“Let me get this straight,” my fiancé said to me back in June as I sat enrapt with NBA TV’s airing of the 2003 NBA Draft. “You’re really into this, watching old drafts?”
Well, yeah.
She lasted until around when Chris Bosh went at No. 4 before she bailed to the other room and turned on some reality show with Lamar Odom and whichever Kardashian he married.
Honestly, I couldn’t really blame her, but there’s just something about the NBA Draft I’ve always loved, dating way back to high school.
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I have what one might consider to be an extensive sports jersey collection, one I continue to cultivate despite the fact that I don’t have nearly as much occasion to wear them as I used to when I was a few years younger.
Though I work at a sports website, I’ve attempted in recent years to clean up my act a bit. Inspired by Jay-Z eschewing jerseys, I made a begrudging stop at the Jackson, N.J., Polo outlet the day after my 30th birthday. And even when not at work, I’ve taken to wearing shirts with buttons, but minus some other guy’s name emblazoned on the back.
Yet still, wearing a fresh, hard-to-find jersey has never lost that high school cool factor to me, especially during the summer.
I brought with me from my younger years the thrill of the chase for the almighty holy grail. I’m speaking of that moment I stumble across a Mark McGwire 1999 Home Run Derby jersey on eBay, something like that, where I never knew it existed but now have to have it. (I did get the McGwire jersey, though I’m unsure if I’ve ever worn it.)
My most recent grail? an Ohio State jersey with the LeBron James logo on the chest in place of the Nike swoosh.
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Amar’e Stoudemire caused a minor stir recently when he tweeted that his shoe contact was apparently about to expire, and that he was considering jumping ship from Nike:
But Amar’e leaving Nike never seemed realistic, at least not to me.
And sure enough, Stoudemire tweeted a video today that showed him re-signing a new contract with Nike, said to be a multiyear deal worth $5 million. (Video after the jump)
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A lot of people are sending out images of Jimmy Dolan, the idiot owner of the Knicks, and Isiah Thomas today, and that’s a logical way to go. But right now, one image sticks with me.
I held on to the Daily News from the day of Carmelo Anthony’s debut against the Bucks at the Garden. The picture on the back cover featured Carmelo just kind of looking around, while Dolan claps moronically like one of those clapping monkey toys with the cymbals. Jimmy is sitting next to his wife, Kristin, a Cablevision executive who as usual looks somewhat embarrassed to be pictured with him.
It was perfect.
Anyone who had watched the disgraceful press conference earlier knew that in Jimmy’s head, he alone had brought Melo to the Garden! — as if that was some sort of endgame.
Meanwhile, it was president Donnie Walsh’s stellar ability to do his job that allowed the Knicks to collect the quality assets that not only had them competitive for once, but gave them the ability to make deals for upper-level talent. Walsh also knew he had leverage in negotiations for Carmelo Anthony, as it was pretty clear he was only going to play for the Knicks.
In one horrible All-Star Weekend, Dolan shot it all to hell. When I heard Jimmy had made the trip out to Los Angeles while Walsh sat at home, my heart sank. And Dolan proceeded to tear down several years of patience, hard work, progress and competence.
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“So wait, you’ve never seen what O.J. Mayo did in his final high school game?” my friend Tom Boorstein from SNY.tv asked me recently.
I can’t remember how Mayo came up in our conversation, which usually revolves around Tom’s inexplicable fascination with baseball umpires, but I told him I couldn’t recall having any memory of his final high school game.
“You have to see this,” Tom said while loading up the video.
True to billing, Mayo had figured out the single most ridiculous way to make a grand exit, leading me to compare it to some of the greatest curtain-closing moments in sports.
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It obviously didn’t work out like this, but even though I went to Duke, I was pretty sure I was going to pass on this year’s Nike Duke edition Kobe sneakers.
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With all due respect to Blake Griffin and his somewhat disappointing sponsored dunk over (the hood of) a car — a Kia, no less — I think my favorite thing to come out of last weekend was the very-late-Friday-night release of Kobe Bryant’s new Nike ad/short film, The Black Mamba.
Swallowed up in all the Carmelo Anthony hysteria was one of the smartest, funniest and most unique sneaker ad campaigns in quite some time. (Video after the jump)
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It’s unbelievable that I can’t enjoy a night in which the Knicks acquired a superstar ballplayer who I’ve always liked, but tonight’s events crystallize why I haven’t been fully able to embrace their climb back to respectability the past few years.
And it’s a perfect example of the flawed nature of being a fan: You simply can’t control who owns the team, and that’s the single most important component of a winning franchise.
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Kobe Bryant sat on stage at Foot Locker on 34th Street in New York City on Friday night, his congenial nature thinly veiling his inherent razor-sharp focus, which had been on full display at Madison Square Garden just an hour beforehand.
Make no mistake: Though Kobe was relaxed and enjoying himself while entertaining and inspiring his young fans, his drive to succeed in all aspects of his career was on full display at Foot Locker Unlocked’s event to promote the release of the Nike Kobe VI Supreme/Rice.
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As I sat in the MCI Center and watched LeBron James in the 2003 Jordan Capital Classic, his final game as a high schooler, I fantasized that the next time I’d watch him play live would be at Madison Square Garden.
And he’d be wearing Knicks blue and orange.
The Knicks, of course, did not win the 2003 Draft lottery — they only had a 1.5 percent shot at the No. 1 pick. I held out some hope for the magical Summer of 2010, but LeBron infamously decided that he’s not about saving franchises.
So though it wasn’t quite the way I imagined it, after eight years, I decided it was finally time to go see LeBron at the Garden.
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