After putting the Monster Mash on AK-47 in the Playoffs, a guard with mad hops gets to Mash something else. It’s all part of “The Deal…”
DATELINE – Saturday, May 12, 2007, 5:19 AM PST
Hilton Oakland Airport Hotel -
It’s five a.m., and no, there was no good night’s sleep for Mr. Andrei Kirilenko. Tossing and turning on the bed at his grungy
"I think I was late on the help. That's why I got dunked on. At least I got on the poster."
Would’ve been nice had he gotten back to the room and had his lovely wife waiting for him. Alas, Mrs. K wasn’t having it on this night. She wasn’t giving it, either.
His better half, Masha, stumbles through the door. She’s sauntering gingerly into the hotel room, hair disheveled, lipstick smudged and, as best as Andrei could tell, a tad bowlegged. What in blazes was so exciting about Oaktown nightlife that had Mrs. Kirilenko running the streets until five in the morning?
“You’ve got some explaining to do, Miss Lopatova,” he bellows to Masha, rubbing the back of her head as if someone’s been tugging at her hair.
“Andrei, sweetie… you remember we made that Deal, right?”
Up to now, The Deal always seemed to work out quite nicely for AK-47. At a time when fellow NBA young bucks are saddled with alimony payments, baby-daddy paternity suits and DNA tests, tempestuous underage babysitters, strip-club fight wounds, money-grubbing rape accusations, and smoldering spouses with ridiculously short leashes, Andrei Kirilenko has himself a Deal. One ensuring wedded bliss for he and wifey for as long as they both shall live. It seems that the prenup arrangement includes a clause that allows AK a little, shall we say, wiggle room in the bedroom. Specifically, once a calendar year at any time, Andrei is allowed to cheat. With whomever, whenever. No pre-approval, no questions asked, no guilt trips.
“What’s forbidden is always desirable,” Masha explained when The Deal got leaked to a reporter. “And athletes, particularly men, are susceptible to all the things they are offered. It’s the same way raising children. If I tell my child. ‘No pizza, no pizza,’ what does he want more than anything? Pizza.” So, she figures, what’s wrong with her hubby coveting an occasional pizza pie, or a piece o’ tail, every once in awhile?
It is an agreement that causes almost every red-blooded American male to pause and bow, to bestow praise to the Russian supermodel for this noble and flexible approach to lifelong fidelity… and every red-faced American woman to roll her eyes in disgust. Masha, Masha, Masha!
But with all the media hype over the leaking of this clause, there’s another half of The Deal that no one bothered to ask about. One that only Masha knows quite well. In return for being so flexible, The Missus gets one lifetime chance to find a man who’ll do her right… for one night only.
Just weeks ago, it was at the grand opening of her new fashion shop in The Gateway shopping plaza in downtown Salt Lake when Masha had a notion to cash in on her end of The Deal. She had just opened a boutique for tall men and women to find stylish yet casual clothing, not an easy find outside of
Now, while at the hotel peeking at the conference semis Game 3, between episodes of "Martha Stewart Living," Masha fixes her eyes on Fedora Man. Up by a comfortable 20 points with just minutes to spare, almost as though he knew she was watching, he decided the time was ripe to send out The Signal. He blew past the flailing Jazz guard Deron Williams on the left wing, drove to the hoop and illustriously sacked her Russian husband as if he was getting revenge for Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. Game Over.
Photographers and cameramen around the arena must have sensed the tremors before the Quake, because they caught shots of this utter destruction, in progress, from every conceivable angle.
Fedora Man strikes again. Hey, Fedora Man, how many times did you hit that last night?
Wow. Impressive!
“You were with HIM?” Andrei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at this latest cruel twist of fate. “That’s like, how they say, ‘Sleeping With The Enemy!’… Nyet, I don’t want to hear anything more – no wait, I do wanna know why!”
