why i love basketball so much.

i had this really good friend through all of elementary school. he was 10 years old, and i was 9 years old. he played guitar, i tried to play drums. we spent every day together and we dreamed of being the next Mötley Crüe. we were called STEEL IMAGE, a cover band that would crank out hits from hair metal greats. it was some of my best early memories, figuring out how to play the drums and just having that escape. it was great to have a friend at that time, because i had just lost my dad unexpectedly & life had become pretty scary all of a sudden.

once middle school rolled around, things started to change. he was a year older and so i became less cool to hang out with for some reason ( a year gap can make a big difference in "coolness", i guess).

if he invited me over or we planned to "jam", as we had so many times before, there would always be a new "cooler" random guy that was his age that would show up to assume the bass or vocal duties. this went on for a couple of years.

all these new kids were the ones in school who got drunk before anyone else i knew. they carried condoms in their wallets. they would turn on a porno and act like, "what? all 13 year olds watch pornos. it makes you a man. don't be weird whit". to me it WAS weird. i didn't want to watch a porno, my hormones were different. maybe that year difference in age was a bigger deal than i thought, because at 12 years old i just wanted to kiss emily mack. just a kiss.

i usually made the situation even more awkward when i would hang out with those gentlemen, because i would always find a bogus excuse to get the hell out of there abruptly. whether it was a "sudden sickness" or that "my Mom told me to be back by a certain time", whatever. i just remember high tailing it the moment i saw a glimpse of some grainy picture of a slutbag and her fake boobs on the T.V., or smelt some strange odor that was different from a cigerette as i know it to smell. to tell you the truth, i hung out with these dopes far too long and really only because they were into "music" and girls liked them and they did dangerous and bad stuff. but they treated me like garbage and my friend had become so brainwashed that he didn't really like me anymore anyway - so it made no sense for me to stick around. and the more i hung out with them, the more obvious it became to me that i was viewed as a pest and a tag along. what was sad about it all was i saw my best friend turn into this alien around these new "cool guys". sadly, he never grew out of it, and continues to chase the dream of being "cool" to this day.

to a kid, losing your friend is a pretty big deal. so the only way i could cope w/ losing a dad, and then losing my friend & all the other adolescent stuff i had going on during those years, was like most kids... i would shovel junk food & lots of it, into my mouth space.

then outta nowhere i fatefully made some new friends. i dropped those other ones like a bad habit. these new guys were a group of church friends. they were some of the funniest guys i had ever met. really funny. in fact, they made me laugh so hard that a game was developed where they could make me laugh hard enough, to the point that i would vomit. and that was the main difference b/t this group of friends, everything was done w/ laughter, not "coolness". they actually were nice guys & included me, which made me feel like an equal. were they the "cool kids" in the high school sense? not really. but i soon realized that it didn't matter that much. they were cool to me. they were my friends.

they weren't necessarily into music, but what they were into was sports. specifically basketball. i would end playing 3 -4 times a week. at school, at home, at the church....all the time. i started off not very good at all. well, sooner or later that chubby kid from the beginning of this story shed all of his baby fat and gained a invaluable amount of confidence and self-esteem. and at under 5 foot, i could hold my own on a basketball court.

which leads me to my first introduction to the NBA. i (as well as every other American human) was amazed with Michael Jordan, he was my first favorite player. then it was Danny Ainge (because he was white, scrappy, & a little crazy) & then Muggsy Bogues ( mainly because he's 5'3"), then it was Jason Kidd... and it stayed that way for awhile. Jason was my favorite all-time player growing up for two reasons: 1) he was the underdog and had to earn everything, including being drafted 2nd overall, but being called ASON, because he had no "J"), & 2) because i was in awe of the way he played, i identified with it somehow - the passing, they unselfishness. even at a intimidating - 5'0, i thought i could be the next Jason Kidd... i tried desperately to emulate his style & moves on the schoolyard courts, etc.

then, when i was a sophmore in high school this tall, lanky high school senior, was picked 5th overall by the Minnesota TImberwolves. i immediately thought he was the coolest. not only did he play unlike any big man i had ever seen, but he made me laugh & his intensity was unparalleled. and as much i still held a fondness for JKidd, i never really related with his off the court personality, which i did with KG.

he was the face of the new expansion team in Minnesota, the Wolves had their franchise player. i followed his career through the ups and downs in MInnesota, always hoping he could get to the next level. rooting for him. see that's sometimes the indication of a TRUE NBA junkie, you have a favorite player or team for each category: favorite defensive player, favorite point guard, etc. so for years i held strong to my 2 favorite players: Garnett & Kidd, and my favorite team, the LA Clippers (which is enitrely different story altogether).

while KG was in Minnesota, sports pundits and analysts would create stories & rumors every summer or trading deadline that KG would be traded to a contender or that Kevin McHale and the Wolves would bring in the right pieces to surround KG and get him and the Wolves over the hill. never really happened.

and then in 2005, the Wolves actually got to the Western Conference finals. they lost against Shaq & Kobe's Lakers. it was heart breaking. KG won MVP that year, but w/o a championship to justify it. it was the farthest the franchise had ever been. that summer the Wolves management let all the pieces (Cassell, Sprewell, etc.) unexplicably leave and Minnesota fell all the way to the bottom of the Western Conference heap. from top to bottom in one quick summer.

during the following year's playoffs, TNT ran an interview with hall of fame college coach & all around mentor, John Thompson. he & and KG talked openly about his career. as i watched this interview i saw a player who was allowing America and NBA fans to see something they rarely get to see: honesty, humilty & raw emotion.


now...several years later KG finally has a ring and during last night's post game interviews, The Kid again let it all out. and i think that's why KG is my favorite, he lets all out, no pretense, no mask, no "coolness".

this is from Scoop Jackson's column, and it's in response to a question during the post game press conference. Garnett is asked what it's like to not have the burden of failing to meet personal and public expectations finally behind him:

""You ever go to school," he said, finding the perfect words, "and you had a bully mess with you every day? I know everybody ain't no tough guy here. It's like that bully that you go to school every day [with] and you know when you get out of your mom's or dad's car, you know you're going to see him as soon as you walk through the doors, he's sitting there waiting to pat your pockets and mess with you. Then one day you say, 'This is going to stop today!' You walk in and as soon as the bully pats your pockets you lay his ass out and you see the expression on his face. You're sorta shook because you know what, you just knocked the bully out and you don't know how he's going to come back. The next morning when you come in and he's not there, it's like a sigh of relief. It's like getting rid of the bully. It's like I knocked the bully's ass out! I knocked his ass clean out. That's what it feels like. For all y'all who ain't been bullied, y'all got no idea what I'm talking about. But for y'all who have, you understand my story."

(you can read the entire article here)...

that's why i love basketball. because of guys like Kevin Garnett. i feel like we both have a story of fighting through adversity and trying to always make the decision to go w/ what's important, rather than what's "cool". what's not to like about that?

it's nice to have a mistress in the Celtics, it's helped to soften the eons of loss & pain i've sustained as a Clipper faithful over the years.