sam cassell is an alien and i love him

Listen, I know it’s been an ass-long time since I’ve updated this blog, which I can blame on a multitude of factors (the holidays, new year’s, friends entering and leaving town, me entering and leaving town), but really, as the post-less days start to stack up, my own guilt on account of not updating follows a similar course. Naturally, it’s much easier to avoid the issue all together, and long story short: it’s been three weeks since my last update. Yeesh.

Of course, a modicum of interesting events or mini-phenomena have occured in that timeframe. Off the top of my head, I’d say the New Year’s probably takes the cake as the most momentous of those occasions. And while I have never been much for the ole resolutions myself, I’m not so cold-hearted as to not recognize the more encouraging and generous of resolutions that others devise. So with that in mind, I say kudos to you, David Stern and NBA Commissioner on High, for after what certainly must have been minutes and minutes of deep thought and deliberation, you decided to give back the old leather NBA ball to those beaten and down-trodden players who work and toil on NBA courts night after night across the country (and continent) under your oppressive rule. Whether or not it was intended as such, I’m considering this to be the first move in honoring your New Year’s Resolution of not being such a blowhard. Because, really, it only stands to make the NBA more fun again. And shouldn’t fun be the ultimate goal of any good resolution?

While plenty of commentators and analysts have already talked this topic to death, and even though the NBA has been using the old leather ball for 10+ days now, I will leave you, (surprisingly) devoted reader, with a link to a blog entry and accompanying official letter of complaint by PETA to the NBA for switching back to old pigskin (it’s actually cows’ skin, but you get the point). NBA players get publicly slandered and knocked around on a constant basis, from the press, from fans, etc etc. But I’m sure nothing zings quite as much as these malicious barbs from those nasty, vitriolic sheep-huggers over at PETA. Well let me tell you, sticks and stones can hurt an NBA player’s bones, but from what I’ve been told, cowskin is actually markedly more soft on the fingertips–which makes, say, picking your nose, looking through filing cabinets, using touchscreens at the ATM, or even running the fast break much, much easier. So there.