In a world of hypotheticals....

Did you miss me America? Well a lot of shit has happened since i wrote last. I have started school. When my time isnt consumed by writting shit for my AP English class (yup i am taking AP English! Me, the same guy who couldnt even form a comprehensible sentence 2 years ago) i am chilling with my friends. I have been balling, lost some of my bunnies, but i can still dunk two handed on 10 feet.

On here, one of the best pieces ever written was wrote (look at the article directly below this post for proof) by RV and their were so many Moose Tracks everywhere that it appeared some canadians showed up and had a orgy.

I am cutting down on my SLAMONLINE commenting due to 2 overlying problems:

1) I dont have any computer classes this year (thank god i dont gotta deal with ms haynes ever again)

2) It sorta sucks now. Ryne made all these 'rules' that restrict what you can and cannot say. Since i enjoy 'flame wars' and 'off collar comments' which are now outlawed, i cant find any way to have fun. So i guess i will have to resort to new techniques for conjering words together, but until i do, the 'BETCATS domination of the comment box' will not be what it once was....


In global news, well a lot of shit has happened. California is constantly on fire. Speaking of California, i swear they voted to ban gay marriage last year! If that is the case, somebody please explain how the Lamar Odom/Khloe Kardashian marriage got through. (sorry Khloe, i would probably bone you too but the jokes are just waaay too easy).

Other then the goofy state of Cali, Iran has been making nukes, everyone has forgot about North Korea, Israel is still expanding, the British Prime Minister claims that he was chosen to lead the world out of recession, and the entire time Barack Obama has been dilly-dallying concerned about health care. I am in favor of a public option, but right now it is just not do-able. We need to get out of the finacial crisis before we deal with health care. I am not saying dont pass any reforms now, but lets not pass any that would just add to the debt, which is already insurmountable. The civil rights movement wasnt fought and won in a day, or via one bill. Why should health care be any different?

DJ Pretty Kitty recommends you all go to Datpiff.com and download the new Gorrila Zoe mixtape 'GI JOE'. Yeah, its the shit.

I salute you all:

(for some reason i cant embed stuff, if anyone wants to help me, feel free)

Ps- Thanks for reading
Pps- If it was underlined/bold it was a link
Ppps- I like doing this 'ps thing' (it has been a reacurring theme in my last 2 pieces!)
Pppps- get fucked
Ppppps- thats it im done

Tracy McGrady, I apologize.

I apologize. I apologize for questioning your talent. For doubting your desire to be great. For not believing you gave 100% on the court. Not because I believe I was wrong, but because now I know it was justified. How do I know? Because for most of my basketball playing days I was you. Yes, I was the Latino T-Mac. Allow me to explain.

First, let me point out I was never a serious threat to play pro-ball. I became more preoccupied with working to make my own money. And well, it's hard out there for someone 5'9 and 160. So I had to be T-Mac of the playgrounds (ok stop laughing). Yeah I was that guy who could keep his team of scrubs in games, scoring 70-80% of points. The guy who didn't always have to drive because he could get his shot over anyone . I would talk trash and guarantee wins because I knew my talent was good enough to take over when I wanted. Practice? We talkin bout practice?? Never heard of it. Never done it. Just laced them up, threw up some warm up shots and my game was on.

However, there was always something missing in my game. I played consistently well, but there always seemed to be that itch I couldn't scratch. I could dribble well, but couldn't handle the rock. I could shoot well, but couldn't stroke the jumper. I could block shots, but didn't swat them. I could get assists, but didn't really throw dimes. Know what I mean? I got the job done, but it wasn't basketball pretty sometimes. My conditioning was great, I was athletic, knew how to play, but yet some let downs had people questioning my effort at times. I could snatch the ball from a fast breaking point like T.J ford used to do, so then why would a guy go around me so easily? I could drain 30 foot jumpers, but I missed that breakaway layup? Grabbin' rim one day and grabbin' net the next?? WTF is going on? Everything felt right to me. Nothing hurt. My brain knew what I wanted to do, it sent that electrical signal ASAP, yet my body was doing its own thing.

"I saw the guy out of the corner of my eye, so I went to change up my shot and no elevation.” -T-Mac, after getting hung on the rim last season

Now I know why. Back in 95' I had suffered a serious left ankle sprain playing for my 7th grade team. No medical treatment. No rehab. No crutches. That big ass ankle brace? My Pennys couldn't squeeze around it. I hobbled around school for almost a month. Came back to the team too early. Eventually the pain went away, but my ankle never felt the same. I just figured it was normal after such an injury. I did visit a few doctors, even specialists, over the span of 10 years. Never got me anywhere. Now, within the last half a year, my whole left side has felt like it was breaking down one piece at a time. The bones in my ankle were grindin' harder than a high school couple. At prom. With hotel reservations for later. My shoulder stayed away from it's joint like it was on probation. Knee was more unstable than Ron Artest. Had a little snap in my hip, a crackle in my thumb and a pop in my elbow. Turns out that old injury caused all this. I had limped around for so long that even after my ankle had "healed", most of my left side was still tight and tense from trying to stay off the foot. Most of the muscles on my right side had become very dominant and now they were just taking the left ones along for the ride. If you were to look at me nothing was obviously wrong. Yet I had a very significant muscle imbalance that was throwing my body alignment out of whack.

