Scattered thoughts in the desert

Driving back from Vegas today, we listened to an awesome Warriors game on the radio. I often catch 15 minutes of a game on the radio while I'm driving, but it's been a long time since I listened to a complete game from starting lineups to victory on the AM band. Probably since MIDDLE SCHOOL, when I would listen to untelevised Michigan Basketball road games. Which brings me to point #2 -- During Ohio State's first half struggle against Tennesse, Phoebe and I were eating at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant in the MGM Grand. It took me more than 1/2 of dinner to make a comfortable ID, but after eavesdropping marginally, I was sure that we were sitting next to Brian Ellerbee, who coached Michigan between Steve Fisher and the just-fired Tommy Amaker. That was crazy!! We said hello, and he was really nice, and also pretty funny. During the second half of the OSU/TENN game, Phoebe and I were playing a one-table $60 sit-and-go tournament, and the game was so crazy that it literally stopped the dealer's action several times. Also, partially because it's the current home state of Scott (who I majorly disappointed by forgetting to initiate a sweet16 email pool), I put $10 on Tennessee with a +4 spread. So I was sad to see them lose, but happy to see them cover the spread. The other Big 10 news is that the season-long Flip-Saunders-to-Minnesota rumors were finally publicly killed by Saunders, and lo and behold, the very next day the Gophers bring Tubby Smith on board. Damn. Couldn't Michigan have figured out how to land Tubby? That would have been very slick. I mean, re-uniting Tubby & Tayshaun in the same state? According to a Q&A on Tay's website, they talk about once or twice per month. They could have saved on some phone bills and just had lunch at Zingerman's. So who will U of M get to bring their program out of the 10-year wreckage? Who knows. I googled my Elementary School classmate, Lavell Blanchard, whose U of M career I barely watched (because, for quite obvious reasons, I was at Columbia the entire time), and saw that he had (what might have been) his first NBA contract last fall, for 2 weeks with the Raptors, but was cut before the season started. In 1st grade I was pretty sure that Lavell would make the NBA. I guess I was finally right, but not really. This is a guy who won "gatorade national high school player of the year" in 1999. Who else won that? LeBron, Dwight Howard, Kobe, Marbury, Webber. Not too many people win that award and don't make it. I always wonder what he could have done with different coaching (Sorry Brian Ellerbee, my new friend!) But Lavell has a European career -- this year playing in France for the first time, which is interesting, because my last memory of Lavell as a peer (as opposed to a basketball player) is sitting next to him in french class in middle school. I think that the class was having trouble with "de" vs. "du" -- I bet he's pretty much got that one cleared up by now. But seriously, if Chris Webber can come back to the Pistons, so can Lavell. Come on, Joe Dumars -- I know you've got a Ronald "Super Dupe" Dupree-type roster spot for a real Michigan Man!!!! In other Pistons news, I think Lindsey "I said Whaaat?'" Hunter is due to return from his 10-game diet-pill suspension. I have given Lindsey his new nickname because when he found out about the suspension, he told the AP: "I said, 'Whaaat?'"" ... NBA FINALS NOTICE: Lindsey Hunter should be able to pester Steve Nash to a somewhat significant degree. Some time a few weeks ago, on-air, Steve Kerr (definitely improvising with this comment) called Lindsey the best on-ball defender of all time. Marv Albert gave Kerr a chance to walk the comment down to a lesser one, like, 'best on-ball defender in the game today', or 'best on-ball defender that Kerr played against', but Steve just kind of repeated it, and seemed stunned that he was actually failing to think of someone more deserving. ALSO -- other local news -- Gilbert Arenas' baby son was born in Walnut Creek, CA, recently. In fact, on exactly the same day that Phoebe and I went to Restoration Hardware in Walnut Creek and bought a Bocce Ball set. This would not make for much news, except for the fact that we had never been to Walnut Creek before, and probably never will again. Just think, if one of us had tripped over a display of sink faucets and ended up in the emergency room, we could have seen Gilbert there, with newborn Alijah Amani Arenas, who Gil has already nicknamed "TRIPLE-A" ....
"I said, 'Whaaat?'"