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Tag: NBA
NBA 2K Sent Zach to New York to play 2K18 early – Watch this Video Vlog!!!
Read Zach’s New Short Story: Why Did I Buy an Autographed Lamar Odom Basketball at a Charity Auction?”
Browsing the silent auction table at my kid’s Little League baseball charity day, I was prepared to put my money down on all the usual stuff. The $60 restaurant gift certificate that was available for half the price… The one-on-one baseball training sessions with an ex- Major Leaguer for my son… Even the autographed script of the cast of Stranger Things was appealing. But instead, I was drawn to the one seemingly out-of-place item in the auction… An autographed Lamar Odom NBA basketball.
I have never really been a Lamar Odom fan. I thought he was a gifted ballplayer in college and had some incredible years in the NBA – even winning two titles with the Lakers in 09-10 and taking home Sixth man of the Year in 2011… But he never really lived up to his potential. (A few marijuana busts, suspensions and even a weird incident where he disappeared before his final exams at the University of Rhode Island always made him a high-risk player…) However, due to some horrific family tragedies and the fact that he had to play with Andrew Bynum, I was always willing to give Lamar Odom a pass. Yet, I was just never really a fan.
Still, something about a Lamar Odom-autographed basketball was appealing.
Obviously, these days, Lamar Odom is more known for his Kardashian marriage and his drug-fueled exploits at a Las Vegas sex ranch than he is for his fairly respectable basketball career. His now legendary two-week hooker bender, drug coma and relapse made the covers of every tabloid magazine and for a minute, Lamar Odom entered that Charlie Sheen level of debauchery that most celebrities never seem to come back from…
That’s when I figured out exactly why I wanted that basketball.
I love celebrities and especially athletes who PARTY. I loved Sheen’s Two and a Half Men meltdown. I rooted for Josh Hamilton, worshipped the entire 1986 New York Mets cocaine-fueled roster and I may be the only person who truly respects Johnny Depp’s savagely impressive admission that he spends 30,000 dollars a month on wine. When Lamar Odom was found in that brothel in Vegas, I was immediately a bigger fan. Not because he had divorced a Kardashian, but that he bounced back from it with a massive orgiastic adventure that average men living average lives can only dream of… Somewhere, deep down inside, every man in America looked at Lamar Odom’s drug-and-sex-capades and thought to themselves, “Oooh, that sounds fucking fun.”
My winning bid was for $75.00. Online, Lamar Odom autographs range from $8.00 basketball cards to $399.99 official game used basketballs in designer glass cases, so I basically paid market price. This ball is not game used, but it is in a case that probably runs for about $50.00 retail. It looks great even though the only certificate of authentication is in the form of a handwritten Post-it Note sadly just reading, “Lamar Odom.”
One question remained… Who donated the ball to the Little League charity in the first place? Was there a Little League dad who worked with the NBA? Or was a sober companion? When I inquired deeper, nobody came forward with the admission, and I was left to assume that the ball was donated from a private collection by a dad whose wife was furious that her husband had collected such a womanizing drug-addled autograph… Meanwhile, my wife looked at it as it entered our house and commented, “You didn’t bid on the restaurant gift certificate?”
So now, in my very modest collection of NBA memorabilia, I have a Lamar Odom-signed basketball. Amazingly. More people comment on this souvenir than anything else I have collected since I was a kid. My Shaquille O’Neal signature? YAWN. The autographed Gronk jersey? Snooze. Even the Charles Barkley signed ball gets a fervent ho-hum from my friends when we have a few beers and look through the pathetic corner of my house that I refer to as my “Man Cave.”
But the Lamar Odom ball sparks conversation…
“Woah! Did it come with a hooker and blow?” is a common response. “Dude, hilarious – remember when he went on that bender in Vegas? I’d KILL for one night of that!” is another.
So as men, we drive the Little League carpools, do our best to support our families and every once in awhile we get together to drink beers and live vicariously through Lamar Odom’s signature… He may not be remembered for his Michael Jordan-like career or his Hall of Fame potential, but he will forever be respected by the members of the “live life by the rules” folks who will never have the balls to head to the Bunny Ranch with a bag of blow and a suitcase full of Viagra.
Here’s to you Lamar. I know you’re a survivor. As long as you’re out there living it up, men like me will toast your praises. Even if my wife is still bummed that I didn’t get the restaurant gift certificate…
All new NBA Rapdate with Father-Son battles!
THE RETURN OF THE REAL…
Read Zach’s New Short Story “My 10-Year-Old has Become a Sneakerhead…and it’s All My Fault.
My wife recently began complaining about a mysterious “putrid foot stench” emanating from the closet in my 10-year-old son’s room. After moving around some stuffed animals I had used to hide my stash spot, she came upon the source of the funky smells that had started making their way throughout our entire house… She found the shelf where I had been storing all of my son’s old basketball shoes.
