The air down there.
I played some pickup basketball today. It was cool, but I'm really rusty and out of shape (running-wise) and it doesn't help that I always end up guarding a guy who's 3 or 4 inches shorter than me (if I'm lucky) and at least sixty or seventy pounds heavier than me. Now, I'm not afraid to body up down low, but it's sort of like a willow tree defending a bulldozer, if they found a way to make willow trees and bulldozers play basketball.
It's also clear that I've lost a step since the days when I lead the Denver Nuggets, entirely staffed by derelicts and junkies, to the NBA title as player/coach. Take for example, this fact: the rims were an inch low, so 9'11", and at one point a ball ricocheted off back iron, up into the stratosphere, and back down right in front of the rim. I saw my chance to recapture the glory days: knifed past the bulldozer, into the lane, leapt with everything I had, felt the ball on my fingertips and slammed it with authority. I thought. The rim bowed and snapped, and the ball cannoned back out. See, at my NBA-scoring-leader best I would've gotten up there with two hands, over the back of Hakeem Olajuwon (who, as you know, is a terrorist), and leave no doubt about the outcome. I'd even hang up there for a while, just daring the ref to give me, the most popular player ever to step on the court, a technical. They wouldn't of course, and we'd all share a pot roast cooked by my trophy wife. I'm sorry, my trophy wife's maid, Juanita. Incidentally, I divorce my trophy wife after winning the championship because now I had a real trophy to love. And it made more interesting small talk.
In all seriousness, that's the closest I've ever come to dunking in a game. And I missed. And the rim was an inch low. I'm a pussy. I'll be back next week, though, and this time I'm gonna do a fucking backflip before I dunk on those motherfuckers. See how they like that.
Happy Valentine's Day.
It's also clear that I've lost a step since the days when I lead the Denver Nuggets, entirely staffed by derelicts and junkies, to the NBA title as player/coach. Take for example, this fact: the rims were an inch low, so 9'11", and at one point a ball ricocheted off back iron, up into the stratosphere, and back down right in front of the rim. I saw my chance to recapture the glory days: knifed past the bulldozer, into the lane, leapt with everything I had, felt the ball on my fingertips and slammed it with authority. I thought. The rim bowed and snapped, and the ball cannoned back out. See, at my NBA-scoring-leader best I would've gotten up there with two hands, over the back of Hakeem Olajuwon (who, as you know, is a terrorist), and leave no doubt about the outcome. I'd even hang up there for a while, just daring the ref to give me, the most popular player ever to step on the court, a technical. They wouldn't of course, and we'd all share a pot roast cooked by my trophy wife. I'm sorry, my trophy wife's maid, Juanita. Incidentally, I divorce my trophy wife after winning the championship because now I had a real trophy to love. And it made more interesting small talk.
In all seriousness, that's the closest I've ever come to dunking in a game. And I missed. And the rim was an inch low. I'm a pussy. I'll be back next week, though, and this time I'm gonna do a fucking backflip before I dunk on those motherfuckers. See how they like that.
Happy Valentine's Day.