I was invited as a guest through work to this week's Nets-Hawks matchup, my first NBA game in many years. The Nets are an awful team, apparently still hampered by trading for all those old Celtics players a half-decade ago. They did give double-digit minutes to five different white players (if you count Brook Lopez, which I don't always). It really seems like the league's worst teams stick a couple extra white guys on the floor on purpose (I'm thinking of last year's Sixers team, especially).
Speaking of the Sixers, TJ McConnell, undrafted point guard out of Arizona, finished off the Knicks with an inside-out baseline jumper as time expired the other night. The Knicks, however, were without their own star point guard, Derrick Rose. Rose, who was acquitted of gang rape this offseason, apparently grew so upset with Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek that he simply didn't show up to the game. Had he been kidnapped, waylaid, or lampooned? No, he just flew home to Chicago for a couple of days to stew because Hornacek (a former prolific white off-guard himself) played undrafted Ron Baker down the stretch in the previous game. Despite a salary of over $180,000 per game, Rose could not muster the will to suffer this indignity in person. Fortunately for the city of New York, he has calmed down enough to return to the team, and Hornacek has learned his lesson by once again burying Baker on the bench the next two contests.
Overall, I felt that $0 was a fair price to pay for the evening of NBA action, and I would consider doing it again for that amount in a large social group setting.