A Dunk Contest Enduced Blackout

We lost the time. The last thing the D-train staff remembers is that the dunk contest was on the monitor and all of a sudden it is Wednesday.

Seriously, this past Saturday's annual dunk-a-thon was a cure for insomnia. Sports pundits are calling for more stars in the contest. They need to switch the tracks on that one. To want a Lebron James or Kobe Bryant in the dunk contest harkens back to the past when Jordan and Dominique Wilkins soared above hardwood. The stars that the talking heads want to see may be the best players, but they are not the best dunkers. Let guys like Nate Robinson be the star of the contest and raid places like Rucker Park for some real sky-walkers who don't have to waste valuable time with fundamentals.

Our conductor once told the legend of an unnamed fellow in the mid-'90's that played in the currently defunct Continental Basketball Association who could dunk at the end of performing a cartwheel. He tried to get into the contest back then and was denied entry. Although the league has finally broken recently on that stance

Awakened from our dunk contest enabled slumber, we turned on the Winter Olympics and viewed the peculiar sport known as curling. "I thought this was an urban legend," said our conductor.

The U.S. women's curling team (who look in better shape than the men) lost a "thriller" of a match yesterday. The intensity and focus on the competitors’ faces was remarkable. It is hard to knock a sport that has been around since the 15th century. But after viewing it, it is hard to get into as well.

This past Tuesday, "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather was the guest on the Brian Kenny show. The failed negotiations that Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao over blood testing came up as it should have.

"I never knew a guy that didn't wanna take a 25 million dollar drug test," said Mayweather.

Now most of us at the D-train Daily cannot profess to be Mayweather fans we were swayed a bit on this issue by Floyd's next point.

"Athletes just don't start off average, or ordinary, and once they get over 25 become extra-ordinary. It doesn't work like that in the sport of boxing."

We are hardly trying to suggest that the Pac Man is doping. He is a national treasure in the Philippines and there a far too many Tagalog speaking folks in the area to cause offense. However, given Money Mayweather's point on not only the escalation in performance, but the money... it does get one to thinking.