The 6th richest man in the world and I were in the same room yesterday.

I was too nervous to say hello. Oh, and the Trailblazers beat the Nuggets.

Sun Ming Ming is gonna be famous!

They made a documentary about our giant friend, his dreams to play NBA basketball, and his successful surgery on his pituitary gland.

Let's watch! It's called Anatomy of a Giant, and it's playing on October 15, on "Discovery Health." Is this a channel anyone gets? Steve?

Anyone with a Spanish passport got in free to the Grizzlies-Raptors game. Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon are both Spaniards. And they LOVE each other: Check it out!

Also, if you give the Philadelphia 76ers a gun, they'll give you free tickets.

Personally, I'm not so sure the 76ers need more guns.

The Willamette Week has an article about Why Portland never gets the NBA All-Star Game.Paul Gerald writes, "No franchise other than Boston in the 30-team NBA has gone longer than Portland without the premier midseason game, and at least the Celtics had it in 1964."

"So why does the league skip Portland, spreading the game's cash and international cachet elsewhere? Lack of a big-time hotel."

With the NBA All-Star Game being "a $30 million boost for the local economy and a TV audience in 210 countries" it seems like the PDC plan for a convention-center big hotel is a great idea! Too bad Mayor Tom Potter "has been very skeptical of plans to use public money to build a new headquarters hotel at the Oregon Convention Center." according to the Oregonian.

Link of the day:
Robert Horry Saves the Day music video, a tribute to much-hated big-shot-hitter Robert Horry's basketball career in Los Angeles. Not recommended for Blazers or Kings fans.

I told you previously about Sun Ming Ming's health problems. This young man, who has not yet entered the workforce, or the NBA, for that matter, couldn't possibly pay for the innovative ultramodern surgery he would require.

But people stepped up, and Sun Ming Ming had successful surgery on the tumor that was pressing on his pituitary gland. The doctor says he should have a full and rapid recovery, and should see improvements to his endurance and fitness very quickly.

I would just like to say thanks to all of you who gave, and gave, and gave.

Shaquille O'Neal, most dominant center in the game of basketball, assisted Miami Beach police in apprehending a man who harassed and assaulted a gay couple last weekend.

The man, a passenger in a passing car, yelled at the couple, then got out and threw a bottle at them. No serious injuries were suffered.

The man returned to the car and rode off. Shaq, in hot pursuit, flagged down a police officer, who made the arrest.

Shaq is cool. Shaq is going to be a good sheriff.

AP story here.

Watching Sun Ming Ming from afar has been a little hobby of mine since I heard of him a few months ago. This is a Chinese basketball player who can dunk a basketball flat-footed. He's seven feet eight inches tall. Real tall, right?

He's 22 years old, trying to break into the NBA, but in tryouts with teams, they raised concerns about his stamina. It turns out he has a tumor pressing into his pituitary gland, which has helped create his ridiculous height, and also limits the production of testosterone, which affects his endurance. The man has a tumor, and it's going to kill him.

He needs surgery immediately, but it costs a hundred thousand dollars! We think of NBA players as rich dudes, but he is no NBA player yet. He's a Chinese basketball player that simply does not have a hundred thousand dollars.

Kind-hearted souls have started a fundraiser for him at SaveSunMingMing.com. I want this guy to live, and I want to see him in the NBA. He's a nice guy and a tall guy and he can dunk a basketball standing flat on the ground. Let's not let a tumor kill him off.

Thank you.

Lebron, Kobe, KG, Amare, Marbury, Wade, and many other awesome ballers are getting together in Houston this Sunday to play a benefit game for Katrina victims. This has all come together over the past few days. Kenny Smith is organizing this deal. He got everything donated, the stadium, TV time, a bunch of seats for hurrican victims.

It's gonna be on TNT, Sunday night at eleven pm, commercial-free. You can come over to my house and watch, gimme a call. Five dollar donation to Katrina victims at the door.

Mo Cheeks has moved on. He's been hired by Philly, and now he's selling his Portland home.

What lucky (and rich) Blazers fan will score this fancy pad high above NW 23rd Avenue?

