NBA: Live!

[Flack]

So, what's it like to attend a real NBA game in person? I'm so glad you asked! With the season set to start on Christmas Day, maybe you'll get some tickets in your stocking! Here's what you can expect.

Here in Oklahoma City, tip-off for weeknight games takes place at 7pm. I live 12 miles away from the stadium; that means I have to leave my house at 6pm. Normally I could get downtown in about 15 minutes, but with game day traffic, it takes about 30 minutes. If parking is available across the street, you're lucky, but sometimes it's closed (when hockey's playing as well) and you have to park elsewhere. Parking costs between $5-$10, depending on how close you get. Twice (out of around 40 games), I've found a spot at a meter. Meters are free after 5pm, but traffic's so bad that it's not worth looking for them.

If you park by 6:30pm you should be inside no later than 6:45pm. That'll give you time to find your seat and pick up something to eat and drink. Non-alcoholic drinks are around $3, pretzels are $4, cotton candy is $5, nachos are $5, a slice of pizza is $8. Typically before we go we stop by the dollar store and I let Mason buy whatever he wants. It's much cheaper.

Tip-off's not really at 7pm, by the way. That's when the players come out, when they sing the national anthem, and so on. The game doesn't start for another 10-15 minutes, but you want to be in your seat before all of that because when the lights are dim it's a pain in the ass to traverse the stairs.

Since it's Oklahoma City, unless you're playing Dallas or the Lakers, chances are everybody around you will be Thunder fans. Dallas is close enough that their asshole fans come up and act like jerks. Every time we play the Lakers there will be teenagers running around in Kobe jerseys. What can you do.

Eventually the game starts and there will be at least 50 time outs and other breaks in the game. During each one, there's some sort of entertainment. 30 second time out? Here come the juggling clowns! 60 second time out? Expect a trampoline with guys doing flying slam dunks. At some point they'll do the parachute drop, where they drop a hundred free t-shirts attached to little parachutes from the rafters. They'll also shoot t-shirts out from an air cannon gun, do a dance-off, and all sorts of crazy things. To be honest, sometimes I think my kids like the antics more than they like the game.

Half time is the same length as a period (12 mins), at which point some major entertainment will come out -- maybe a team of gymnasts, maybe a magician, maybe a guy with dancing bears. Nobody really cares because now it's time to drain those expensive beers from your body. Good thing too, because 20,000 other people will be doing the same thing at the same time. If you're a guy that means you will have to wait an additional 60-90 seconds. If you're a woman, you can forget seeing the third quarter.

During the fourth quarter, it's time to evaluate the game. If it's close you'll be staying for the whole game, which will add another half an hour trying to get out of the parking garage. If it's a blowout then it might be time to skip out early and listen to the end of the game on the radio on the drive home.

Tickets in OKC can be picked up for as low as $10/ticket, so it's a pretty inexpensive event and a pretty fun time.

[RealityCheck]

If you're a woman, you can forget seeing the third quarter.

Truth is women don't care about missing major parts of basketball (or football or whatever else sports there are) games.

[Flack]

That's true; they could intentionally be avoiding the game in there while chatting it up.

My friend scored tickets to a private/reserved VIP room for one of the games. The room was probably, oh, 20'x20', with a few couches, tables, chairs, and flat screen televisions to watch the game on. The back wall was a sliding glass door that opened up to some seats that looked out on the court at the 200 level. (In OKC there's floor, 100, 200, and 300 levels).

There were menus on the tables and when I thumbed through one the first thing I saw was a steak for $125 so I put the menu back down and told my friend not to touch anything. There were some bottles of water in the room but we were afraid that they were like $10 a bottle or something so we didn't even drink those. There were probably 10 other people in the VIP room with us and I'm sure they were wondering who we were the whole time (my friend got the tickets from his boss who got them from a friend; neither of them could go).

I'd say it was a good way to attend a game if you don't have that much interest in watching a game. If you just like going for the food and the atmosphere and the horrible parking and the $125 steak dinners, it's ideal.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I will say that Flack's descriptions make basketball sound fun. I'd go to a Thunder game. I don't think I'd ever go to a Nuggets game again. It just seemed like everyone was sleepwalking the last time I went. Maybe it was because Carmelo was in the process of demanding a trade to NY, I dunno. But there was no energy in the building at all. I think if Denver lost their team, the local fans wouldn't be THAT worked up about it. The Broncos dominate the city, with the Rockies probably second.

