I dunno, Colangelo, I just don't know

Jemele Hill of ESPN Page 2 just interviewed Jerry Colangelo. Here's some bread-and-butter of what he said about Team USA:

"When that game ended against Greece, in the locker room, I know how they all felt. We don't ever want to feel that way again as long as we're together. I think that's going to bond us even more...It had nothing to do with the player-personnel (or)...having the right talent. We did a poor job in preparation in defending the pick-and-roll against Greece. It's as simple as that. And a team beat us that shouldn't have. They deserved to win because we didn't get the job done. If we played them 10 times, we'd win nine out of 10."

Sounds a lot like our Dream League All-Star squad, which coming off a heartbreaking championship loss to the L.A. Tigers Blue in 2005, went down to Vegas for the 14th Annual LVI this past September 2006 and promptly got slapped in the face by Arizona Desert Jade. Two consecutive weeks of open gym run/practice (heh, it'd be a crime to call them practices!) for our guys leading up to the tournament proved to be a non-factor.

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Hey Cubes, EVERY WEEKEND is already Basketball Day!

Basketball Day, Mark? C'mon now.

Via TrueHoop via AOL's NBA Fanhouse via Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News, late last week we got wind that Mark Cuban thinks having a "Basketball Day" would be a cool idea:

"It would have to be a weekend, but we could have NBA, college and high school games all day long and market the heck out of it," Cuban said.

Yo, Cubes. In basketball, Mutombos do fall in the paint when you happen to not be there. Trust me, while Superman is saving Earth, Bizarro is surely dooming Htrae.

Translation: every Sunday, the Asian American community alone is running about 35 games here in the Bay Area within a 20-mile radius, which by its sheer size results in some perhaps made-for-TV happenings, such as Ryan Mateo's 48 points (details below) yesterday in only 36 minutes of dreamleague running-clock format. More notably, Mateo outscored his opponent's entire team total.

In the post-Wilt Chamberlain era, the only thing that comes close to this Bizarro world wonder is Kobe Bryant's 62 points in three quarters against Dallas on 12/20/2005, outscoring them 62-61 (no, Kobe's 81 on 46 attempts in 42 minutes played most certainly does NOT compare to this, and we will discuss this in detail below).

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Walt "Clyde" Frazier, my new hero

The SportsBusiness Journal (subscription needed) came out with a great interview with Walt "Clyde" Frazier today, with respect to his new book "Game Within The Game". He's pretty much on point with everything and the timing of this interview is impeccable given our blog entry on Saturday about the European vs. American system.

Here are some of the more profound excerpts and notes from which a lot of us can learn...

• First off, he was the first player to sign a sneaker deal (with Puma in 1971) -- much respect, let us "ballaz" and "sneakerheads" alike tip our hat and listen to what he has to say...

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Greg Oden = Bill Russell and NBA TV fantasy funny

Oden: a young/old Bill Russell?

Here's some hoops-only funny stuff from a recent Bill Simmons chat:

Nate (New York): Is it just me, or does Greg Oden look like an old Bill Russell? What are the chances this kid is actually only 18 years old?

And for those in the know, doesn't Oden's quiet emotionless demeanor totally remind you of former dreamleague Bay Area and current dreamleague NYC big man, Brian Liang?!

Bizarro world Bill Russell tidbits:

• Many dreamleaguers in the Bay Area still go up to the Sacramento Barons tournament, which is almost always held at Russell's alma mater, Elk Grove High School. There's a mural of him inside the gym.
  
  
• NYC dreamleaguer Shawn Liao works with Russell through Liao's Shanghai Sharks ties.

Here's the other funny part from the chat transcript:

Mike (Clifton Park, N.Y.): Ever watch NBA TV's fantasy show at 1 in the morning? Where do they find these guys for that show? And shouldn't they add a second guy to it, I feel bad for the lone dude who has to kill 30 minutes of fantasy talk by himself.

Bill Simmons: I thought I was the only one who watched that show! Sometimes I want to call in just to throw him a bone for two minutes … I always feel like he's going to assume nobody is watching and just start saying crazy things into the camera like, "Guess what I did today? I touched my own poop. And it felt good. Anyway, back to the Grizzlies …"

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A-Mac gets a taste of Bizarro world

Welcome to my world, A-Mac!

[From Alec MacDonald ("A-Mac") in the Bay Area...]

I wanted to make sure I had a blog entry ready to go to start the new year, but I've been sort of light on ideas because it's been a while since my team [WWWD? in the Bay Area AAA-P division] last saw action. So I figured I'd turn to the pros and check out their blogs, since what they're writing about might relate to our experience as humble dreamleaguers. Turns out we're closer to the NBA than you thought — here's what I found...

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Ticketmaster.com: just another skills competition that boils down to one judge

I know how you feel, Iggy.

I just had the worst experience this morning trying to get tickets to the 2007 NBA All-Star Practice at the upcoming Vegas All-Star Weekend. I'll give you the short version and the long version. The long version only exists because I decided to cap off my waste of two hours in cyberspace with a four-page letter to the NBA, which you can read in detail further in this blog entry.

Here's the short version. Trying to get tickets to the All-Star Practice, which I estimate sold out in two minutes, was like a veritable skills competition on the keyboard. Only thing is, even if you were like Andre Iguodala and you thought you did everything right, a little computer program could be that final judge that keeps you from attaining glory.

It might as well have been a lottery.

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