subscribe to.
Either way, it's extremely difficult to imagine those two (plus others, such as Deng and Iguodala) turning down $50+ million, twice. Especially since they haven't done anything to justify turning it down once.
HALF BAKED CONCLUSION FROM HALF-ARSED ANALYSIS:
There is not a lot of recent history on which to deduce whether taking the qualifying offer is a wise/probable decision or not. This, in itself, is indicative of the fact that it's a highly unlikely scenario. And when what little precedent there is shows the move to be a generally unwise one, that only reaffirms the idea that the likelhood of a player choosing to accept the qualifying really is nothing to fear.
Today is the day on which it hath been decreed by someone called Matt that NBA fans the world over are to loudly vociferate their rampant and slightly homosexual man-love for Kobe Bryant. Whether or not you like Kobe has been deemed irrelevant - today, we talk about him nicely, for today is the day that the Lakers face Toronto, the team which Bryant obfuscated and subjugated on the way to his Jalen Rose-induced 81 point outing.
(Sorry, I'm just playing with an online thesaurus. I'm also on a bet to try and get "imbibe" (to drink) in this post. And I can't shave Drew Gooden's beard off until it's done.)
You may expect at this point to be swamped with the kind of Kobe-related trivial bollocks (the unsuccessful follow-up to Trival Pursuit) that defines this website. Perhaps you would expect a list of anagrams of Kobe Bryant's name. Or perhaps you would want to see a list of Kobe Bryant lookalikes. Perhaps you would prefer to see an archive of photographs of all the women that Kobe has obfuscated over the years. (By the way, I'm trusting that that word really does mean "dominated".) Perhaps you want to see video clips of him playing, offered up in lieu of any actual written analysis. Or perhaps you just want to see pictures of him looking a bit gay.
Well, as L.A. Clippers fans used to say, you'll ne'er be disappointed if you have only pitiful expectations to begin with. So here are those things.
1) Toby Banker; Bye, rat knob; Nobby taker; Botany Berk; Try-on kebab. (Yeah, they're all crap, what do I care.)
2)
3)
4)
5) ....Oh Christ, there's millions.
Yet, in addition to all of that anti-climactic petulance, today is a day for celebrating the more basketball related facets of basketball, something rarely done around here. (And something never done without wildly overzealous amounts of parentheses.)
This does, however, present a problem. With so many people blogging about the same subject on the same day, it's going to be difficult to find anything unique enough to say. This is a problem that I struggle with a lot, as evidence by the title of this post.
What approach can I take? What can I say that hasn't been said? What angle article will not have been taken? Maybe I could do some comparisons. Is Kobe the best player in the game today? Is he the best thing since Michael Jordan's sliced bread? Will he win another ring without Shaq? Did he rape her? Will he ever win an MVP award?
No. I shan't. These questions have all been done to death. And they're also not very exciting. I need something insightful.
(Answers to those questions, in order: not quite, so far, probably, innocent until proven guilty, don't know or care.)
So, in place of actual thought, effort, graft or insight, I'll turn to the thing that I know best, and what appeals most to the captivated audience of 5 people: My earliest NBA memories.
For those unaware and yet interested enough to have read this far, I am an Englishman. And, like so many of my Englishman peers, I live in England. If you've never been to England, it may or may not come as a shock to you that the sport of basketball here is about as widespread and savoured as the ebola virus, and despite the NBA's unsubtle efforts to liberally daub our nation's fine capital in basketball's highest calibre custard, the sport remains a distinct afterthought, having to compete with Argentinian soccer and The World's Strongest Man for early hours TV coverage. Britain and basketball go together about as well as America with dieting, Damon Jones with humility, Gary Payton with an understanding of the ravages of time, and the French with steely resolve. And your country's basketball outlook would be the same if your national team shamefully boasted the powerhouse high/low post threat of Robert Archibald and Andy Betts.
(Mind you, if Steve Nash and Michael Olowokandi switched their allegiances, we could have one hell of a running game. Just as long as Olowokandi, Betts and Archibald weren't involved.)
