The NBA

When Michael Jordan played in Chicago everyone followed the Bulls. After his departure we hit the skids although for some reason they keep filling up the United Center night after night. The Bulls hit the jackpot when they were able to draft Derrick Rose even though they had only a 1.7% shot of getting the first pick in the draft and since then it has been fun to watch the Bulls again and he keeps getting better and better each year.

Dan and I go back and forth about the NBA and he is often bored by the games and they never play defense until the end, a fact parodied by a spot on Onion article titled "NBA To Experiment with 3-Minute Games":

Nobody, including the players, cares about those first 45 minutes anyway," said Stern, adding that video analysis of prior NBA games consistently showed that players don't play defense, run, or show any amount of passion until the game's final two minutes.

Dan occasionally tries to watch some abysmal game like the Timberwolves but now I have a new challenge for him - watch a game with new LA Clippers forward Blake Griffin and see how he dominates around the basket and dunks like a madman. The guy is essentially a rookie (he sat out his first season with a busted kneecap) and players are apparently devolving to cheap shots to keep him from embarrassing them, at least per this article.

It reminds me of an NBA game I saw at an actual NBA stadium (don't remember where) with Shawn Kemp in his prime. The amazing thing about Kemp was that he was built like a bodybuilder but was immensely tall. He looked like a giant out there on the court and just threw people around. That guy Griffin reminds me of that. Dan - give a Clippers game a try and see if it is at least modestly interesting for half the game; a whole 3 hour NBA game is too much to swallow for even the players.