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Freak feet, blogger bonding and Euroleague look-alikes
The boot is off! After seven weeks of wearing the only thing that could look goofier at the end of my leg than my size 18 shoes, the big gray walking boot has been retired. Before I go any further I should comment on the fact that I am a freak of nature. Wearing size 18 shoes does not inherently qualify me as a freak - plenty of basketball players wear size 18 or bigger (Shaq wears size 22!). However, most dudes with feet my size can dunk without leaving the floor - they are GIANTS! I'm only two meters tall (some would argue I'm shorter than that), I'm supposed to wear size 13 or 14. It used to be a real struggle to find shoes that fit. Thankfully, the internet has made it possible for freaks like me to find plenty of cool shoes for any occasion. However, back in high school I had to squeeze into the same size 15 football cleats for two seasons as I quarterbacked the mighty Blackjacks of DBHS. I guess that explains why my toes are so crooked and ugly. Seriously, my feet are pretty deformed and unsightly. I'm surprised I could find such a good-looking babe to marry me with feet as unattractive as mine. Fortunately, there are more than a few basketball players with jacked-up feet, so I don't feel so bad. In fact, my good friend and teammate, Jasmin Hukic, has feet so ugly they make mine look like they could qualify for a beauty pageant. Huka's east-west-facing toes and giant bunions have me convinced that if I investigated a little further I would find that he is either secretly Bosnia's tallest drag queen or he just likes to wear his wife's stilettos around the house. I kid Huka because I know that he will read this. Anyway, enough about crooked toes...
Earlier today, I walked out on the court for the first time since January, wearing TWO basketball shoes. I literally dusted them off before I laced them up. I know it is a cliche to say "It's time to dust off the old shoes and get back to work", but I honestly wiped a bunch of accumulated dust off my Shox before hitting the hardwood. I didn't really hit it hard - about 60 to 70 set shots and 40 minutes doing my Lance Armstrong impression on the bike - but it genuinely felt good to be back on the court. I know my return to health has no implication on the outcome of any Euroleague action - Prokom failed to advance. To be honest, even if we had qualified for the next round, I probably would not have been healthy enough to help the team. I am still two or three weeks away from being effective on the court. But, even though this has no effect on Euroleague, in general, it feels great to type it out for this blog, because it obviously has a huge impact in my life.
Last week we ended our Euroleague season with a loss to our oft-returning guests from Istanbul. Efes has been to Sopot so many times in the last few years that they have nearly become eligible to apply for Polish passports. That being the case, I decided I had better invite my fellow blogger, Ermal Kuqo, out for a beer at a local hot spot to toast the end of our Euroleague action and further acquaint him with the land of kielbasa and Copernicus. I say "hot spot", but believe me, there are no hot spots in Sopot on a Wednesday night in mid-March. During the summer, Sopot is THE place to be for Poles on holiday, but last week SPATiF (the afore-mentioned hot spot) was a nice place to relax with a beer and quietly discuss basketball, blogging and life in general with the big fella from Albania. My buddy Stinger - who blogs for the Polish League website, and knows way too much about the European and college basketball scene - kept Kuqo busy lobbing question after question his way about the coaching philosophy of Oktay Mahmuti, the future plans of Cenk Akyol, and the weight training techniques of Drew Nicholas. My buddy Tomek arrived a bit later to add his basketball expertise and ask if anybody ever calls Kerem Gonlum "My Precious" - like in Lord of the Rings. Fortunately, my wife was there to try to keep Kuqo from getting inundated with hoops inquiries, asking about his fiance, life in Istanbul, and the topic they shared - memories of days as a junior college player in Oklahoma. Of course, we had a great conversation that night, but the biggest question my wife and I had was whether or not anyone had ever sang to him the "Albania Song" from "Cheers". Kuqu was familiar with the TV show "Cheers", which is based in a Boston bar, where "everybody knows your name", but hadn't heard the song. Now seems like a good time to inform you that Americans, in general, are not too familiar with the layout of the globe. Knowledge of world geography is not a strength of US citizens. Fortunately, we have shows like "Cheers " to teach us about Albania. Kuqo was pretty impressed as Alexis and I serenaded him with..."Albania, Albania, you border on the Adriatic...."
