Woke up thinking it was one big joke.
An overreaction of sorts,
by midday it seemed all too real
violently emotional reactions
from all sides
among friends
a midst strangers.
Everyone sporting the same stunned look
the same dazed glare
knowing that everything was changing
but it was impossible to speculate
just how different the world
would be from that day forth.
~Edward Austin Robertson
Mist up
Head down
back to the grind
of the (near) minimum wage
avoiding the salaried gigs
but for how long
will free time satiate
my desires when
there is so much that
still needs to be paid for?
~Edward Austin Robertson
I’ve been a basketball fan since I was about 12. I grew up in Dallas during the Mavericks worst years when they were owned by a guy who ran car dealerships and bowling alleys. The mavericks sucked and though I rooted for Popeye Jones, Tim Leger, and George McCloud to be successful, the brand of basketball they played was not in the least bit entertaining.
This forced me to open my eyes up to the national scene to find out what good basketball was elsewhere. 1992 was a pivotal year for me and sports: The Ticket radio station became Dallas’ first all sports station. The Cowboys won their first Super Bowl since I’d been born. My mom got me a subscription to Sports Illustrated. I had a Sega Genesis to geek out with Madden, Hardball III, NHL, and Bulls vs. Blazers. My obsession with sports began and here I am today, blogging about my favorite teams that did not win a championship (on a Saturday night no less).
There is only one team a year that can win a championship. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair, especially when a team is thoroughly fun and the brand of ball is oh so entertaining. But entertaining doesn’t always win championships and doesn’t always bring accolades. So this is my way of honoring those teams that didn’t quite have what it took to win it all, but nevertheless won my heart (Yea I know–shit’s corny but it’s true. I guess I’m becoming sentimental in my old age). This will be a series of installments of teams ranging from NFL, to MLB, to the NBA to NCAA.
To kick this bad boy off let’s reflect on the 1992-93 Phoenix Suns.
Head Coach: Paul Westphal
Key Starters- Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle
Key bench players– Danny Ainge, Richard Dumas, Tom Chambers
This was the first team I watched thoroughly during their playoff run in which they finally lost to Jordan’s (3-peat) Bulls. They were a lot of fun to watch. Dan Majerle and Danny Ainge with their long range threes. Richard Dumas and Cedric Ceballos were athletic slashers who could get to the rim. Charles Barkley of course was just traded to them and made them immediate championship contenders. The America West arena was a raucous place to watch a game with fans that went ape shit every time the Suns dialed one up from long distance.
I can remember the cover of SI that year and the feature story about Barkley (my favorite player in the world not named Chris Webber–the only pair of Nike’s I ever owned were Barkleys) finally having a legit chance to compete for an NBA title. He was at the peak of his game then and looking back its crazy to think that year was as good as he was going to get. That Finals was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Every game was competitive and entertaining. Though many point to that game 6 with the John Paxson shot that sealed the deal, I remember the equally competitive game 4.
Jordan took over at the end of that game (he had 55 pts that night and Barkley fouled Jordan on a layup attempt and couldn’t keep him from making the bucket and getting the And 1. The game was over after that and Phoenix had to eek out a 3 OT thriller just to force game 6. But they were in every game and could have easily won that series had it not been for timely mishaps and missteps which the savvy Bulls took advantage of (but I guess that is what separates great teams from championship teams isn’t it?)
If you go back and look at this roster, its easy to see why they didn’t have the horses to win. The Chicago Bulls had a better bench than they did and the Suns sucked at the center position. It was a 4 on 5 game pretty much the whole time Mark West and Oliver Miller were on the court. I have tried playing with this classic team on Xbox when me and my homey match-up and its a tough one to manage.
Usually I would play small ball with Tom Chambers playing center, Charles Barkley at the 4, Dan Majerle at small forward, Kevin Johnson running point and Danny Ainge at shooting guard. On offense this spread out the floor and opened up the court a bit (its actually pretty fun because there are so many 3 point opportunities). The problem was that defensively this lineup sucked and nobody could protect the rim and fatigue usually forced me to put in West, or Miller. They only went 8 deep and only 5 of those guys were legit offensive threats. So imagine trying to coach this team in real life instead of a video game. Paul Westphal had to get creative with that lineup.
I was incredibly annoyed to see Jordan rip their hearts out, but now with a little bit of hoops knowledge I understand why it didn’t happen for them. They were facing Jordan and Pippen and Phil Jackson, and they just weren’t balanced enough to win. Ce la Vie. I still remember the stunned feeling when this happened.
Bang! Season over that fast.
That would be the closest Barkley, KJ and company would ever get to sniffing a championship with that group. Dumas would never match the stats he put up that year (15.8 pts and 4.6 rebounds per game) and would end up finishing his career in Greece. Ceballos went on to create the “Lake Show” up in Los Angeles with Eddie Jones and Sedale Threatt. Chambers never did much after season and the core players left never seemed to get over the hump.
The Suns would bring in Danny Manning, and Waymon Tisdale to try and bring Phoenix a title, but it never happened. Mario Elie slammed Phoenix’s championship window shut with a 3 pointer in 1995. The Suns had commanding 3-1 series leads over Houston two years in a row and let them slip away twice.
