First Round Draft pick

Announcer No. 1: Hello Ladies and Gentleman, welcome back. I’m Bob Johnson, with my co-host Dave Jacobs, and up next we have Ohio State University on the board.

Announcer No. 2: Now Bob, our top pick available is Kamari Stevens. Now Stevens wasn’t really a stat-stuffer at Sinclair, but he has a lot of upside.

No.1: It really just depends on if he wants it enough. He has all the tools, but does he have desire for greatness. We’ve seen him show glimpses but he hasn’t been able to sustain and with this being a higher level is it right of us to think he will be able to do it.

No.2: Alright Bob, it seems that OSU has chosen Stevens. One thing I will say is this is a good situation for him. He was raised in Dayton which is roughly an hour away from Columbus, so he will be able to maintain his support system.

No.1: It seems that we have the Buckeye available for a moment, let’s hear what he has to say.

Stevens: I’m extremely happy to be Buckeye. Yes, I’m excited and nervous, but I think I will be able to succeed at the next level.”

That’s what you usually hear from most high school recruits or college athletes who are getting drafted. Though I’m not receiving a free ride or a million-dollar contract for my scholastic abilities, the situations are comparable. And I think if I were one of the prospects in the upcoming NBA Draft – which is this Thursday – I would probably be most comparable to Daniel Orton. Orton is a 19-year-old, 6” 10’ prospect from the University of Kentucky. In his one and only season at UK he averaged 3 points and 3 rebounds per game. You don’t have to be fan of basketball to know that is not a lot, but Orton is still garnering tons of attention just because his potential. Not because of his actual input, because there are plenty of players in this year’s draft who have done much more and won’t have a chance at getting drafted. It’s because of what can be and in a league where a 6” 10’ guy can mean a lot championships, drafting Orton, no matter that he hasn’t really proven himself, can be worth it.

I say that, to say this. At Sinclair, I wasn’t the best student. In very few classes, did I work up the capacity of what I can do, but there’s always the chance that I can do that. And, if I were to really work up to my potential, maybe I could be something special.

Maybe.

My advisor at the Clarion, would always talk to me about my lack of enthusiasm or effort and she wasn’t the only one. And each time, I would hear what I would call the “Kamari get your sh*t together” talk, I would genuinely take it to heart. One of the things I fear most is letting people down, who have faith in me.

So, with my first class at OSU starting in less than 12 hours, I am ready to shed the attitude that I have had about school for the last eight or nine years. I’m finally at a big university and I’m ready to prove that I can excel at this level, regardless if my track record says otherwise.

I am excited and very nervous. This moment doesn’t seem real to me. I remember being an 11-year-old kid just waiting for when I would get to college, to show what I was really made of. And the time is here.

Hopefully, I won’t let 11-year-old Kamari down.

7

As I promised, being the huge NBA fan that I am, I have to discuss the NBA Finals between the L.A. Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

This has been a weird NBA Finals for me. Mostly due to my work schedule and my lack of digital cable, I have been unable to see an entire Finals game. The few times that I’ve been able to catch some of the game is only because of my knowledge of how to watch the games on my laptop.

But it’s just not the same.

This year’s Finals is a rematch of the 2008 NBA Finals, where the Celtics beat the Lakers 4-2. Last year, the Lakers beat the Orlando Magic in the ’09 NBA Finals 4-1, to become the now-defending champions.

I didn’t predict that the Celtics and Lakers would meet each other again in this year’s Finals, mainly because now it’s almost unheard of to see two teams play each other twice in the Finals, whereas in the 80s it was commonplace. The last time it happened was with the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, in the ’97 and ’98 NBA Finals.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss the series which is now tied 3-3, with the deciding seventh game being played on Thursday, June 17.

Coming into this series I felt that the Celtics would have the advantage over the Lakers, just because no one expected them to win the Eastern Conference. It’s been documented before by ESPN columnist and Celtics enthusiast Bill Simmons, that the Celtics went 26-24 in their last 50 games of the regular season. And I don’t know if this is worldwide knowledge, but the NBA regular season is only 82 games. On the flipside, the Lakers had pretty much a guaranteed route to this year’s final, especially with the only two teams that I thought could beat them in a seven-game series, the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks, being ousted in the first round of the playoffs.

This brings us back to the penultimate seventh game.

