It started in 1993. I had not really watched the Bulls that much except for the playoffs of 1992-93 season. I wanted to see what all the hype was about, the Bulls. The first game I watched I was hooked. I saw talented athletes playing excellent basketball and I was hooked. After the Bulls won the championship and Michael Jordan retired, I was shocked. I wondered how the Bulls would play without him. Everyone always said the MJ was the Bulls and I didn't buy it. Scottie Pippen was an amazing player, the Bulls had finally gotten Toni Kukoc to come over from Croatia, and they retained the core of their championship team minus MJ. I still believed in my Bulls and they almost did it. If Hue Hollins hadn't made that horrific call that stunned my little 13 year old soul, that could have been the year for the Bulls. That team had so much heart and so much to prove and I believed in them. Since then, my love of basketball has never waned. EVER.
I started watching any basketball that was on television and that is how I found Pat Summit and the Tennessee Lady Volunteers. I was amazed at her ability to mold these women into wonderful basketball players and how she has continually won championship after championship year after year. The more I watched women's basketball from the NCAA to the WNBA and the more men's basketball became full of loud mouthed thugs and less about playing the game, I never looked back and became a full on women's basketball supporter and I stopped supporting the NBA. I could not believe how much money these men were getting paid to run up into stands and beat up fans, to rape chamber maids, to bitch about winning championships and demanding trades. I could not watch it anymore. It tainted the men's side of the sport forever to me.
I am always talking about the Seattle Storm (my hometown team). I am always searching for any women's basketball game I can watch. WNBA.com is my homepage. I analyze statistics. I can often be found forcing friends who could care less about basketball to watch games with me and I will be teaching them how to box out or defend in the low post. I love to blog. For weeks my girlfriend, Julianna, has been on me to start a basketball blog. Perhaps maybe she is sick of hearing me talk about it all the time or she thinks I really have a knack for it. I guess we'll find out.
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The Bulls, huh? Well I'm not a Bulls "hater" but I never did like Michael Jordan one bit-still don't. Most over rated player in NBA history(next to Allen Iverson) in my opinion. He could score and all, but his defensive abilities were the over rated part.
I'm a true die hard Celtics fan. This season has been special to see them go from winning 24 lousy games last year to the Finals against the Lakers this season. 22 years since the last championship and it's looking like we will get #17 very soon! I was hooked on basketball at age 7, watching Larry Bird and Magic play in the classic NCAA Championship game. Indidna State vs Michigan State. My oldest brother loved Larry Bird and it didn't take me long to get hooked as well. He was a Celtics fan and we had gone to a few Sonics games but they just didn't grab our attention like the celtics had. We became true Celtics fans once Bird was drafted later that summer. We got hooked on the older players(Heinsohn, Russell, Havlicek, Cousy, KC Jones, and of course coach Auerbach) and were in awe of their success and passion for the game. The Lakers-Celtics rivalries for us were the best, we hated Cooper, Kareem, Rambis and Byron Scott with a passion. Magic for some reason we liked watchig. Hated when he got the best of the celtics but respected his game 100%. No love for the other lakers players, or their coach Pat Riley. Then when the Celtics played the BUlls and MJ went off for 63 points(and they still lost) I was impressed, but found a new non-liking for a player in the NBA. He now was in the same class as Bill Laimbeer, The Lakers(minus magic), and any Charles Barkley.
In 1986, the Celtics drafted Len Bias from Maryland. A few days later, he was promounced dead from an overdose of Cocaine. The Celtics future was hurting, bigtime. Bird was injured but playing still, other players were getting older and out of sync, and the Celts lost the 1987 Finals to the Lakers. After that season, everything downhill. A few good years in between, but nothing like this season after we acquired Ray Allen & Kevin Garnett.
So in between all those tough seasons, I found womens college basketball. UW games were fun to go to and mingle with the players and coaches aterwords. Went on through the mid-90's and in 1996 when the ABL Basketball league was founded, I started going to those games. Seattle Reign played at Mercer Arena. Good games too, mid size crowds but seeing the women on a professional level and getting the respect they deserved was great. That same year, the team USA olympic basketball team(led by Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, and Teresa Edwards) came to town to play the Womens UW Basketball team in an exibition match. Lots of people came out for the clobbering the UW got(Team USA won easily 96-47) and I was lucky wnough to meet all the team usa players after the game and made some new friendships.
The ABL went belly up in 1999, mainly because they paid the players way too much money. In a example of what today's wnba players make(94.000 max for the vets like Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson) the ABL from 1996-99' were paying top players $135,000. Bench players were making like 45,000, compared to about $28,000 for todays WNBA rookies and unrestricted free agents. This was 12 years ago, too!
The Storm finally came to Seattle in 2000, and I was so happy! New coach Lin Dunn(former coach at Portland in the ABL league) literally walked up and down the streets of Seattle, bouncing a basketball and getting people motivated for the inaugural season in Seattle! She is highly regarded along with Storm CEO Karen Bryant for getting the team solidified and on the WNBA map for good. She isn't that great of a coach on the hardwood, but she is a good motivator and promoter!
High point was the 2004 season when the Storm won the WNBA championship, of course! The parade a few days after the title was amazing and made me a true believer of basketball staying alive in Seattle. I wasn't worried one bit when they got bought by Clay Bennett and the city was tuck in a predicament of them possibly going to Oklahoma City. Now that we have new ownership that all is behind us and now we can focus on another title!
MJ was never my favorite player of any of those Bulls teams. Those teams had a lot of personalities that were interesting. Ron Harper, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and others were talented but not super talented. They just clicked together on the court. I liked the Aussie Luc Longley and grizzly bear Bill Wennington. It was never about MJ for me. I dislike Kobe for a lot of the same reasons I disliked MJ.
Ron Harper and John Paxson were my favorite Bulls players when they ruled the court. Harper was good before he went to the Bulls, but he was the "veteran" leader those teams really needed. Kind of like how San Antonio got Robert horry, the Lakers got Brian Shaw, and The Pistons got Wallace & McDyess. The titles those teams won were because of those vets who were big time leaders, on & off the court.
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