StumpTownSports

When I was writing my thoughts on the opening week of the NBA season, I inadvertently left out one of my favorite things. Have you seen the new Adidas adds? In case you didn’t notice from the trademark 3 stripes on every piece of NBA apparel, Adidas has the new deal to provide NBA teams with its gear. And to follow up that coup, they have also launched a new add campaign using its stars to try to get you to buy shoes. The new slogan is “It takes 5.” You know, as in, it’s not about the individual, but rather the whole team. One guy can’t do it by himself, but needs to have 4 other guys on the same page. They are pretty boring commercials which include such gripping scenes as players dressed in those motion capture suits they use for video games. What that has to do with team play in basketball, I will never know. But two things makes this a fun add campaign. First, in spite of the “It Takes 5” slogan Adidas thankfully kept the worst slogan in sports advertising – “Impossible is N...

Seeing Lebron come out and trash the new NBA basketball and at the request of one loyal reader, I’ve decided to throw out my 10 cents (my 2 cents are free) on the new ball. First, I am starting to agree with Bill Simmons at ESPN that the NBA may have a new publicity trend going that few are addressing. Last year they changed the rules on the dress code right before the start of the season. It wasn’t a change to the game, and meant very little to nothing to the fans, but it was a huge deal to the players and gave the media something to talk about and suddenly everyone was talking hoops during football/playoff baseball season. This year, they brought out a new ball. If there is some rule or code of conduct change right before the season next year, then I’m officially deeming Simmons a prophet and think we all have to admit that Stern is a genius. If it’s true, I see them making a change that brings the NBA rules closer to international rules (different size ball, shorter 3 line, tra...

A few sports observations after a long lay off from this blog. There is no good excuse for abandoning this blog, but if I were to offer one, it would be fantasy basketball. Running a fantasy hoops league and football league where I feel the need to comment and trash talk on those respective sites eats into the time I have to rant and rave here. Nevertheless, I still have more to say. So here are some observations after the first few days of the NBA season and by now some of this is already out of date. 1. I love fantasy hoops. We have a head to head league where your team has to put up better numbers in at least 4 of 7 categories to get a win. For a recap of my draft and a team by team breakdown of the league (if you are extremely hard up for something to read or just want to check out what fantasy hoops is all about), you can click on the 26by2sand3s link on this site. It’s a great league and I think I have a decent, though not great team. I lost to the preseason favorite t...