Daily Dime Live – October 24th

I recently briefly participated in the Daily Dime Live chat that ESPN.com hosted on October 24th. I briefly chatted about a few topics, including Magic’s recent criticism of LeBron James, a race element in the NBA Lockout, and issues involving small market teams. Check out the transcript below:

11:48 Comment From Mike Lee

Is it just me or do the owners seem to want the players to
bail them out of their own mistakes? Just a thought . . .

New Topic

11:53 Comment From Henry

A race element? How can you justify even saying that? You
are talking about players averaging over $5,000,000 a year fighting owners
making billiions. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with
GREED!. Players calling themselves exploited. Disgus5ting. MILLIONS to play a
GAME!!!!

11:53  Henry Abbott:

I’m saying that the players are not just motivated by money,
as happened in the other sports and to most of us in life. I’m saying they’re
also motivated, some of them, by a desire to stop being bossed around by old
white guys.

11:55 Comment From Mike Lee

The race issue is legit – you are blinding yourself if you
can’t see that race plays some part in all of this . . .

11:55 Comment From Falco Lombardi

Players have been bossed around by old white guys since
middle school basketball, nothing has changed.

11:55 Henry Abbott:

The Decision changed.

11:57 Comment From Mike Lee

Exactly – The Decision changed it all and look at the
backlash – you can still see the effects.

New Topic 

12:02 Comment From CD Van

The reality is, most people don’t seem to realize that small
market teams CAN’T legitimately compete for any superstars. They even have to
overpay to keep average-good players. You think a Hawks GM can say: “well
Joe Johnson is not worth 120 mil, i’ll just let him go to NY”. See if
he’ll have a job and ATL will have a team in the playoffs. THAT’s the problem
with the soft cap.

12:03 Henry Abbott:

This is dead wrong. Superstars are great moneymakers. Any
team can afford LeBron’s salary, ’cause it comes with huge profits.

12:03 Henry Abbott:

Small markets can’t compete for superstars … if superstars
want to play in big markets. But it’s not the system.

12:04 Comment From Paul

About an earlier comment–how is it that players getting
paid millions to “play a game” is “disgusting”, when the
league they play for generates billions and billions of dollars? Would you
rather the owners pocket 90% of the profits? Stop looking at this from such an
emotional standpoint, sports fans

12:04 Comment From Redstorm Fan

The problem there is Joe Johnson is not a superstar

12:04 Comment From Curtis Harris

Small markets can legitimately draft a superstar and pay up
to keep him. Whether he wants to stay in crummy Dan Gilbert situation is
another matter

12:04 Comment From Mike Lee

Small market owners have to be smarter about who they draft
- look at the Spurs and the Thunder – that’s the nature of the game. There
really aren’t that many superstars to begin with – every team can’t have one.

 New Topic

12:19 Comment From Mike Lee

Heard Magic’s criticism of LeBron – does he really think
LeBron won’t win any championships?

12:20 BrianWindhorst:

Well, Magic had some fair points. However, let’s point
out two things. 1. The LeBron James legacy thing isn’t written yet. In fact, it
may only be halfway there. So be careful calling him one thing or another as an
absolute. 2. Magic is now in business with and doing commercials for Dan
Gilbert. That must be pointed out.

Rest in Peace

It has been a while since we have posted a blog post but today is a fitting day to restart. Much of what I do is driven by a deep passion and love for the game of basketball. While I realized that at an early age, I do have one person that I would like to thank for reinforcing that within me when I was younger.

Like many kids that I grew up with, I played a variety of sports growing up – not in the organized sense but just recreationally. We would stay outside for hours playing whatever sport was in season. We had a basketball court, baseball field, and football
field all within walking distance. Of course, I thought that I was pretty good in all the sports but basketball was my first love.

However, I had a strong desire to play organized football. So much so that I begged and pleaded for my parents to allow me to play. My parents reluctantly agreed, even though money was tight and paying the fees and buying all the necessary equipment wasn’t the
easiest thing to do. So, my parents signed me up, trekked me around to the various stores to buy equipment, and sent me off to the first day of practice.

Now here I am at the first practice and I don’t know what I had thought up until that point but I quickly realized that this wasn’t like playing backyard football with my friends. The equipment was bulky and restrictive and the same fascinating moves that I made playing against my friends just didn’t seem to work in this setting. I labored through my first practice, resolve in the fact that I no longer wanted to play football – a revelation that I revealed to my dad in the car on the way home.

