I recently pitched an article on Gilbert Arenas to an editor I know, and he wrote back something along the lines of, “you’re pretty into athletes who blog, huh?” And the short answer is yes. The explanation being that I like reading blogs anyway, probably to excess, and I’m kind of curious what it would be like to be a professional athlete. Sure, being a part-time CSTB poster is similar to being a professional athlete in some ways — the money, the harassment from trifling-ass police, being raked over the coals by Woody Paige on the regular, and of course the money — but smart people who happen to be 10 inches taller than me and significantly better at basketball intrigue me. Because while I’ve been to the professional sports (blogging) mountaintop, and know the ledge by this point, I don’t know what it’s like, say, to play for the Dakota Wizards.


For that, luckily, there is former Cal power forward and new Draftexpress NBDL blogger Rodrique Benson (above). The former Tucson Toro takes the reader even deeper into the NBDLifestyle than Toros Superfan GC does in his periodic courtside posts from the House That Marcus Fizer Built/Austin Civic Center. Benson’s been blogging on his own for some time, but his debut post at Draftexpress — the link came courtesy of Henry Abbott’s daily TrueHoop roundup — has some tasty morsels on life with America’s other favorite basketball team named the Wizards:

J(ose).J(uan). Barea was ON FIRE when we played the Ft. Worth Flyers in the Ft. Worth convention center. We lost both games down there and I swear this guy must have had 35 pts a game against us. The kid is like a bowling ball with legs, yet, for some reason, I cant block his shot to save my life. I feel like every time he sees me underneath the basket, he says something to himself in Spanish like œ¡este punky no podría pararme si le hicieron del ladrillo sólido! then just does whatever he wants. He is a real talented kid, but dang¦it really took a special performance from him to overcome my 14 pt., 10-rebound display haha. But seriously, there are a couple things besides the NBA Assigned players that make it really hard to play in Ft. Worth. For one, they have the best-looking dance team of all time. They are easily comparable to the Laker Girls, but, since we are in the D-League where games sometimes only have 17 people in the stands, those 12 dancers can really, really stand out. Another thing they have going for them is that they play their music real loud. It™s basically like a nightclub with a basketball team for extra entertainment. Not only that, but the DJ is pretty damn good and has an excellent play list.

Anecdotes about a terrifying bar in Ft. Worth that’s a little bit country and a little bit hip-hop and getting hassled by a fat dude in a near-empty Albuquerque “rodeo house or whatever they call it” follow. I don’t want to spoil too much. If you care about stuff like this, I highly recommend it.