At a crossroads

Here's the thing: I've got the best job in town. No exaggeration. But with a new job comes new responsibilities. And new equipment. My master SJH mailing list is locked up in the old laptop, nowhere near where I need it at 4pm on Friday afternoons. So apologies for missing so many of you over the last few months. I'm trying to get it sorted out.

Meanwhile, play continues at SJH. And here's the blog again. How come? Last week someone—let's call him Mr. Dockery—buttonholed me about why I haven't been writing anything or posting to the blog. "Too busy," I said shamefacedly. "Baloney," he said. "What does it take you, 20 minutes?"

"You know," I said, "my new job's kind of high-profile. I don't want to leave a trail of weirdness that gets me in hot water."

"Phft!" said Dockery. "You're better than that."

"Come on, man," I pleaded.

We were standing at half court. "Look," said Dockery. "I'm going to shoot from right here. Half court. It goes it, you start up the blog again. Deal?" I liked the odds.

He shoots.

He scores.

And here I am.

Let me know if you will or will not be playing hoops at St. John tomorrow. Set your status here.

How you like me now?

And with the fourth pick of the 2010 NBA draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves choose . . . another season of striving—in vain—to achieve mediocrity.

As predicted here earlier, the Wolves chose another skinny 6'8" swingman last night. Another NBA career 12.6 ppg scorer. Another Orangeman who's known nothing but 2-3 zone his adult life. In other words, another sixth man.

The Timberwolves now have the largest collection of sixth men in the league. Looked at another way, the team that would have finished second or third in the SEC last year put themselves in excellent position to win 20 games in 2010-11.

Count me among those who thought the Pups should have selected a starter: DeMarcus Cousins. A risk? Sure, but there's nowhere for this team to go but up. Might as well let it ride. One thing the Wolves did not do last night is give any fan a new reason to buy a ticket. Again this season, the Wolves will be out-talled by Western Conference teams that sport three bigs (L.A., Utah, Portland, Dallas, San Antonio). No matter how good Johnson becomes, he will never be 6'11", 290 lbs.

As for the rest of the Wolves moves last night: [crickets]

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Overheard at a suburban watering hole last night: A gaggle of parents raving about their iPhones, and especially how wonderful it is for the kids to be iPhone-equipped.

"Our daughter uses it to check the weather before she goes out," a father gushed.

Of the top of my head I counted eight ways you could check the weather forecast before stepping out of our house without spending $400: TV (24-hour weather on channel 11.2), radio, three computers, the newspaper, the Wii weather channel, KARE-11s free phone-in weather line. Also you could look out the window. All data plans unlimited.

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You're probably wondering about last week's NBA Finals trivia challenge, right? Allow me to recap the questions and provide answers:

1. True or false: Phil Jackson has never coached an NBA Finals game 7.

True. Prior to last Thursday's game, Jackson-coached teams had taken only three series to seven games EVER. Last week's was his first game seven in the Finals.

2. Bill Russell has the most NBA championship rings (11). Who has the second-most?

Answer: Sam Jones, who played alongside Russell in Boston for all but one of Russell's championships.

3. Twenty-eight different coaches have won NBA championships. Five of those coaches have losing NBA records. Which of the following is not one of them?

Answer: Don Nelson not only has a career .557 record, he has never won a championship as a coach.

4. Who is the only 3-time NCAA college player of the year not to win an NBA championship?

Answer: Also a bit of a trick question. There has been only one three-time college player of the year: Ralph Sampson, who never won a championship. (Sampson was the AP Player of the Year, an award given since 1961. Both Sampson and Bill Walton were three-time Naismith Players of the Year, that award having been given since 1969. Walton won championships with both Portland and Boston.)

5. True or false: You will be at St. John for hoops tomorrow.

Answer: True. Prove it by updating your Doodle status. Remember, if we have 6 commitments by 10:00 p.m. tonight, then we're on. If we have fewer than 6, then hoops is cancelled.

Track meet

The Belmont Stakes is this weekend. As fate would have it, I was there last weekend.

Belmont is on the verge of liquidation and looked it, which conversely made it an emminently desirable locale for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Our private picnic area was right on the fence, and the 30 minutes between each race provided numerous opportunities for exploration.

The track was built for large crowds that no longer come. Today whole sections of the grandstand are closed off. Hundreds of betting windows formerly staffed by human beings are now occupied by ATM-like betting machines. The sparse crowd clusters toward the middle of the grandstand above the finish line. I wandered up to the second deck and situated myself within earshot of a group of older New Yawkers drinking Bud and talking New Yawk talk: "I tol' my boss f--- your overtime, I'm going to da track. Lookadat! That f---in' horse is a f---in' nag!"

