The Chantastic Blog

I do a lot of stupid things make idiotic decisions frequently do a lot of unconventional thinking, but I think today may have been my finest hour.

I’m recovered from my flu of two weeks ago, but still dealing with the lingering effects of bronchitis that leads to excessive coughing. This cough is exacerbated by talking and taking deep breaths.

Since I’ve been sick, I haven’t done any physical activity in over three weeks, so my endurance - which had been slowly building up - is shot. Of all the unwise things I could have done, I think that playing both basketball and ball hockey in one day is at the top of the list. As I said, deep breaths aggravate my bronchitis cough. I’m already going to be sucking wind because I haven’t done any running in a long time. Then make the problem way worse by scheduling a basketball-hockey day/night doubleheader. Needless to say, I was ready to collapse after ball hockey tonight while nearly coughing up a lung.

Oh, and did I mention that exams are next week?

It was fantasy basketball draft weekend last week, which included a draft, an auction, the uttered phrase, “I’ll see you guys in 11 hours” at 1:15 AM on a Sunday morning, and about 127 e-mails leading up to and after it. My favorite e-mail by far came from my buddy Cobra (who may have gone out of his way to drink Cobra beer that weekend, which in and of itself was pretty awesome):

“Most surprising thing of the draft: the amount of Chan smacktalk. Man you talked s*** about nearly every single guy in the first half of the draft, it was really something. We need to get you liquored up for drafts more often.”

It’s been a while since I’ve been this proud of anything - this e-mail is officially my badge of honor.

After watching the NBA playoffs on TV, I couldn’t help but notice how sweaty everybody gets. That got me to wondering - couldn’t players use that as a weapon by not wearing any deodorant? This would be most effective for big, physical players who bang bodies for rebounds, but it’d also have to be someone who wasn’t above playing little dirty tricks like this to get an edge. For example, Kenyon Martin would be the type of player who would benefit from doing something like this because of the physical style that he plays. However, does this look like a man who would compromise his street cred by doing that? I don’t think so. It’d have to be one of those scrappy, annoying guys who gets under the skin of opponents while grabbing rebounds, like Sideshow Bob Anderson Varejao. And then near the end of his career, he could become the spokesman of Right Guard by describing how it changed him from one of the most hated players in the NBA - even by his own teammates - to a beloved role player. I’m convinced this could work.

After hearing about his documentary, Kobe Doin’ Work, I’m convinced Spike Lee has had this basketball documentary idea for a few years now, and wanted to do it on the marquee player of the Knicks. Unfortunately, since 2003/04, those players have been Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, and Zach Randolph. Even Spike knows that the only place Randolph does any work is at McDonald’s. So finally, he gave up and chose the guy who he could count on giving a crap - Kobe Bryant.

To continue on the theme of wrestling from my previous post, there’s an interesting struggle over Denver’s Pepsi Center for next Monday. You have to love Vince McMahon’s snarky little quote at the end. My guess is that the NBA reschedules the game for Tuesday because I don’t see McMahon backing down.

I was watching a Spurs game over the weekend (because Tony Parker’s on my fantasy team, and I’m making a run for first place),

when they showed Tony Parker’s lovely wife, Eva Longoria, watching from the stands. Now obviously, Eva’s a good looking lady, and could pretty much choose to date whoever she wanted. My question is this - is Tony Parker good looking? For the sake of this argument, let’s ignore the fact that Tony’s a multimillionaire and focus on the important things in life - superficial appearance. I honestly have no idea where Tony is on the scale from zero to ten.

And that makes me wonder - where does Evan Longoria fit in the grand scheme of things?

I never made this post, but here were my basketball wagers for the 2008/09 season (the date listed is the date I made the wagers). These bets are for entertainment purposes, though I’ve talked to my lawyers, and I’ve been told that Canada is in a “legal grey zone” regarding online gaming. Nevertheless, all odds and bets are taken from Sportsbook.com. As always, if you’re reading this and not a basketball fan, you’ll probably want to skip this post. Otherwise you’ll be bored to tears. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1) Future Wager 11/29/08
2008/09 NBA Regular Season - Player to Record Highest Point Average (Winner Decided by nba.com)
Dwyane Wade +200
A month into the season, I thought there was a very good shot that Wade would wind up scoring more than his biggest threat, Lebron, because Wade had to hog the ball in order for the Heat to win.

2) Future Wager 11/29/08
Odds to Win the 2008/2009 Rookie of the Year (more…)