“I was watching the game tonight, and, well, you know how I value honesty,” Masha said, taking a deep breath after rubbing the sides of her mouth clean with her thumb. “Now I know you won’t take offense, but quite frankly, I suspected… and now know for sure… that Baron can take me higher… farther… to places you’ve never been, Andrei.” For a minute, he thought she was referring to the square atop the rim. “Plus, you know us Russian women like a man with big, scruffy beard.” Now that he could acknowledge. Indeed, compared to his furless chin, Baron indeed had quite a Flavor Saver on him.
“Now, all the ladies you’ve been with over the years,” Masha queries, her attempt to brush through Andrei’s hedgehog hairdo causing him to recoil, “has anyone popped them in the nose, keyed their car, or tried to go after them?” Andrei sighed, rolled his eyes, then nodded his head in the negative. “So I can expect you and your friends won’t do anything to harm my high-flying American baboushka, nyet?”
Andrei rubbed his chin, and pondered aloud, in his best Drago impersonation, “I MUST BREAK HIM.” Then he laughed. “Well, I do have connections. Us Russian men do know how to make people disappear, you know! At least let me get him a little sick, like my man Nikolay does it!”
Before she got nervous, he grinned and said, “Nah, I’ll get your little baboushka back on basketball terms when we get back to SLC for Game 5.”
“But look, I have a proposal to modify The Deal a little. Last night I was watching… well, never mind that… but anyways there was a commercial for a product called Elongawoodie…”
“I know about that, I almost bought you a case.”
“Oh, yes, thanks a lot, lovey! Well, I’ll buy it myself, a lifetime supply, IF you allow me to cash in one extra time this year, just this once. You see, Anna Kournikova was on the sideline at the Laker game, and…”
“Deal!”
Drei would eventually have his day, after dispatching Golden State from the conference semis and eventually getting the tennis-star hookup he desired in the offseason. But Masha is always quick to remind him, pills or no pills, who can take her higher. She blogged recently about her ongoing friendship with another Warrior who scores occasionally, albeit in the traditional sense.
“I was so happy for my friend Al Harrington who scored 38 last night! Al is a great guy. We were on vacation in France this summer. We were playing Charades on the boat and he was supposed to show the word ‘cucumber.’ He had no luck expressing or acting out the word ‘cucumber.’”
As Al held his forefingers out about a foot apart in a lame attempt to depict the vegetable, a vodka-influenced Masha absorbed a bony elbow in her side from her significant other after blurting out,”
“BARON DAVIS!”
The awkward thing is both Kirilenkos knew she deserved at least partial credit for her answer.
~iyf
Looks can be deceiving, ‘tis true. Which of the guys on the stage above looks like the type who can throw it down in your mug at will? No, there are no “None of the above” options. Take your time.
So, did ya guess the shaggy-haired cat with the guitar? Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Brent Docter. Hmmm. Seems like a pretty swell guy, a sports and fitness director at a Boys and Girls Club in Lincoln, Nebraska. When he’s not out cornhusking in his free time (I dunno what the heck they do out there in Nebraska! He tells Boys and Girls he likes gardening, art, and bowling… a stone-cold thug fo' sho'), he’s blasting speakers on stage with his progressive-rock band, Defunct Generation.
Less than a decade ago homeboy looked like this:
Hell, didn’t we all look like that a decade ago, before we, like, started eating? At first glance, though, Baby Doc was not exactly somebody pre-destined to post YouTubes like “White Boy Nasty Dunks” or “Bus Driver 4-Man Poster Dunk.”
By the time he was a 6’2” senior (heading first to Lincoln School of Commerce, then to Doane College, snaring Business and Sports Management degrees), Doc had sick hops and no longer needed somebody’s ladder to grab the nets. If you weren’t careful under the rim, he’d happily do to you with the basketball, ironically, what Jeff Jarrett enjoys doing with his guitars. El Kabong, biyatches!
Here’s some House Call highlights of the Good Docter, rocking myriad High School and College opponents on courts the way he now rocks the house on stage.
