Draft analysis

I'll try to keep this brief, but since half my readership (Steff and Slurry, thanks) are hoop fans, I gotta give me US$0.02 (my blog, I do what I want).

First, my old favorite team, the T-Puppies: No deal to get rid of the Big Ticket and blow up the squad, but they did make a great choice in the draft. At number 7 they took Florida star Corey Brewer. If they can somehow get rid of at least 3 out of 5 of Marko Jaric, Troy Hudsen, Trenton Hassle, Ricky Davis and Mark Blount, I'd be estatic. Or keep Blount and deal 3-4 of those gaurds for another big or a future draft pick maybe. This starting 5 sounds very good on paper to me: Foye, McCants, Brewer, KG, Blount.

My new favorite team, the Super Durants... no, excuse me, that is the Super Sonics. They deal Ray Ray to the Celtics to make room for their new superstar Kevin Durant who is going to need the ball A LOT. And what do they get for Ray Ray? They get the Celt's #5 in Jeff Green (who I love and got to watch play a lot at G-Town last year and who I became a big believer when he took over the Big East tournament this spring), Delonte West (a young and getting better point guard), and Wally Szczerbiak (was always my least favorite wolf, now he'll probably be my least favorite Sonic). They now have the money to re-sign Lewis, and I think their starting 5 looks pretty decent too (ok, they are going to suck, but bear with me): West, Lewis, Green, Durant, [Blanking on who will center this team]. What I do like is being able to run the floor with three super athletic 6'9" ballers in Lewis, Green, and Durant.

Too bad they'll be moving after next year most likely. There is a stadium issue, which is very similar to the stadium issues in Minny: the public doesn't want to pay for it when the owner is a freakin' billionaire. There is probably much more substance to it than that, but you get the idea. Oh well, I'll enjoy the team while it's in Seattle, and probably can get some cheap tix to the games!

Welcome to the Peleton

New Peleton members BS and Gansie have a nice new little foody blog over at Endless Simmer. Check 'em out.

Minneapolis is awesome

Of course you knew that already, but this article by the Strib today proves it.

More people in Minneapolis ride their bikes to work than in any other U.S. city except Portland Ore., according to figures released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Figures show that on average, more than 4,700 people or 2.4 percent of people 16 and older who work in Minneapolis pedal to work each day, way above the national average of .4 percent, the census bureau said.

It's a classic case of "if you build it, they will come,"

The city's network of trails and designated bike lanes on city streets have helped make the city bike friendly, contributing to the high number of people who bike to work or take advantage of recreational opportunities...

And they ain't done yet:

Riders might even have more options for pedaling their two-wheelers in the future. Earlier this month, the Transit for Livable Communities awarded a $7.3 million grant to Minneapolis and other communities in the Twin Cities to increase the number of miles of bikeways in the city.

The beautiful game

Oh, I know, the zero-to-hero approach to posting probably violates some blog etiquette somewhere and isn't that nice to readers either. Deal with it, this is for a good cause.

Back on a really oddly warm day in December (I think it was in the 50s), I purchased an umbrella from this young group of girls selling them on the Connecticut Ave, just north of Dupont Circle. Not that I am a giant cheapskate prick or anything, but normally I don't do the roadside fundraising bit. But I gave them a few minutes to tell me that they were a local area soccer team headed to South Africa to a township outside of Port Elizabeth to conduct a soccer clinic for girls there. I was sold, I studied abroad in SA and it was a life-changing experience, right away I knew I was giving money to these kids. But it got better. Not only are they putting on soccer clinics for girls in a country where girls are not traditionally allowed to play soccer, but they were also incorporating HIV/AIDS prevention instruction into the clinics. How cool is that?

It is through this program called Grassroots Soccer, a group committed to:

"Using the power of soccer in the fight against AIDS, Grassroot Soccer provides African youth with the skills and support to live HIV free.

We do this by continuously improving our innovative HIV/AIDS life-skills curriculum, sharing our program and concept effectively, and utilizing the popularity of soccer to increase our impact.

