MY PAST AND MY PRESENT

The NBA has changed so much this season that I hardly recognize any of the teams anymore. The teams I used to root for are no longer the same, leaving me very conflicted. For instance, I used to love the Heat. I loved that my Eddie Jones was finally finding his niche with the team (even though I'll always consider him a Laker) and the running game he had alongside Lamar Odom and Dwyane Wade. But now, Lamar is with the Lakers (yay!) and the Heat have picked up Shaq (boo!) How can I possibly, in my right mind, root for a team with that fat crybaby??? And yet, I have nothing but love for Eddie and Dwyane. Those two deserve to have a good season... I just wish Shaq didn't have to be in the picture for that one.

But to complicate matters, tonight was a real toughie. The Heat played against the Spurs... and we all know that after Derek Fisher hit that 0.4-second shot in the playoffs last year against the Spurs, it fueled an even stronger Lakers/Spurs rivalry. (In actuality, I think the rivalry is really between Shaq and Duncan.) So it's also really hard for me to root for the Spurs, even though I think Manu Ginobili is such a BALLER! I couldn't decide who I wanted to win more tonight - Eddie or Manu... so I left it up to the Basketball Gods.

But what happens when the Basketball Gods decide to torture me by making me choose my past or my present... my past being Grant Hill and my present being Kobe Bryant. Grant Hill was my favorite player since his first season in 1994, when he shared the Rookie of the Year award with Jason Kidd. But when Kobe stepped into the basketball limelight in 1996, it's been Kobe the whole way.



My Lakers lost tonight... at the hands of Grant Hill. With less than 2 minutes left, Hill dropped two 3-pointers to put the game away. Against any other team, I'd be f.cking THRILLED! This poor guy has had soooo many ankle problems and surgeries to try to fix it all. He's basically been MIA for the past four years, but all of a sudden, he's making one heck of a comeback. Unfortunately, tonight, it was at the expense of my Lakers. Not cool. At least Kobe dropped 41 and taught young Dwight Howard a little lesson - to get out of the way when you see Kobe fly.



Said Kobe about Hill, "It's great to see him out there. It really is. He's always been a guy I looked at and patterned my game after, even when he was at Duke. I've been a fan of Grant Hill's for a long, long time." Oh, the irony.