A couple years back, while trolling ESPN Page 2 I came across a fun Valentine's Day article. Delonte West opened up on February 14 about his ideal romantic evening, complete with a yacht, Jim Jones pumping in the Benz, some Moet, steak, skrimp, one prepubescent-tail-chasing crooner to serenade… and Popeye's chicken. Oh, and Jaws, too. Then-Celtic teammate and world-reknowned love doctor Orien Greene chimes in to add to the humor.
Some tidbits from the hilarity that ensues…
D-West: “So, I pick her up in my white convertible. From there, I'd have the music pumping on the radio. The Jim Jones pumping, you know, 'Summer in Miami' song pumping. Got to keep a little gangsta, you can't be too soft. You can't be in there playing some guy that's crying, talking about don't leave me and love me baby, wah wah and all that. So Jim Jones pumping and then from there, wind blowing through the hair, boom, we get straight to the point -- we eat afterwards because I don't want to kiss no onions. I don't want to kiss you tasting like onions and steak and mushrooms and everything.”
O.G.: “What, you taking her back to the Mot 6 [Motel 6]?”
D-West: “So, where we going then? You know, with the female readers, I might get me a superstar off this one. I might get me Beyonce or something.”
O.G.: “Take her to your yacht, dog.”
D-West: “Sit down and have some dinner, some shrimps and steaks, keep it nice and breezy. Pop some bottles, some Moet Rose. The red Moet, we ain't popping no Kristal, it tastes like urination. We ain't popping no Kris, that's $500 a bottle. It ain't that serious. It ain't going to get you drunk. Make sure you put that in there. We ain't doing a $500 bottle, we're doing a $99 wine and dine. While we're eating, have a singer. Who should I have?"
O.G.: “R. Kelly.”
D-West: “I can't afford R. Kelly.”
O.G.: “You can't afford R. Kelly? Oh, you talking about you going to actually have him on the boat singing? Oh, man, you doing it like that?! I'm telling you, you all might not come back for two, three days.”
D-West: “So, we are done eating, man, we've got to have someone singing while we're eating. OK, so from there, we're doing a midnight skinny-dipping jump. Alright? From there, hopefully she's got money because I hope Jaws gets her, boom, make sure she got me in the will, bank, I'm good. Oh well, shark got her! Jaws got her. Nah, we ain't going there.”
D-West: “One more thing: When we're on the yacht eating, we're going to have some Popeyes chicken. That's for dinner. It's to let her know, put a mental image on her mind, first and foremost, if you ain't from the hood, you don't like Popeyes chicken. Everyone there loves Popeyes chicken and the biscuits -- phew. But that's just getting it on her mind, saying, you know, 'Yeah, I can wine and dine you, but I'm a little rough around the edges and I'm keeping it real with you. I can be romantic, but this is real, we're going to eat some chicken tonight. Chicken and biscuits.'”
It's particularly funny given the timing, because the Very Next Night after V-Day, Delonte was delivered a very special message, from a newfound acquaintance... ;-)
"February 15, 2006
Dearest Delonte -
From the instant that things took off, I knew you and I would become glued to one another. As I pressed not-so-tenderly against your Adam's Apple, I hoped that our One Shining Moment could somehow remain frozen in time, perhaps like a poster where everyone could someday say they, too, were a 'Witness'. So sorry about the bruises I left on your neck and chest: just tell your homeboyz you got a hickey!
But alas, due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to go our separate ways. I truly hope we can meet again sometime soon, perhaps next season, since you won't be around by the springtime, what with the playoffs and all. (Sigh!) Thinking of you, until then...
Sincerely,
LeBron's Right Knee"
~iyf
Woe be to the one-dimensional slam dunking baller. Despite all one’s efforts to round out his game, perfect a mid-range jumper, morph into a lockdown defender, dominate the glass, and drop crazy dimes… the gravity-laden naysayers and critics persist. “Mad hops are all he’s got,” they’d whine.
