We’ve all been there before.
You wake up one day, and the world is your oyster.
You sleep in, move at your own pace, eat your favorite foods, drink your favorite drinks, and all the while enjoying a beautiful summer 78 degree day, with a slight breeze.
Essentially reenacting the, It Was a Good Day video…you can’t miss.
It’s how I envision Joe Dumars in the 2003 Piston’s war room doubled up on a LAN-line and a Nokia flip phone.
This man is feeling himself. How else can you explain his eagerness to draft Darko Miličić second overall in the lauded 2003 NBA draft. Passing on the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade; Dumars has been able to escape full culpability due to winning the title that season.
NBA Championship or not, I don’t blame Broadway Joe for selecting Miličić, I know I’ve been there before.
In 2009 when the Knicks drafted Jordan Hill 8th overall, I was convinced he’d be able to mess around and get a triple double whenever he chose to do so.
He was a human highlight reel in college, and comparable to a young Amar'e Stoudemire. It turned out he was more Stromile Swift than Stoudemire, lasting only 24 games with New York, he was traded for an over the hill T-Mac.
Looking back, Arizona basketball players don’t have a recent track record of excellence when it comes to panning out in the NBA…impeccable uniforms though.
Here’s another iconic college jersey…
Limas Sweed wasn’t a first round pick like Jordan Hill, but he was the quintessential X receiver coming out of Texas. The Steelers took him in the second round in 2008, and with my Mel Kiper hat…or wig-piece on, I was confident Sweed was the steal in the draft.
He lasted two years in the NFL, never recording a touchdown.
You know it’s not just sports either.
In 2013, as the second best TV show ever created in Breaking Bad began to wind to a close, AMC prepped America for another drama.
Low Winter Sun starred Mark Strong and Lennie James, two superb actors, and in it’s previews seemingly captured the gritty suspensefulness that Breaking Bad harnessed.
There was one massive issue. The show wasn’t good. To this day, it’s the biggest let down of any TV show I’ve ever witnessed…not even Gale Boetticher could solve it’s plot problems.
You know it’s not just TV either.
During sophomore year of high school, The Encyclopedia and his closest 5th period friends walked to McDonald’s every day for lunch. As true dollar menu millionaires we feasted primarily on 99 cent fries, the free cup of water, and the crème de la crème, the Big N’ Tasty.
This was basically the poor mans Whopper, but I couldn’t tell the difference. As a fast food connoisseur, to me it was fine dining, and as quickly as I was cut from the JV basketball team, in 2003, the Big N’ Tasty was discontinued in the States.
Everything is right, until it’s wrong.
Everything is unpredictable, until it plays out.
Stringer Bell managed to achieve clairvoyance when he said in the greatest TV show ever, that nobody cares about a 40 degree day.
It's those 78 degree days, with a slight breeze that you remember.
As I continue to be the internet’s most unheralded, unsung, underrated, underappreciated, and underestimated writer…I try and remember, I just do this for fun.