From the glimpses I’ve been able to catch and what I’ve read about this series, it has been one that could be described best as unpredictable. The first three games, two in L.A. and one in Boston, were muddled by bad refereeing. The result was a 2-1 series with the Lakers leading.

Sidebar: Another stat that has to be brought up is the streak where Lakers coach Phil Jackson has won every series in which his team has won the first game. Right now that streak is at 47 and depending on the outcome of Thursday’s game; it could very well be 48. But there is also another interesting stat pertaining to Phil Jackson. He’s never coached in NBA Finals Game 7.

In the next two games, both in Boston, the Celtics were able to impose their will on the Lakers and even withstood a magnificent performance from Laker Kobe Bryant, to make the 3-2 in the Celtics favor.

Last night’s game featured the Lakers just flat-out dominating the Celtics, while the Celtics lost their starting center Kendrick Perkins in the first quarter. This tied the series 3-3.

To be honest, I would love for the Celtics to somehow win Game 7. I happen to hate Kobe Bryant and the Lakers to almost irrational levels, and to see them win back-to-back championships would hurt me to my core.

On my Facebook status, I half-jokingly said, “I would rather flunk out of college than see the Lakers win (the title) back-to-back. Lakers suck.”

But, sometimes you have to be realistic and with the Perkins being injured I don’t think the Celtics will be able to pull off the upset victory. They have history on their side – in the ’69 Finals a veteran-laden Celtics team beat the Jerry West-helmed Lakers in the deciding Game 7 (another nugget from Simmons’ column).

So, all I can do is sit and wait. And, maybe flunking out of college wouldn’t be that bad.

Pause for the Cause

Sorry for the lack of post. I had to clock in major hours at my job – Red Lobster – which left me with little time to sit down and write. Sometime tomorrow I’ll have one, if not two, blog posts. Be there or be square.

A Long Time Coming

After almost a full year since I was accepted, I will finally set foot on Ohio State's campus as a full-time student on June 21. It really has been a journey. A little less than a year ago, I attended OSU's orientation where I didn't know how I was going to pay for school or where I would be living if I could pay for it. Lack of preparation had a lot to do with it, but it also was a lack of urgency. In most sports, T.V. analyst and sportswriters always talk about the urgency to win a title. Most professional athletes have a small window where they have the chance to win against the highest level of competition. Even the select few who are labeled superstars, like former Miami Dolphins QB Dan Marino or NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley, don't succeed at winning at that level. So, when the window begins to shrink , said player does all within his power to attain that goal of winning it all. Barkley, who had been to the NBA Finals once in '93 with the Phoenix Suns, was traded to the Houston Rockets which featured fellow HOF's Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olujawon in hope of attaining a title. Even with this combo, Barkley was unable to win a ring and eventually retired in '00.

Which leads me to my point. When I moved up to Columbus this past March, it was because I felt the sense of urgency. It was a deafening sound. All of the kids who were freshmen when I graduated from high school were now graduating themselves. I felt like I was losing my place. Whether my choice was right or wrong, I do feel it was necessary. But it was also a risky move.

I moved to Columbus with hopes and wishes in my pockets. I had enough money to pay for the first two months of rent and that was it. The only positive I had going for me was that I still had a job. I was scheduled to start at OSU for the Summer quarter, but I still didn't have a way to pay for school. The only plan I had was to wait and see if I received enough financial aid to pay for school and whatever the aid couldn't cover, maybe a private loan could. Since my own credit history wasn't the best, I had only my aunt to rely on as a co-signer. No parents. No grandparents. Just my aunt.

Talk about having all your eggs in one basket.

With another OSU orientation on the horizon, I figured it was time to call good ole Aunt Jenae. After filling out the application and having her and I sign it -- electronically, of course -- I received some unpleasant news.

Auntie's credit wasn't so great. Which meant no loan for me.

Damn

Without the loan, it was like I was sitting on the Sun. But I remained calm. I had yet to see what my financial aid award would be, so there was still hope that I hadn't made a grave decision in moving to Columbus.

Fast forward to today. I finally received the letter I had been so desperate to see and it was just what I needed. With school grants and federal loans provided by the government, I am able to pay for Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring.

When people asked me whether I was excited about going to OSU I couldn't really say yes, because until today I didn't know if it was really going to happen. But now it is and there is no turning back.

And, I couldn't be more excited.

Post coming this week: Hopefully one about women, and maybe one in particular. Definitely one on the NBA Finals.