Look At Me...

My office is located near a bank of elevators. This is convenient if you're late returning from lunch, or going somewhere else in the building. But it's mostly inconvenient for two reasons: People who are lost usually wander to the first office they see...and secondly, being in a high traffic area, people feel the need to LOOK INSIDE. Wow, his door is open, I should LOOK AT HIM. We're not talking a Playboy parade, either. And before I can even get out the famous "Look at me!" quote perfected by Dillon, the people are in full stride and long gone.

Sometimes I think teams feel this way, too. And when you see a negative reaction afterward it's usually because they either can't handle it, or it wasn't much to begin with. Last month's Clip Ship update almost predicted a return to earth in quick timing. This, of course, happened. And specifically it has thunked the team back to mediocrity this week. While the Warriors finally came out to play, the Clips have quickly fallen backward. And I'll admit it was a bit disheartening seeing the 4th quarter beat-down by the Rockets. Those were how the Clippers games usually went at the start of the decade - End of 1: Wow, they look good. Halftime: We've got the lead, I'm surprised. End of 3: Well, we're only down 6. Final: Do you remember where we parked?

Well, enough of the usual. (Someone just looked in again...Christ) I'd like to turn this over to an addition in one of our links. We here at the Wolves Den are large fans of Andrei Kirilenko's site, but his wife is now writing as well. Here now is her first post, unedited by me, titled "Masha Started Writing Her Blog":

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It took me a quite a while to start my own blog: Masha Kirilenko blog. I thought somebody gotta do it in our family. Since Andrei is so busy playing basketball … or Word Of Warcraft..I gotta do it. We could of course pretend that it is he who is writing it, but that would be unfair. Whatever you like or not I’m going to be author.

It’s our seventh season in NBA. Seems like an eternity. I wonder how Karl and John felt about the years. It’s like in a movie – The Greyhound Day. But still very exciting. Each year I look forwards the season. By the end of each October I feel that adrenaline buzz in my veins. And I know for sure that I’m basketball addict. And this is not because my husband plays every second night of my life. Simply: Basketball is the best game with the ball on Earth! Last night we played Golden State at home. They left for L.A. though right after. It was a good and easy win. Andrei played really well. And when I say well, that means he played well because I am the worst judge. It is never enough for me in this game. I always think that he could do better. Not enough points, not enough rebounds or assists. What he always has enough for me is turnovers. Last night it was 3.

I buy seasonal tickets for myself each season and sit right across Andrei. Not sure if Jerry Sloan likes that ;). So during the game I can talk to Andrei. Well, not really talk but I do read lips and he reads mine. Not that somebody were deaf and dumn in our family, but we just love reading each other lips. All the fourth quarter I was begging him to hit 3. And yes, he got it done.

The game last night was fast and dynamic. Believe or not sometimes the games can be really boring. Slow pace. Whistle by a whistle. And just wanna shout to refs “let them play the ball”. So last night the game was beautiful. First of all I was happy for my friend Al Harrington who scored 38 last night!

Al is a great guy. We were on vacation in France this summer. We were playing Charades on the boat and he was supposed to show the word “cucumber”. He was doing it so funny that nobody guessed what it was ;). He had no luck expressing or acting out the word “cucumber”. But last night he did some luck hitting 15 shots of his 20! Andrei and Al worked out together at the Abunasaar Academy trying to improve their jump shots. I guess it really helped Al. But not Andrei. Jeff Hornacek (bless his heart) has been working out with Andrei for the whole preseason, but still I don’t see the result I wanna see. My dad says (he used to be a professional basketball player) that Andrei WILL start making his shots very soon. The quantity should become quality. He says it is a law of life. I hope he is not mistaken.

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Now, to choose a "favorite" part of that is not easy, but what I enjoy the most is the style of prose. And this is by no means an insult...it's the idyllic charm of a foreigner who gets all the words down, but is missing the slight sentence nuance. But that's OK because they plow ahead anyway. Strong on plow. But they don't care and we shouldn't either. Hell, when the Rad Man was on the Clips, he was quoted as telling me "Victory for Clippers, OK!" I knew what he meant AND I liked the way he said it. Hell, could you do a charade of "cucumber" to foreigners and not expect a high comedic moment? Of course not.

Back to it here - and hoping another victory against Denver rights this ship.