I can't quite tell from the picture, but I believe the Rose Garden Arena is visible from the patio. That must have taunted him as the losses piled up.

From the "Lucky Charms" in the NBA Draft Lottery Notebook:

"Yesterday, I found a penny yesterday on the sidewalk," said Portland Team President Steve Patterson before the lottery.

"Fortunately the basketball gods shined down on us."

I hope that penny contains a lot more luck!

I've just got a quick note for you guys about up-and-comer Sun Ming Ming.

He's 7 feet, 8 and three-quarters inches tall. SEVEN FOOT NINE, people! Those are his hands on the right.

He can dunk the basketball without jumping. With his feet on the floor.

This guy's a project, of course. He's got a bunch of learning and lifting to do, but I'm hoping we'll see him throwing down in the NBA in a few years.

More information in this newspaper article.

Whoa. I am still in a state of mild shock after finding out my T-Wolves fired longtime coach Flip Saunders.

Saunders had been with the T-Wolves for over 9 years, and is good friends with VP Kevin McHale, so this decision must have been difficult. Marc Stein at ESPN.com makes a good argument that Flip's future was hopeless, especially with Sam and Spree sulking. However, the players obviously were not responding to Saunders, so in steps McHale, with no coaching experience.

I'm not optimistic that the Wolves (who currently have a 25-27 record) can turn the season around, but I must admit at least there is some amount of hope that they might respond to a new coach, especially one with as much credibility as McHale. Hey, Larry Bird did a good job with the Pacers before deciding he didn't like coaching, maybe that Celtic legacy will carry over for the the tall guy from Hibbing.

Okay, we have the NBA, and we love it. Then we heard about International Basketball League which seems to be still going strong (13 of 18 teams are "live"). And now Portland is getting our own ABA team, the Portland Reign (get it!? get it!!???!). (warning: terrible website complete with midi music)

They are planning on calling the Oregon Convention Center their home court and landed Pepsi as their primary sponsor (which means games will be played in "Pepsi Palace"). The first game is on November 18th against the Fresno Heat Waves. Courtside seats are only $31.50 and you can see the 19 year old Portland Trailblazer, Ha Seung-Jin (popup pic), play with them for a few games. The ABA keeps a spot open for a "celebrity" player on each team. (I think Master P played on one of the other teams)

But what the heck is the ABA (American Basketball Association)? You might think it's a league that was operated from 1967 to 1976 before merging with the NBA, but you'd be wrong. That was the ABA. This ABA was started in 2000 with eight teams by Joe Newman (CEO). The Portland Reign CEO is Mary Liss, a local sports agent representing players playing in foreign countries and in developmental leagues at Pro Sports Group LLC, who was profiled in the Tribune where they mentioned that she has filed for bankruptcy three times since 1991.

A Short Historical Tangent

The ABA was originally the ABA-2000, and in 2001 they competed with Don "Moose" Lewis' American Basketball Association. Moose was a sports entrepreneur with flair, who went so far as to style his uniforms in the 70's style and "... also told the players that we'll pay the white guys extra for [wearing] crew cuts, and the black guys extra for [wearing] afros." In November 2001 Moose changed his league to the GBA, Global Basketball Alliance. Then in April of '02, after having only played a single game, the Global Basketball Alliance announced a change in format. The GBA claimed they now would not be simply a professional basketball game, but rather fans will witness a "professional basketball event". This goes back to Don "Moose" Lewis' roots as the owner of a pro-wrestling league. In a press release the GBA announced, "Mix in the best of the Harlem Globetrotters, the XFL and its cheerleaders, and professional wrestling - and you have the red, hot, GBA! You will see players "high-fiving" each other, teams with their respective music, disc jockeys spinning club music, players at the end of the game tossing their jerseys into the stands, players screaming after a successful shot or key play, players in the stands at halftime, music artists at intermission, and ticket stubs redeemable for discounts on merchandise and admission to entertainment establishments. The GBA's founder, Don "Moose" Lewis will be drawing from his years of professional wrestling, professional boxing, and television production to bring this to the people. The GBA offers beautiful and shapely cheerleaders for dad, handsome basketball players for mom, tee shirts and giveaways for the children, the hippest music for the young adults, and exciting memories for all who attend." Their website is not encouraging.

