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**HayesFan** · 12-14-2007, 04:14 PM

This is a really great blog...

yall should check it out... http://hoopshype.com/blogs/muoneke/index.php

Here's a bit from his first entry

Quote:

So why the D-League, oh former No. 4 pick of the first NBDL Draft? (If it weren’t so sad it’d be comical). The dangling carrot, mon frere. And I fell for it again. I was in the zone. Making good money with a plan to make more in my country of origin, Nigeria. With the NBA dream behind me and a new tendon connecting my quad to my patella, I had a drawn-out plan to save $1 million, retire from basketball and get into African biz. Hey, I never wanted to be like Mike. I just wanted to get one day in the league to say I did it. I wanted to be like George Weah, or Gaddafi. (OK, maybe the latter was a bad example, but he is an African pimp).

Anyway… Nooooo, I had to listen to the, “Gabe, go for it one more time,” “You just need to play the 3,” “show ‘em you can shoot the ball,” “Lose some weight” blah blah bl… Wait. Never tried losing weight. Never thought it mattered. But after long self deliberation, I turned down 300K-plus contracts (with some help from outside advisors) and chose to take an invitaion to vet’s camp with the Bobcats after losing 50 pounds of muscle to prove how much I was dedicated to being on that team. Do you have any idea how hard it is to lose muscle? I was 271 pounds and 8 percent body fat on May 21. Today I am 228 and less than 5 percent body fat. I got as low as 221 while in Charlotte. It is one of the reasons the NFL is so much different from the NBA. Or I should say the NBA is so much different than every other pro sports league? There is simply no equation for playing in the NBA for those who are not, well, freaks. You know the 7-foot-3 spartans who can dunk with their nostrils? That kind of guys.

For the 6-foot-7 tweeners, I got news for you. Ready? Listen to no one, listen to everyone, play really really really hard and pray for a lot of luck. Because I’ve done it all. Answered every question, perfected every drill, learned to play ambidextrous, and taught myself to shoot the cliche’d pee-pee out of the ball. But sans luck… And your up poo-poo’s creek.

Honestly, though, I have no regrets. And bitterness went out the window with the birth of my son when I was 24. I just have a lot of rhetorical questions. (That means questions for which the answers are obvious.) For example… Why did I tolerate all that I did? I mean… If you don’t know, rookie free agents get treated like the red-headed kid trying to sneak a piece of the drumstick during Thanksgiving. It’s not really a big deal when you’re the youngest as I was in Detroit and Houston. But when you’re 29 and in camp being told how to play by guys six years younger than you when you have played everywhere against every type of competition – not to mention the fact that I played four years of college ball – it tends to get a bit tiresome. Or being yelled at for shooting the ball too much in a preseason – I repeat, preseason game – by a 10-year vet as if you were stealing his lunch money. Is it just me or should he even care? Believe me, for every knucklehead insecure millionaire (well… millionaire?) yelling at the rookie free agent for not passing him the ball with three seconds left on the shot clock, there are tons of vets who either truly want you to achieve your dream or just don’t care.

luther · 12-14-2007, 04:33 PM

I love it: the first athlete blogger who can actually write. I don't mean the first funny one, because Benson and Shirley are certainly funny. But Muoneke is the first one who consistently writes full sentences with correct grammar and punctuation. He writes better than the actual Hoopshype writers. And so, as a grammar nerd, he is my new favorite human being on Earth. I might even forgive him for the time he was suspended in college for punching somebody in the nuts. (At least I think he did...I'd hate for him to sue me for slander.)

**Krstic All Star** · 12-14-2007, 06:09 PM

Definitely a very readable blogger. I especially love

Quote:

Believe me, for every knucklehead insecure millionaire (well… millionaire?) yelling at the rookie free agent for not passing him the ball with three seconds left on the shot clock, there are tons of vets who either truly want you to achieve your dream or just don’t care.

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