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on second thought, maybe the criteria for jumping on the warriors bandwagon should be 1) the ability to list off 30 warriors players from the last 15 years, OR 2) be jessica alba.

from marc stein’s espn blog

How hot are the Warriors now?

My sources in Hollywood tell me reliably that Jessica Alba has requested a ticket for Sunday’s Game 4 in Oakland.

Yes: I’m well aware that Alba and Baron Davis are longtime pals. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s still a rather momentous occasion when an actress of Alba’s hotness, er, stature, wants to fly in for a courtside seat.

my friend colin is probably the least “hip-hop” person that you could possibly find in the US under the age of 30 (not an exaggeration). he is a physics phd candidate at harvard and was pretty much the reason i passed college physics my sophomore year.

that being said, in college he used to listen intently to the lyrics spilling out of my stereo and examine them closely, much like you would a great literary work. this was oftentimes hilarious.

anyhow, he just sent me a hilarious examination of mims’s “this is why i’m hot”:

Mims is hot because he’s fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one’s being fly? ‘”You ain’t ’cause you not’ would seem to clear that up… The other remarkable, oft-quoted line in “This Is Why I’m Hot” is “I could sell a mil’ sayin’ nothin’ on a track.” Critics gibe that “This Is Why I’m Hot” proves precisely that; others muse on what Mims would sell if he deigned to actually say something on a track. Would he sell less than a mil’? Exactly a mil’, as when he said nothing? Or a great deal more than a mil’? The song does not elaborate.

full article from the village voice

david halberstam passed away today, literally miles from where i live and work. as a sports fan and someone who loves writing, i can’t help but feel his death very deeply.

my first exposure to halberstam was almost 8 years. i remember, in 1999 during espn’s sportscentury series, seeing this delicate man, speaking softly and clearly about numerous athletes, many too old for me to ever have seen in-person. as a huge sports fan, i couldn’t help but soak up his words. he was a brilliant writer and a real sports fan.

i’ll never forget his piece that he wrote for page 2 during the AI/Lakers nba finals several years ago (edit: here it is!). it was a fantastically honest and open examination of not only iverson, but also halberstam himself, written with the depth of someone who was not only intensely insightful, but also a true lover of sport

more than how great his writing was though, what i’ll always thank him for was being one of those folks who made it OK to be intellectual and a sports fan. it sounds strange, but i always felt that these games that we watch and love were looked at as trivial, meaningless fun by some people. that they didn’t matter. that sports (and sportswriting) were for the lowest common denominator. that i was less of a scholar for loving them so much. for those who felt this way, we (sports fans) always had david halberstam. a true journalist, a tremendous writer, a gentleman, an intellectual, and a loving sports fan.

reading his writing always made me proud to love sports.

anyone hear some wood creaking? yeah, that’s the sound of the warriors bandwagon about to split in half from the weight of thousands leaping onto it.

i thought of an interesting solution: unless you can name 30 players (off the top of your head) who have played for the warriors in the past 15 years, you really shouldn’t be able to call yourself a warriors fan (and given the warriors history, it really shouldn’t be hard).

haven’t had a chance to write since i came back from vegas, so here i am! i spent the weekend doing (pretty much) nothing but playing poker, which is always a nice way to sit around for a few days. mostly i played no limit (cash and tournament) with some interesting hands, but probably the most intriguing hours spent were in a 10-20 mixed game (HORSE + omaha high) at the venetian. why was it interesting? well, first of all, i was the youngest player at the table by, oh, about 20 years (which, by the way, is pretty standard when you sit at these low-limit mixed games).

but as i sat there playing for about an hour, i started to figure out the actual reason the game was so interesting. i got an inkling of it early on, when i found out the rake was only $1 max. why only a buck? well, as i proceeded to get smoked in several of the games, i realized that i wasn’t playing against some random old people. the lady in seat 3 was actually linda johnson, one of the only women to ever win a WSOP bracelet (razz, 1997). another player at the table was jan fisher, who is a pretty well-known player. it turns out that they and their friends had come up with a deal with the venetian.

it was a fun game (old people know some dirty jokes) and i’m glad to have enjoyed it for an afternoon. it also reminded me of how purely fun poker can be. usually i come back from vegas thinking about either packing up and moving there for a while or swearing off the game forever. but playing in that game reminded me that there’s a middle ground of “just plain fun”.

maybe the best site i’ve ever seen in my life: noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com

i think it’s been around 15 years since i haven’t watched an ncaa tournament championship game, but tomorrow i will not be watching. when i look at the list of final four participants over the years, i can really remember watching all the way back to 1993. some one-line final four memories over the years (really off the top of my head):

• 1993: becoming a UNC fan, the fab five and their black socks, chris webber traveling, eric montross, donald williams
  
• 1994: lute olson and his silver hair, rooting for my dad’s US alma mater and their 40 minutes of hell, watching duke lose (grant hill) for extra fun.
  