A barbershop still operates on ground level under the grandstand. Amazingly, a patron was getting his hair cut as I passed. You have to think someone who gets their hair cut at the track is either at the track a lot, or has been getting their hair cut there since 1962, or both.

Wikipedia says Belmont is "considered one of the elite racetracks in the sport." If that's true the sport is in very sad shape indeed. For my part, I lost everything (i.e., $10) by betting in each race on the horse whose name most sounded like a cocktail. But I did come away with this conversation, overheard on the bus out through Queens:

Son: “Where’s Mike’s sister?”

Father: “She went home early. Her partner just had a baby.”

[Pause.]

Son: “Howzzat possible?”

Father: “They bought sperm.”

[Long, considered pause.]

Son: “Huh.”

Father: “I’d like to get into THAT business.”

A funny comment, I thought, on the way to a racetrack.

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Please let me know if you will or will not be playing hoops at St. John tomorrow. Post time is at 8:00 a.m.

No hoops on May 29

No hoops at St. John this week. See you on June 5!

No hoops on May 22

Due to extremely low turnout, tomorrow morning's game of 1-on-1 at St. John is cancelled. Hope to see you next week.

Stuffed

The thing about that Target Field is you can't quite believe you're in Minneapolis. Sitting in section 221 Wednesday I couldn't shake the feeling I was on a road trip to another city. Grass down there, sky up there, and birds in-between. Weird.

And straight across, Target Center. Remember that place? Looks like the thing they put over Chernobyl reactor 4. Just the other day I was telling someone the Timberwolves will be asking for a new arena in the next 2-3 years (provided they are still in Minnesota.) "No WAY!" the guy said. Yes way, I said. Having sparkly Target Field right next door clinches it.

Then I read this, from Simmons:

THE LINDSAY LOHAN AWARD FOR "OLDEST-LOOKING THING UNDER 22 YEARS OLD"

This goes to Orlando's Amway Arena (better known as the O-Rena), which opened in 1989 as a "state-of-the-art" place and quickly became the last nobody-had-any-idea-what-they-were-doing-when-they-were-building-these-things sports arena. No club seats, no midlevel boxes, concrete aisles … just call this place the Hot Tub Time Machine Arena. (When I walked in, I thought I was suddenly back in college attending a WWE event at the Worcester Centrum. I kept looking around for Rick Rude and Demolition.) The poor Magic recently had to build another new arena that opens next season; if someone doesn't purchase the O-Rena by next year (asking price: $90 million), the city of Orlando is probably knocking it down. So the Magic got 21 years out of a "state-of-the-art" arena. That's a catastrophe.

Oh, yeah. The Wolves are asking for a new arena. Care to start a pool on what day you see/hear the first rumblings?

By the way, David Kahn and soon-to-be-ex-coach Rambis were in Spain the other day watching Ricky Rubio, the best Spanish point guard in Spain. Word is he's not coming to the Wolves any time soon (my guess: never). So where does that leave the club this year? If they defy the odds and get the number one pick don't they have to take John Wall from Kentucky? The year after they took three point guards in the draft? Of course, the Wolves have never in their history beaten the lottery odds, so I'm not losing any sleep over this.

Only two current Wolves rank among the team's top 25 scorers, including Ryan Gomes with a paltry 2,957 points. That tells you everything you need to know about how many attractive free agents the Wolves have lured to Minnesota (and kept) over 20 years. Kahn knows he has no chance of landing a big-name free agent in the prime of his career (LeBron, Wade, et al.) Nor will he hire too old. So he will work furiously to land a mercenary vet who still has some gas in the tank and hopes to score one final payday, say Tracy McGrady or Dirk Nowitzky. He'll quickly learn he has no chance of landing any of those guys, either.

In the end Kahn will annouce he's signed something like the following:

• Steve Blake, who he will call "a tough-nosed player who can help us at either guard position."
• Zydrunas Ilgauskas, "a proven winner who can help us immediately" (not).
• Jordan Farmar, "a versatile guard who will provide valuable minutes" (in reality a middling player desperate to catch on anywhere now that the jig is up in L.A.).

This embarrassment of riches will be paired with the Wolves #5 pick. How about Wesley Johnson of Syracuse. Woo-hoo. Can you feel it?

By the way, if you do go to Target Field skip the Tony O's Cuban sandwich. It's decent but it will fill you up and you won't be able to get any of the other stuff you want later. There's a lesson for general managers in there somewhere. Still, we miss you, K.G.

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Please let me know if you will or will not be playing hoops at St. John tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual.

Irrefutable

(((PC(TMT)+(PhD-fd))-Kg)^OF)*WWW = http://goo.gl/xmrT

Where

PC = Pop Culture

TMT = Too Much Time

fd = final dissertation

Kg = has kissed a girl

OF = Other Fans

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Please let me know if you will or will not be playing tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual.