I’m not surprised, I’m not shocked, and I’m not overly impressed by our win over the Lakers last night. This is what good teams do: they bounce back from losing streaks, they protect home-court, and they play hard with a playoff berth in mind; and we are now, sitting in 8th place in the West as winners of 12 of the past 13 games at the Forum, undoubtedly, a good team.
Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the game last night as Hyeok Jeong, my Chinese Economics professor, clearly not understanding how important it was for me to watch this game as 1/6th of a Grizzlies blog with 19 followers, had assigned his weekly 6-hour long (I wish I were exaggerating) problem set teaching me how foorish Americans were with our weak economy, producing a meager two percent growth rate compared to China’s ten. Irritated and tired sitting in Hyeok’s class as I type this entry fading in and out of his broken-English lecturing on the GDP price deflator and relative price changes, wishing that he had slipped on some ice outside and not made it to class, I have suddenly realized that he as a proud Chinese and I as a Grizzlies fan are not so different.
While Memphis is the second-youngest team in the league, hungry for a playoff birth, China has a young industrialized economy and hungry citizens (you don’t have a great GDP-per-capita over there, Hyeok. That’s right, I made an economics joke, I go to Vanderbilt and I am a nerd).
We are both ecstatic about our growth, occasionally forgetting that there is so much improvement because of how awful China’s economy and the Grizzlies have been. I am thrilled that we may double our win total from last season, a staggering 100% improvement, but I am sometimes forgetful in my exuberance that having twice as many wins as last year may still leave us out of the playoffs. Hyeok loves to brag about China’s growth and how much China has improved recently, but he seems to forget that they are just beginning to emerge from years of strict Communism and extreme poverty, while still completely lacking basketball knowledge, evidenced by the China effect almost leading to Tracy McGrady playing in the All-Star game.
We both have critics who wish to detract from our success by telling us that it is not worth getting excited about. Hyeok has “arrogant” Americans, such as myself, (the French may call us arrogant, but really it’s just accurate self-assessment) writing condescendingly about China and shows such as South Park poking fun at the Chinese. As a Memphis fan, I must deal with Lakers, Celtics, and Mavs fans at school looking down on me for being excited about 8th place, while Bill Simmons attacks either individual Grizzlies’ players, the great city of Memphis, Chris Wallace, or Michael Heisley (maybe that’s justified at times, he is one of SI’s bottom 3 owners in the NBA) at least once per mailbag and twice per NBA column.
Those people need to realize that the Grizz have great young players and will, provided that Heisley doesn’t have a fire sale following this season’s success a la the Florida Marlins following their World Series years, be a force to be reckoned with as our stars come into their own and as we add depth through the draft. China’s critics are right though: it’s impoverished, its growth rate means nothing, it will never have more than one good NBA player at a time, Chinese gymnasts are cheaters, and its government is corrupt.
Go Grizz! Go ‘Merka!
Announcement: Jumpstop Montague, Michael Edwards (one of The GrizzLife's biggest fans), Taylor Wood (coming because I promised him a free meal at a mid-western Waffle House), and I will be spending 31 of 40 hours on the road from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon in order to witness approximately 6 hours of greatness. We will drive to Memphis Friday afternoon and watch that night as the Grizzlies play Houston, attempting to win their 13th home game of the past 14, and then leave Memphis at approximately 3:30 AM to make the trip to the ‘Sota so we can get rowdy in the Target Center, driving back to Nashville immediately following the game to do what Vandy students do: homework. A special thanks to Mr. Staley Cates for providing us with Grizzlies gear that will be proudly sported at the Forum and in Minneapolis. I personally will be frantically waving one of the flags as we show the 11-38 T-Wolves how big a mistake it was to give OJ to the Grizz in a draft-day deal. Thank you for helping us live the Grizzlife.
Big Shot Bob
No comments:
Post a Comment