Sports 4 Dorks

I always look out for orange notebooks. Well, more specifically, I always look out for these Spalding notebooks that look like they are made out of actual basketball pebbling. The bright orange basketball color makes them easy to spot from a distance. When we played down in Fort Wayne, Ind., I saw about five of them scattered throughout the gym. When we played at the Staples Center, I think I counted seven. I’ve only ever seen a couple up here in Bismarck, but I still look every game.   

See, there are only a handful of people on earth who have one of these notebooks. Essential D-League personnel have them and NBA scouts have them. Basically what that means is that any time I see someone with one of these Spalding notebooks with a pen, actively taking notes, I know that I am being watched. When I walked into the arena in Boise, Idaho, for the D-League Showcase, there were dozens and dozens of the notebooks in every direction. It was time to go to work. I walked around the arena trying to sneak a peek at some Rod Benson notes. I was hoping to read something like, "Rod Benson is to basketball as Frosted Flakes are to cereal. Grrreat." I don’t think any of the NBA scouts actually wrote that. 

Over the two-game span I basically did what I’ve been doing all year. I averaged 16.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks. The first game was against the Iowa team which was kind of a joke because we had played them three straight times. While we were on a flight from Iowa to Boise, I told JamesOn Curry to come up with some new plays to keep the game interesting. They didn’t.  

The game was interesting after all because I was mic’d up for the first time in my career. I’ll admit that I was doing a LITTLE more talking than usual. I said "Boom Tho" repeatedly, I was calling plays for people like I was the point guard and I gave an extra yell after a big block. While someone was shooting free throws, I even had a conversation with Dwayne Mitchell about how it would now be fashionable for him to change the spelling of his name to Dwyane. 

"Dwyane Wade is a popular guy. I think you can increase your popularity by moving your ‘Y’ in front of your ‘A.’ Boom. Thank me later. Thank D. Wade now," I told him. 

"But who says that his way is best?" he responded. 

"America. The people love him. Even Charles Barkley put him in his five. That would convince me to change," I said. 

"Man D. Wade ain’t in Charles’ five! He won’t put nobody named Pookie in his 5!" 

The ball came off the rim and I rebounded it and it was back to the game. I’m not sure if he will change his spelling, but I got him thinking about it. 

After the game, the D-League press staff asked me to give a quote for a virtual post card back to the fans at home. Before you see mine, you need to see some of the others to get a sense of how I unknowingly do things differently:

I guess our fans are just ready like spaghetti. 

Off the court there were all kinds of things going on. We had a team awareness meeting where the league president called me his hero. We did a "Read to Achieve" event for some 9-year-old kids. Well, I attempted to teach the kids about reading by clearly reading the children’s story, but the book was too hard. Seriously, Stephen King needs to retire from writing children’s books because this one was far too scary and way too tough to read out loud. I kid you not. I would have had an easier time reading the "X" section of the dictionary. 

NBA TV also did a feature on me and the Boom Tho! movement for use on NBA TV and possibly NBA All-Access with Ahmad Rashad. Hopefully it makes it all the way to the big time. Frankly though, I wish it was still called NBA Inside Stuff. Oh well, I guess I live in the days of Double Dribble basketball on Nintendo and Inside Stuff on NBC.   

All in all, the week was a lot of fun and games, but at the end of the day, there were some big business decisions that needed to be made as well. I’ll get to that on Wednesday.