2008 ESPYs

Random thoughts on last night's broadcast of the 2008 ESPY Awards at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles:

• Ray Allen went from an overpaid and washed up bench warmer to the spokesman accepting the award for Best Team. His first comment: "Another win in LA..." Oh, Ray, you so funny!
• Host Justin Timberlake was funny, and even gave us a hilarious dance and song number.
• Greg Oden is also hilarious. I do not think there has every been such a lovable basketball player who yet to even play in an NBA game.
• David Tyree, accepting the award for Best Play, thanked God and Jesus first. It is good to see men of God be blessed on such grand stages.
• Where else can you see Samuel L. Jackson and Brett Favre talking to one another on stage? The ESPYs are good stuff!

So you think you can Dance?

As you can see below, the last two weeks of FOX's prime time summer hit television series So you think you can Dance? have featured two Bollywood dances choreographed by Nakul Dev Mahajan. The first dance is of Katee and Joshua dancing to "Dhoom Taana" from Om Shanti Om. The reception and reactions were so great that they brought Bollywood back the next week, this time with the entire cast dancing to "JBJ" from Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

As one of many Indians who stands guilty as charged of growing apart from our cultural roots, it is really great to see Indian dancing be showcased under the bright light that is American prime time television. Those of you who know me know that I have always believed in appreciating and promoting our Indian culture, especially Bollywood entertainment, which is so fascinating and fun that other nationalities love it too. How great is it to see a bunch of white, Asian, and black people dance to INDIAN music?

Bollywood Group Dance on FOX

Katee and Joshua

A Filipion Embrace

The New York Times has a feature on Gilbert Arenas' visit to Manila.

JibJab: Time for Some Campaignin'

Barack on the Bible

I very rarely have any strong feelings on politics. I do not see how so many can rally behind and support politicians who are all crooks anyway. But this ruffled my feathers a bit.


"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?" Obama said. "Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?" referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.

Before he tells the rest of America to do so, perhaps Obama is the one who needs to read his Bible and go to church.

a gay suit

The decline of America is really saddening.

Shawn Kemp, Jr.

Sports Illustrated has a feature on the eldest of Shawn Kemp's many children.

Lockout

Sports Illustrated has a nice story recapping the 1998 NBA lockout.

where stealing our team happens

Five Stages

Denial

No. The Sonics must stay. 41 years of history. Kevin Durant. Such a bright future. Something will be worked out. The Mariners and Seahawks were practically out the door, but new ownership came in and worked out new stadium deals with the city. I am sure they will figure it out at the last minute somehow.

Anger

I hate you, Clay Bennett. You are a lying scumbag. Oklahoma!? What the hell? Is there even sports there? The only thing Oklahoma is famous for is Timothy McVeigh bombing shopping malls. Why us? Why our team? You not only bought our team, but cut us off from it. Then you traded away our best players. You hired a terrible coach who is remarkably out of touch with his players.

Oh, we did not forget you, Howard Schultz. Sonic fans are boycotting your overpriced coffee, and you happen to be feeling it even more during this pseudo recession. Do not even pretend like you were the innocent victim and tried to help, because we all know you made money off this whole ordeal. I have not bought a cup of Starbucks in the past two years, and I will never do so again.

The city of Seattle, not unlike most of the nation's politicians, are just completely useless.

And you, David Stern. How dare you. You two faced liar. You loved KeyArena when it was renovated just a few years ago, calling it a "world class facility." You wrote a letter to Sacramento saying it was okay that they were not willing to pay for a new arena and that you will work with others to find a way to privately pay for a new arena. Why the preferential treatment? I know business is anything but honest, but you are still a disgusting crook. Seriously, do you really believe that Oklahoma City is more capable of hosting a team than Seattle? I thought Stern was a brilliant and intelligent man. But in the past year, he has quickly gone from the best commissioner in sports...to the worst.

Bargaining.

Let's take them to court. We have a lease that says they must stay. It is legally binding. They cannot just pack up and leave as they please. It does not work that way. Steve Ballmer, save us. We want to keep the name, colors, and history of the once great Sonics franchise. We want to see the beloved legendary jerseys of Payton and Kemp hanging in the rafters of a building in Seattle.

Depression.

Did we really just sell our team for $75 million? Talk about betrayal. There is no guarantee for another team? Kevin Durant is gone? You want me to root for a team from Oklahoma? Excuse me, while I go cry myself to sleep.

Acceptance.

Basketball is dead to me. My Team is gone.

2008 NBA Draft Thoughts

• Despite all the predraft hype and talk leading up to the draft, there were really no shocking surprises. Chicago takes Derrick Rose, Miami settles for Michael Beasley, and Minnesota drafts O.J. Mayo only to trade him to Memphis for Kevin Love, who went fifth.

