I am painting the back deck of a good friend's house at the moment. Coincidentally this friend grew up with Jamaal Crawford. And Crawford may have even lived at this house for a time in his grade school days. Jamal Crawford texted his high school coach: Coach we are in Atlanta now. I think he will be perfect in ATL with Joe Johnson. Crawford was on KJR with Gas for the Andrew Moritz benefit, which was an amazing hour of radio with all the Seattle basketball royalty and overall community support. My girlfriend's best friend does the site for her brother Andrew. It is: year of the comeback dot blogspot dot com. Moritz won a state championship with Jason The Jet Terry and then came back and won another one without Terry. And actually I am painting another good friends' house who coached Moritz when he was playing Green Lake hoops. The circle continues.
Anyhow, back to Crawford. He mentioned on the radio how excited he was to go to Atlanta. He hasn't felt this good about a team since he got to the lig. Jamal is well spoken, I don't have a clue why he got on Nelly's (Don Nelson) bad side. Nelly is a weird dude. He has been doing that run up the score type of offense for 800 years and it has never born fruit. Some call him an offensive genius. I don't know about that. If it ain't working. Try something else. But you know he may just be a bit wacked like George Karl. Karl decided he didn't like Kendel Gil back in the day. Karl has a history of playing mind games with players for no reason. That is what he did to Gil. Gary and Kendel with Nate was a great group of guards. That was a Supe's team to root for. Ricky Pierce, Eddie Johnson, Derrick McKey, a young Shawn Kemp and don't forget Dana Barros and Benoit Benjamin.
Back to Crawford. He mentioned that he grew up playing with Doug Wrenn and Grant Leep before this became the breeding ground/hotbed of NBA talent. I played against/with Wrenn in my middle school days. He was a nice guy and a hell of a player. My friend Chad was real good friends with Wrenn and they had a killer AAU team. Wrenn was just in some kind of altercation -- a road rage thing in Bellingham where he supposedly flashed a gun at a car. I don't know the details, but it made me a little sad. Wrenn was one of the great talents from the Central District here in Seattle and he played with an even better talent back in the day. A player by the name of Ronald and I remember Doug was kinda like Ronald's sidekick. Its weird Ronald was way better than Doug back in the day, but got into trouble and didn't even play much High School ball. And then the same sorta thing happened with Doug. You would probably bet on Wrenn going to the lig over Brandon Roy back in the day, but Roy is the one that made it to the lig and then some.
The seventh pick. Stephen Curry will be perfect for Oakland/Sanfran.
The third pick. I am pissed that Harden went to the Thunder because he was my favorite player in the draft, but went to my arch nemesis. Now I am worried that things will start to really come together for this young team. Kevin Durant is about to be in the Kobe/Lebron conversation, Westbrook is half Chris Paul half Drunken Master (John Krolik coined that) and then Kyle Weaver is from Washington State and that sucks. So what I am trying to say is that they could be a nice little high flying team next year. James Harden is the guy I have been asking people about leading up to the draft. Some people seem to be uneasy about him, but can never articulate why. They say there is just something about him that won't fit into the NBA game. I completely disagree. He gamed the Huskies twice this year. He is the type of guy who can take over a game. He is tough and long. Not soft and short. Which is I think important to be a guard in the lig. Elise Woodward said he tried, but never really took over any games against the Huskies. Francis Williams said he may actually be way better in the lig because he will be supported by 3 or 4 peers instead being the only guy with maybe help from 1 and a half dudes. I seem to remember the second game toward the end of the season before the PAC 10 tourney where Harden balled the Dawgs -- playing a sort of one on one a la LeBron/Nail Offense from the last two games against the Magic this year's Eastern Conference Finals. The Cavs called it the Nail: LeBron at the top of the key and everyone else spread around the perimeter. Shaq went to Cleveland today. Like a modern day Magic and Kareem or Stockton and Malone. I wonder if LeBron will wear Stockton shorts.
The fifth and the sixth. Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn should be a dynamic duo in the Twin Cities.
I see everything through Sonics colored glasses. Obviously I am going to hate that my favorite player besides John Brockman (Harden) went to the team that used to be my team.
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