Preview Sort Of Thing: Sacramento Kings
October 20th, 2008

As an aspiring GM with no qualifications or career prospects to speak of, and whose sole outreach into the world of the NBA is this distinctly amateur and unattractive site full of mild slander, I enjoy certain advantages. One of those is the ability to do what I want, to a half-baked standard, and then to abandon it prematurely. This explains what happened with last year’s “30 teams in 30 or so days” series of predictions, where I started well, fell behind early, and then gave up roughly half way through. Get in. This year, we’re going to do it again. There will be predictions, and by the power of Greyskull, they’re going to be woeful. Even better than that, it’s October 19th, and the season starts in just over a week, yet there are 30 teams to cover. So don’t be surprised if I only do about…oooh, five? ShamSports.com – run by an amateur. The few posts that will be made are to be undertaken in a completely random order, with no semblance of logic or reasoning. And with that in mind, we begin with the Sacramento Kings.   Sacramento Kings The Kings’ glory era ended a while ago. The days of the Adelman-era Kings, with Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Hedo Turkoglu, Peja Stojakovic, Doug Christie and friends, are over. Webber’s knee stopped working, Turkoglu surprised us all by actually getting good, Christie’s now the white Dame Dash, and Divac now works for the Serbian government. Other than the incumbent Brad Miller, the final player from those days – Mike Bibby – was pawned off to Atlanta earlier this year for a rather generous return. And that was that. With a end of an old era should come the start of a new one. “The King Is Dead”, and […]

Posted by at 12:02 AM

2008 NBA Draft Night Diary, Part 1
June 27th, 2008

I have a confession to make. I have an addiction. It took an intervention of sorts, but I am willing to admit it: I am addicted to the NBA. Even when it’s boring. Even when it’s corrupt. Even when my team sucks. Even though I’m in the wrong continent. Even when doing so is to the direct detriment of my sleep pattern and general health. I am addicted to suckling every molecule of informative fecal matter from the grand protruding arse of NBA factoids, garnering even the most boring information about these people that I’ll never meet, who just so happen to play a sport that I love, despite my never having played a game of it. This isn’t something I’m proud of. I’d definitely rather have a gambling addiction, or a relatively sedate heroin problem. But, so be it. Nothing is more indicative of the grip of my addiction than the annual NBA Draft. I make no secret of the fact that I don’t know anything about the potential draftees. I do not get to watch NCAA games, and so I will not pretend to know about them/formulate broad sweeping generalisations of these players based off of the opinions of others. No, that would just be silly. Instead, I prefer to typecast people based off of my first impressions, a fleeting couple of minutes to judge the worth of the person presented to us. Who doesn’t love doing this? This is why, as a species, we go speed dating. We are all prone to prejudice based on appearance. Let’s just learn to accept it and make sure that we take it out on sportsmen – the ultimate punching bag, serving only as an outsource for our prejudice, immune from retribution. (Perfectly healthy behaviour and in no way a projection […]

Posted by at 6:02 AM