12th

7-12-10

Today, we planned to attend our 2nd day of NBA’s summer league at UNLV. The first game we saw was Lakers at the Knicks. Steve and I wanted to make a few bets on the games to make it more interesting. We played rock-paper-scissors, loser sets the line, winner picks the side. I lost, and make the Lakers 6.5 point favorites, Steve laughs and insta-chooses Knicks and says they will win straight up. Of course, he’s right and it wasn’t even close.

The second game was more interesting, Kings at Pistons. The Kings were stacked with Omri, Cousins, Donte Green, and Hasaan Whiteside. I lost rock paper scissor, and made the Kings 11.5 point favorites, Steven paused shortly and picks the Kings. The Kings dominated this game and won by about 20-something. All of the Kings players looked really solid. The Maloof brothers sat right in front of us. And there was this old guy we saw the first day that seemed to know everybody. We saw him again today, and he sat to my right and asked me to save his seat once. I finally got to see his nametag, and he turned out to be Maloof Sr. Still trying to hate on Greg Monroe, and he was extremely unimpressive again today. Also, he turned down autograph requests for the 2nd time this trip, so he’s an ass-wad.

The next game was Mavericks vs. the Bucks. No real big names here, unless you count Jeremy Lin. He played extremely well today and I can only hope the best for him. Fortunately (for me), we didn’t bet on this game.

The last game was easily the most-hyped game we’ve seen so far. The Wizards were playing the Clippers, our first look at John Wall. The gym was packed and John Wall didn’t disappoint the fans. During warmups, he was playing up to the crowd with crazy looking dunks. He led the Wizards to a pretty healthy lead and they never looked back. Steve set the line for his (Wall’s) point total at 16, and I took the over. At halftime, he had 15 and I was looking like a lock. In the 3rd quarter, he didn’t score in the first 6 or so minutes (10 minute quarters), so I was getting little scared that they would pull him out. He finally scored a layup and got fouled to put his point total at 18 to give me my first win. He was taken out of the game shortly after that, so Steve set a very good line.

My impressions of John Wall is that he is the real deal. Before today, I never really thought he was worth the hype. I’ve seen him play at Kentucky and thought he was good, but I never thought he was dominant or anything. But tonight, he could get any shot he wanted, whenever he wanted. And more importantly, he got his shooters wide open looks whenever he was in the game. He had lots of swagger, that’s for sure. He was dancing, flexing his muscles after his and 1’s, and smiling after every good play or good pass. He’s definitely very cocky, which I guess any great player needs.
There was a big Clipper fan (literally) in the crowd who was very vocal. He yelled things like “over-rated”. But, during the 1st quarter, John Wall took a pretty hard hit and was slow to get up. The Clipper fan shouted “Welcome to the NBA John Wall, over-rated!”. As John Wall stepped up to take his 2 free throw shots, he made the first one, and looked back at the big Clipper fan and stared at him for a good 2 seconds. The crowd loved it. However, why would he acknowledge the heckler? No matter what happened after that, the heckler already won. The clipper fan got into his head, even though it obviously didn’t affect him, I thought that it was pretty immature, and I doubt he’ll ever react to a heckler again.

Autograph-wise. I got 2 autographs from Hasaan Whiteside of the Kings. He played very well today, he probably had like 4 or 5 nice blocks. I got a picture with Jrue Holliday, Rudy Gay, Hasheem thabeet, and Al Fariq-Aminu? of the Clippers (top 10 pick). Glen Davis was watching today, but I didn’t get a picture with him.
It’s real interesting how much the NBA is like a fraternity. Every tall and/or rich guy seemed to have some affiliation with an NBA team. We sat right behind reporter, David Aldridge. And I swear, every 15 minutes, a tall and/or rich-looking guy would tap him on the shoulder, and David would say “Hey brother, How’s it going blah blah blah.”