The things you see and hear, Vol. 2

So here I sit seven rows up on the baseline, with a zillion kids in the joint ready to watch the Rookies and Sophomores and who’s out there on the court but our friend The Chicken.

Talked to him/her/it earlier and this a plum gig, apparently. Mascots from all over try to get here and do their stuff. The Chicken’s shaking its butt, dancing, goofing around and being quite Chickenesque.

But before we get into the fun stuff here’s what we learned today:

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Those zany TV types

Caught Mark Strong of NBA-XL or whatever it’s called now, and the Irrepressible Cabbie at the 90-minute media gig and they were in rare from.

Mark gets Jason Kapono to sign a blues song (more Memphis than New Orleans but the intent was there) and you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve see JK wearing dark sunglasses and a black fedora warbling a tune.

And Cabbie’s schtick this year is to see how many all-stars he could convince to lend their voices to his voice-mail message. I believe he was zero-for-everyone.

But, really, they were about the craziest, numbers were down, it seems, and no one really made a fool of themselves. Those football writers have much more fun at Super Bowl, I’m told.

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Seems Darrell Walker hasn’t learned to crack the whip. I heard he put the Rookies through a harsh 40-minute workout Friday morning, leaving me to believe they’ll be slaughtered by the Sophs later tonight.

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Ran into Andrea on the street, he looked entirely unimpressed when I asked him how the big day was going.

"Big day? Yeah, I guess,” he said.

How, you may ask, can you tell he was unimpressed? He was even more dour than usual.

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Oh yeah, another Bourbon Street tale.

M. Grange ™ and I, along with the Sun No. 2, stuck our heads in a bar last night and happened to see the Human Known As Lucky The Celtic Mascot dancing away to some Journey cover band.

M Grange ™ swears he saw the little leprechaun-slash-human do a backflip off a couple of steps into a crowd of dancers. I’m thinking there might have been adult beverages involved.

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Anyway, looks like the kids are about to start playing soon, I better study the form sheet to see who to root for.

I’ve got Sophs by 20 and can only hope there’s a moment like the night in 2003 when Jason Richardson bounced the ball of Carlos Boozer’s head before dribbling around him.

Oh, those wacky kids.

We can only hope Darrell Walker and Tom Thibodeau, the Boston assistant who’s coaching the Sophomores, take it a little less seriously that Marc Iavaroni did last year. He had the temerity to call a timeout with his team up about 30. That’s over-coaching.

I guarantee you D Walk’s got dinner reservations for about 10, he’ll be out of here in a hurry.

Comments

[GM]

Kapono knows sign language? Who was the blues number for? Marlee Matlin?

[MARK M]

Hey Doug

Who has the most allstar mvp's?

Blogger's note: Bob Pettit's got four.

[CARLoS M.]

Hey I saw the 'Chicken' as you like to call him on tv last night too! It made me happy to see him there. He is so entertaining and much better than those silly sponsored fiascos they try to cram into tv timeouts.

How many other mascots get invited to the all-star game?

Blogger's note: There were probably half a dozen chickens there last night and not sure if more are coming in on the weekend.