A friend was kind enough to invite us to his company’s luxury box seats to watch the Mavs-Raptors game. Luxury box seats are usually pretty sweet and, aside from the free stuff inside, the boxes at the AAC are good. However, it can be hard to focus on the game in one of these things as only a few seats look out, and there are so many screens inside that you are more inclined to watch on TV than actually at the court.
Now, I’ll admit that I am a bigger hockey fan than basketball fan but, seriously, what the F is up with the NBA?
In the NHL, there are TV timeouts as there are in every American sport. In fact, as there are in every sport, European soccer notwithstanding. In the NHL, there are two intermissions, during which kids skate on the ice and fans who seem never to have seen a hockey stick try to score a goal from the red line.
The AAC is also a bit of a travesty. During the intermissions at Stars games, small blimps are released from the rafters to rain down coupons on the crowd. There are three advertorial dirigibles: A giant red chili, from Chili’s. A giant burrito, from Chipotle. And a blue blimp from some diamond-seller.
The giant chili drops coupons for what I can only imagine is some sort of heart-stoppingly rich and/or large platter of some kind of fried food. It also looks more than a little like a dog phallus.
The giant burrito is supposed to resemble a Chipotle burrito wrapped in foil. It looks more like a suppository, or possibly, a Steely Dan/Silk Torpedo.
Image (C) 1975 Swan Song
On top of that, at every TV timeout, the dancers come out, as do Champ, the Mavs main mascot, and Mavs Man. Champ is a large blue-headed horse-man that is equal parts Muppet and Nick Bottom. Mavs Man is a terrible amalgamation of a human, a basketball, and a kabuki mask. Together, this nightmarish duo eats up long lapses in action with trampoline-assisted dunks and various fan-participation inanity.
I hope I wake up soon.
Photo (C) 2009, Dallas Mavericks
The one thing I’ll give this horrific pair is that they are spot-on with the t-shirt gun. People LOVE free t-shirts. We should stop building drones and M4s and just ship t-shirt cannons to our troops. A few weeks of lobbing cheap, NBA-logo t’s into caves and the Taliban will be just fine. In case anyone is wondering what to get me for a present, a custom air cannon would be sweet.
What I can’t understand about the NBA, aside from the way the refs seem to call fouls to suit their whims, is the way that A.) Music blares during play (including some John Cougar. How many NBA players, whose average age is probably 23, actually listen to Mellancamp?), and B.) People sit right on the floor. Case in point, the way Bron slapped Jay-Z five during the Knicks game last week. Check out this quote from WCBSTV.com: “James said he was able to congratulate a few of the [Yankees] players during the game.” During the game? I hope this means at some break in the action, but the fact that Bron was able to high-five Jay-Z while running back on D, makes me think otherwise.
Is this And One? Turn the music off, unless it’s the organ playing the “defense” cheer or something. I love BronBron, and of course, the Yanks, but play the game. I don’t see some hockey player backchecking and waving to someone behind the boards. Play the game!
Anyway, the Mavs tore the Raptors apart, and Dirk put on a show, dropping 29 in a 129-101 win.
