Archive for 2018
The Doncic Addiction
In recent years I’d heard the loudening chants: there’s a basketball prodigy in Europe named Luka Doncic and in 2018 he’s going to descend on the NBA and immediately become a “transformational” player. Okay, I thought, let me check him out. I watched highlight tapes and read scouting reports, and concluded his average speed and…
Read MoreGrooming Marvin Bagley
Few people like to discuss injuries and many are too superstitious to mention the subject. I generally have both reservations but sense it’s an appropriate time to hope, and assume, that the Kings are going to carefully control the recovery of Marvin Bagley and his playing time the rest of the season. Against the Warriors…
Read MoreTwilight Zone Benching of De’Aaron Fox
The final three minutes Golden State played championship defense, igniting its offense, and that’s not unusual. What is beyond unusual and quite bizarre is that Dave Joerger benched the team’s best player, De’Aaron Fox, because he picked up his fifth foul with little over three minutes to play and the Kings leading by ten. So…
Read MoreDoncic Blitz Fuels Bagley Debate
Dallas trailed Houston by eight with three minutes left when Luka Doncic, who had been shooting errantly, nailed a three-pointer from the left corner and another out front and a floater in the lane and then the pièce de résistance, a step-back three to lift his team to victory. I assume most viewers of the…
Read MoreE=Fun2
Okay, I know the Kings after losing three straight have won that many, the last two against teams that had but nine victories between them. It doesn’t matter who they beat. Every Kings win has begun to feel like a celebration fueled by youth, speed, athleticism, and dexterity. These guys come out firing because they…
Read MoreJerry West Assesses the Kings
I advise the Clippers and generally don’t share my insights publicly but suppose it’s all right to tell you I like the Kings, especially De’Aaron Fox, who speeds past more defenders than anyone in the league. He’s also been hitting his jumpers and threes. Right, I know his outside shooting’s cooled off recently. Last five…
Read MoreMo Wagner Intervenes
Had I not sprained my left knee and ankle during summer league action, it’s certain that as a sweet-shooting rookie almost seven-feet tall I’d already be an emerging star. Alas, I only recently regained my vigor, and the other night began my pro career in the G-League, scoring seventeen points. I consider that a promising…
Read MoreLittle League Blast
Watching the muscular Red Sox crush four homers and the Dodgers in game five to win the World Series, I’m reminded that at age ten I was the youngest and skinniest boy on our Triple A baseball team and didn’t play much and when I did I always struck out. Late in the season I…
Read MoreJerry West Watches the Lakers
At the Lakers third game this season, against the Spurs, I turned in my courtside seat, pulled out my mini-binoculars and spotted Jerry West standing in a luxury box. I hustled upstairs, twice used a counterfeit pass to trick security guards, and reached the hallowed door on which I knocked. A starlet opened up, and…
Read MoreLeBron James Assesses the Lakers
(Correspondent LeBron James files the first Lakers dispatch of the 2018-2019 season.) Talk to analytical scientists all you want. I’ll instead offer meat and potatoes to clarify why I’m concerned about my Lakers after the first two games this season. We hit a higher field goal percentage and modestly more baskets than either the Portland…
Read MoreHe’s Tiger Again
I don’t know Tiger Woods personally. Like millions I’ve instead for a generation enjoyed his mastery on golf courses and felt emotionally connected to his seventy-nine career victories, many dominant and all exciting. I’ve also winced as he struggled with personal problems and a series of injuries and surgeries and wondered if he’d ever walk…
Read MoreTiger Woods on the Prowl
Few in any sport have exerted the gravitational pull of red-shirted Tiger Woods on championship Sundays. For twelve years he dominated the landscape, shooting eighteen under par to demolish the field in his first professional Masters, inventing the Tiger Slam, an unprecedented four straight majors over two seasons, and seizing fourteen majors and dozens of…
Read MoreLeBron’s European Vacation
Despite trying to relax in and around a coastal castle magically backed by snowy Alpine peaks, LeBron James is tense during his European vacation. Every time he surfs he falls right off and is swallowed by massive waves. Efforts to hang glide invariably snap the cord connected to the speedboat and LeBron’s again deposited in…
Read MoreSummertime Love for Sacramento Kings
I like living in Lubbock year round and rooting for my alma mater Texas Tech Red Raiders in football and basketball but recently surrendered to my fifth wife, Melanie, who’s from Sacramento and during the seven months I’ve known her has been pestering me to buy a second home here so we can watch her…
Read MoreLeBron Updates Free Agency
Please ignore reports I screamed like an unanesthetized dental patient upon learning that stellar forward Paul George, presumed to be bound for the glorious Los Angeles Lakers, instead signed to stay a few years on the arid plain of Oklahoma City. I confess I did shout in pain but the source was physical rather than…
Read MoreIranian Art, David Hockney, and LACMA
Boyd, an art lover visiting California the first time in years, reads with increasing concern a two-sided handout titled: The Future at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and waves the news at a museum employee. “What’s this? Almost half the galleries are closed and soon the others’ll be shuttered, too.” She smiles and says,…
Read MoreLeBron Analyzes Draft
Please don’t ask what I plan to do because at the moment I only know I’m going to make a few comments about the NBA draft, the most essential being: thank god for basketball and my flat screen TV on which I behold the huge image of seven-one muscleman DeAndre Ayton. If this numero uno…
Read MoreCampaign Mexico
i was running for mexican office in unnamed place but dropped out after cartels killed more than hundred politicians and many journalists
Read MoreDwight Clark: The Catch
Entering training camp 1980 the San Francisco 49ers had lost fourteen games two straight seasons and weren’t generating much enthusiasm in central California or anywhere else. Still, even as a temporarily disengaged fan, I wanted to learn a little about the team and didn’t change channels when a Sacramento sportscaster interviewed one of the players.…
Read MoreLeBron and Gilbert at the Summit
About four o’clock this dark morning five armored SUVs enter an Akron estate, a man in the first vehicle using an electronic device to open the wrought iron gate, and speed to the entrance of a mansion boasting more than thirty thousand square feet. At least ten camouflaged commandos emerge from somewhere and aim automatic…
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