I kid. I tease. It’s not like I’m young enough to be one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends myself, but for the love of all things holy… 
The funniest part to me is how Spacey is trying to tutor Letterman on using Twitter and somehow thinks it takes a whole hour to see your replies. Oy vey.
Thoughts on the now imfamous Stephon Marbury July 21st HAVE AT IT Ustream broadcast:
I’m not going to recap the whole thing, but if you weren’t there to see it (and if you weren’t, I honestly and sincerely PITY YOU because it was epic) — Ball Don’t Lie, Red’s Army and Banner 18? all did a great job of breaking it down. But, I will explain just exactly why it was so incredibly and ineffably awesome (and why it ultimately made me complete the 180 degree turn I was already making in terms of my opinion of him as a person).
First of all, it was just raw, gritty, balls out, truth spewing honesty. As someone who once worked in PR, I’ve really come to appreciate unfiltered honesty. Unfiltered honesty is what makes Shaq, Ron Artest and Charles Barkley so popular. So why wouldn’t it also make Steph more likable? Division 1 sperm? Are you kidding me? Priceless.
Secondly, it was incredibly funny and entertaining. The guy can time an answer and deliver a snarky quip with the best of them.
Finally and most importantly, he showed heart. There was a brief section where he started talking about his mother and what she means to him. I don’t recall the exact words, but I remember being touched by how sincerely he was speaking about his love and appreciation for her and all she’s done for him. He was basically like, “Don’t even get me started… that woman is the world to me.” If that doesn’t move you, you are made of cold heartless stone.
Ultimately though, he could’ve said nothing. He already had me at, “I have nothing but love for Boston.”
ps. For the record, I do realize that reading his tweets and watching his live streams do not qualify as truly knowing him as a person. Even though it all appears to be off-the-cuff stream of consciousness, I’m aware that he’s controlling his own spin and trying to change the public’s perceptive of him — which by definition is public relations. I’m ok with that. Whatever Starbury’s selling, I’m buying.
Steph 1, Haters 0
It’s AMAZING!
As I’ve written before, I’ve been on Twitter awhile and could be classified as a bit of an addict. Being a big NBA fan, I would say that 90% of the people that I’m following are people associated with the Association in some way or other (players, coaches, beat writers, bloggers, fans, etc.) Over time, I’ve discovered that most NBA players fall into one or more of the following types:
The Trailblazer – No, not the Portland variety. This is the NBA player who joined or started using Twitter before most of the others and blazed the trail. Poster child: Shaq (@THE_REAL_SHAQ, Charlie Villaneuva (@CV31)
The Power User – This is the NBA player who has fun with the platform and interacts with fans in a light-hearted way. Posts fun pictures to Twitpic, replies to fans questions and generally “gets it” when it comes to effectively utilizing social media. Poster child: The two players mentioned above + Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward)
The Preacher – This is the NBA player who uses his feed to “enlighten” his followers. Occasionally profound, sometimes tedious, but apparently quite sincere. Poster child: Stephon Marbury (@StarburyMarbury), Amar’e Stoudemire (@Amareisreal)
The Telemarketweeter – The NBA player whose tweets appear self-serving much of the time. He may even promise you a brand new shiny pony if you get him more followers. Poster child: Chris Bosh (@chrisbosh)
The Ivan Boesky – The NBA player who sometimes steps in dog poop by tweeting inside information. You might want to enjoy his candor now, as it seems likely he’ll someday receive a “cease and desist tweeting” letter from the team’s public relations department. Poster child: Kevin Love (@kevin_love)
The Drive-by – This NBA player posts infrequently, but when he does, sometimes you get a barrage of posts one after the other for a few minutes… Then nothing again for at least a month. If you blink, you may miss their tweets. Poster child: Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34)
The Groundhog Day Updater – This NBA player tends to repeat himself. This NBA player tends to repeat himself. Poster child: Dahntay Jones (@dahntay)
The Unverified – This is an account for an NBA player that may or may not be real. Usually has the default background, default icon and only a few updates. Poster child: Jarrett Jack (@Jarrettjack03)
The Ghostweeter – This NBA player may not even know he has a Twitter account. His agent, management company, publicist (or one of their interns) control the account and tweet for them. Poster child: We’ll never know for sure, but we can be suspicious… Warning signs: Perfect grammar. Lack of question, “What’s good?”
Ok, I’m not gonna lie. I always cringed a little bit when balls were hit in Julio Lugo’s direction. On some days, perhaps after a beer or two, I even cursed his name and shook my fist at the television. My mom and I often lamented about what a shitty shortstop he was. She liked to remind me of an interview he did after the Red Sox won the 2007 world series, when according to her, he said, “This makes me the best shortstop in baseball!” She’d say, “Best shortstop, my ass!”