Never been a huge basketball fan. I watched Jordan play in his last season in '99 and I've enjoyed having a home team (even though it is the Blazers), but I haven't ever really connected to the game. Things started to change when I noticed a lot of foreign people in the game. In April of '03 Josh told me about the hot new foreign born players, and for some reason this sparked my interest.

This Sunday I am entering a Fantasy Basketball League with a bold and probably disastrous plan. I will only draft foreign born players. Yeah, I know I will probably lose, but watching the US Olympic Team lose to both Argentina and Italy got me pumped on all the NBA players that played for other countries. It's a long list. "As of March 15, 2004, NBA team rosters featured 67 international players from 33 countries and territories."

Fans named Pau Gasol the "Baller of the Year". Tim Duncan is a two-time MVP and there is a slew of foreign born All-Stars. The problem with my foreign born team is not the talent, but the availability. Who isn't going to try and get Tim Duncun, Dirk Nowitzki, Predrag Stojakovic, or Yao Ming? These are great players and anyone in the UHX Fantastic Basket Challenge League is going to want them. Even my second tier choices are good with Steve Nash, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Tony Parker, or Pau Gasol. The real fear is further down the list, where limiting my draft choices forces me to pick the 220th ranked Raja Bell or 144th ranked Hidayet Turkoglu. And once I have my team, even my trades will be limited to a shorter list of players as I try to finagle Samuel Dalembert or Carlos Arroyo away from another team.

Keeping this plan a secret would no doubt help my chances immensely, but where is the fun, nay, the sport in that? My strong conceptual team, the Cameroon Robustos have a schtick, they have sex appeal, they have pizzaz. And while they may not top the league charts they will have fans who love them and I have no doubt they will be the most popular team in the UHX Fantastic Basket Challenge League.

Anyone heard of International Basketball League? I read a short article about it on Portland Bizjournals. I beleive that Mikal Duilio is also the founder of Peaceful & Recreational Athletics, Inc, which runs Portland Basketball and Portland Football (a flag football league).

(from journalstar.com) Mark Duilio, 35, is a native of Indianola, Iowa, and a graduate of Iowa State. He founded PortlandBasketball.Com in 1992 and has scheduled and coordinated more than 55,000 basketball games and trained more than 100 basketball officials. He also owns and operates PugetSoundBasketball.Com, a league in its first year of operation in Seattle.

They lost. They lost bad. They lost bad to a team that is not expected to medal. In the first game of the Olympics!

Carlos Arroyo looked like a bona fide star. Puerto Rico's inside defense made it impossible to get to the hoop. USA's shooting was unbelievably bad. Why don't we have any shooters on the team? Get college players! They can shoot!

Start working that twenty into your budget, Steve.

Loving an underdog can be such a rewarding thing. The victories don't feel hollow and when the victories come the pride cannot be contained when cheering for a lovable loser. To get to the few moments of euphoria one must endure a lot of disappointment. A lot of disappointment. I am a Los Angeles Clipper fan. I love the loserest losers of all time.

Consistently referred to as the worst franchise in all of professional sports with the worst owner in all of professional sports, The Los Angeles Clippers have never ever come close to success, but the last 5 or 6 years have been full of a lot of hope as so much young talent landed in the Clippers' lap: Lamar Odom, Darius Miles, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand, and Quentin Richardson. An overacheiving season in 02-03 brought so much hope to the 03-04 season (along with fact that owner Donald Sterling finally shelled out some money to hold onto Brand and Maggette), which was quickly dashed when team leader Elton Brand broke his leg in the first game of the season in Japan. A season wrought with injuries followed and they didn't perform anywhere near expectations, even though Maggette and Richardson both showed they could both be All Stars in the very near future.