Needless to say, my revelation was not well received. First, my dad “politely” explained that he had spent precious time and hard-earned money paying the fees and buying the equipment. He then gave me the standard parent lecture on finishing what I start and basically determined for me that I was going to continue playing. I thought I had one
last hope in trying to convince my mom to side with me – a thought that was shot down shortly after we arrived home. The worst part about the lecture about the money and the time spent and about finishing what you start is having to hear it twice.

So, there I was in my room (our air conditioner would always mess with my eyes, so my eyes were a little misty), thinking about what I should do. At the time my grandmother was visiting us and she came and sat down next to me and asked me to tell her what
was wrong. I explained to her that I didn’t want to play anymore, that it wasn’t what I expected it to be. I explained to her that I understood what my parents were saying, but I just didn’t want to play. She did what any grandmother would do and told me that if I didn’t want to play, then I didn’t have to play.

Now, I’m not sure what she did but sure enough, I didn’t play. She probably never realized what she did but I had a new appreciation for the game of basketball from that point on.

Today would have been my grandmother’s birthday. She passed away some years back, losing a battle with cancer. Around this time every year, I think about this memory and smile, amidst my tears (that air conditioning, again). Rest in peace, Prince Ella Greene (Granny) – you will always be loved and truly missed.

Delonte West & His Colorful Life off the Court

When you think of Delonte West, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

There are of course the rumors of his involvement with Gloria James, mother of LeBron James, who at the time was his teammate. For many, that may be the first thing that comes to mind, but let’s dig a little deeper.

First and more seriously, Delonte West revealed publicly in 2010 that he struggles with depression and bi-polar disorder, which caused him to miss a period of time during the 2009 season. There was also the episode in September 2009, where West was stopped by police carrying multiple firearms, and 8-inch bowie knife, and more than 100 rounds of shotgun ammunition. In June 2010, he plead guilty to two weapons counts and was sentenced to eight months home detention, two months probation, and 40 hours of community service.

Despite his struggles, West bounced back with the Boston Celtics last year. Despite averaging a career-low 5.6 ppg in only 24 games, West upped his average to 6.6 ppg in the playoffs – including averaging 10.2 ppg in the five-game series versus the Miami Heat.

But Delonte has proven to be quite a character off the court. He was infamously known for his ‘Better Have My Do-Nuts’ catch-phrase that was made popular after he served as a correspondent on the Jim Rome show.

 

 

He also gave a prelude to his most recent exploits when he dropped this freestlye in the KFC drive thru while waiting for his chicken.

 

 

Most recently he took to his Twitter account and tweeted that he had submitted an application to work at Home Depot during the current NBA lockout. Of course, the obvious question remains  . . . did he get the job?

Still Delonte – under the name Charlee Redz has released a couple of videos to promote his upcoming rap album, appropriately titled ‘Lockout’.

Livin Life Fast

 

 

MJ Shwagg

 

 

Is it just me or do we need basketball back?

A Few Cosmetic Issues

There are just a couple of issues that we need to address as the summer basketball (potentially prolonged) offseason continues.

Riding the Pine Radio Podcast

We are going to continue to broadcast the show during the offseason, regularly scheduled on Sundays at 3:00 pm. There will be various times where the show date and time will change for various reasons and we will keep you posted of those instances. For example, this weekend, we have the opportunity to broadcast the podcast live from the Hampton Roads 7 Cities Pro-AM. So we will broadcast our thirty-minute podcast, live from the Pro-Am on Saturday, tentatively scheduled at 3:00 pm. We will also hope to record live interviews with players and coaches that we will broadcast throughout next week.

Stay tuned here for more information concerning the show, as well as upcoming and archived episodes.

ShoreBall Developmental Basketball Camp

As announced on our website, due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to cancel our camp that was scheduled for next week (July 25 – 27) at Nandua High School. We appreciate everyone who we coordinated with to schedule the camp and everyone who expressed interest in the camp. We are planning to make sure that this camp can happen next year and in the meantime, we are working to make sure that we can provide other events throughout the year.

Check out our website to stay tuned of upcoming events!

ShoreBall Monthly

ShoreBall Monthly is a hardcopy monthly publication that we created that covers various topics concerning basketball on the Eastern Shore. After some discussion, we realized that the “monthly” part of that equation may have been too ambitious for us at the current time. So instead of monthly, we will be producing these newsletters on a quarterly basis. The newsletters will be posted during the months of January (January – March edition), April (April – June edition), July (July – September edition), and October (October – December edition) and will provide in-depth information concerning basketball on the Eastern Shore.

