Balls Don't Lie is one of my favorite basketball blogs, and the author writes from an unabashedly-a-fan POV at times which reminds me of what Bill Simmons used to be.
Anyways, for reasons I'm not sure, he decided to wax poetic on John Stockton today.
Anyways, for reasons I'm not sure, he decided to wax poetic on John Stockton today.
It wasn't a bar that I particularly enjoyed being in, despite the fact I was 22 and should have felt right at home amongst the other 22-year-olds, to say nothing of all the sports memorabilia that lined the walls. It was also just a 45-second walk from the theatre I bartended at, and across the street from a rather convenient late-night gyro stand.
That said, I would have rather been some place with fewer baseball caps, if you catch my drift, and because I was throwing a bit of a fit with the two mates that led me into this dungeon (I mean, my Dad called the place "Geek-keeper's," and when your Dad makes fun of a place you're trying to have fun in, years prior, look out), I absconded within the pub's confines and tried to find the nearest cathode tube ray featuring NBA TV. Gave the bar a bit of stick, but they did show NBA TV on occasion.
Upon finding that TV, that channel and that ticker, things got much, much worse. John Stockton was retiring, the ticker read. He wasn't going to give the 2003-04 season a try, at age 41. He was hanging it up, despite averaging a little under 11 points and eight assists per game, in under 28 minutes a contest. And for some reason, this depressed the hell out of me.
...
Stockton didn't care, and I dug that. He also played his ass off, won heaps of games, rarely let his effort wane in the face of games that didn't matter, and he could have played longer. It speaks to his own brilliance that, after close to 1,700 regular season and playoff games, I still wanted a bit more from the man.
Over six years later, we're all a bit grayer, Stockton is long gone and about to be enshrined somewhere, and I'm still ticked he called it quits. Still a little bummed.
I still think he's the one with the problem.
That said, I would have rather been some place with fewer baseball caps, if you catch my drift, and because I was throwing a bit of a fit with the two mates that led me into this dungeon (I mean, my Dad called the place "Geek-keeper's," and when your Dad makes fun of a place you're trying to have fun in, years prior, look out), I absconded within the pub's confines and tried to find the nearest cathode tube ray featuring NBA TV. Gave the bar a bit of stick, but they did show NBA TV on occasion.
Upon finding that TV, that channel and that ticker, things got much, much worse. John Stockton was retiring, the ticker read. He wasn't going to give the 2003-04 season a try, at age 41. He was hanging it up, despite averaging a little under 11 points and eight assists per game, in under 28 minutes a contest. And for some reason, this depressed the hell out of me.
...
Stockton didn't care, and I dug that. He also played his ass off, won heaps of games, rarely let his effort wane in the face of games that didn't matter, and he could have played longer. It speaks to his own brilliance that, after close to 1,700 regular season and playoff games, I still wanted a bit more from the man.
Over six years later, we're all a bit grayer, Stockton is long gone and about to be enshrined somewhere, and I'm still ticked he called it quits. Still a little bummed.
I still think he's the one with the problem.
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