For those of us in the hinterland who don’t live for the start of hockey season, there is good news. The NBA has returned to our TV screens. This is a great time of the sports year for sure. Hockey and basketball kickoff. The World Series captivates the baseball fan and the NFL juggernaut keeps us yelling at TV screens several nights a week. In my life, sports is not complete without a healthy dose of roundball. If you are fan of any sport, you have a long list of the reasons why it’s your sport. Here are my top 10 reasons that I am glad the NBA is back:

1. Lebron haters.

Now that he has been able to bring a championship back to Northern Ohio, what is left for the King to conquer? The Lebron haters will always hate and his fans will always defend him. For me, I am having trouble keeping the man out of my top 5 basketball players to ever bounce a ball. What does he play for? All time greatness and he is right on the cusp of joining the immortals of this game.

2. The team that thought 3 superstars wasn’t enough

Yes that team is the Golden State Warriors and this season is fascinating to me in watching to see if they can play as strong as they appear on paper. They will have a target on their backs from game 1 and adding Durant to an already electric team is great TV. My prediction, they don’t gel and don’t get it done. It will be fun to watch though.

3. My Celtics are relevant again

No, Larry Bird is not walking through that door but the Celtics are back. They have a nucleus of talent and are stocked with young players making them poised to be the team of the future in the East. Brad Stevens should run for President because he would have a punchers chance in my eyes.

 

4. The TNT pre and post game show

I know it’s not what you would expect but this is the best studio show in sports. The wit of Shaq mixed with the unabashed ignorance of Chuck Barkley is offset by the professionalism of Ernie Johnson making this basketball gold. I could do without Kenny Smith mind you but someone has to stoke the other personalities. I spend more time watching these guys than the game some weeks.

5. We the North

Last year was awesome if you are a Canadian basketball fan. The Raptors made an unprecedented run in the playoffs and took over from where the Blue Jays left us off in the fall. The city of Toronto is definitely seeing a sports renaissance and I will be interested to see whether it continues. Stack that on top of the plethora of Canadian basketball players who have jumped into the league in the past 3 years makes every night a visual reminder of why I spend those hours coaching the youth of the game.

6. Greg Popovich interviews

Google some of the finer moments of the best coach in the league. He is sure to say something that will make you smile before, during and after a game. I like the fact that he has earned his chops by winning 5 championships and he couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of him or what he says. I take personal glee in watching the way he dissects the sideline reporters during the in-game interview.

7. The battle for mediocrity

It has been a while since parody came to visit the bottom dwellers on this league. Unlike the other professional leagues, the “salary cap” seems to have very little impact on helping those teams on the rebuild. If anything it tend stop drive packs of great players to join together to make a run at a championship. This year, there will be a new crop of last place teams who will take a run at getting into the playoffs and re-igniting their fan base. Will they challenge the 4-5 teams that can legitimately win the whole thing? No way. But I like to see new blood rise up.

 

8. Bill Simmons basketball Ringer podcasts

This guy is an aficionado on everything that is happening around the Association. His podcasts are insightful and funny sprinkled with enough information to make you remember that he know his stuff. If you can afford the month it will take you to read The Book of Basketball, his epic novel will give you some insight into what his weekly podcasts sound like. He is worth the investment in time.

9. Old faces in new places

It is always intriguing the way free agency re-shapes a league. This was a particularly special year for some of this movement. We lost the pleasure of a few greats like Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and now have to get used to Derrick Rose in a Knick uniform, Dwayne Wade wearing the Bulls jersey, Al Horford in Celtics green and of course Durant in GSW blue and gold. There are several other mid-flite superstars in new digs which means that 2K17 rosters will need to be updated early in the year and I will have to struggle though learning new rosters, again.

10. The joy that is League Pass

This one makes me and my boys most happy. It’s the first time I have jumped into this new world of having access to all the games of a league. This one makes a ton of sense not just to follow the Celtics around the league but to watch players and teams around the schedule. The value is certainly there if you love a sport and this has become a must have in our TV planning.

That’s what makes me keep coming back for more. The Association is back and the few million, hard core NBA fans who love the game can revel in the re-birth. If you are a tag along Raptor fan from last year, I encourage you to take a leap into the art of this game. There is room in the junkie club.

Go Celtics!