In recent times, though, multi-toothed overrated starlet Luol Deng has decided that he wants to be English more than he wants to be Sudanese or American. This decision, which I would imagine to have been about as simple as deciding whether to deliberately contract rabies or not, has led to a renewed interest from all 15 basketball fans left in this country. With Deng obtaining a British passport, with the potential addition of Ben Gordon, and with the British nations combining to form the first ever British basketball team, the sport has a new zest for life over here, as evidenced by the fact that we we now get one game a week (often live, sometimes taped delayed) played at 1am on Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings. Woohoo!
This wasn't always the case, however. As the incoherent ramblings on the profiles of Austin Croshere and Pat Garrity allude to, our NBA coverage used to be even more limited than this. A Saturday morning magazine show existed in the early to mid 90's, but then disappeared, and for a while there was nothing but tumbleweed. Then, in 1999, a different channel started runnning a half-hour Saturday afternoon magazine show, cleverly called NBA '99, and presented by the lovely Beverley Turner.
In 1999, I was 15 years old. What does a 15 year old boy does at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, particularly when he lives in the middle of nowhere?
He sits indoors, and channel hops looking for the attractive ladies. Obviously.
This is what I did. I doubt I was alone. (Well, I was alone while I was watching it, but what I mean is I'm sure other people did this too. Maybe.)
What I didn't realise, having never played basketball in school or otherwise, was that I actually quite liked the sport. It only took about 20 minutes for me to realise that I wasn't watching the show for Beverley Turner any more, but for the sport itself. (And that's no slight on Beverley Turner, who we can clearly see is basically perfect.) From there, I became an avid watcher of the sport, recording every magazine show and imbibing (hooray!) every last morsel of NBA coverage that was thrown our way. These morsels were few and far between, but each was savoured more than the last, and I'm not ashamed of the fact that I can remember entire pieces of Kevin Harlan's commentary from the Knicks versus Pacers Eastern Conference Finals series of that season. Which explains my Marcus Camby love.
A new NBA fan was born, and a pathetically keen one at that. It took only the purchase of a copy of Total NBA '96 for the Playstaton to cement a powerful life-long lust towards the art of watching men in shorts run around sweating. (And by "purchase", I mean "borrow from an acquiaintance to whom you have no intention of ever given it back". I still have it.)
Yet only the half-hour weekend magazine show offered any actual coverage. Total NBA '96 could only teach a man so much - its rather antiquated game engine based a player's scoring ability off of their previous season's shooting percentages, which made from great fun halfcourt shootouts between Olden Polynice and Eric Mobley, both of whom went 1-1 on threes the previous season. These were also pre-internet days, if only in this household, and so my entire NBA knowledge stemmed from what I could collate from 3 minute highlight montages of games.
For some bizarre reason, such highlight montages seemed to focus on the usually white bench players. Or at least, that's how I remember them. Despite hiring former Olympic sprinter Derek Redmond as Beverley's co-presenter, purely to meet an ethnic minorities quota, the coverage then focused on the flair plays of not particularly good white guys, such as Croshere and Garrity, or Jason Williams and Vlade Divac. (Except those two were brilliant, obviously.) This trend continued to see out the whole of the 1999 NBA season, and was odd and yet brilliant. (Oh and for all doubters out there, you know Pat Garrity's got flair.)
In 2000, however, the show underwent a couple of changes. Gone was the original title, as the show was now called NBA 2000, the producers mercifully refusing to go for the 2K abbreviation. Also gone was Derek Redmond, as he was no longer needed to fill a black person quota due to the show's inclusion of Michael Olowokandi as a presenter. (I'm not making this up.) While Beverley Turner would hold down all the in-studio work, the three players in the league at that time with English connections - however tenuous - would host their own little pieces to camera, with varying degrees of success. Steve Nash (before he was good) would have a brief segment on record holders throughout the history of the game, Olowokandi (before he was crap) would have a little slot describing some of the rules of the game for those who did not understand, and John Amaechi (before he was gay) had short interviews with Beverley about multiple uninteresting subjects.
If you're wondering why all this is relevant to Kobe Bryant, you'll now find out.
Kobe started getting his own little airtime toward the end of the series, too, in which he chose his own personal favourite starting 5, one per week, and then talked about them to camera for a bit. It was, to those of us whose NBA knowledge was limited to Polynice's three point range and White Chocolate's inevitable superstardom, our first introduction to Kobe Bryant. Kobe chose himself as a sixth man for his list, seemingly leaned on by producers to do so, and immediately following this were some highlights of Kobe's play and highlights of a recent Lakers game.
