14 June 2010

Weekend

The weekend was much too short for my tastes. When it was over I still had a pile of stuff left over that I'd wanted to get to, but I ran out of time. I did make some progress on the Empire Mortar. With another 1-2 hours I think I could finish up the crew and move on to another unit. I might try to paint the Knights next, although that would mean making my first attempt at painting horses. We'll see how that goes.

On Saturday while we were out getting some groceries I saw a Nike Outlet store and decided to go in and have a look around. There were a few neat shoes in there, but as is usual with outlet stores the selection was a bit sparse. While I was looking at the basketball shoes my wife walked up and said, "If you started playing basketball, you could probably justify buying some basketball shoes." She has a point.

In middle school I played a lot of schoolyard ball during the lunch break and after school with friends or at Boy Scouts. I also had a whole pile of basketball cards, including a decent-sized collection of Hakeem Olajuwon memorabilia. I was never much of a player. I couldn't shoot, my ball-handling was terrible, and bigger guys (pretty much everyone) were able to bump me out of the way with relative ease.

I liked rebounding and blocking shots, especially if I got the upper hand on a taller guy. I stopped buying basketball cards when the focus really moved to premium cards with insanely small print runs and serially numbered inserts as collecting all or even most of the cards of any one player became nearly impossible. This was about the time that Olajuwon's career began declining.

It was probably around that same time that I quit playing basketball or following the NBA outside of looking at Houston Rockets boxscores and playing fantasy sports. It would probably be fun to get back into it a bit, but I think I would be seen as a liability out on the court.

Boston played very well in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and now have a 3-2 lead in the Series. One more win and they will take the trophy. They will have to win at LA, though, so it will be a little tougher. Most of the Lakers looked like they'd started their summer break early in the last game. I guess we'll see if the home crowd energizes them a bit. Glen Davis didn't really figure into the game, but that's how it goes with role players off the bench. If the starters are doing well it doesn't make sense to pull them.

3 comments:

  1. Next time I come to town, (when you're not off wearing combat boots) you should come and play in the Saturday game we always seem to have. I'd be happy to have you on my team. So, there you go, the excuse to pick up a pair of basketball shoes. Oh, and don't foolishly buy something without a Jordan or at least a Nike logo on it... You'll just be asking for trash talk. (Old school adidas are sometimes tolerated... But reeboks just bring a lot of unnecessary hard fouls away from the ball.) So get shoppin'!

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  2. I'll supposedly be off wearing combat boots from this August through next September, so I've got plenty of time to window shop. Who knows, maybe our base 'over there' will have a court where I can practice my moves, like not dribbling off the top of my foot.

    Unless I'm missing out on something, I'm pretty sure Reebok is largely irrelevant at the moment. I do like me some Adidas, though.

    I wish Ben were a little bigger. I saw some nice red/black Jordan I Retro Highs that would look good on Ben in a few years. Don't know if I would want to take the blame for getting him hooked that early, though. These things have a tendency to grow with age. He's been working on his passes with a little squishy basketball, but hasn't quite mastered his release.

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  3. You don't have to play well with us Walker and Drake playa's...You just have to play hard. If you are available the next time we play, we will make sure you are there. And Mike is right, gotta have Jordans or you might...okay...will hear some major trash talk from someone...I don't know who for sure...;) AND at the risk of running afoul of your wife, you don't have to play ball to have ballin' kicks...You just have to love them...

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