Marco

I play old man’s basketball every week in the fall and winter. We are all mature men with ages ranging from 40-55 and homes, families and jobs. We all carry around the badges of pain from these Monday night games. No one wants to hurt anyone seriously and certainly doesn’t want to get hurt himself.  That is until the pressure of the game ramps up to the point where men turn into maniacs and want to rip out each others eyes.

Think hard, you can even picture the guy. Every team has one right back to the days of grade 5-6. You know, the dude who always takes things the wrong way, gets into the face of someone much bigger than them on the other team and needs everyone to bail him out. Some describe him as the heart and soul of a team but most others just call him “that idiot”. I call them Jassholes. Jerk assholes. Let’s be clear. I have had my scrapes over the years. Usually not initiated by me but certainly I have thrown my share of gas on the fire. I try to be the voice of reason amongst a group of Jassholes but sometimes it gets the best of all of us.

Men’s league wouldn’t be as fun without these Jassholes. Every guy on the floor knows who they are and you know they are going to do something or say something that will push things over the edge. Some guys turn into wallflowers around it, some try to calm the herd, I like to stoke their fire. I love the confrontation with the team Jasshole, including the ones on my team. They are always looking to bully their way through something and probably live their real lives the same way. I can’t get enough of them and the art of pissing them off.

In some ways these guys ruin a bit of good exercise and fun, in a life full of other challenges. Sometimes I feel badly for stoking these guys into something stupid but I can’t resist seeing how the mood changes and the spirit of the game rises. It makes me feel young again and frankly it makes me excited to be there. When I lose my spunk for the thrill of this hunt, I will hang up the laces. For now, I continue to pick these Jassholes out of the rosters of old men and expose their inner stupidity. It takes one to know one I guess.

It’s baaaaacccck! The dreaded tryouts for sports teams. The flip of the calendar to September opens the annual season of parents praying and kids playing to the best of their collective potential. The problem with it all is that everyone involved hates every minute of it.

Let me start by commending the hundreds of coaches, parents and volunteers who give countless hours towards making sure that kids can play youth sports. Without their commitment, these organizations don’t succeed in the goal to give the gift of sports to kids. The yearly dance parents make between volunteering and not is a difficult one. If you get involved, the time commitment is greater and so is your ability to positively impact your kids. By staying away, time is your friend but there is always a level of doubt about whether the sports clubs are fake and equitable to all players and coaches. There is no greater dilemma than during evaluation season.

Thousands of kids are evaluating across the city this month to be placed onto community, club and school teams and are completely at the mercy of the system that allows for fair evaluation. Parents secretly wonder whether their child was properly assessed or given a fair chance for evaluators to see what they can do. There is no more uncomfortable scene then sitting in the parents area of an evaluation, reading the eyes and minds of parents secretly willing their child to excel over the others. While this is occurring they are screaming with their eyes towards the coordinators to look at their child or give him another chance! All the while, they play nice with the other parents.

Why does it get to this point? Firstly, if parents would get involved in their clubs, they would get a better sense of the inner workings of that club and the evaluation process. Secondly, the clubs must do a better job in educating the parents and kids of the nuances of the process. Both would allow better communication and remove the uncomfortable disconnect between the two. The process isn’t broken but it could be streamlined for the benefit of all.

Marco

My love scale used to be simple. It was Mary, kids, pizza, everything else. My undying love for someone other than my Mary has reached an obsession. This love is for the Toronto Blue Jays and they are effectively running around on me, nightly.

They sucked me back in. From my adolescence in the 80’s to last season, I have had this urge to will them to win. I’m not greedy and demanding a World Series Championship. I would settle for a playoff berth and a run into the later rounds. Watching them implode the past 10 days has been ferociously painful for me. I won’t quit on them and frankly believe they will right the ship but I’m convinced I can’t watch the moment unfold anymore.

They are the kind of team that you want to root for. A bunch of looney dudes with bad hair and puffed out egos traipsing around the field with the ability to hit a ball further than a man should. Other times, you just can’t watch the train wreck of strikeouts with men on base and blown bullpen outings where the game seems in hand. I know that for 20 years, I didn’t care about baseball in September and I should be enjoying every nail biting moment of the season. In reality, it sucks to sweat this out nightly. I pray for a blowout for the Jays and I white knuckle the tight ones. I am elated when the Jays take a lead and the lows are so low when the opposition punches back.

I know i have a few more weeks of this sweating and it will either be over or I will sigh relief. Then the sweating will continue until its over. I’m a Jays fan and I can’t stop watching.

Marco