You can read more about these girls in this story from the WaPo, and follow them on this "World's United" blog that the WaPo is hosting to chronicle their activities.

Even talking about HIV/AIDS there is taboo, which is partially why the situation continues to get worse there, so I love the idea of trying to harness the immense popularity of football in Africa to help fight and cure the HIV/AIDS epidemic there. And I love that the messengers here are not teachers or government types or even some smelly Peace Corps volunteers, but the actual peers of the targeted audience: young girls on the verge of becoming young women. Pretty cool stuff. Go support something like this in your neck of the woods.

Crotchpot cooking

It's real hot here today. Every time it is this hot I think of this scene in Good Morning Vietnam:

Hey, can you tell me what's your name?
"My name is Roosevelt E. Roosevelt."

Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?
"I'm stationed in Poontang."

Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What's the weather like out there?
"It's hot! Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest thing is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking."

Well, tell me what it feels like.
"Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! It's so damn hot, I saw these little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?"

What do you think it's going to be like tonight?
"It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but ain't no good if you're in the jungle!"

Thank you, Roosevelt.

Go Westward KG, Godspeed

News all over this vast series of tubes has it that the Lakers and Wolves are in protracted talks trying to broker a deal that would land the Minny's greatest professional athlete, Kevin Garnett, in La-La Land. And to this, I have one word of advice for KG: Go.

Blasphemous? I don't think so, not from a T-Wolves Fan perspective. How many titles have the T-Wolves won with KG? Zero. How many titles can they expect to win between now and 2009 when KG will leave the team in free agency? None. This team is so saddled with bad contracts there is no way we can ever expect to build a decent team around KG. So if he stays it's another year, maybe two, of KG before he walks and the wolves get nothing.

BUT, many of us are not really t-wolves fans at all, we're KG fans. But ya know what? If you really like the man, let him go find a title elsewhere. Is LA the place for that? Probably not, they'd be giving up whatever young talent they have to put out a two-man show of Kobe and KG. Mind you, this is a pretty potent 1-2 punch, but not the stuff NBA titles are made of (Shaq and Kobe had numerous valuable role players; MJ & Scottie, ditto). Phoenix would probably be the best bet, but it ain't happening without a 3rd team involved.

SO why should I cheer for KG to go Westward and work his leverage into a trade with LA? Selfishly, I bet there will be a number of televised Lakers games in Seattle, so I get to see the Big Ticket lining up against the Clips, Golden State, Seattle, and Portland on a pretty regular basis.

But I think it will also be an interesting sociological experiment (not to mention something I'd like to bet on in Vegas), because we'll all get to see KG under the microscope of Hollywood's paparazzi and witness how he responds. 'Sotan's are far too reverent and passive to ever disrupt the Big Fella or make too much hay out of his private life, but rest assured La-La Land's "media" will have no heart. We are about to watch one of the most intense individuals, up close in personal, with something new in the tabloids every time you wait in line at the grocery store. It's gonna be awesome. I'd wager that from the time KG first dons the purple and gold, we're looking at about 10 months until he punches out his first paparazzi. 2 years and 4 more broken faced photographers later, KG is doing time in LA County lockdown or us under house arrest in his Malibu home. Not that I would ever wish jail time on someone, and especially not my own basketball Jesus, but watching KG flip out on E! True Hollywood story would be pretty entertaining.

Matter of fact, I'd like to parlay that bet into the line on the first time KG slaps Kobe upside the head in practice. My guess is that shortly after his 3rd season with LA & still title-less, two of the bigger egos in the world will have had just about enough of one-another and implode. KG is no stranger to fuckin' people up in practice. He decked Wally, Kandi and probably many others at some point in his career when they have challenged his alpha-dogness, and I can't wait to see Kobe's busted up face on the cover of US Weekly. Shaq is a gentle giant whereas KG is the embodiment of intensity. Kobe is a dick head. So while Shaq just aired his dirty laundry in the press, KG will straight up break Kobe. And it's gonna be great TV, I can't wait.