This offseason brought more excitement as the Kobe Bryant free agency sweepstakes came down to the Clippers and their evil stepsisters, the Lakers. Kobe eventually signed with the Lakers after it looked like he would trade locker rooms in the Staples Center (which both the Lakers and Clippers call home). Just the thought of Kobe joining the Clippers gave the team so much legitimacy and made the fans drool, but yesterday saw another setback. The Clippers failed to match a free agency offer by the Pheonix Suns for restricted free agent Quentin Richardson. As a consolation and replacement they did trade for solid veteran shooting guard Kerry Kittles. Kittles will do a fine job, but has nowhere near the upside of Quentin Richardson, and it just feels sorta demoralizing...letting the young talent slip away again as they have done for years and years. Of course, the concept is that Kittles is only under contract for one more year and it will leave the Clippers with maximum cap room available for next offseason to sign a big name, BUT they had maximum cap room this year and have nothing to show for it (they did go after Kobe but didn't make a good attempt after anyone else). I'm afraid they will have another wasted season this year and they will be no more attractive for any free agent to sign with next year, even with all the money they could offer. They had this amazing young nuclues who were, surprisingly enough, proud to be Clippers, and the loss of Quentin Richardson breaks up this nucleus. It feels like a crushing blow to me.

I spent a few minutes this afternoon looking at their roster...it's not a pretty sight as it stands. Sure, Elton Brand, Maggette, and Kittles are all good players but there other two starters will be Marko Jaric and Chris Kaman, two guys who could be good one two but are not at the level where they should be starting for a quality NBA team. I will always love my Clippers, but I will be entering this season with much less optimism than in years past. Sometimes being a true fan = :(

Dear Josh Berezin,
On this fine Sunday morning I found myself watching a NBA game from 1983. The date was December 13, 1983. The game took place in Denver, Colorado between the Denver Nuggets and the Detroit Pistons. The final score of this game was 186 to 184. It was amazing. It is the highest scoring NBA game of all time. The pace of the game was incredible. It went to 3 OTs. Isaiah Thomas, dude. Kelly Tripucka, dude. It was truly a different brand of basketball than we are familiar with from the NBA today. I'm not saying it was better and what we have now is worse, it was just exciting to see. Thank you so much, NBA TV. Thank you so much, Bill Lambier.
Josh Berezin, where are you. You need to see this. I understand, new job, and all, but Josh Berezin, 186-184 3OT on 12/13/83. YEAH.

Watching Timberwolves basketball with J John Afryl is one hell of a roller coaster. We've made this movie (1.3 MB) so you can join us on the ride.

My two favorite aspects of sports are the business of sports and the incredible amount of stats in sports. Over at Stdev.net they have created graphs of games based play-by-play data at ESPN.com. Really incredible stuff. You can enter a player's name to see the points.

Graphing the course of a game is awesome. Two things Matt plans on adding to his graph: "... it would be interesting to overlay other statistics on top of the game-o-graphs. For instance, I could plot a moving average of field goal percentage on a second axis. if the two curves have a similar shape, or are moving in the same direction for a while, then you could tell the lead was increasing or decreasing because the team was starting to make or miss their shots."

"I'd also like to test a hypothesis that many announcers state as fact. If a player is shooting poorly, and then they get a dunk or a layup, announcers will say the dunk or layup will 'get them going,' as if to say the dunk or layup somehow makes shooting jump shots easier. If this is true, then field goal percentage for shots taken after a layup should be higher then the field goal percent of shots not taken after a dunk or layup"

I missed the first round of the playoffs because I was in Europe. Now I'm missing the second round because I don't have cable and no one will go to the sports bars with me! What is the deal here! This is the pinnacle of the season! And the Lakers are down 2-0.

Going to Slabtown alone to catch a game ain't bad, though. Big TVs, and a lot of them. $1 PBR from 4-7. I could do worse.

As expected, Kevin Garnett was named Most Valuable Player of the National Basketball Association yesterday. While I am definitely excited to see my favorite player win this award, I'm focusing my attention on the people who say it doesn't mean much, because nobody seems to believe he can take the T-Wolves to the championship.

I'm going to just ignore the critics and not engage in discourse. I am obviously biased and have placed all my faith in KG as the savior of my beloved franchise. He has taken them this far, I have no reason to believe he won't take them to the top.

Destiny creates a Dynasty right?

Oh my god, the Nets just scored 56 points in an entire NBA playoff game. How does that happen?! What a statement by Detroit. I will now take any and all bets on the Nets for this series... No one can recover from being embarassed that badly.