Fast forward to yesterday when she was watching NESN and they announced Julio Lugo was being designated for assignment and she heard some of these comments from Theo Epstein:
“A sunk cost is a sunk cost. We’re sorry it didn’t work out better with Julio, obviously. But keeping him on the team wasn’t going to change that. Sometimes the best organizations admit their mistakes and they move on. And that’s what we’re doing here.
“This was one of the free agent signings that doesn’t work out. We were paying for past performance, not current performance. That’s the true definition of a mistake, and, as the decision-maker, that’s on me. We’ll just move on and be a better organization having gone through it, and we’ll make better decisions going forward.’’
Ouch.
I walk into the room and she says, “Can you believe they’re treating Julio this way? That is just downright awful!” I had to laugh at her changing her tune on a dime like that, but ultimately I have to agree with her. Did he work out the way the organization and fans expected? No, obviously not. But, I’m pretty sure he was trying and ultimately, I would rather have a guy try hard and suck, than act like a dumbass like Manny and succeed. Mmmm, that doesn’t sound right does it? Well, can’t we just have a happy medium? Oh well, either way, I think once you kick a guy off the team and run him out of town, it really isn’t necessary to flip the duck boat in reverse and back up over his carcass a few times. A little harsh Theo. A little harsh.
Related news:
To welcome Rasheed Wallace to Boston (and because I was super incredibly bored tonight) I decided to whip up a wallpaper. It’s pretty simple, nothing too exciting… but please to enjoy:
I missed the big presser yesterday, but Sheed was introduced as the newest member of the Boston Celtics.
Here’s an interview with him from Boston.com:
This is my favorite picture from the day. I didn’t realize he had so many kids (2 boys, 1 girl). This is a nice shot of him with his daughter:
I know I’ve been comparing him to Manny, but that doesn’t mean I won’t embrace him. He was always my favorite member of the Pistons and I think he’s great. I just feel like his departure from Detroit had some Mannyesque similarities. But, much like the L.A. faithful have welcomed Manny into their fold with open arms, so will I (and Boston) to Sheed.
Side note: If you missed it the other night, check out the Red’s Army podcast where John & Chuck talk Sheed with the woman behind the super creative Need4Sheed.com website, Natalie Sitto. I get bored easily with podcasts sometimes, but this one held my interest all the way through. I enjoyed it and you will too… The Two Man Game: Sheed-tastic Show
Just watched the Celtics v. Jazz summer league game. The Celtics squad consisting of Gabe Pruitt, Bill Walker, J.R. Giddens, Lester Hudson and a slew of other dudes I’ll never see again, laid a beat down on the Jazz squad with a final score of 87-56. The game was all but unwatchable, but as usual the Orlando Magic’s Dante and Galante were tearing it up with their inane banter. The funniest segment (for me anyway) was when they mentioned that Rondo was there and that he was a “dee-light and by dee-light, I mean awful. He was awful to talk to.” LMAO. Rondo is getting a little bit of a rep as a jerk if you add up all the off-handed comments over the years.
More Celtics news:
Sigh. Just stumbled onto this on YouTube and it made me happy …and sad. Please to enjoy.
Source: YouTube/WCVBtv
Holy emo, I promise I’ll stop talking about Leon… Someday. 
ps. I’m calling bullshit on Doc not knowing about the Gino dance.
The more I think about it, the more similarities I see in Rasheed Wallace and Manny Ramirez. They’re both whimsical nuts. Not batshit crazy like Artest & Starbury seem sometimes, but light-hearted and yet still moody nuts. Like a cracker jack box amount of nuts, not a whole can of Planters. Every article I read lately from the Detroit faction just reaks of the same bitterness that the post-Manny Boston commentary contained. As a card carrying bitter no-lifer (thanks TJ Simers!) and president of the Manny haters club, I can totally understand and relate to their mixed feelings. In fact, the comparison is what keeps me from writing that “Welcome to Boston, Sheed” post that I probably should have written already. Oh I’m glad he chose Boston. I am. He’s a great player. I loved him with Detroit. I just never pictured him in green. Ever. It’s going to take some getting used to, so I guess I’m just waiting until I actually see it. I’m not kidding myself about what my team is now either. A finely tuned, aging, championship hunting machine… with no soul. Danny Ainge told Leon Powe that the team has 2 years to hunt down another championship and good luck with your new team. That about sums it up. Abuntu is just a Linux operating system and if Danny has to suit up Beelzebub in the triple six jersey to get that 18th banner, well damn it, he’s going to do it. Not that I’m comparing Sheed to the devil. Although… he is a Tarheel. 
Hey Sheed, welcome to Boston!