In 1997 Barkley would try to team up with Drexler and Olajuwan in Houston, and that team almost made it to the Finals but someone let Stockton take a wide open 3. Once again Sir Charles was sent home to go fishing.
Though the Suns never won it all on the basketball court, some of the key players found success off the hardwood. KJ is the mayor of Sacramento and much to the chagrin of Supersonics fans was able to help keep the Kings in “Sad” Sac-town. Majerle is the head coach at Grand Canyon University according to Wikipedia. Danny Ainge helped rebuild the Celtics franchise and get them a title in ’08 as the GM (he is in the middle of another rebuilding job as we speak). And of course Barkley is ubiquitous. You see him on commercials, you see him on TNT. He is on every talk show being entertaining. So there you go, as Jalen Rose likes to say, “There is the score on the scoreboard and there is the score in the game of life.”
62 regular season wins and a thoroughly enjoyable playoff run, culminating in one of the greatest NBA Finals I have ever seen; I wouldn’t necessarily call them losers.
Jordan would soon wipe that smile off Barkley’s face.
This weekend found me in Dallas, hanging out with my brother for part of his two week wedding extravaganza.
He made the smart play, met him a nice beautiful woman and finally decided to settle down.
To say I am proud of him would be a ridiculous understatement. I have had the pleasure of watching him grow into the beautiful young man he is today.
As a kid I always envied how easy it was for him to interact with people. I’m sure looking like Webster helped his “cute’ factor in a way that couldn’t for me (I am the text book definition of a late bloomer).
It seemed like he came out of the womb with bulging pecs and he had a fearlessness that I did not yet possess. I remember him jumping into the deep end of the pool in his diapers as a 2 year old. He also possessed this boundless energy that never dissipated. The only way he would settle down was to watch our weekend rentals with his favorite pillow.
As a teenager he was a real knucklehead, hanging out with anybody who was considered cool and getting into trouble because he didn’t know how to say not to a bad idea (admittedly some of those ideas were mine at times).
I was actually relieved when I first heard he was going to the Air Force. Though I believe much like Furious Styles, that the black man has no place in the military; I knew that the streets held very little future for my little bro.
‘
He went off to California, and his adventures soon began. California led to Korea, Korea led way to Turkey, and Turkey soon gave way to Afghanistan.
It is very true that he and I did not always see eye to eye growing up. He thought I was an uptight, bratty square and I thought he was cocky and reckless. We were both right, and over the years without saying so, we gradually began to understand one another. We started having authentic conversations and the more we both traveled the more our worlds opened up.
The closer it got to his deployment, the more worried I became. It seemed sad that just as we were really getting close that he would have to go off to war. It wasn’t a fun period to say the least. Most nights were anxiety ridden. I didn’t get much sleep–dreading that I would get a cryptic call or text from my mother. Being the lucky “mufucka” he was, he didn’t even get a single scratch. I couldn’t have been happier when he sent me the email that he was heading to Germany for decompression classes. My brother was coming home completely whole, physically and mentally.
I didn’t get to actually see him until the weekend of his bachelor party. I found myself just going with the flow, doing whatever he wanted to do. No bitching about his crazy driving or loud music. I just chilled and enjoyed meeting his military buddies, and other friends who he’d met while growing up as an adult. My brother is a connector. He has friends from all walks of life and all of them as entertaining and funny as he is. It was a nice thing to witness.
The wedding reception wasn’t quite what he wanted but it went off well enough. Always the dapper dresser, he was looking pretty fresh in his purple suspenders and bow tie and all white suit.
And I had never seen an impromptu line dance at a wedding before.
It was fun, a lot of fun. There was a slew of heartfelt toasts. Because there were so many I cut mine short and decided to be different. My mom had the best one, talking about what a catch his wife was getting and what a great person he was in general. It was very touching.
That was when it hit me: my brother’s a badass! War hero, ladies man, nice car driving, fancy threads wearing, gators to the prom kind of dude. He was in the middle of creating a legendary story. And this was MY brother.
I immediately wanted my toast back. I went for the laughs when maybe I should have been more honest. Given the chance again I would have told everybody in the room how much of an honor it was to be his big brother, and how I couldn’t be prouder of him. And how he was my hero and that I admired him as much as anyone I knew. I wanted to tell them that somewhere along the line he stopped being my pain-in-the-ass little brother and started being one of my best friends. And that I wished my grandmother was alive to see how well he turned out–that she would be just as proud of him as anyone. Just knowing him inspired me to be a better person.
He spent the whole night dancing with every woman in the room, his wife, our mom, aunts, cousins. It was a sight to see. He was home, and he was healthy and he was married. I hadn’t seen a black man so free since the Mos Def show I attended a few months back. It was his night to shine. I leaned against the wall and blew a big sigh of relief. He had proved he could take care of himself a long time ago. My little bro had become a man.
Tilling
Clear out lambs quarter
to tomato plants.
Plant kale
beets, radishes
chard
pull sweet potatoes at firs
frost.
Compost in. Shed
Garlic?
beans
spicy mustard greens
Spinach
My To do list.
~Edward Austin Robertson
Who returned from a tour in Afghanistan healthy and whole; and got himself married yesterday There will be no more of this:
and although quite impressive, I couldn’t see him marrying a gal like this one:
LOVE YOU LITTLE BRO. YOU”RE MY HERO! FA REAL!
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 