Then last night, he woke up again, this time at 2:15 and stayed awake until about 4:30 (as did I) before falling asleep. I've been at work both days, physically anyway, but my brain is tapioca and several people have commented on my barely opened, extremely bloodshot eyes. I do not look good.
But the trip to Vegas was fun. We met up with old friends and had a good time watching and playing basketball and cheaply gambling a small chunk of our paychecks away.
Here are some of the non-NBA summer league highlights:
- Pierre Lawrence - our buddy Kevin (a non-drinker, non-smoker, father of two little girls) was approached by the quintessential Vegas chick on Thursday night. She had tight pants, a tight, low-cut shirt, a cigarette in one hand and one of those giant fruity drinks in the novelty cups in the other. She asked Kevin if his name was Pierre from the Mirage. Jon laughed directly into her face and I claimed that his name was Jacque but thus, Pierre Lawrence was born at the Stratosphere.
- Bill Russell's minivan. I don't know why this tickled me so much but to see one of the NBA's all time greats parked in a modest minivan right next to me in a near-empty parking lot is something I won't soon forget. Russell seemed like a fun guy, he spent most of the game laughing and joking with his friend and wife while watching the Celts. I'm dying to know what was on the radio in his minivan.
- Travel nightmares - all of us had trouble arriving and leaving Vegas. My flight out of Portland was delayed for an hour and a half because of a thunder and lightning storm directly over PDX. I was originally supposed to arrive into Vegas a little after 1:00am but didn't get there until after 2:00. Matt nearly missed his flight from Eugene because the flight from Phoenix to Eugene was 3 hours late. He finally arrived at the Stratosphere around 3:15am. Both Jon and Kevin/Pierre were delayed leaving Dallas and Tulsa respectively. Returning to our homes was brutal but again, Matt had the worst of it. His plane was just about ready to leave when it blew a tire all over the runway and had to return to the tarmac. The debris on the runway caused a backup of jets including mine, delaying my takeoff by about 40 minutes (I was already 30 minutes delayed leaving so this put me a good hour and 15 minutes behind schedule). I finally took off and arrived into Portland at about 2:45 and arrived home about 3:30. Sadly, Matt's flight did not leave and he was forced to stay another night in Vegas and arrived at his hotel at 3:30am. On a positive note, he did get to talk with Joel "Lunch Bucket" Freeland who was hopeful of playing for Portland but not optimistic after an underwhelming summer league.
- Our intense games of 2 on 2 on Friday. And by intense I mean lazy and foul-ridden with missed shots galore. It was fun and we wore each other out. My wife has taken to calling me Uncle Rico after the uncle in Napolean Dynamite whom claims his high school football team could have taken state had the coach played him at quarterback. I must admit, some of the similarities are there.
- Robert Swift looks like he got lost on his way to Lollapalooza 1996. He has a gnatty red ponytail, tattoos covering most of his arms and holes in his face from all the piercings. He just looks slightly out of place on an NBA bench.
- I got $20 up on $2 roulette but lost it all within an hour. It was fun and infinitely more enjoyable pressing buttons on a slot machine and losing money, $0.5 at a time.
- I loved the set up of gyms in Vegas. Despite the fact that the Thomas and Mack Center stairs were a nightmare to scale (Bill Russell had no problems getting up them but I did) the set up allowed visitors to easily go from gym to gym during timeouts, halftimes and blowouts. The staggered starts meant that when one game finished you could bolt over to the other gym to catch the last quarter of the other game. When that game finished you could back over to the other gym in time to catch the start of that game.
I will be back with some player/team evaluations later.
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