Yet through it all, somehow, uni-skilled high school high-risers still manage to fill up NCAA Division I rosters, with coaches clamoring endlessly for ballers with “raw” athletic abilities and “boundless” potential, stats on vertical leap and wingspans dripping from their tongues.
Invariably, it’s a person of (darker) color holding down that coveted scholarship spot on the D-I bench, often in the form of some “fourth-year general studies major,” or “junior college transfer,” whose high school and AAU mixtapes on YouTube caused some recruiters’ jaws to drop to the floor. Many of these same cats sneak into the NBA draft, earning guaranteed-millionaire cash on this same foundation of raw, untapped, and often unrealized, potential.
Sadly, white dudes with ups as their primary calling card haven’t marketed well in the top tier of NCAA programs. Thus guys like former Illinois high school dunk champ Eric Hobbie, now rocking rims at McKendree University in southwestern Illinois, get relegated to unremarkable Division II or III or NAIA college careers, destined for a lifetime of service as somebody’s personal trainer, mascot jobs leaping through hoops of fire off of a trampoline, and germane duties like snaring those hard-to-reach items off shelves for little old ladies at Wal-Mart.
It’s not like the young man hasn’t tried to get noticed in other ways. The sole underclassman represented in the American Midwest Conference’s All-Conference 1st Team last season, the 6-foot-6 Hobbie amassed 7.3 boards and 15.4 points per game, and 40.3 percent from three-point range, in a Pippen-esque second-fiddle role to the conference MVP, leading his Bearcats in blocks while second in steals. Boosting a top-ten NAIA program and currently riding a seven-game winning streak, Hobbie has helped make winning easy this year for head coach Harry Statham, now the winningest coach (and the coachingest coach) in all of men’s college hoops.
Before that, he was downstate Illinois’ high school player of the year, damaging opponents’ psyches as a high-flying forward for the Vandalia Vandals. Doing it all, he put up double-doubles, three thefts per game, and 42 percent from 3-point range, leading to an Associated Press All-State selection in his senior year.
You’d think Hobbie’s multifaceted game and winning pedigree would gain the warranted attention of top-notch NCAA programs. But concerns about the dreaded ‘tweener label persist. And besides, when you can do stuff like THIS to people, it’s quite easy for others to get distracted…
Even his coach, extolling Hobbie’s many virtues, struggled mightily to hold his tongue about Hobbie’s flair for the dramatic above the rim. “In practice, there were times, ‘Holy smokes! Did that happen?’ Some of the things he did were jaw-dropping.”
Hobbie would compensate for the lack of prime-time college interests by pursuing his true loves outside of basketball. And for those with ridiculous hops playing college ball, who among that group lists their top “hobbies” as hunting and fishing? Oh, and Dodge trucks?
“Deer hunting is a place I get away from things,” Hobbie said. “That’s where I made my decision for college, sitting up in a tree stand. McKendree was the best fit. I just wanted to stay somewhere close to home. I don’t fit in at a bigger school. I like to deer hunt and fish. Every day, every chance I get I do it. My dad had me deer hunting when I was 3 with him.” His biggest catch this year in the pond was an 8-pound bass. He did throw it back. Unfortunately for his opponents this season, he wasn’t as merciful on the court. Hobbie hurt them in every way possible. With an improved 3-pointer, he wasn’t afraid to step out and make his defenders guard him deep. He could also dribble up and hit the mid-range jumper, and as always, he was tough inside with a variety of post moves. He also posterized a few defenders – a kid on Flora especially felt what it was like to be Hobbied – with an explosive dunking ability that’s never been seen in Vandalia before.
Life ain’t fair for guys like Eric Hobbie. And when it isn’t, guys like him take solace by just taking it out on unsuspecting low-talent bruthas under the rim. Don’t get Hobbie-Horsed, Homie!
~iyf
