Out Here Grinding

-Last Friday, I went to Barnes and Noble to scout out a pre-order of FreeDarko's Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac. Was lucky enough to get a guy to run to the stock room and snag me a version 5 days early. Needless to say I've been mowing right through this gem whenever I get a chance. So far a personal high point has been reading a chapter on Josh Smith&Gerald Smith. All of the other chapters in the book are devoted to an individual player but they decided to devote one chapter to my two favorite enigmas and their outrageous statistical periods of domination. I'm glad someone else much smarter than I was able to enlighten the rest of the world on two of my favorite players who happened to carry my fantasy basketball last season. Interesting moment for Poot's World Blog; I was able to talk to Bethlehem Shoals today through Facebook chat. He was nice enough to chat with me for a couple minutes and I told him how much I enjoyed the book and his Smith/Wallace chapter in particular. Shoals told me he wished that chapter could have been 20 pages longer (each chapter is about 3 pages, so that would be quite an increase) so he could expand on Josh Smith's personality and Gerald Wallace's "country" soul. The guy is even deep on his Facebook chats. I told him that would be a great place to start next year's almanac. His reply was that it would have to be in a couple of years, as books take a while to write. I suppose I can't argue. He also said that it has been his dream come true with this release of the book and to recieve the outpouring of support it has recieved in its infancy. Anyways, you HAVE to grab a copy of this book, its amazing, and has re readability.


-Still getting a free preview of League Pass and life continues to be high quality. Potentially expensive trips to Madison bars have been replaced with weekends in the apartment watching the NBA in all of its HD greatness.

-Clearly too early to pick league MVP right now, but its going to be a helluva battle betwixt Lebron James and Dwight Howard.

-Golden State continues to intrigue me. I wish they weren't on so late at night, but watching them is enough of an adrenilene infusion to keep me awake past halftime. Don's 4 guard, 1 center lineup causes fits through the first 3 quarters but they just can't seem to hold it up for the full 48. In a league full of on the fly adjustments, its time for the eldest coach in the league to work on a few.

-Refs are calling an inordinately high amount of traveling early this season. Players are doing a poor job of adjusting, as the numbers continue a steady rise. Looks like the referees are holding firm on their attention paid to steps taken. Lebron had 4 against Indiana last week and should have had 2 more. His PER would be even more off the charts minus the high turnover numbers.

-Watched 3 close games this evening that came down to the final shot with teams down 2. Team down 2 ended up attempting a 3 pointer all three times. Not sure I completely agree with that philosophy. My guess is that all three coaches drew up a play that looked to score an easier bucket and perhaps the way things ended up, the 3 point attempted was more of a requirement. Inside the arc, it was a parting of the Red Sea. Catch, two strong dribbles, pull-up 13 footer just seems to be a higher percentage when compared to off-balance 3 point attempt.