Screw it, I’m Outta Here!

A-Train – 12:45 a.m.

The Jay, you brought up the Lakers.  I’m gonna talk about them for just one minute here since I think we’ve got a good theory going and I want to get back to it.  But, I’m going to talk about the Lakers for a moment, and I’m going to try not to let emotion get the better of me.  Wait.  Fuck that.  My emotion is running rampant and I’m gonna vent a little.  They had to trade Shaq, and that sucks.  He demanded the trade so what are you gonna do?  Do you want to be the one to tell the seven-foot-one, 350 pound man that you’re not going to give him the trade that he asked for?  I sure as hell don’t.  But, you don’t have to go and get Brian Grant, Lamar Odom, and Caron Butler for him.  I’d be impressed if the three of them combined averaged the same amount of points and rebounds as Shaq does this year.  I mean, it took L.A. years to get Odom’s pothead ass out of the city, and now we bring him right back.

And, on that note, who the fuck decided that it would be a good idea to bring Vlade back to L.A.?  Is there one person in this city (Laker-haters exempted), one single, solitary person, who thought that this would be a good idea?  He’s a seven-foot-one, Serbian joke.  He can’t score, he can’t rebound, and his idea of defense is falling over and bitching to the refs.  Check his stats: the guy has had just one season where he’s averaged better than 15 points a game, and only three seasons where he averaged over 10 rebounds.  I’m not saying that I’d do any better in the NBA, but he’s a fucking center.  He’s over seven feet tall.  The guy sucks.  Period.  It is an incontestable fact.

I’ve been a Lakers fan since birth.  Some of my first basketball memories are the Showtime Lakers going back to back in the Eighties.  Shit, A.C. Green works out at the same gym as me.  A.C. Green!  How can you not like that guy?  But, my love for the Lakers is fading fast.  They’re just acting like they no longer want to win.  They put together a team of hall of famers last year, not just all-stars, but straight up hall of fame caliber players.  And lost.  Yeah, they went to the finals.  Nice work.  Way to go.  You lost, and we will accept no excuses.  Now, we're left with Kobe.  Should Kobe go to jail, what kind of team will L.A. fans have to cheer for?  Harsh.  I’m not gonna be around for most of this season, so I’m giving them a year to fix some shit.  After this year, I’m going to reevaluate my loyalties to the team.  Go Blue Devils!  Okay, that was a first, but I think I can roll with it.

And for one more record, I like Bad Boys II and The Saint as much as the next guy (okay, I probably like them far more than the next guy), but they don’t have to be run six times daily, every single day (if you have DirecTV, you know what I’m sayin’).

The Jay, I think I see part of our problem.  It wasn’t so clear before, but I’m beginning to see the light.  The problem is that we haven’t been playing in the big dance before now.  We’ve done a little college ball, and even some semi-pro, but we are just now getting to the pros.  Finally, we’ve hit the big leagues.  It dawned on me while I was reading your previous post about the one that got away.  I’m reading your post, enjoying the sentimentality because I too am a romantic at heart, and it’s at this point that I realize you’re talking about a high school girl.

Think about this for a moment or two.  Think about your opinion of high school girls now.  Just because we were in high school at the time and didn’t have the good sense to know any better, doesn’t mean that high school girls weren’t the same then as they are now.  As fondly as you look back on your high school relationships (and you have no reason not to), you’re gonna have to accept the fact that they were just that, high school relationships.  There’s a reason that people distinguish them as such.  They’re just not the big leagues.  It’s high school, and high school is just the tryouts for college.

Then we did the college thing.  There’s a huge reason as to why there’s a big deal being made about young people going to the NBA and NFL straight out of high school or with only a year or two of college; college is a great time to learn.  Not just classroom shit, not just sports, but it’s a time to learn how to grow up and be part of society.  Now, we’ve got more mature relationships.  We come and go as we please.  We don’t talk on the phone with our significant other every day.  And we generally have a more mature outlook on the whole male-female interaction.  You meet more people than in high school, there are more hook-ups, and relationships are more intense than before.  And it’s not just the guys.  Girls too can use college to figure things out.  Who here really thinks that a teenaged girl has any idea what she’s looking for in a long term relationship?  Precisely.

But, college still ain’t the real thing.  I wasn’t gong around looking for long term relationships.  I wasn’t thinking marriage.  In fact, I’m still not.  But, I feel that I’ve been through the stupid high school relationships.  And now I’ve been through enough college hook ups, casual flings, and relationships to know that what came before wasn’t the real deal.  Everything that came before was prelude to what really matters.  I may not be looking for that big deal that will last me the rest of my career, but I feel like I’m ready to start playing for a team that will appreciate me enough to give me some minutes.  I may not be getting the long term contract, which is perfectly okay by me at this point, but I’m confident that I’ve got the skills to contribute.

In addition, now that I’ve got some confidence from my experiences, I can shop myself around a little.  I’m not just looking for a team that’s going to give me some serious minutes.  I’m looking for a team that has some quality to it already; a team that I can step into and take into the playoffs.  So, that’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to look around the league and see where I fit.  If I can find a team with some potential, I may just go ahead and sign that short term contract.  I’ll give the team some time to see if we can get into the playoffs, and perhaps even the finals.  I’ve been through a little of life, and I know what I’ve got to offer.  I know my strengths and weaknesses and where I have room to improve.  Now, I’m gonna go out and find a team that can use a player of my caliber.

Blog’s to you,

A-Train