who’s afraid of LeBron James?
i am.
i’s a fan of the boy’s game from day 1. and i don’t give my approval to young, hyped-up players that easily.
it’s just that i saw the maturity in his game, the way he never entitled himself when he came in the nba, instead earning all of what he has and what he is right now by showing every fool who doubted: the hype is real.
so i followed the young king’s game until he finally got past detroit last year. what happened with the spurs was another story, though. but everybody knew. you can’t deny his greatness, and we can only shiver in anticipation at what is to come.
that’s why when he took the celtics to a game 7 i was quivering in my wet drawers.
let me state for the record here that i ain’t no fair-weather fan: was never really a die-hard celtics guy until KG moved from ‘Sota. it’s a bonus that i love the game of mistah Shuttlesworth. so when ray allen and KG landed in beantown i pledged my allegiance to the C’s. ok? ok.
atlanta took the celtics the full distance, the full schedule of 7 games. young teams sometimes do that, metamorphosing in the playoffs. the Celts blew them away in game 7, and i felt they needed that bump to hone their edge in the coming playoff rounds.
but when LeBron pushed the Celtics near the edge of that game 7 i was quaking in my boots. and he almost single-handedly tipped them over, mind you. he only lost because he tried to do too much,but can you blame him?
he needs to recapture the maturity and patience that we saw in him during those early years, and i bet he knows that. i believe in him, but this is the Celtics’ time to shine. they’re a team, after all. the cavaliers still has a long ways to go, but they’ll get there. KG, Paul Pierce and RayRay are all in this freakin’ race against father time. and you know at 32 pushing 33 i can fuckin’ relate.
this is not yet the king’s year, but damn. he’s only 23 years old.
ok, so here’s the part where i’ll get you guys laughing.
i was afraid the king might be able to topple the Celtics all by his damn great self because i knew what was going on in his mind and what he truly believed inside.
that’s right. i was lebron james once.
cue the laugh track.
i’m talking about being good like him in 1/100,000,000th scale, of course.
see, once upon a time i ruled our street in 3-on-3 and 4-on 4 basketball. when i was 15-16 years old.
yes. ako ang hari ng mga tambay sa basketbol sa amin.
in that brief period in my life i found a way to beat everybody in our neighborhood because i believed it, i believed i was better than anybody. it don’t even matter, give me any three teammates and i’ll get you the win. that was the year i got my growth spurt, growing 11 inches through my 14th and 15th summer. it was one year after getting turned down from the varsity basketball tryouts at my high school, so i woke up at 530am everyday and worked on my body and my game. the year after when the dudes at the basketball court wouldn’t let my skinny-scrawny 14-year old ass play with them. i’d go there at 3pm, an hour ahead of everybody else, when they would then proceed to cut me out of every single game until almost 6 pm, when almost everybody else went home and i’d play in the last available game where the other scrubs like me played.
don’t be sad, wipe that tear away.
i got really good the following summer and i absolutely destroyed them all, one by one. i earned their respect, and i really appreciated them doing that to me because going through every one of those humiliating afternoons fueled the fire in me to get really good.
fuckers.
they called me "kangkong" when i was 14. well, you can understand why.
but i got validation when they saw me taking names and someone quipped; " aba, si kangkong, sanga na ngayon…"
and that was sweet. kinda like when alice dixson went in one of her movies : "ang o-od noon ay sa-wa na nga-yon…"
o, ha?
ok, so back to being lebron james… while i was waiting to get my shine on the full court 5-on-5 games, i was ruling our neighborhood on halfcourt games. every afternoon. from 3 to 6pm it was epoy time. haha. pustahan ng ice candy. o piso-piso. i’d be staying out late till 2am, swishing jumper after jumper, refining my stroke for the battles the next day.
and my teams almost always won every series (we’d do best of 3s, or if there was still some daylight left, best-of-5s..).i score in boatloads, i rebounded like a motherfucker and i dished out assists to make my teammates better. i defended the best player from the other team. always. for 2 years on the streets i had that mentality, that it sure don’t look very much like it, but i can win whatever the situation was. i swear.
so there ends my lebron james story. ok ba? hehe.
so the pistons managed to give the Celtics their first home loss this postseason. a lot of people are saying that the Cs are done because of their inability to win on the road.
me? i ain’t even close to being concerned. i’m more excited than anything. them boys are gonna come around, i’m telling you. like Ray Allen said, who struggled the most in these playoffs: "All the reasons everybody’s saying why we will lose will be the reasons why we will win." or something to that effect.
random links to click on:
i’d like to believe this, but i ain’t really sure. but it’s for three or more pair A YEAR. what’s three or more pairs in a month?
it don’t really help me a whole lot that these are coming out today. fuck.
this version is alright. mariah’s take was also cool, but cook’s made this his own, so..
aaaaaaaaand finally….
ok, this is VJ Greg, signing off…
ladies, don’t be perplexed by strange behavior from your husbands and boyfriends. it’s the nba playoffs. recognize.
—————–
Restless tonight
Cause I wasted the light
Between both these times
I drew a really thin line
It’s nothing I planned
And not that I can
But you should be mine
Across that line
If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out
If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something
I promise I might
Not walk on by
Maybe next time
But not this time
Even though I know
I don’t want to know
Yeah I guess I know
I just hate how it sounds
If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out
If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something..
- "One Thing", Finger Eleven from Them Vs You Vs Me