My dad got him a tiny pair of Air Jordan XIII’s when he was a baby, which he wore once. His first nice pair of Nikes was a 2010 Air Jordan 2 in the “candy blue” shade, which he wore for about a year. Then, at eight, he scored a slightly worn pair of Lebron Soldiers before moving up to the blue, white and gold Under Armour Steph Curry 2’s. When his foot got too big for those, I treated him to the latest Kyrie Irving Nikes, which he recently outgrew. When we went to a Clippers game, Raymond Felton handed him a pair of his game-worn sweaty shoes (which only ripened with time) and I recently passed him the size 23 XXL Shaquille O’Neal shoe I once drunkenly bought at a silent auction a few years back for $200.00. (Luckily this shoe lives in a glass case).
Since his birth, I have managed to save 11 pairs of outgrown basketball shoes, along with his game worn Felton’s and the Shaq shoe – hoping that one day they might be worth a fortune and possibly cover a few college tuition payments.
However, my plan didn’t exactly win over the entire household.
“Who the hell saves smelly basketball shoes?” My wife asked.
“Trust me, someday they’re gonna be worth a lot of money… People ALWAYS want basketball shoes.”
“Right,” she argued. “Because Nikes with dog shit on the bottom fetch a high price on ebay these days.”
I knew she wouldn’t understand why I was doing this, so I had to tell her the story of my own personal basketball shoe heartbreak…
In 1985, I begged my mom for a pair of the first pair of Royal Blue Nike Air Jordan shoes. The minute I outgrew them, about six months later, my mom sold them to the used clothing store Buffalo Exchange in Tucson for about $3.00. Since my foot was growing at a rapid rate (I had a size 13 by 8th grade) my mom refused to buy me any more expensive basketball footwear until my foot stopped growing.
So, between those amazing blue Air Jordans – and my eventual 1989 Nike Air Flights, I was stuck playing ball in K-Swiss, a $15 pair of Cons and even a horrendous pair of high-top Ponys.
Today, if my mother had saved those original black and blue Air Jordans, they’d probably be worth over $5,000. Instead, they are probably in some desert landfill somewhere, long ago discarded as trash, when it reality, they are some of the rarest collector’s items in the sneaker game today.
If you have ever driven by a store like Supreme or Undefeated on Fairfax Boulevard and seen a line snaking around the corner for 300 yards, you have seen the pop culture phenomenon of sneaker collecting first hand. “Sneakerheads” are people who collect, admire, re-sell and worship sneakers – going so far as to be able to recognize knock-offs from the real deal by the tiniest angle of the tread on the bottom of a pair. The sneaker collecting business is mainly relegated to basketball and skateboarding shoes and some kicks have fetched upwards of 25 grand on ebay and other high-end marketplaces… Shoes like my original blue Air Jordans are in rarified air amongst the sneaker nerds of the world.
Back in 1985, of course, nobody knew this. Kids were busy collecting comic books and baseball cards, not old shoes. My baseball cards are not worth the cardboard they were printed on. My comic books? Let’s just say I saved the wrong ones. (Anyone want to buy a Thundercats #1?) If you were lucky enough to collect basketball cards in the early to mid-80’s, there is a chance you may have a valuable rookie card if you have, say, a Jordan or a Charles Barkley. In reality, most of my friends back then liked basketball, but would have rather owned nine Wally Joyner rookies than a 1984 Sir Charles. So, if you were the kid who collected basketball shoes, you weren’t considered smart, you were considered a hoarder… or just certifiably insane.
“Mom, don’t throw those away!” My son yelled when he saw the stacks of shoes sitting in the “sell back” pile that we bring to a used clothing shop on Larchmont Boulevard every month.
“Oh no, daddy hasn’t got YOU believing this shoe nonsense now too, does he?”
“They could be worth a lot of money!” He cried.
My son gathered his shoes up and walked them back towards his room where he stashed them. I was impressed. He was becoming my little 10-year-old Imelda Marcos.
As my wife watched him, she gave me a death stare and shook her head.
“Look,” she said. “Maybe you should teach him to save something that nobody has thought about saving yet.”
“Like what, Crocs?”
My wife laughed.
“Just something that doesn’t… smell like a feral squirrel crawled into our house and died.”
My wife and I went upstairs and talked to our son about his unique collection of used, sweaty basketball shoes. After some deliberation, it was decided that I would be selling a few select shoes on ebay for him – and that we would put the profits towards some new kicks. His choices were the latest Chris Paul’s, the Kevin Durant KD 9’s or the Russell Westbrook “half boot-half basketball shoe” model that looked like something off of a Bell Biv Devoe album cover from the 90’s.
He adamantly demanded that we not buy him those “Wack-ass James Harden Lunch lady shoes.”
The first shoe I listed on my ebay was his first pair of baby Air Jordan XIII’s. I put an offer up to “Buy it Now” for $50.00.
They sold in 30 minutes…
*Zach Selwyn still owns a pair of Nike Greg Oden shoes from 2008.
Zach hosts TBS’ “Out of Control Athletes of the Week!”
Antonio Brown? Punching refs? Mitch McGary going all 420? You’re on blast with Zach and his TBS web series “Out of Control Athletes of the Week.”
Watch the new NBA Rapdate “Panda” Version!
Original song by Designer. This is HOT, though.
