Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
Being the basketball nerd that I am, I spent almost 3 hours watching ESPN's coverage of the NBA Draft last night. For the most part, it was a bunch of dudes analyzing the most minor details of players who will likely be out of the league in a couple of years, but the live New York audience made it worthwhile. Isaiah Thomas has been running the Knicks into the ground for the past couple of years, and the New York fans let him know about it every time the cameras panned over to the audience. The highlight of the evening was the Knicks drafting Renaldo Balkman with their first pick -- the crowd wanted to boo, but they had no idea who this dude was, so there was a mixture of outrage and confusion. Spike Lee did his best to support the pick when the cameraman came over to him, but even he had to laugh at how bad it had become for his team. Classic.
As for my team, the Nets, I'm pretty happy with how things played out. Sure, the Nets drafted two players with criminal records in Marcus Williams and Hassan Adams, but both of them should have been drafted much earlier, by other teams. Who cares about your character when you lead the Big East in assists, right?
I know not everyone gets as excited about the NBA as I do, though. Talib Kweli, for instance, thinks too many people see it as their only way to make it:
Drugs, Basketball and Rap
He's certainly not the first rapper to feel this way. While Ice Cube was out for that "Shaq Money," Jay-Z was decrying the fact that "all us blacks got is sports and entertainment." Biggie let us know that if you want to make it in the hood, "either you're slinging rock or got a wicked jump shot."
Certainly, there's a level of truth in those words. Just watching some of the families in the green room, seeing them celebrate as their sons were drafted, it was clear that they had invested everything in the idea that their kid might one day get paid to play basketball. I can only imagine what the reaction was like from the families of players who declared early and didn't get drafted.
The Talib song was produced by Needlz. Check out Needlz site for more free downloads of tracks that he has produced.
You can pick up Talib Kweli's Right About Now here.
6/29/2006 10:41:44 AM posted by Fresh