Below are our brackets. Try to guess whose is whose. On the line is a dinner @ Shabu Shabu House. Feel free to send me your bracket if you want in on the action.

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Championship – Remember when Gary Payton and Karl Malone joined Shaq, Kobe and Co? I, along with the rest of the city, was ready to watch another victory parade come June. You know what happened next.

Tuff – Toughness does not equal  “hoodilizing” LA. I wouldn’t characterize this years Laker’s team as “tough” in the same way the Pistons’ bad boys were tough, but the Lakers were tough enough to win a championship. Ariza made the clutch  steals and shots that counted all without close lining anyone. How much tougher does he need to be?

Upgrade – On paper, Artest > Ariza, so if you are a stats wonk, this signing makes sense. However, going back to the Malone-Payton era, those two guys were upgrades on paper to Horace Grant and Derek Fisher but the end result was not what everyone had hoped for. Players need get along and play as a team and Ariza did exactly what he was supposed to do. I don’t mean to say that Artest won’t and can’t do the same, but why go tinkering with something that isn’t broken.

What I really liked about Ariza was that he was low key and very workman like on the court, ala Worthy, Cooper, and Thompson. Artest on the other hand has already pimped himself on ESPN even before he’s officially part of the Lake-Show. How Spiedi-esqe.

My gut feeling is that Ariza is a better choice not only in the short run, when Kobe can still dominate at least for the next 3-4 years, but also in the long run when Bynum blossoms into Shaq 2.0 (snicker). I’m not hating on Artest. In someways, such as how Artest won’t be playing for another competitor, signing Artest is a plus for the Lakers.

Ahh well. The dust hasn’t settled yet from this summer’s free agency circus, but the coming season looks to be really good. We’ll see how the TruWarier plays out.

The No-Stats All-Star

Tonight was another miserable night for bball. We weren’t as out muscled as we normally are but that didn’t stop us from kicking our tuckus from getting kicked. The game was completely unsatisfying; my own performance was horrendous. It was so unsatisfying that I’ll be playing tomorrow night after work with the guys. Fury….

I quit my volunteering gig this past weekend. On one hand, I’m saddened by not being able to teach the students, on the other, I’m glad it’s over. To be continued…

BBall (NBA) – I can’t take it anymore. I can’t remember a season that has given me more grief than this one. Someone on the radio said it best when he described that Lakers as being contagious to prosperity. Against a good team, no lead is safe. Against a team without its superstars (aka the Rockets), a lead is supposed to be safe.  With the Lakers, no lead is EVER safe. I’m on the edge of my seat the entire game. I guess that’s supposed to make it “exciting and fun”, but one can only ride Goliath so many times before puking.

Van Gundy’s face said it all after LBJ knocked down the game winning 3. What do you do? It was nothing but Epic.

Work – My current task has me localizing our applications. This is by far the most tedious and painful task I’ve worked on since joining this group, although it’s a lot better than writing user stories. But still, there’s little joy to be found when your SPR fails because the word “Login” can’t be translated on Google Translate. Would it make any sense to translate it as “Log in”? The users going to be like, “WTF is this ‘inside the tree’ button?!?!”. As it is with most of my SPRs, FAILED, lol.

Coffee – I stopped drinking coffee this week because I’ve been having PVC. Diagnosing myself by doing a google search isn’t the most ideal thing, but this has happened before and the treatment was to cut back on the caffeine. I’m also pretty sure that it’s the excess caffeine that caused the PVC because when I was drinking coffee, I had been drinking two cups of coffee + tea + diet coke which is a wee bit more than the recommened allowed daily intake. Suprisingly, I wasn’t anymore amped than normal and I was sleeping well. The PVC has gone away and I’ll probably jump back into brewing some joe next week. Mmmm, coffee!

GMAT – absolutely disheartening when there are no tangible signs of improvement. I feel like my foundation knowledge is a lot stronger, yet I’m not able to convert on the MGMAT CAT tests. I’ve got about 5 weeks to go so it’s getting close to show time. I’ll start taking the GMAC tests soon as those are supposed to be a more realistic gauge of the real thing.

Having never scrimmaged as a team, we struggled through the first half as we tried to find our footing. We aren’t cohesive enough yet to play zone but we started off the game playing it. We also slept through a free throw when the other team grabbed a rebound and put it right back up while our entire team stood still on the block thinking that it was two shots. The second half was a lot better, but the big lead that the opposing team had was insurmountable by the time we sort of figured things out.

The only gripe about tonight was the size of the opposing team. The lack of teamwork is something that we’ll get after more PT, but there’s nothing we’re going to be able to do about the opposing team’s bigs. The guys guarding me were a good 4-5” taller! Almost every shot I took, there was a lanky ass arm in my face. It seems like every team has at least two bigs and we’ve got half of one at a generous 6’2”. We got crushed on the boards and I don’t see how we’re going to overcome that unless we can get a big body underneath.

As for my personal performance, I scored one point, stole two balls, air balled, and hit the side of the backboard. The lack of familiarity with my teammates and fatigue really kicked my butt. I better get out there during lunch to play some more. Overall, despite the loss, it was fun and I’m excited to play some more.

* Note: I busted out my middle school team jersey for this game. It’s the first time I’ve worn that thing since 95. Sadly, I haven’t grown much since 8th grade as the jersey fits just fine right now.

That being said, I’m still getting myself ready for the season so I can avoid posterization. I’ve started doing some light bball workouts and endurance training. Just for kicks, I went onto youtube to look for bball drills and I came across these videos by Jason Otter. He runs a clinic for pt guards where he teaches fundamentals of good pt guarding, as well as flashier things like killer cross overs. Here’s a clip of him teaching the cross over.

1-2-3 boom boom! haha, too funny….

This reminded me of how I use to practice bball when I was a kid. Without the benefit of Jason Otter and youtube back in the day, my dad was the only bball “tutor” I had. I remember throwing my Kevin McHale basketball against the house this one summer afternoon because I was bored and my dad came outside to yell at me. After a good 15 minutes of hearing him say, “Stop throwing the ball against the house unless you’re going to paint the entire house”, he told me to go practice dribbling out on the driveway. He’d come out every couple of minutes to make sure that I wasn’t destroying the walls and then he’d start preaching about how great basketball players such as Magic were great dribblers and that I should learn to dribble just like them. I thought that my dad was just being annoying, but his insistence on having me practice dribbling has made me a better ball handler…… OK at least I don’t carry over or travel.

Otter’s videos also reminded me of how I use to practice shooting as a kid. The park at the time didn’t have bball hoops so I improvised a recycle bin setup in the driveway. I’d stack the patio chairs together and put the blue aluminum recycle bin container on top. I tried to get Tiff to play but she was grossed out by how sticky the basketball was after every shot. My mom eventually felt sorry for me and made my dad buy a mini bball court. That mini bball court was the best thing ever because everything was scaled down just perfectly so that I could dunk. Sadly, I eventually outgrew that setup and had to play on a real court where I could only dunk in my dreams.

My hopes aren’t high for playing well in the bball league, but I’m excited to get out on the court. At least I’ll get some excercise in, even if it means getting a size 14 imprinted on my back. Wish me luck.