Many, if not both, of my regular readers know that I am both a history geek AND a bit of a sports nerd, and one of the biggest events of the year for sports nerds was last night…the NBA draft. As part of the tradition, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons does an annual ‘running diary‘ which–if you follow the NBA or NCAA basketball even a little–is a guaranteed chuckle.
A couple of related notes…
1) YJ went to Yao Ming’s press conference yesterday and reported that the first question from a Chinese journalist took the form of an inane and asinine pop quiz for the sports icon.
Chinese Reporter: “Do you know what day tomorrow is?”
Yao: “Uh, June 27?”
CR: “Correct. Do you know what happened six years ago that day?”
Yao: “Um…”
CR: “You were drafted number one by the American NBA. How does that make you feel?”
(Shot of Yao looking at his watch and wondering why Tim Duncan doesn’t have to put up with this shit…)
2) Yi Jianlian finally got his wish and was traded out of Milwaukee. Apparently the Bucks got tired of him whining about finding Chinese food in Wisconsin.
Last year, Simmons had