 The other game we had since my last blog was a loss to Panithanaikos. They have such a deep team - they are loaded! When we played them at our place, I had totally forgotten that Tony Delk was with them. After a solid ten-year NBA career, I'm sure this season has been a bit of an adjustment for him. However, I remember Tony Delk as the top player on what is probably the best college basketball team in the last 30 years, maybe longer. UNLV and Duke could argue that their early '90s teams were more successful, but no team churned out more NBA players than Kentucky's 1996 national championship team. Maybe I have a soft spot in my heart for this team because they were champions my senior year in college or maybe because I scored 29 points against these future millionaires at their home opener on their own court, Rupp Arena. (I'm sure Delk and the guys don't remember it - they had plenty of other highlights from that season - but it was a highlight for me). But nobody can deny this list of NBA players: Delk, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty, Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer, Mark Pope, Jeff Sheppard, Wayne Turner, and Nazr Mohammed. I don't know if we will ever see a team like that again. My wife knew she recognized Delk from somewhere, but she couldn't get it out of her head how much he looks like that dude from the movie "White Chicks". Not any of the Wayans brothers, but the black guy who only went for white chicks (his name, it turns out, is Terry Crews - What was life like before Google?). Overall, the movie wasn't too memorable, but the scene where he sang that Vanessa Carlton song is flat-out hilarious!
So that makes two look-alikes so far from PAO that I have mentioned in this blog: Tony Delk who looks like Terry Crews and, as I mentioned last time, Fragiskos Alvertis is the spitting image of Jesus Christ. There are a few other famous look-alikes that I have noticed this Euroleague season:
- Juan Carlos Navarro = David Schwimmer. Please tell me I'm not the only one that sees Ross Geller, Schwimmer's character on "Friends", every time that JC is running back on defense after nailing a three. I'm waiting for Red Ross to explode after a ref misses a foul call on Navarro. How do you say "We were on a BREAK!" in Spanish?
- Serkan Erdogan = Vlade Divac Despite Erdogan's clean-shaven Euroleague head shot, it seems to me that he - like Vlade - has a perma-beard which sprouts in minutes rather than days. I have a feeling he has a "five o'clock shadow" at about noon. If he was a foot taller and learned how to flop in the post he would be just like Vlade. Okay, that's if Vlade was an assassin from behind the arc.
- Nikos Pitsilkas = Al Pacino/Ray Ramano Who? I'm sure that most fans don't know who I'm talking about. This Greek referee looks like a combination of these two stars. One minute I think he looks just like Ray Ramano from "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the next time down the court I am waiting for him to quote Pacino as he pulls out his whistle - "Say hello to my li'l friend".
- Christian Dalmau = Fernando Sucre from "Prison Break". I don't know how many of you out there watch this show, but it has been a phenomenon within our team. No fewer than eight of us watch "Prison Break" religiously to see what's going to happen to Schofield, Linc, T-Bag, C-Note, Sara and Sucre. Christian loves the show as much or more than any of us and I think it is because he has to be related to his famous look-alike and fellow Puerto Rican (Amaury Nolasco is the actor's name). I don't want to give away too much for those who haven't seen it, but I will say that the first season is the absolute smartest season of any television show I have ever seen. Better than "Lost". Better than "24". I don't know if there will be a third season of "Prison Break", but I strongly recommend that everybody checks out the first two seasons of this suspenseful drama.
Okay, so some of these look-alikes might be a bit of a reach, but it didn't take me long to make the association between one and the other. My buddies and I did it all the time growing up - I guess we still do.
Well, before I sign off for this blog, I had better mention a little something about the NCAA tournament, which I praised so much in my last one. A lot of sports talk-show hosts in America, who claim to know so much about sports, have said that this year's tourney has lacked the excitement of previous years'. Mostly because of the lack of upsets that usually define the first few rounds. It is my opinion that these so-called "experts" didn't take the time to actually watch much of the tourney. Well, while my team was on a five-day road trip, I literally watched two dozen hours of NCAA action. I will admit that the opening day was possibly the worst first Thursday in recent tourney memory - countless blowouts and only one upset. However, Saturday's round two games totally made up for it with the excitement of three overtime games (one double-OT) and only one match-up that was decided before the last minute. As it is, my title-game pick still remains - Florida over Ohio State for the national championship.
POSTED BY
Jeff Nordgaard - Sopot
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