Deceptively Responsible:

Since the playoffs are in full swing, I figured now is a good time for a mostly unrelated post. While wasting away in a cubicle today, I thought up some summer goals for Deceptively Quick:

• Be the #1 Google search result for "Fred Hickman." As of this post, I'm #8, but I have yet to peak. Watch your back, Wikipedia. Past thoughts on Fred Hickman.

BREAKING NEWS! As of May 8th, (a day after this original post) Deceptively Quick has moved up to #6! They can't stop us now!

• Come up with some sort of banner/graphic/logo/thing to replace that horribly boring thing up there.


• Do an actual interview. Hopefully in the coming weeks this can happen, there's currently somebody playing for a small professional team in town who the world knows about, and who we all need to know more about.


• Increase my efforts on the Trade Zach Campaign.


• Finally promulgate the details of my anti-Blaze the Trailcat stance. Did you know it has an email address? Blaze@Blazers.com...Ugh.

I've Missed A LOT

Too much has happened since my last post. Some news would come out, I'd think about starting an entry and then some even bigger news would come out. I really wanted to finally outline my position on the Blazers mascot Blaze the Trail Cat (he sucks, but I want to go in depth about why, because that really needs to be said). Florida won. Paul Allen bought back the Rose Garden for real. The Blazers announced plans to retire Lionel Hollins Jersey , which is fine and dandy, but demands I remember how badly the Blazers have messed up on retired jerseys. Hollins was on the championship team in 1977, and they just announced plans to retire his number 30 years later. Hey Terry, hang in there. Ugh. Then I think about Terry Porter and it makes me want to get all nostalgic and talk about how he, in my opinion, is the most beloved Blazer figure to Rip City Fans. At least growing up in my house, Porter was god-like. Clyde's the most famous BLAZER, Walton's the most famous guy who was a Blazer. This could get messy, so I'll save it for another time.

Then, David Aldridge had a report about how the Blazers are ready and willing to use their lottery pick in this year's hyped up draft to bring in a good veteran. The link isn't on NBA.com anymore, but you'll have to believe me. Then I was cruising hoopshype and found a link to an SI article about Gasol still wanting out. Then my mind shoots off to entertain visions of Lamarcus Aldridge and Gasol running down the court together with pinwheels on. Not sure if Gasol would agree to it, but WOW.

And as always, I wanted to revisit the unresolved Fred Hickman issue (you'll have to dig in my old posts if you're curious). The playoffs are starting. Oh, and remember how Zach Randolph is sitting out the season to get back at me (he's on my fantasy team, and we're IN the playoffs)? Well I joked about having to replace him with Walter Herrmann. I did pick Walter up off of waivers, and he is NO JOKE! I still haven't seen him play, but the stats are keeping me competetive. Well ok, I've "seen" him play for the Argentina National Team, I think, I just don't remember. Why don't I remember? Well, he COMES OFF THE BENCH FOR THEM. Argentina's got some major talent, and here I always just watched because its my only time to enjoy Pepe Sanchez, who is one of my favorite players of all-time. I just checked out his site and saw that he's signed with And 1. Didn't know that, And 1 gets a couple cool points back.


Believe it or not, this was all just the beginning. The flood of topics, as well as recent life events that have drained my will/ability to be half-way funny, have created a log jam here at Deceptively Quick. I guess this means I just have to spend way more time blogging and watching basketball, life is hard.

arguably hating the underdog, and mamba camps.

Kobe gets love

Wow, reading this article sends my head running in several directions at once. Firstly, let me say that I'm not a Kobe fan. I'm not a constant Kobe hater either. The lengths some people go to hate Kobe is surpassed only by the pedestal the Mamba lovers put him on. These two polarized camps are engaged in a battle that is pushing each other farther and farther from center. Maybe this article is just the latest manifestation of this. It's a strange thing to watch play out, and it must seem unbelievably insane to Kobe himself, who is just playing his ass off the best way he knows how.

What first attracted me to the Kobe article though, was that NBA.com's front page link called him "arguably the greatest scorer ever." Hm. I know it's pointless to still bring this up, but its pretty annoying to throw "greatest ever" around. To paraphrase Kipp from Napoleon Dynamite's response to use of the term, like anybody could ever know that.

My newer beef with the Kobe link is the use of "arguably." Another tired tool used by everyone trying to puff someone or something up to levels they know it really doesn't achieve. It does make things easier though, so I may get behind it. Arguably, Dave McMenamin looks like a leprachaun.

