He signed a gazillion autographs and "coached" the "T-Mac NBA All Stars" vs. Hot Sauce and the "Street Ball Legends" this afternoon at Lamar U's gym. I'm glad he at least showed up-- I could just imagine him getting up this morning, or whenever, staring into his coffee, and thinking, oh great, I get to go to Beaumont today-- but disappointed that he didn't shed his bling and play a little bit. A few observations from the game, FWIW: T-Mac looks like he's in shape. No off-season blubber at all. Hear that, Yao? Speaking of blubber, Oliver Miller was out there. Oh my gawd, he sets a mean pick. By that I mean he ate one of the dudes he picked. Daniel Ewing can flat-out play. The Clippers got a steal there. He hit about ten threes, had some great assists and finishes, showed some tremendous athleticism. When that lightning-quick little I'll Be Right Back tried to take him to the rim, there was nothing doing-- Ewing could step-slide quickly enough to stay in front of him. That was the most impressive thing I saw on the court, not counting the halftime ladies' back sides. High Rizer can jump almost as high as David Thompson, back in the day. Kendrick Perkins should've left the open court ball handling to anyone else. OK, a little bit I could forgive, for the homeys and all, but... well... Anyway, I wouldn't say that to his face, so maybe I shouldn't say it here. You're a great young power forward, Mr. Perkins. The game was something of a dunk fest that the NBA guys won by about six points. Ewing put his own exclamation point on it with a nice 360 jam at the buzzer.
To be fair, Yao couldn't work out much due to the ankle surgery. It's not like he decided to hit the buffet and play CS all day long.
I hope Daniel Ewing, TJ Ford, or Rashard Lewis end up back in their hometown!! Houston produces some mighty fine basketball players!!
Tracy, Daniel Ewing, Kendrick Perkins and Oliver Miller were it I believe. Ewing was the star of the game. I have a lot of Tracy pictures from the game, and I'll upload a few of them tomorrow or Monday if anyone is interested. All in all, it was a great event... I was incredibly impressed with Tracy's character. You don't see many stars signing autographs that long for that many people. (That said, he had enough interest that one of the barriers to the court collapsed from people leaning over to hand him things to autograph and people fell onto the court, a couple on me... that was quite frightening.) I got a couple of quotes from Tracy, but only about the charity work he does. He didn't stay long enough for me to ask him about DA or Spree or any of the things I really wanted to know about.
