For spring break, most people like to go somewhere warm. It makes sense -- "spring" in Michigan means "Really? More snow? Really?" This year, the week before spring break Ann Arbor was hit with 10 inches on Monday and then steady snowfall throughout the rest of the week. Students, of course, want to get away from that.
Some go to Cancun, some go to Miami. Some, like the Michigan Daily's sports editor Ryan Kartje, go to New Orleans (even though he didn't even root for the Saints in the Super Bowl. I'm sorry, but if you aren't from Indy, how did you not root for the Saints? Jeremy Shockey played the "bad guy turned good who put his ego aside and just wants to win" part perfectly, Drew Brees is probably the most likable player in the league, the more Reggie Bush succeeds, the more shots of Kim Kardashian we get to see on SportsCenter, and of course THE ENTIRE CITY WAS THRASHED BY A DEVASTATING HURRICANE JUST FIVE YEARS BEFORE. Seriously? Why would there even be a debate? But, as usual, I digress.)
I went to neither of these places. In fact, I didn't even go anywhere warm (well, unless Hell counts as somewhere warm). I went, of course, to Columbus, Ohio.
I followed the Michigan basketball team to Columbus to watch them take on the Buckeyes and Evan Turner. And unfortunately, everyone was pretty nice and the student section was actually kind of funny. It's impossible to win when you go to Columbus; either you have a horrible time and everyone there seems to have the intelligence of an inbred mongoose, or nobody really bothers you and the place doesn't smell TOTALLY like urine and you're disappointed because you expect it to be horrible and reaffirm your belief that Columbus is the Somalia of America. The best you can do is not stay too long and GTFO before the city gets its stink on you (the smell is kind of a cross between a skunk ovulating and 28 of these guys farting continuously), which is what we did.
And FYI: everything you've heard about Evan Turner is true. I mean, there are great college players (I would consider Manny Harris to be among them), and there are GREAT PLAYERS. He's the latter. The guy really impressed me. Sure, he 's got an NBA body, sure he can finish in the paint against anybody, and sure he can eat up shots LeBron-style, but what surprised me was how smart he was. Stat line against Michigan: 18 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists. I mean, he's OSU's point guard, and he's great at it. The Free Press's Mark Snyder brought up an interesting point to me at the game, wondering what would have happened if John Beilein had kept Manny Harris in the point guard spot he had him in for most of last year. Would he be turning in stat lines like the one above instead of his usual 18-5-3? Maybe. But I never saw Manny display the kind of court vision Turner has. There were a few possessions when Turner went one-on-one and forced up a bad shot, but those were few and far between. What to take away from this: Turner is really, really good. Anybody who says he doesn't deserve player of the year is an idiot.
Anyway, even though Michigan lost, they put up a good fight (they even led by one at halftime) and I felt like writing something nice, so I did.
But that wasn't the end of my spring break adventures. Far from it, in fact.
About a month ago, Daily hockey writer Mark Burns and I hatched a plan to go to an NBDL game over spring break. The NBDL, of course, is the National Basketball Development League, kind of like the minor leagues baseball but with less hope. Burns and I decided we would go to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants game against the Dakota Wizards. That's right -- to kick off spring break, consecutive trips to Columbus and Fort Wayne. What can I say? I work hard, I play hard.
About a week before the game, we get some terrific news: Hasheem Thabeet, the former Connecticut Husky to whom this happened and the second overall pick of the NBA draft (good thinking, Grizzlies!) got assigned to the D-League. His team? You guessed it: the Dakota Wizards.
Needless to say, Burns and I were pretty pumped about this trip. Not only were we going to see such greats as Dan Dickau and Jared Reiner, but we were going to see a legit wildly overrated NBA prospect! Really, the novelty of seeing someone who's 7-3 right in front of you was enough. On a scale of 1-10, our excitement level was somewhere between an 8 and pissing ourselves during the drive over. Though he won't admit it, I'm convinced Burns peed a little when he heard Thabeet was moved down.
Thabeet was a bit of an enigma in college at UConn. He was 7-3, but didn't really figure out how to use his body until he was a senior. He was the most improved player his senior year though, and many people, including NBA scouts, thought he finally had it figured out and who doesn't want a 7-3 shot-blocking machine on their squad? No one, that's who. Unfortunately for the Grizz, Thabeet may be 7-3, but coordinated and fluid he is not. He's extremely awkward, walks kind of like a stork, and his shoulders are about as broad as mine were when I was 12. Apparently nowadays, that just won't cut it in the NBA.
A few thoughts on the game:
-Here's why being a fan of a D-League team doesn't work: if you want the Mad Ants to win at all, you want them to win more than any of the players. There isn't a player on that team (or any D-League team, for that matter) who gives two shits about who wins on any given night. All these guys care about is individual development and what they need to do to get to the League. It's completely understandable. The problem is, that doesn't make for very good basketball. I had a great time at the game and I liked watching these guys, but what makes basketball really fun is watching two teams that want to win more than anything in the world. You'll never get that in the D-League because the players don't care who wins. Even the coaches don't seem to. If the Mad Ants coach was at all concerned about winning, he would have kept Dan Dickau in the entire game. Instead, he took more of a Rec and Ed approach and played everyone about the same amount of time. Essentially, you get more spirited competition watching pick-up games at the park.
-That being said, these guys are good. Watching them made me realize exactly how hard it is to get to the NBA. These are all legitimate players. Take Dan Dickau -- he was a star at Gonzaga and spent six years in the NBA, but now he's playing for the Mad Ants. Offensively, he looked great (he dished out eight assists). He could get any shot he wanted and his court vision was miles beyond anyone else's. And then he played defense. Well, he tried to play defense. Actually, it didn't look like he was trying. The point is, you have to be so good at every aspect of the game to even be considered a marginal player in the NBA. It really was eye-opening.
-Thabeet had a great stat line (8-10, 19-16-6 (blocks)), but it was very quiet. Burns called me after we got back to tell me the stats because he was so surprised. He didn't seem dominant, but he actually was. He'll be back in the NBA, and he looked like he was trying, which is more than I could say for myself if I was the second pick in the NBA draft and got optioned to the D-League.
Other, non-player-related notes:
-There was a hilarious drunk guy sitting just a few seats down from us, which made everything way better. He clearly came to every game and had been drinking since about four hours before the game started. He kept yelling at the Mad Ants coach to put him in the game, even though this guy was probably 6-1, 245 pounds and almost 60. He was hollering unrepeatable things at Thabeet the whole time, and at one point looked over at me and told me to get in the game. The lesson, as always: drunken old men are hysterical.
-I had emailed one of the Mad Ants office workers asking her is she needed an intern over the summer, hoping to be doing something better than working at Leslie Park Golf Course, which is what I did last summer. I didn't get a response, so I thought I would approach her about it after the game. After the game ended, Burns and I looked for her all over the place, finally spotting her after about 10 minutes. She said she had the email (awesome!), but didn't need any interns. She said she would look for her boss, because he usually needs a few interns. So we waited. And waited. About 20 minutes later, her boss approaches me and says he doesn't need any but thanks anyway. So a half-hour later, looks like I'm still working at Leslie. Better brush up on my cart-cleaning skills.
INN CROWD