"His whole body was imbalanced from basically his shoulder blades down to his feet. He was developing a lot of back problems ... He was developing strength in an imbalanced fashion." - T-Mac's physical therapist, David Reavy .

And that is why I'm T-Mac. Because I too once though I could play through pain, only to have it catch up to me. I too thought I had figured it out and was coming back healthy. Better than ever even. And failed. I too thought I had an easy play once, only to have my body fail me and it too left me looking like a joke. But now I know what was really wrong all this time. Now I can truly rehab. Now I can truly feel the difference. I can feel better than ever. Now I can scratch that itch. I know where it is. And I'm going to scratch it well. Maybe too well. Tmac has been breaking down like me. The root of my imbalance was an old injury, his was scoliosis, an imbalance that became worse with time. Every new injury led to a bigger imbalance because it meant another part of your body has to pick up the slack. Back problems? More imbalance. Knee issues? Shoulder problems? More imbalances. T-mac had them all. Why didn't other trainers or doctors fix this before? Why didn't my doctors fix me? Well sometimes doctors don't care enough, or don't have enough time to look any further. Most of my doctors wouldn't look further into my case simply because the x-rays showed nothing negative. They never asked further questions. Maybe they didn't care enough or didn't know enough. I had my suspicions something was wrong. Some friends and family even accused me of just trying to find something wrong, like if i needed an excuse to not do well. The professionals were telling me everything was fine. So I had to be , right? So I ignored any creeping pain or discomfort over the years. Now, I am lucky enough to have just graduated as an exercise science major. That education allowed me to self-diagnose and now treat myself. T-Mac though, he's got Tim Grover and his staff. The best in the business.

When I got here with these guys, [shoot] I think after the first week when I was working with [Dave] I was feeling good, I was like, "Damn," 'cause he was getting other muscles to fire on my body that hadn't fired in a long time." - T-Mac



Its not just his latest rehab attempt that I respect, but everything he's done so far in his career. Every practice, every weight training session , every shootaround. The 13 in 35. The all-star selections. Scoring leader. The 47 in Utah just last year. Why? Because he did it with his body all jacked up. I make sure I remind my boys at the playground of the same. How I played well back then all out of whack and now I'm fixing myself up. Imagine what I'll be able to do once I'm done. Be afraid, very afraid. They laugh, though. They think I'm crazy and don't take my words very seriously. I'd like to see Kobe Bryant score his 20+ a game with one shoe on, his jersey tucked in too tight, the drawstrings to his shorts tied around his back and then up to his neck, all while turning his hips just slightly to the right. At least that's kind of how I felt, but I imagine T-Mac can relate. This began for me at a young age. I had just seriously started playing sports, after being mostly a couch potato, so I couldn't compare how my movements felt before and after my injury. I hadn't played ball much prior to it. I didn't know my feet could be so much more stable while taking a freebie, among other things. T-Mac is similar because he's had scoliosis, and therefore some degree of muscle imbalance, since he's been playing ball. Just like me, he didn't know how much better he could move. Neither of us knew what right felt like until we were right.

"I think he's gonna be a player like he used to be in his younger days, because his body is balanced now," Reavy says confidently. "He's using all his muscles properly and everything's absorbing a force and creating a force versus just the knee." -Reavy

So yes, i do believe T-Mac will truly be back in All-Star form. It's unfortunate he didn't get his body corrected until this late in his career, so age and wear and tear will stil affect him. I don't think we'll truly know how great he would have been had he done this earlier and stayed with it. But believe it when he says he's coming back this year. Believe it when he says he'll make it right after so much wrong last season. I do. I know how correcting the problem can make simply moving around so much better. So much easier. After years of working harder just to move incorrectly, now we just work hard to move correctly.. So let them think you're all talk. Let them believe they've heard this before. Let them look past you. Let them laugh at you and point fingers. Let them, because in the end, you will have the last laugh.

Rockets are Loving It

New alternate unis...

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/rocketsunveilalternatejersey_2009_09_23.html

http://www.click2houston.com/video/21094330/index.html


READ MOOSE'S PIECE AFTER THIS!!!!!

I believe, scratch that, I know...

With the two above pictures, you probably have an idea about what part of this post is about. There is a lot of hype surrounding both of these young hip hop artists. I want to give my opinion on both of them. But you already knew that.