[Flack]

I think if Denver lost their team, the local fans wouldn't be THAT worked up about it.

You would be surprised. Ask Seattle.

[CO]

I think if Denver lost their team, the local fans wouldn't be THAT worked up about it.

You would be surprised. Ask Seattle.

Eh, I think we're over it. If people were worked up enough i'm sure they could find funding for a new stadium. Even with MSFT's Paul Allen offering up millions of dollars, there's still no movement towards a new stadium funding plan. Probably because of all of the geeks and gays living here who don't give a shit about it and the hicks who can't afford box seats.

[Flack]

[Flack]

I read that it was because the Hornets are league-owned. I don't know if that's the real reason or not. The whole thing smacks of Stern being a sore loser over the lock out and wielding his fist on the first poor soul to come along, which in this case happened to be the Lakers.

I'm a little disappointed that Paul wants to move. His rookie year was the same year that the Hornets moved to OKC, and so we all got to watch him work his way up and become a great player. The year before Chris Paul was drafted (when the team was in NOLA) they were 18-64 (.220). The following year, their first year in OKC, they were 38-44 (.463). It was an exciting year and we all felt like Paul was leading the team. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond, which Chris Paul has been with the Hornets, but with him moving to the Lakers he will just become another guy to help set up plays for Kobe. Boo.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I do not get these guys. Why go to LA and be another asshole? New Orleans has won one professional championship in their history of EVERYTHING.

I guess there are people who want to buy the Hornets as well. But since prices for sports franchises aren't where Stern thinks they should be, the sale hasn't happened? I dunno. I hear things.

I even get wanting to play with your friends. (Not that I think Chris Paul and Dwight Howard are great friends with Kobe. Kobe seems like an awkward, spoiled bitch.) Jesus, get them to play on your team though, instead of going to someone else's.

It really does seem like basketball needs to have 10 teams and a 40 game season. Baseball operates like half the league is a bother and then there is football, where everyone has a shot and it's the most popular sport in the history of the world.

[pinback]

LA is a great place to be if you're a big famous rich person. It's ghastly for anyone else, but these guys are big famous rich people.

[soccer]

it's the most popular sport in the history of the world.

=(

[Kendo]

it's the most popular sport in the history of the world.

:-(

[Nude mud-wrestling]

:D

[Flack]

LA is a great place to be if you're a big famous rich person. It's ghastly for anyone else, but these guys are big famous rich people.

Thus the problem Oklahoma is beginning to have (and will continue to have) in drafting established players. It's not so bad for rookies. Many of them are going from poverty to making millions of dollars and are glad to do it just about anywhere, including Oklahoma. It's the established stars from big cities who we are going to have a hard time luring in.

Telling multimillionaires in their 30s that the entire city closes at 9pm and you can't buy liquor on Sundays doesn't exactly draw them in.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Bill Simmons's column where he goes "Boooooo hoooooooo" is the single most spoiled piece of dreck I've ever read. It is the distillation of a prep school fancy into three or four paragraphs of bile. It forever paints him as a reprehensible funsucker and unapologetic cocksucker of the over-privileged.

Read this shit and tell me that this isn't every big market fan acting like you owe them something:

THis:

Once word leaked of the deal, rival owners started rebelling almost immediately. What was the point of that lockout, and all the talk of competitive balance, if the Lakers were allowed to immediately acquire Chris Paul? Dan Gilbert sent a scathing e-mail to a few of the other owners that, of course, was leaked on the Internet last night.

The best part of the letter: "This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets."

(Translation: "Let's cut Demps' balls off, throw the last few weeks of negotiating out the window and go back on our word. Also, I'm thinking of starting a support group for small-market owners who overpaid for their teams, don't have the balls to sell and would rather whine, bitch and bully about their lot in NBA life. I'm going to call it O.A.: Overpayers Anonymous.")

