Friday, May 20, 2005

If I could choose a team to match up against, I would have to choose the Lakers this year. We HATE Kobe, and the whole organization in general. It is the one team that everyone gets up for, and we pounded them pretty good this year. It is so much more fun to beat a team you hate than a team you just dislike!

Hate-a-Laker, Hate-a-Laker, Hate-a-Laker (say it fast and it just rolls off your tongue).
This year and last year were especially fun to play the Lakers, mostly because they suck this year, and last year was the Kobe rape trial. Our fans booed Kobe each and every time he touched the ball for the entire game every time he played here. I thought that was pretty cool. What a jerk......


It is just so hard this year because the Sonics are/were such a great group of guys. They started this sort of tradition very early on in the season where immediately after each game, win or lose, they will walk to halfcourt and huddle up for a minute or so, praise people for good plays, thank each other for being motivational, and reflect a bit on the game. The injured players, the players who never make it into a game, all of them meet up there. There was a big write up on it earlier in the season, when after losing in a blowout game on the East Coast somewhere, the dancers came out to dance and there was confetti falling and the mascot rushed onto the floor, and everything stopped, because the Sonics, instead of huffing off to the locker room as teams generally do when they lose, met in the center of the court once again in a show of solidarity. No finger pointing, no blaming each other, just everyone being a team. It is really neat to see. They go to each others' houses for dinner, they have poker games on every plane trip, they had a secret santa gift exchange for christmas, they just were all such good guys. No police records, no jerks, just good role models and great guys.
On the way to San Antonio for the game on Tuesday, the assistant coach' s wife flew commercially down there and met a man who was flying to the military hospital in San Antonio to see his son who is just back from Iraq and had a foot amputated. The next morning, before doing any practice or preparing for the game, half the team went spontaneously to the hospital with autographed everything to visit soldiers and pay their respects. All spur of the moment.

Really good guys. You feel good for supporting them, and you really hope the best for them. Ray Allen took a lot of heat when he said no to the US olympic committee to playing in Athens. His wife was due to give birth a few weeks after the games, and he said he just couldn't live with himself to not be there when she gave birth, if the baby came early (which she did. His daughter is almost a month older than Raegan). Family first. Rashard (although we now have issues....) bought a million dollar mansion here in Seattle, and lives with his mom and his twin sister. Reggie and Jerome talk about their kids all the time. Danny may seem tough out there on the court, but he is also a family man, and has bible study with Luke and Antonio on road trips. Really good guys.

1 comment:

The Writer said...

Bravo to the Sonics! It is rare to see such good role models in any sport. I may have to start watching their games myself.