I'll start with Drake. Aubrey Drake Graham . . . has the amount of hype that makes LeBron look underrated (what a coincidence!). In my opinion, Drake is overrated. He has a few tracks that are smooth (Forever, Successful, Best I Ever Had). This guy is good. But they keep saying that he'll be able to change the hip hop game forever. I really don't know if that is possible. But he sure seems to think so (The game needs some change/and I'm the motherfuckin' cashier). We'll have to see about that one.

Asher Roth is a different story. The people who don't listen to all of Asher only hear the "I Love College" Asher Roth and they frown upon him without hearing more of his songs or the more articulate Asher Roth. His music is good; his rhymes are clever and it's different. He's not trying to be something he's not; he's just keeping it real HIS way. Maybe it's the fact that I can relate to it that makes me like it (hip hop that I can relate to is hard to come by; but I love it anyways), but I think it's great. Keep doing what you do, Asher.

This wins t-shirt of the week. It wasn't a giant crater. Take THAT, eighth grade earth science. Just playing, school.

Something funny! Something funnier! Something funnier than that? Wow! And he's from Massachusetts?

SLAMOnline is slacking. Not the site. The site is great; the site is improving all the time, the SLAM guys are up and continuing to raise the bar, up the ante, all that other cliche stuff. But, the comments section...is getting sad. We need to make it better. The absence of key guys is really apparent, and I'm wondering where everybody went. This is the Top 50 specifically. And, about that, where is Rondo??? Seriously messed up. If this whole mediocre commenting scene isn't different by the time the season starts, then...I don't know. I'll follow hockey, then (please god, no!).

NFL week two...my Patriots are not coming out of the gate like we thought they would. Brady is completing 60+ percent of his passes, but his passer rating is low and he has two touchdowns compared to two picks. Not great at all. Our defense is just atrocious so far, but maybe we'll figure it out. Bill Belichick always has a plan. Usually always has a plan. But the Patriots are 1-1 and we could've just as easily been 0-2. The Niners and Falcons are 2-0. I hope this balances itself out. We need to give my man Matt Ryan some problems this Sunday.

And let me add something else onto that--Rex Ryan has proven himself to be a jerk so far. Yeah, his defense is good, but the dude isn't being very sportsmanlike--he said that he didn't want the Jets to beat the Pats, he wanted to "embarrass" them. He sent out three ex-Patriots as captains to the coin flip (among them their third string QB who used to be with NE). Just classless

I'll leave you with the greatest intro in hip hop history IMHO...


--Moose

Yaooooooo

A little vid for those rockets' fans out there...and those closet fans as well, i know y'all are out there...

NFL Week One...and everything else from the past week

A Moose Track

Can Adrian Peterson win a whole fantasy football league? Uhm, I think that he just might. Three touchdowns, 100+ yards, and that 67-yard run was incredible. Let's take another look...


How good is AP really? This guy is just insane. And, he's going up against the Lions' defense next weekend. On to other good performances from this past weekend...

Drew Brees: 348 yards, 6 touchdown passes. Six. Touchdown. Passes. That won't happen against any other team than Detroit, who he obviously picked apart. Man, I feel bad for the Detroit Lions. I mean, there are some bad teams in sports, and we all get that: they're worse than everyone, don't win many games...but they all win a couple. The Lions need at least one win this year; it's just sad if they repeat last year.

Tony Romo and Joe Flacco both threw for three touchdowns, but the most interesting quarterback situation was in New York, where they were starting the rookie, Mark Sanchez. The former USC Trojan threw for 272 yards with a touchdown. Not bad for a rook who's thrown into a starting spot with a mediocre team.

Anyways, on to the last one, and of course the most interesting--New England Patriots. Everyone had their eyes on Brady's leg, and we all know that he didn't look very comfortable on it at the beginning, but he did improve as the game went along. Started off shaky, ended well. Even if we had to take it to the last two minutes to beat the Buffalo Bills. Pains me to think about it. Our offense looked nice. They established the run game well, and the passing game looked fine. But, the Pats' defense sucks. Plain as that. SUCKS. And it really doesn't help that we lost our second-best defender in the first half for almost the whole season.

Off of football now and on to pop culture. Kanye....Kanye....Kanye. Man. I was thinking about why Yeezy did this the other day, and I thought "He probably thought it was a good idea at the time". But I thought a little more about it, and I had no idea how Kanye thought that any good would come from that. And to all people, Taylor Swift?? Jeez. How could you be so hea-art-less? And, he looked like a fool anyways because Beyonce won best overall video. For him, this is frickin' embarrassing.

I know DP's opinion on the Blueprint 3; what did you guys think? Overall, I liked it. Some of the songs were painfully bad, but other than that most of it was pretty slick...I got the tickets and it cost a lot of hard-earned money so it better be good...

