Category Archives: Hard Wood

Is Signing Your Fancy-Pants Draft Pick Something You Might Be Interested In?

By David Raposa | Published: August 27, 2009
Let me set the scene for you.  You’re an up and coming sports franchise that’s coming off an awful, terrible year.  Flop after flop after flop.  Maybe not flops as bad as Popeye or Ishtar, but close enough to give you some palpitations and night sweats — something like Jade or Silver, let’s say.  Real stinkeroos. But [...]
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Physician, Stop Healing!

By David Raposa | Published: February 23, 2009
Once again, friends of mine, a hello! It is me, your own personal doctor for the Jockish, Ricardo Salvay, here to discuss with the likes of you some injuries that I have been read for about! Specially today, we have a triad — a three ring circus, if you could — from the National Basketball [...]
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That Thing Around Your Neck Is Called A Whistle

By David Raposa | Published: February 20, 2009
Don’t get me started.  I gotta tell ya, it’s been taking a lot of my energy and patience to keep from talking about the referees as much as I want to these days. My producers tell me that it "alienates some impartial viewers," but I could give a rat’s fig about that. I’ve been watching [...]
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Brian’s Song

By David Raposa | Published: January 21, 2009
Watch out, Cleveland.  Don’t look now, Orlando.  Wait on ordering those trophies, Los Angeles.  The defending World Champions — you know, those top-heavy pretenders that everyone thought were dead in the water — are back and better than ever. Five straight wins.  Five straight trips to the woodshed for folks looking to take the C’s [...]
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How Do The Lions Sleep Tonight?

By David Raposa | Published: October 16, 2008
Since most of you think of me as a basketball personality, you probably think I’m going to talk about the dismissal of my colleague Elgin Baylor from his long-time position as the leader of the Los Angeles Clippers front office. You would be wrong. First of all, the Clippers will always be a joke no [...]
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How Will These NBA Teams Disappoint Me This Year?

By Matt Cibula | Published: October 10, 2008
Training camp! Pre-season games! Underperforming third-year players with stress fractures of their 5th metatarsals! Yes, it’s time for another year of the National Basketball Association, the greatest professional sports league in the history of humankind, except maybe for the CBA when I was coaching there. But, of course, just because the NBA is a great [...]
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THE REAL DEAL: “The Ballad of the Portland Trail Blazers,” 1992

By Matt Cibula | Published: September 5, 2008
The following is a country-western song I wrote late in 1991 after the Blazers had lost to Golden State AGAIN, seems like we were always doing that back in those days. I was big on a songwriting kick and listening to LOTS of Hank Williams Sr. and kd lang. “The Ballad of the Portland Trail [...]
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Kevin Garnett (Or: An NBA Championship Realized)

By David Raposa | Published: August 22, 2008
The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity [William Wesley], and, as far as the Author’s own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits. In the fall of 2007, the Author, then in ill spirits due [...]
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Love and Basketball: It’s All About Heart

By David Raposa | Published: January 25, 2006
“I love my wife“. Four little words that mean so much. Yet how many times do you see professional athletes actually say those words, or do anything to express that rarely-heard sentiment? No – you often hear about athletes cheating on their wife, or trying to cheat on their wife, or women trying to force [...]
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A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With Some Dope-Ass Chinese Sneakers, What What

By Matt Cibula | Published: January 14, 2006
Hello. I am the sharpshooter known as Damon Jones. I currently ply my trade for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but I have also plied for the Miami Heat, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Sacramento Kings, the Detroit Pistons, the Vancouver Grizzlies, the Dallas Mavericks, the Golden State Warriors, the Boston Celtics, the New Jersey Nets, the Orlando [...]
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