• 1995: arkansas trying to repeat, wallace and stackhouse refusing to cut the nets down in the regional finals, unc disappointment, freshman toby bailey in the finals
  
• 1996: big country, john wallace, umass: marcus camby, carmelo travieso, and co… ashley judd, rick pitino, tony delk, wayne turner, derek anderson, mark pope, a freshman named ron mercer, and waves of kentucky blue
  
• 1997: miles simon, mike bibby, jason terry, michael dickerson, bennett davidson (?), aj bramlett from arizona defeating ron mercer and kentucky in a great finals.
  
• 1998: kentucky with wayne turner, jeff sheppard, and tubby smith’s first year. this was the final four that broke my heart. this was right at the height of my sports paranoia, i was playing basketball every day and watched EVERY SINGLE unc game all season (i can still see their beatdown of duke in the first of three matchups that season in my head). anyhow, carolina (ed cota, shammond williams, vince carter, antawn jamison, ademola okulaja, and brendan haywood) losing to utah (andre miller) in the national semifinal, with shammond going like 1-97 from 3-point range, was one of the top five most depressing moments of my life. it still pains me just to think about it. how could they LOSE?! if you’re looking at the stanford note there and wondering why i didn’t note that: i didn’t care about stanford at that point in my life.
  
• 1999: khalid el-amin, richard hamilton, and others shocking the world against duke (langdon, brand, battier, avery, maggette). two ugly big 10 teams in the other slots (msu: mateen cleaves, osu with… hmm, can’t recall).
• 2000: watched in mr. florendo’s physics classroom while working on Talon. cleaves and co. returning to win. a mediocre unc team (#8 seed, doherty, forte) sneaking into the final four.
  
• 2001: college. the lingering disappointment of stanford losing to maryland in the elite eight. duke (jay williams, shane battier…) beating arizona (jason gardner, gilbert arenas, richard jefferson, michael wright, loren woods) in the finals.
• 2002: juan dixon, lonny baxter, steve blake coming back and stomping a crappy final four. indiana coach (name escapes me right now, mike ____?) acting like an idiot.
• 2003: carmelo getting boeheim his championship. the pain for roy williams (hinrich, collison). tom crean somehow not planning to stop kansas’ break (bizarre).
• 2004: emeka okafor and co. finishing off the most obvious championship run ever. the still-stinging sensation of stanford getting knocked off in round 2 by alabama.
• 2005: real joy, for roy williams, for carolina, for may, mccants, and all of them. beating a great illinois team in the final.
• 2006: fun run by ucla, ended by the most obnoxious team (and most obnoxious player) in history…

so that’s where we are. i tell you all this because tomorrow will be the first time since 1992 that i don’t watch the title game. i don’t think people have been believing this when i’ve told them, but i have zero interest in watching the game. not even as a general sports fan.

1. no rooting interest: ucla and unc both could have been there. they aren’t and i’m disappointed.
2. joakim noah – professional asshole: this guy is so irritating and disgusting that watching the game will just make me angry. i’ve never seen a player so self-aggrandizing and obnoxious. he’s pompous, arrogant, and self-important. and he has a shot that makes me want to hurl. noah: please leave for the nba so you can be stuck on a bench somewhere and i won’t have to look at your face anymore
3. thad matta – semi-pro asshole: if you’ve seen this guy in an interview just once, you know. he’s no joakim noah, but i also can’t stand him.
4. corey brewer – professional dirty smirker: seriously, if i see him smirk at an opponent one more time, i’m going to puke.
5. billy donovan – professional slimeball: if you saw his response to the kentucky job rumors, you know that he’s not going to deny anything, which probably means he’s going to pull a hatchet job on florida or is just trying to stick it to kentucky. how can you even root for a guy who seems so devious?
6. lee humphrey – in need of orthodontics: if i look at this guy’s buck teeth one more, i’m going to cry. actually, this one’s kinda funny, maybe i should watch.
7. florida fans: the gator chop is stupid. you are stupid.
   

i think more than anything, i detest the cockiness and arrogance of both teams. i hate the strutting and flexing for the cameras. i can’t stand the slime of both coaches. i love teams and players that just get out there an play hard, without a need for self-promotion. that’s too much to ask this year (except for oden, who is wonderful to watch as he grows). georgetown and ucla were those kinds of teams.

so there you have it. to me, the ncaa basketball season ended last night with that most depressing of games (ucla/florida), capping off a tourney that saw all three of my teams (stanford, carolina, ucla) lose in gut-wrenching fashion.

hooray for baseball season!