The second-best part of the letter: "I just don't see how we can allow this trade to happen. I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do. When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?"

(Translation: Boooooooo hooooooo.)

and this, which is just unbelievable:

The best point guard of his generation was switching teams, in his prime, to the Los Angeles Lakers … and only after the Celtics and Knicks failed to get him. Read that sentence again. It's what Dan Gilbert and the other Overpayers Anonymous owners will never understand. In professional basketball, history trumps everything else. It's not just about playing in Los Angeles. It's about playing for the fucking Lakers. It's about following the footsteps of Magic, Kareem, Wilt, West, Baylor and Shaq. It's about Showtime, Nicholson, the yellow jerseys, the Laker Girls, even that awful Randy Newman song. It's about that buzz before a big Laker home game, when the place is packed with celebs and eye candy, when you're the best guy on the team, when you might as well be the king of the world. When these idiots complain about a "big market/small market" disparity, it's almost like they never followed the league before they bought their teams. Of course there's a disparity! What kid doesn't grow up wanting to play for the Celtics, Lakers or Knicks?

Remember what pissed us off most about LeBron picking Miami over New York? It wasn't just that he tried to stack the decks with a superteam; it's that he walked away from New York, the city with the most basketball fans, the city with the biggest spotlight, the city that would have either made him immortal or broken him in two. He didn't want it. He copped out. He could have picked loyalty (Cleveland) or immortality (New York); instead, he chose help (Miami). That killed us. We hated him for it. What was telling about Chris Paul's choice was that he eschewed the Clippers (a safer basketball situation for him; he would have been able to grow with Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin) for the Lakers (a much more volatile basketball situation with Kobe's miles and Bynum's knees) for the simple reason that he wanted to be a Laker.

For the right players, it's not about cities as much as teams, uniforms, histories, owners, fans, titles … and Chris Paul cares about the right things. He's the best teammate in the league. As much as it killed me that my least favorite team landed him, the "basketball fan" side of me loved it. Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant … together? Playing across the street from my office? How cool was that? I remember when KG landed on the Celtics, one of my Lakers-fan buddies told me, "I hate KG and I hate the Celtics, but this is going to be cool."

That's how I felt about Chris Paul and the Lakers. If you love basketball — if you truly love it — you appreciated what was happening. And it had nothing to do with the Washington Generals. Believe me.

Of course, that's not how December 8, 2011 will be remembered. Years from now, I won't remember anything about that day except for David Stern losing control of his own league. Once upon a time, it was reassuring to look there and expect to see him, and darn, he was there. It was kind of neat. Those days are long gone. The National Basketball Association has lost its way. I feel like crying.

I will destroy this text once somebody admits that, yes, these are the most condescending and spoiled words ever placed on the Internet.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

This is good. No, this is terrible. The world's worst writer is dying to tell you about this NBA fantasy league he heard about:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/738 ... -christmas

Some dipshit made a fantasy league where - LOL! - Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett are on the bench. They use real salaries. But they start 10 people and apparently use the same salary cap the NBA does, so expensive players are on the bench. Rather than consider this to be a colossal and stupid waste of time, the world's worst writer burns a column telling you about someone else's fantasy team. I liked this part, though:

Of course, if Justin's league REALLY wanted to resemble the NBA, they'd incorporate a luxury tax and allow owners to exceed the cap for expensive waiver guys like Kobe. What if they made a "spending up to $10 million over the cap costs triples your entry fee" rule?

"That can't work," Justin says. "It's ironic because I'm totally for big-market teams outspending the little guys in real life, just not in our league. In any fantasy league, guys are in different financial situations — being able to pay for a tax for better players wouldn't be fair to the owners who didn't make as much money as some of the other owners."

Fans of big-market teams felt it was OK to be smug about how the small-market teams are there just to be fodder a few years ago. You see them spout their moronic opinions all the time. However, in every case, they don't run a fantasy league accoring to their childish, Randian opinions. This is another example of that. HURRR "Normally I love it when the Lakers outspend the Grizzlies, but I'm sure as shit not doing it for my fantasy NBA league." Fucking sped. Fucking piece of shit, dumbfuck sped.