Iavaroni is in. Avery is out. D’Antoni is…well….no one knows yet. The NBA coaching carousel is in full swing as teams exit the playoffs. I thought I’d weigh in on who is in, who it out, and who is in the rumor mill. If you have been following the NBA drama season you will recognize a few of the names while a few others may surprise you. Read the rest of this entry »
Former HoopStar player Hillary Wenning is once again in the local newspapers for her basketball journey. This year Wenning took her hoops skills to the University of Indianapolis. While most of her growth was made from the bench, she did seize her opportunities down the stretch to shine.
I was first introduced to Hillary when she was in 4th grade and played YMCA basketball with my younger brother Dustin. Even back then I was amazed at her playing ability. She brought a tenacity to the court that dominated the boys she played against.
Here is a brief recap of Hillary’s first season as a Greyhound. We look forward to more to come from Miss Wenning.
DJ Wright Prom Court Story Our second HoopStar spotlight victim guest is DJ Wright. DJ just completed his senior season at Greensburg Community High School (HoopStar’s alma mater. While his season was plagued with multiple foot injuries, we was also a success off the court. He was nominated to the prestigious GCHS prom court. In his newspaper picture, DJ sported one of his most prized possessions, a HoopStar tournament shirt. We wish DJ the best of luck in his future pursuits.
Usually I’m not one to jump on the bandwagon for publicly chastising professional athletes, but Dallas Maverick’s Forward Josh Howard is the epitome of what is wrong with basketball and youth mentality for today (wow what an eloquent speech, where did that come from…lol). Read the rest of this entry »
By now hopefully you have seen Kobe’s Youtube promotion of him “jumping” over an Aston Martin in his new Nike shoes. This video has gained a lot of attention on debating its authenticity. For the record, there is no way that they would let a $100 million man be put in that kind of position.
However, Kenny Smith wanted to prove the “jumping” myth and made his own video. While some believe this clip is also a fake, I think it is real. I mean come on, it would cost more to add CGI to the video than it would to have Kenny Smith really do it…..lol.
That has to be real since Kenny can’t even figure out to put his shoes on the correct feet!
Bob Knight is in the headlines stemming from a dove hunting incident. They are trying to find out if he was hunting birds and doing badly or was hunting a human. I have mixed emotions and opinions on this. The first time I saw the video on ESPN I thought that Knight was back to his old irritating ways. His coaching results have never been questioned, but he always seems to be at the center of a hostile situation. He is another guy (along with Kobe, Jerry West, and Dennis Rodman) that you either love or hate.
After some digging around I was able to find the full video version where a guy comes up tells Bob Knight to move further down because pellets were landing on his pool. I thought this was the arrogant Bob Knight that didn’t want to be bothered. It initially seemed to be a reasonable request for Bob to move.
Then it became apparent that the guy was looking for 5 minutes of fame and a little money. The guy (Thomas Mikunda) has filed a lawsuit now against Knight. Here are a few things that I find very fishy about the video : 1. He quickly accuses Knight of pointing a gun in his direction. 2. He only accuses Knight of firing at his house even though the other hunter with Bob says he accidentally did. 3. The video only shows Knight which shows that he was attacking his celebrity. 4. His video is at 9am and he accuses Bob of being too loud at 7am. If I was that irritated at 7am and wanted to video I would have done it then to make it look unreasonable. 5. The guy tries to act like a nice guy about throwing comments in about how good of a coach Bob Knight is, but if he was truly upset then he wouldn’t be thinking of axillary topics that are not related. 6. He keeps saying that Knight wouldn’t like this at his house, but Knight openly invites him to and the guy acts like that is crazy. 7. Knight has a permit, while the guy may not like him being there, (I don’t like it when my neighbor plays bass guitar at 1am either, but it’s life) it is not illegal.
Here is an alternative view of the video from Deadspin.com.
Now I’m not a hunter or an animal activist so I won’t get into that. Yes Bob Knight has earned most of his reputation. But this is stupid. I hope they don’t give into a plea agreement and decide to steam roll that guy for a blatant attack on someone of celebrity stature.
Here’s a link to the uncut version of the video in case you haven’t seen it.
Just for fun I wanted to add this video because it was the first thing I thought of when I heard about Knight.
I’m not one for mucking this site up with advertising and a bunch of junk that we have come accustom to dealing with, but I did like this new widget from ESPN.com. I had to shrink it down to fit it in the sidebar, but I think it still works functionally. I also put it at the top since it will be updated with the latest news (kind of like a mini-post). I also added the NBA.com score widget. I was thinking about having the Stat Leader widget since this we talk a lot about Fantasy Basketball, but I decided against it. You can see the other widgets from NBA.com here if you would rather have me add one of them. Let me know what you all think.
Also have a Happy Thanksgiving and spend some time with your families!!!
The only thing about trash talking back in the day that was scary is that you may actually get punched in the lane if you don’t walk the walk.
PS. Reggie Miller is possibly the worst trash talker on this video. He really gets a chuckle at his own “trash.” And Larry Bird was probably the meanest trash talker cuz he almost always backed it up.
Okay, now our tour is over and it’s time for me to catch up. Things to look forward to: a) I’m going to make sure that the blog is updated daily (with a few minor exceptions). b) A bunch of video and pics from the tournaments will be coming very soon (including my special engagement video that a lot of you have been asking for). c) Fantasy season has begun in my main league so I’ll post results, upsets, trades, etc.
I want to apologize to everyone for my latest vanishing act. It has been crazy around here with our final tournament of the year coming up. The Halloween Hoopfest is going to be crazy! We have sky divers, the sheriff, our Hall of Fame Inductions, fire trucks, ambulances, squad cars, gymnasts, and many other surprises. I will have an awesome post about it all on Sunday or Monday. Thanks again for being patient.