I feel an NBA.com rant coming on. I will control myself, because that rant would need its own blogging community (Unlike Fred Hickman, who as described earlier needs only his own blog, basically to explain whats up with those glasses). I know they're the NBA and they have to do what they have to do, but sometimes it's like they are trying to suck with those articles. Blandness acheived and perfected. The Clyde Drexler post game interview of websites. By the way, although I have not yet succumbed, he is putting me at risk for being sucked into Dancing With the Stars by being on there. I'm not real happy about this. In the interests of fairness, NBA.com does have good box scores, stats, and the Arenas blog is there.

Switching topics, I was watching a little Southern Illinois vs. Kansas today. I have Kansas losing in the Finals in my bracket, so I was a big fan of them today. Then I realized every hoops fan fiber in my body was telling me to root for the Salukis during the game. The underdog, the overachiever, the scrapper. To my surprise, having a bracket filled out has been probably been undermining all of this for years. I'm not in any kind of pool with money on the line. Wow, if a meaningless bracket I filled out on yahoo can alter my behavior so much, my integrity as a real fan of the game has officially been compromised. I have nowhere to go with this topic, I just wanted to share my self-disgust. And of course, I'll continue doing the bracket thing.

Here's an article worth your time, Image paranoia is getting the best of the NBA. Ok, so she arguably gets carried away with comparing the current state of the NBA to period immediately after 9/11. Try not to let that discredit the whole article, there's some good points.

"People who believe the NBA is full of thugs will think that way no matter what. The NBA could play Paul Anka at every arena, ban rappers from NBA games, enforce haircuts and short shorts, but that isn't going to stop hip-hop fans from loving the game.

If anything, the NBA's tactics are only heightening the perception that the league is 'full of thugs.'"

yup.

What else happened in the NBA tonight that I could blog about, hmmmmm. Oh yeah, the Blazers won again without Z-Bo. Another point for the Trade Zach Movement.

Lottery! I'm a LaFan! Fred Hickman! Kenny!

That heartbreaker in L.A., then the blowout in Portland. The Oregonian was gloom and doom the next day (what? seriously? SHOCKING!!!). Blazer fans as a whole seem to be down a little bit as a result of the recent losing. After getting over the initial sick feelings of seeing Portland blown out by the Sonics, at home, with Ray Allen playing a bad game, I'm actually happy. Everyone wants Portland to make the playoffs. Why? So we can get our heads beat in during the first round? Don't give me the "learning experience" of losing in the playoffs speech. I want one more year of lottery. Give me a shot. Give me a legit, NBA ready 3 if you can. Give me one more piece. Thaddeus Young? Sure. An outside chance at Oden or Durant? Yes please! Jianlian? Umm, maybe.

Put it this way, what sounds better: Getting swept and dominated by Dallas, thereby gaining this "great experience" I've been hearing about...Or one of the top 14 players of this year's allegedly stocked draft? Let's think playoffs in a year or two, and let the competent Blazers draft system try to snag another top gem.

I'm not sure if anyone will talk about it, but Raef called out Darius Miles in the Oregonian the other day. Well sort of. In my mind, for sure. Raef is talking about the being injured/wouldn't be playing even if he wasn't injured situation, and talks about how other guys in the league would just sit around and pick up their check. Actually, he adds "guys on this team." It reminded me of how Darius has dropped from our collective Blazer consciousness. We gave up caring enough to hope a while ago, this is evidence that we gave up caring enough to hate. Ouch.

Raef Article

Here's a cool article about Kenny Smith, my favorite NBA analyst of all-time. He's one of the few that consistently brings insight. I really miss his back page SLAM articles.

Kenny Smith

Fred Hickman's glasses are out of control. I think I could write a 9 million word blog about this. In fact, I could start a blog called fredhickmansglassesareoutofcontrol.blogspot.com. I couldn't find a picture through my research that does it justice (I typed "fred hickman" into google image search), but if you've ever seen anything involving him on ESPN you know what I'm talking about. Then I wanted to know more about the man behind the nearly novelty glasses, so I checked him out on wikipedia, in a mostly heterosexual way. Here's an interesting passage:

"Hickman actually went bald on an episode of SportsCenter on September 21, 2006."

Ummmm, It's official, let the curiosity continue.....

Fred Hickman on Wikipedia