It’s been a long time since an athlete has been hyped as much as Stephen Strasberg. I’ve got to admit that it can be fun getting caught up in the hype. We hype up just about everything these days whether it be new TV shows, movies, books, etc. You can watch viral videos made to promote new books and see commercials for a new movies months before it comes out.
If I had the chance, I would have tried to pick up tickets to see Strasburg pitch for the first time. It’s something that you can talk about years from now. It wasn’t planned, but I saw Dice-K’s first ever start at Fenway and that was cool. It might be part of the reason that I’ve continued to back and root for Dice-K when most Sox fans have given up on him.
Back in 2003, the NBA decided that Boston would host that year’s Summer League games. UMass Boston would be the venue and a certain big name rookie would be there playing. (Actually, multiple big name rookies may have been there, but at the time I didn’t really know who Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony or Chris Bosh were.)
I checked out the schedule and picked up tickets for a block of games that included both Boston and Cleveland (which I think was the last day of league play). I don’t think that LeBron did much in the game that afternoon, but plenty of people showed up to see him. I remember a lot of free throws, but I think that the only field goal that James has was on the shot pictured below. The Cavs had a three-on-none fast break where the ball was thrown off of the backboard for LeBron.
I think it was just a basic dunk which is the smart thing to do. You don’t want to end up with a freak injury in a meaningless game before your rookie season. That wasn’t popular with the crowd of course.
The two games were fun to watch. All I remember from the game that the Celtics played in was that Marcus Banks had really shiny green sneakers. I wasn’t there to see the Celtics that day though. I was there to see what all of the hype surrounding LeBron James was about. I didn’t get to see it that day, but James had some great games during the Summer League and everyone knows what he has done since then.
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