Ball Don't Lie

About a week or so ago, I got Facebook message from my former teammate and current overseas baller Ayinde Ubaka. You may recognize him from the intro of "Boom Got Them DOS!" or maybe you recognize him as a former 1st team All-Pac-Ten guard, although I seriously suspect it is the former. Well, Ayinde is a big supporter of the movement, and, as such a supporter, felt compelled to drop some knowledge on me via Facebook. This is what he had to say:

Aye Benson, is there anything new going on with the boom movement? I know ... I'm bored as hell. I have nothing better to do but to participate in the Boom Movement. I have a word that I think you can use and it will for sure blow up ... that's if you already don't already use it. The word is "boomness." Not bitchassness, but boomness. I can't define it unless you want to use it. Just think about it, though. Boomness. I was talking about the boom stuff to one of my teammates and somehow boomness came out of my mouth. I don't know how or why, but it just did. I think it's a great word. As you can see I am bored as hell over the water.

What a phenomenal idea. I always knew that this kid was special, but now he has provided me with something great. It's about time people displayed their Boom-Tho-Ness. Either you have Mad-Boom-Tho-Ness or you have No-Boom-Tho-Ness. Ayinde is a genius.Read More >>

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May 1st is fast approaching. Last year at this time, I was still trying to escape from Philadelphia. I also had to complete my last class at Cal until late June. This year, May 1st is the day I get back to work for real.

My agent Bill called me and told me that I had one week left to party before it would be time to get back to work. I didn't quite understand what the rush was, because last year I did three mini-camps and summer league and none of it started before June 20th. I guess this year is a whole different story. I've got mini-camps starting on May 14th (see me in Seattle, baby!) that will run all the way up to summer league.

We talked about the summer and what each step will be towards going from D-League to the NBA. It starts on May 1st. I'll be running tracks and stairs. I'll be lifting weights and drinking shakes. I'll be shooting J's and dribbling cones. I'll be dunking on Ryan Anderson and giving the facial treatment to JaVale McGee (my workout partners who, in all honesty, will probably return the favor). They're getting drafted, I'm not. I've got eight weeks to get even more improvement out of my body before the summer league starts, so it's about to get real serious.

Bill said that these teams have serious interest and that he thinks this will be the time. If not, he very positively put it, then we can honestly say that we gave the best shot we could. At that point it's time to go get PAID. Either way, as Eminem puts it, I'll be ballin while I'm flossin in my pathfinder.Read More >>

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Tuesday was a big day. I spent the first three hours of my morning co-hosting ESPN radio. It wasn't national, but I think it was broadcast to four or five states and two provinces.

I spent a good portion of the time doing a sort of trivia game for the callers. The game started out simple. I would say the nickname of an athlete, then the host would say the name of a sports team, and then he would play a movie sound byte and if the caller could correctly guess all three, he or she would win a prize. The first one was Tiger Woods real name, the Atlanta Braves stadium name, and a clip from Tommy Boy.

I had to take it to the next level soon after. I decided to branch off when I asked callers to name the movie where Ben Rodriguez pickles "Hercules." I asked for the name of the movie, both characters' nicknames, and the name of the only MLB ballpark in the film. It should be easy for a TMRB reader, no doubt.

After a long nap, it was time for my E:60 debut:Read More >>

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On TMRB.com, I made a list of the top-five arcade games of all time. After doing so, it hit me that I could do the same thing here with all hoops related lists. I could drop a top-five list every now and then to get some TMRB style discussion going. Now that my season is done, I need something to write about so I figure this will be a good start.

Staying within the video game theme, I decided to list the top-five 2D hoops video games of all time. This means that all games on N64, Playstation, XBOX, even Dreamcast, are all out as possibilities. The games I'm talkin' about can be played on Nintendo, SNES, Sega Genesis, even on a Commodore 64. That's right. I played hella games on my Commodore. Pssh, I was even e-mailing on it before I figured out that the Internet was real. I digress.

Let's get this show on the road. The top-five 2D hoops video games are:

5. Arch Rivals: 'Arch Rivals' was the precursor to NBA Jam. If you played 'Arch Rivals,' then you know all about the trash flying at you from the stands. If you played 'Arch Rivals,' you may have actually gone to the local park in your town and socked somebody in the face during a pick up game, thinking that they would turn the ball over just like players in the video game. If you did that, then you probably got beat up and questioned your decision to follow a video game. Arch Rivals: two-on-two basketball meets hockey fights on a Nintendo near you.Read More >>

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Sports video games, like The Matrix in a way, are always a little different from real life because they follow sets of rules. When I play Madden, I know that if Junior Seau comes after Tony Romo, Romo's 82 SPEED will help him escape. Seau may track him down in real life, but he will never catch Romo in the game.

Basketball video games are similar. I'm not talking about the old school games like Double Dribble (the most fun a seven-year-old can have in 1991) or NBA Jam. I'm talking about the new hotness NBA 2K8. Baron Davis and his 99 CLOSE and 99 LAYUP ratings mean that he is guaranteed buckets inside of ten feet. Seriously, it's impossible to get him to miss anything inside no matter how well contested his attempt may be.

I bring this up because my teammate Renaldo Major just entered a code on his PS2 that unlocked many things. Among them was a D-League All-Star team. I couldn't believe that there was really a D-League team on that bad boy. It got me to thinking that it would be funny if there were a whole D-League game complete with ratings. I remember when I was in college I had a "99 INS SCR" which I think meant inside scoring, but I have never been fully sure. Read More >>

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Last night was the official end of my 2007-08 season. It's over. Man, I never thought I'd spend two full seasons in the D-League, but it sure did happen. I guess that's how it goes sometimes.

Anyways, I'll recap the season another day. Today is part three of the "wow, that's tight" posts I've done recently. For starters, on my way back from Ft. Wayne, I was in the Detroit airport buying batteries when I noticed a guy looking at SLAM. I walked by him and said, "Go to page 80," and kept walking. He looked at me, then turned the pages, then looked at me again as I walked away. It was pretty sweet to be able to do that.

Also, for the last month, I've been the only player in the D-League wearing his own shoe. My shoe actually matches the same style as the "Boom Tho" shirt. Since most of our games during that stretch were on the road, a lot of road fans had no idea what the big "Boom Tho" logo on my shoes meant. Even more of them didn't know what brand of shoe they were. Guys on the other teams tried to hate, but at the end of the day "Boom Tho" is on a shoe, so they were forced to congratulate. This summer, my crew of "Boom Tho" originators and I will be rocking our shirts and kicks as a group. Oh yes, what a glorious summer this will be. Maybe I'll get someone from my NBA Summer League team to rock a pair and hype the movement as well.Read More >>

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