I liked him.
And there, over 1700 convoluted words in, we finally arrive at my point - I like Kobe Bryant.
I don't need to fake liking him for today, for I already do like him. I know that, as a non-Laker NBA fan, I should dislike him for so many reasons. I know that he's an arrogant little git. I know that I should dislike him for being outrageously good. I know that I should dislike him because of all his endless dick-riders who talk about how fantastic he is at all times, despite this not being his fault. As a Bulls fan, I know that I should dislike him for that whole anti-climactic trade talk surrounding him to open this season, despite that also not being his fault. I should hate him for the fact that he's a massive bastard, and for his constant overexposure to which we are subjected every minute of every day. (Assuming you have dull days, that is.) And, if I were to be as stubbornly intolerant as some of my peers, I'd hate him for the consensual sex outside of marriage that led to an unsubstantiated rape accusation. (Seriously. Some people are still powerfully into that thing. Gotta let that go, you know?)
But I don't hate him. I kind of like him. And I can't explain that.
As an Englishman, you are trained from a young age that supporting the underdog is an enjoyable and infinitely more worthwhile experience. It is a mindset first installed into young minds during Second World War lessons at secondary school, and one that is carried over to the world of tennis, where we turn up at Wimbledon in all our pomp and regalia and then we lose.
This is the reason why I support the Chicago Bulls - having gotten into the NBA in 1999, when Chicago was staple gunned to the foot of the Eastern Conference standings, they seemed like the logical team to support. For those not aware of how this logic works; if you support a team that isn't any good, it's hard to be upset when they lose, because they're supposed to lose anyway. But, if they win, bonus! False hope rules! (Note: The L.A. Clippers were actually worse that year. But, unlike the Bulls, I'd never heard of them. Nor was I entirely sure what haircare products had to do with basketball team names.)
So where does my liking of Bryant stem from, given that it flies in the face of my national identity as a futility chaser? I couldn't say.
Maybe it stems from a lifelong desire to be deliberately obtuse and contrarian.
Maybe I'm totally lusting and gay after him. (NOTE - unlikely, because I'm straight. Thought I should clarify this.)
Maybe his eloquence and surprisingly good humour during his guest spots on NBA 2000 sold him to me.
Maybe I'm just won over by how extremely good the man is.
To be honest, I don't know.
Whatever reason it is, Kobe Bryant has achieved something in this country that has only previously been achieved by Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jordan. Non-NBA fans - of which there are about 55 million - have heard of Kobe Bryant. (The rape trial helps with this, but play along anyway.) They might not know anything about him, and most of them may spell his name like Kobe Karl's by mistake. Yet they have heard of him. When discussing today's Kobe Celebration Day with a female friend not even remotely interested in basketball, she re-affirmed this point by telling me that she knew who Kobe Bryant was before I'd even asked if she knew of him.
(She then followed up this statement with the seminal sentence, "oh there's that other one, isn't there? Shawn O'Shearer?". Good times. Sorry, Shaq.)
So when you watch Kobe be his brilliant self, and whether this makes your heart a-flutter or your anger arise, remember that you are arguably watching the best basketball player that you will ever watch. Even when he annoys you, be grateful that he makes you care enough to be annoyed by him. Where you want to place him in the all-time hierarchy is an unwinnable debate, so choose your own stance on the issue. But, wherever you place him, you know he's up there. So savour it.
Not just today, but every time he plays, and every play he makes. Because he really is special.
And for the love of God, can someone PLEASE show me where to watch the 81 point game? I still haven't seen it.
Sham is a miserable and self-effacing little bastard, whose basketball opinions are often riddled with bias, insecurity, and rank immaturity. He has also never played the sport, and the only game he has ever been to see was a Ware Rebels game back in 2001. The night bus didn't show up and he had to walk the 9 miles home. It was after this that his passion for basketball really took off.
He considers himself to be Britain's foremost NBA expert, an arbitrary title that carries with it no basis in fact, or any worldly significance. He also wrote this section of the website in third person narrative, purely for reasons of arrogance.
Copyright ShamSports.com, 2005-2010. Every published word on this website
is copyrighted to the website's owner, including (but not limited to)
the really stupid ones that I wish I'd never written.