So I want to talk about the SLAMonline Top 50. Where's the energy? None of the regulars are showing up, nobody's commenting that much; it just doesn't have the fire that it had last year. You guys know what I'm talking about. And, where have all the SKO guys been? Not just on SKO, but on SLAM as well. If any of you are reading this, where are you guys?? Which is a perfect segue to my next topic...

Has HIBACHI lost readers instead of gaining them? Commenting has gone significantly down; I'm just a little bit worried and kind of interested about this. Anyways, to our faithful readers/commenters, thank you.

With that, I'll leave you something from Deltron 3030...


--Moose

DP vol 2....What we talkin bout?????

Yo man what we talking bout? We talkin bout real ish or we talkin bout fake ish?/ We talkin bout healthcare? Na homie I don't play with./ We talkin bout the top 50 or we talkin bout Mike?/ We talkin bout Stockon being one of the greatest PG's??? aite./ We talkin bout Moose or we talkin bout Hursty?/ We talkin bout Mr. Walsh....oh yeah that's my broski./ I ain't talkin Eboy, I ain't talkin bout Riq.../I'm talkin bout me and my boy B.E.T/.....man I'm talkin bout Bachi,I'm talkin bout the takeover, I'm talking bout young Hov...he's album is hella dope you should pick it up out the stores.../That's what I'm talkin bout./ (Not done yet so keep rhyming with a playa). I'm talkin bout life and I'm talkin bout fame,/ I ain't talkin bout how my high school football can't win a game/...that's not what I'm talkin bout./ I'm talkin partying and I'm talking bout dancing.../I'm talking bout how I almost got arrested last weekend/ that's what I'm talking bout... Hahah man I'm talking bout money and I'm talkin bout cars.../I'm talkin bout clothes and I'm talkin bout hoes..../I just want to be....I'm talkin bout college and I'm talkin bout scholarships,/ I'm talkin bout takin the ACT this morning and I know I aced the shit.../That's what I'm talking bout... Yep, I'm talking bout Wale and I'm talking bout Cudi..I'm talking bout how both of their albums are going to be as dope as silly puddy..That's what I'm talkin bout. (last line was lame, I know, but work with me). I'm talkin bout Young Tebow and I'm talking bout Barkley, I'm talking bout the QB from Michigan, yo TAD holla at me...that's what I'm talkin bout. I'm talkin bout bball, I'm talking bout the grind..I ain't talkin bout my job, fuck you pay me is line...that's what I'm talkin bout. I'm talkin bout my swag and I'm talkin bout tools...I ain't talkin bout you and guess what??? this just the first part of volume 2. That's what I'm talkin bout...............play wit it.

The End of the Rainbow

A Moose Track

Usually there's a pot of gold right about now. But that doesn't have anything to do with anything, I just randomly put that as the title to this post because it was the first thing to pop into my mind. Lotsa topics to discuss here. So let's get moving....

First, my condolences. This has been a summer of great loss, and this just adds to the list. Rest in peace to Ted Kennedy, an American legend and a Massachusetts staple. He will be missed. My prayers go out to his family. Also, rest in peace to Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM. My prayers go out to his family as well. We'll be able to say more on this once we get the whole story, but for now we don't know everything about that.

Okay. Richard Seymour was traded to the Oakland Raiders for their 2011 first round draft pick. I was kinda mad when I first heard it; he was a rookie when I first became a Patriots fan in 2001 (when I was seven) and I've been watching his whole career ever since, always been one of my favorite players. I mean, the dude's 6-6, 310 and runs faster than most NBA point guards. Well, not that fast. But wicked fast, anyways.

I realized that there were probably some problems with the Patriots organization and Seymour, and his contract expires after next year, so they realized that they might as well get rid of him now with payoff if they weren't going to be able to pay him anyways. Makes sense to me; but I'm still not happy about it. At least Oakland will give us a nice first-rounder in twenty-ten. And, he helped win three super bowls. Good enough for me. Thanks for the contributions, Richard.

The Blueprint Three kinda came out this week, and I thought that it was pretty good. Not amazing. Pretty good. The beginning of the album was better than the second; the opening two were nice, and of course D.O.A. and Run This Town were niiiiice. The album was good, not incredible. Empire State Of Mind was good; Alicia Keys is sick. I'm going to try to get tickets to the one at UMass-Amherst or Rhode Island....wish me luck.

Allen Iverson to.....Memphis?! The Grizzlies don't care about winning, only putting fans in the seats for a game or two. Memphis owner Michael Heisley: "Obviously I think he’d be a crowd pleaser in Memphis.” Well, obviously Mr. Heisley has no intention of competing at least this year. Well, at least the dude is a realist.

Anyways, that's pretty much all I got for now....I'm out then. I'll leave you with a song from Boston's best....



Be easy.

--Moose

Not the final piece of the puzzle, but it's nice....