• What was an eyebrow raiser to others was the Seattle Sonics selecting UCLA combo guard Russell Westbrook at four. My perspective of Westbrook is skewed, because I watched a lot of him at UCLA, especially during their tournament run where he really shined.
• The Sonics had six picks in this draft, yet after a few trades came away with four players, including three first round picks. The folks in Seattle, though, are less than pleased.The
• Sonics selected a point guard for the future, and three more project big men with "potential." Again. Ugh.
• The reasoning behind picking Westbrook is that he gives the Sonics a lockdown defender. The Sonics are one of the worst defensive teams in the league and routinely lost close games last season because they were not able to get stops down the stretch. General manager Sam Presti comes from the Spurs front office, which won championships based on players making those defensive stops in those critical situations.
• The base case dream scenario is that Westbrook turns out to be the next Gary Payton. Payton was always a great defender, but took years to develop an offensive game before becoming the best player in Sonics history. What is more likely is that Westbrook is like an Antonio Daniels, another player drafted fourth overall who is a good defender and loves to attack the rim. After watching the Celtics win a championship with Rajon Rondo, the Sonics will look to develop Westbrook as a similar point guard. Both are excellent perimeter defenders who cannot shoot, but can occassionally make good plays by penetrating.
• The decision on the future of the Sonics will be decided next week, so keep an eye out for that.

• The Portland Trail Blazers had another great draft. Remember, the Blazers are already expected to make a huge leap this upcoming season with Greg Oden joining last year's breakout stars Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. They then pulled off a trade with Indy to bring in Arizona stud Jerryd Bayless, whom many believe was the one of the best point guards in the draft. When Kansas forward Darrell Arthur fell into their lap because of a kidney issue, they traded him for French phenom Nicolas Batum to stash in Europe for another year or two, adding even more potential to an already bright future. What is most amazing about this all is that the Blazers still have less than $20 million on the books for 2009-2010.

• The New Jersey Nets may look back on this draft as the beginning of something special. They have completely blown up their roster, essentially trading away Richard Jefferson for Yi Jianlian to clear more cap room. At number ten, they took Stanford center Brook Lopez and got a second round steal in Chris Douglas-Roberts. But the grand prize may be Lebron James, who happens to be a free agent in 2010 when the Nets will have enough money to throw at him along with an attractive new home in the large market of Brooklyn, New York. Oh, and then there is that well documented friendship between Lebron and Nets part owner Jay-Z.

• I love ESPN bringing along Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson to analyze the draft. They brought great perspectives and insights as a recent coach and player, respectively. Plus, the hilarious split screen interview of the Van Gundy brothers was utterly priceless.

Rainy Relationship

After reading this, I am ready to just move on to the Seahawks and football season.

Shaq raps

Just when we thought the whole Kobe Shaq fued was ancient history, TMZ caught the Big Rapper going off on Bryant.

Hope(less?) in Seattle

As the trial that will decide the fate of professional basketball in Seattle rages on this week, Page 2 had a nice short story touching on the highlights of the Save Our Sonics rally.

City of Champs

Boston, that is.

Ten Years Later

Bryon Russell reminisces about Jordan's shot.

Game 4: Lakers collapse

Boston Celtics 97
Los Angeles Lakers 91

Lakers blow a 24 point lead in one of the best Finals games ever.

Sheer joy.

I cannot do better than this.

Game 3: Return to the Crime Scene

Boston Celtics 81
Los Angeles Lakers 87

• As the NBA Finals shift across country to Los Angeles, the biggest news to come out of Game 3 had nothing to do with the game itself, but rather the fact that Tim Donaghy called out the NBA officials on fixing playoff games.
• Whether or not this is true is up for debate. Obviously Donaghy is desperate to cut his eventual jail time, but none of these allegations are really all that extreme. In fact, they are so likely that no one should be surprised that the NBA influenced its own games for some extra profit.
• The 2002 Western Conference Finals were supposedly affected, which brings into question the validity of the Lakers championship. If the Patriots deserve an asterisk next to their championships for blatantly cheating, maybe the Lakers should get one next to theirs as well.
• Then again, those Laker teams were so amazingly dominant that there is no question they were the best, as evidenced by their impressive three peat. I take this story deeper and wonder just how much pull the NBA league office has. Maybe they really did orchestrate the trades to make the Celtics and Lakers relevant again. Or maybe Donaghy is just appealing to the conspiracy theorists looking for evidence. The tough part is we will never know for sure.
• ABC did a great job of addressing the story up front and completely, while getting David Stern and even Jeff Van Gundy to respond.

• Back to basketball. Although Kobe Bryant is finally attacking the basket and scoring at will again, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol are still struggling. As good as Kobe is, the Lakers are not going to win this series with Odom and Gasol playing as poorly as they are.
• Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce also struggled, with Ray Allen taking up the offensive load. Interestingly enough, the Celtics are 1-4 during these playoffs when Allen scores 20 or more points. Allen kept the Celtics in the game until late in the fourth quarter, but missed a couple open shots late that were followed by clutch Sasha Vujacic points. In other words, the Celtics are only going as far as Pierce takes them, especially because he needs to be the man and take over the end of games a la Kobe Bryant.
• The refereeing favors the home team. Everyone should get used to it already.
• This was a game that the Lakers should have won by a larger margin. Coming off two tough road losses and returning home, many expected the Lakers to come out fired up and blow out the Celtics. It remains to be seen what this means going forward.