Quick "About Me"

I'd say I've been a basketball fan all my life, but my earliest memories of watching a game (outside of going to high school games with my dad) were watching the Dream Team with my dad in the summer of 1992. For some reason, my 7-year-old mind decided that Charles Barkley was the greatest player of all time. (My dad was a bit befuddled by this; he'd been a Lakers fan all his life.) Consequently I became a huge Suns fan. And sure, I was sad when the Suns lost to the Bulls in '93 (I've hated Michael Jordan ever since) but I wasn't truly crushed until the Suns traded the Chuckster to the Rockets in the summer of '96. I swore off the Suns, tried to root for the Rockets, and did a pretty good job until John Freakin' Stockton knocked the Rockets out of the playoffs in '97 with a ridiculous 3 in Game 6 of the Conference Finals (I think it was game 6 anyway.) Then I watched Sir Charles team up with Scottie Freakin' Pippen for a year, followed by him fading away into an injury filled farewell tour for a couple years. (However, I think I was going through a huge video game phase at this point anyway.) Then the Lakers started to get good again with Shaq and Kobe, and I started watching games with my dad again, and I've been a Lakers fan ever since. So, I'm going to be as objective as possible with everything I write here (I realize I already slammed 3 players and at least 2 franchises in this intro, but bear with me). It's not always going to work, but I think I can at least give credit where its due and discuss any player or team in a reasonable, objective manner. Also, if you want to hate me for liking the Lakers, by all means, go ahead, but I feel when it's passed down generationally, I earned it legitimately. (Technically I was a bandwagon Suns fans in my extreme youth in the early 90's, and didn't get back to my roots until the late 90's.)