Shoals Goes to Camp: A Blogger's Education of Hoops and History

Filed under: NBA D-League

Dee Brown, the guy with the Reebok Pumps, is still yelling at me. This isn't supposed to be happening.



What was supposed to happen was that I would be part of the crowd at the NBA D-League's Fantasy Clinic. Except things didn't quite go as planned. I did travel to Springfield as a guest of the NBA, staying in its hotel along with pretty much every single legend in town. There was time in the gym, and a lot of D-League swag.

Our happy campers (L to R): Wayne Washington, coach Dee Brown, Shoals, Renardo Espinosa

But there's really no way to sugarcoat it: this event didn't go off as planned. The two other times they had done this -- a year ago in Springfield, and then this summer in Vegas -- they had 20 some and 40 attendants, respectively. This year, a company that had reserved a decent number of spots pulled out at the least minute, leaving two FanHouse contest winners -- and me. That meant turning two days and change of activity into one afternoon, and putting this journalist-participant way more on the spot than he ever intended to be.



So that's how Dee Brown came to keep yelling at me, when I'd already planned to be ignored and take long breaks on the sidelines.



I can't say he made me a better basketball player. Brown got that making me into an athlete was a lost cause -- he liked my line about trying to get on "a level," as opposed to the next one. That didn't mean, though, that he didn't want me to see the game like he did. That's why, as I struggled through ball-handling drills with my non-existent left, Dee Brown demanded I respect the routine.

 

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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/08/27/shoals-goes-to-camp-a-bloggers-education-of-hoops-and-history/