The first edition of ShoreBall Quarterly is available now online. It provides information on Eastern Shore Basketball but also provides tips on basketball recruiting, tips for basketball beginners, and tips for basketball parents. Stay tuned for the next edition which will be available in October 2011.

For those interested in inquiring about advertising options, contact us at shoreball@cox.net.

Examiner

Recently, my status with the Examiner has slightly changed. Instead of being the Hampton Roads Basketball Examiner, I am currently the Hampton Roads/Eastern Shore Basketball Examiner. So I will be writing about basketball both in the Hampton Roads and Eastern Shore areas.

To read my most recent Examiner articles, click here.

We appreciate everyone’s support and stay posted at www.shoreball.com.

Recharged & Reenergized

The NBA season has ended – congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks on winning their first NBA championship in franchise history. We are now facing a long summer and potentially a fall season without basketball due to an eminent NBA lockout.

It has been a while since we updated our blog site, but we are recharged, reenergized, and refocused on making this blog a successful one.

Currently, as an organization, we are gearing up for a big summer. We have a variety of ideas and programs that we are planning to make happen on the Eastern Shore over the course of this summer.

We are still currently hosting our weekly radio podcast, Riding the Pine Radio on Sundays at 3:00 pm. We are planning to continue to grow this program with guest interviews and we highly encourage listener participation to the program. At this point you may call (917) 889-3802 to listen and be a part of the show, but we are exploring the idea of purchasing a toll free number to further encourage guest participation in the future. Stay tuned!

We have also produced the first edition of our new monthly newsletter, ShoreBall Monthly. This newsletter will feature basketball news and events pertinent to the Eastern Shore and the surrounding region. Each edition will include a recruiting tip for the month, a tip for the parents of youth basketball players, and a skill breakdown and drill for the month. The June edition also included an article concerning the growth of AAU basketball on the Eastern Shore and an article concerning area basketball recruits that received basketball scholarships to play at Division I schools next fall. Get your June edition now and the July edition will also be available shortly.

We will also be offering individual basketball workouts for all those interested in taking their games to the next level. We kicked off this effort on Thursday, June 23rd at Northampton High School. We hosted an open gym type event where we will allowed those interested to play while we analyzed their games to determine strengths and weaknesses. From there we are working to develop a plan for improvement for each player interested and will offer individual workouts designed to help each player further strengthen their strengths and improve their weaknesses. The workouts will be held in two-hour sessions and the fee will be $10.00 per hour. Also, on Thursday, June 30th, we will continue opening the gym at Northampton for those interested in playing and working out. If you are interested and unable to make it to the open gym on Thursday, contact us via email at shoreball@cox.net to discuss this service further.

In the month of July, we will also be hosting our first annual ShoreBall Developmental Basketball Camp for both boys and girls ages 10-18. The camps will be held at Nandua High School on July 25th – 27th and will run daily from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. You can visit our website to download the camp registration form and also pay the camp fee ($100.00) via Paypal. If you have any other questions, please contact us at shoreball@cox.net or via phone at 757-655-1780.

We appreciate everyone’s support in these endeavors and we know that we will have success with the support of our local community.

Riding the Pine Radio, Recap – March 20th & Preview

In our last episode of Riding the Pine Radio, we were again without our third host – Kendal unfortunately had some other obligations and was unable to join us. However, without Kendal, we discussed the first week of the NCAA Tournament. We discussed the results of the Opening and Second Rounds in addition to discussing some of the upsets that had taken place, such as Morehead State over Louisville, Richmond over Vanderbilt, and USC over Georgetown. We also discussed the updated standings of our on-show Bracket Challenge, which at the time of the show, Kendal was holding the lead. We then discussed some of the outstanding performances of the tournament to that point before previewing some of the tournaments potential matchups in the later rounds.

On the upcoming episode, we will again be NCAA Tournament heavy. The Tournament will be heading towards determining the Final Four matchups and we will discuss accordingly. We will also catch up on some NBA topics of the recent weeks. 

To listen to last week’s episode, click here.

And tune in here to hear the upcoming episode this Sunday.

The Brackets Are In!

As promised on the last episode of Riding the Pine Radio, we have submitted our bracket picks. The respective brackets are attached below:

Brad’s Entry:

Brad’s Bracket

Kendal’s Entry:

Kendal’s Bracket

Mike’s Entry:

Mike’s Bracket

The tournament’s First Four begins tonight at 6:30 pm on truTv.