Heroes and Minor Villains

Great stuff.

This is really great. Make sure to send it to the wife. Maybe she’ll understand.

I also read the piece you linked by SLAM, and suddenly feel like a really awful person for making so many jokes at Delonte West’s expense. Reminds me a little of our own Big Cuz when it comes to public perception vs. off-court reality.

I’m a worrier too, and it’s so great to have basketball (hell, all sports) as an escape. Tyreke’s buzzer beater was so damn epic, and I still get chills when I watch it. I’ll never forget the incredible goal by Abby Wambach in the World Cup this summer to get us to a shoot-out against Brazil at basically the last possible second. I’ll always remember the elation when a guy who went to my high school won the Super Bowl MVP. Being in Germany when the final match of the 2006 World Cup was being played was unreal, as was being in Paris when France advanced to the quarterfinals. Hell, even getting a high five from Ray Allen this summer was sweet. Sports are the best way to take a step back from reality and just take time to yourself.

This is why the lockout needs to end ASAP.

Rec’d.

Excellent piece…

We get media packaged in a “news” format that is nothing more than entertainment. With entertainment being what their focus groups have determined will keep people from changing the channel.

Really interesting stuff you might like is some current sociology on the construction of social problems. It deals with how media actually creates and defines the problems in their reporting… Rather than reporting the problems.

News? We don’t get news… Some call it propaganda. I just think it is meant as sick and twisted entertainment of the lowest common denominator…

The Freeze Tag Fantasy Draft is coming up soon.

Great post, nice to read something hopeful about basketball for a change!!

Good stuff TZ. Keep that keyboard clacking (or whatever the sound is that keyboards make). This post is like a cool breeze as another long hot summer day without an NBA season start date drags on – a welcome refreshment.

You nicely summed up something I think a lot of people feel about their favored hobby. There is a reason various sports have been important to cultures throughout history. They are a refuge and a way to release the stresses of day-to-day life, and modern life seems to have raised their importance.

And I think I just realized why lockouts are the worst thing that can happen to sports. Because when you have a lockout, you find an intersection of worry and escape. Specifically this summer sports fans have been been dealt with the ever-present concern of losing 2 sports seasons this year with the NFL and NBA lockouts. While the NFL averted any lost games (apart from the HOF game in the preseason), the NBA seems much more likely to lose part of or all of the season.

So this summer and fall, instead of enjoying the offseason (a very real part of our escape from the worry of everything on C-Span and CNN) we are watching a CNN-like standoff between two feuding small countries interjected into our escape. And in this small war we have the very real possibility that our we may lose our escape for a year in the same way we have watched the stock market teeter on the edge of another half decade of recession these past weeks.

This, to me, is what makes these lockouts so unbearable as a sports fan.

Basketball is a wonderful distraction from all the other hard realities of life and another reason why Sacramento needs to keep this team.

It provides a city hit hard by the economy with needed distraction and when the team continues to improve another reason to believe.

I live in LA now and I know a lot of people here who find happiness and hope in the success of the Lakers despite the fact that they have little bearing on the teams success and it is largely a result of the franchise being in a top 2 market.

I remember when the Kings were an elite team. The Bee ran stories on how it was a business discussion and a point of pride for the city.

I hope that the team can return that sense of hope and passion to the city again.

Wow did Delonte West really make me proud of him..Dammit who’s next..Kobe?
Maybe we should lock em out more often to get the better side of some of these guys…

Wait why are you all looking at me like that..Its was a joke honestly..Put the pitchforks down

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Thanks, I needed that.

Seriously, though, one of the best parts about pro sports is that it gives us time to get away from all the craptacular idiocy that surrounds us in daily life, and from time to time just feel good about something.

And you’d better get on that freeze tag thing pretty quick, because some schools are beginning to outlaw it on the basis that it makes the slower/fatter kids feel bad because they’re more easily caught.

GrrrrrAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Thanks, I needed that.