For many of us, Summer means little to our fansmanship. As much as we try to appreciate America’s great past-time, Baseball is too slow and monotonous. We are seeking more than just an old timers’ game; more than five dollar English Leather cologne.

It is supposed to be the fun-time of the year. Many of us get time off of work to visit the world, sit on the beach, party with friends. Most importantly for us bachelors (and non-bachelors if we’re honest) the quadruple B’s are out in full force–blond, bronzed, bikini’d, bodies.

Head out to Avila Beach or Pismo for an hour and you will have plenty of memories by the time you’re done eye-surfing the summatime candy.

But hold on. Just hold up a bit. We don’t want to be creepers now do we? When you took the career job or said I DO, life took a turn for the better. Life was no longer a never-ending scene from Baywatch, and you are no longer David Hasselhoff and his abundantly woodsy chest.

Promiscuity is a bad bad word now, it will cause you to pull a groin or pat on tiger balm morning, mid-day, and night. It is not meant for us mature ones, but for the spry youngsters with a libido the size of Roseanne.

This my friends is no fun, I know. Yesterday I nearly pulled a hamstring on the stationary elliptical. I was trying to both watch ESPN and fake-run at the same time. Sounds easy enough, but nearing thirty, nothing has become easy. The “honey yes, honey of course, honey I will,” sorts of answers, are all that are easy. My life is a tedium glass house, I say no and the world comes crumbling down.

Summatime…

Remember playing ball nine to five on the blacktop with a few friends? It’s seventy five, a clear ardent blue coats the horizon, and the dead day just slumped on your shoulders with not a thing to do. Each one of your pretended for an eight hour period you were MJ, Scottie Pippen, Penny, Shaq, Larry Johnson, Zo, Grant Hill, or Hakeem.

Those were the days. Now, as a tax-paying citizen you’ve grown to resent the group I listed above. As you collect your unemployment from your poor paying teaching gig, your rose colored glasses including your young affair with believing in the impossible have slapped the basement of your life and crumbled into a million little pieces.

Summatime…

Relax, at some point all of us end up washed up. If an epic duo like Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff could never produce anything more than their one-hit album, then trust me, you and I will be forced to scan, fax, make copies, and staple for a living.

But what Summatime foreshadows are feelings of freedom. Despite our limited free time and fading memories of running the black top with skinned knees and soda pop, we all have a place within us that can go there.

Who would of thunk watching men’s professional tennis could excite me like Pam Anderson’s bobbing twins used to? Now as an unemployed man I have the ability to depressingly relive the glory days and bring back the first loves of season: sports, sports, and more sports.

Yes, sports.

Currently, A-Rod is stepping closer and closer to Barry’s all-time home run mark, Tiger is trying to return to form and assume his rightful place as golf’s all-time greatest, and the best living tennis player is still playing at an extremely high level in Roger Federer. Not to mention on Sunday, Jeff Gordon won his 84th NASCAR race, ranking fourth all-time on the list and assuming at forty one, he may go down alongside Richard Petty as the greatest driver in World history.

All this and it’s Summatime. Some things to keep an eye this Summer as you either bum it or find the time in your hectic life to Tivo something. Keep an eye on the Boston Red Sox, who after starting the season 1-9, currrently own the second best record in Baseball and are on pace to be just the ninth team in league history to eclipse 1,000 runs scored in a season.

Watch A-Rod continue his climb to home run greatness, as he sits just thirty four shy of the great Willie Mays mark of 660 at fourth all-time.

The NBA draft on June 23rd is always an intriguing experience. For NBA fans, this not only can shape your future (think Boston in 07′ with the trades of both KG and Ray Ray), but offers a glimpse in the leagues future. This year the popular names are the tweeners, Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Kemba Walker of Uconn, both highly talented but not sure lottery choices as of now.

Normally the draft would be all fun and games. That is if there was not a looming NBA lockout. According to NBA analyst Charles Barkley, the owners are at a “point where they are going to try and break these players unions down.”

Like the NBA’s situation, the NFL lockout has to be the most intriguing situation for sports fans. Most of us wait the two dead  Summer months: June and July, for August when football training camps report and news regarding trades begin to swirl. As of now, both sides remain at a stall and the idea of living without football for many not only kills their Summer, but does away with Sunday beer drinking hoots around the tube. Now Church is the only sad option.

June gloom is definitely upon us. A marshmallow cloud bank over the Pacific does it justice. Not only are we concerned about our lack of freedoms living as grown adults but we also may have to live without two of our favorites next year. In order to keep the faith, now would be a good time watch Baywatch re-runs or finally take up those dance lessons.

Any player who can score 30 points regularly in Division 1 college basketball, like he has over the past few years, will probably be a first-round draft pick. He is a prolific scorer and shooter, but what will really allow him to excel in the NBA is not his shooting ability. Mike Penberthy was a really good shooter and was out of the league quickly. Shawn Respert was an AMAZING shooter, but that didn’t keep him in the league.

Fredette’s ability to score also won’t keep him in the league for a long time. Lots of scorers in college have flamed out in the NBA.

What will make Jimmer not as bad as people are predicting is his athleticism. Because he won’t be required to dominate 75 percent of his team’s possessions, he will be able to spend time working to become a better defender than pundits think. His athleticism will allow for improvement that wouldn’t be possible for less athletic players.

Jimmer fits the profile of a stereotypical non-athletic chucker. The only problem is that he is very athletic. He needs to improve his ball handling and defense, but his athleticism and drive make him capable of both. He’ll do just fine in the NBA. — OM

As of now, the idea of Adam Morrison is dead.

That idea was that he’s the next Larry Bird. Or that he we was worthy of a third pick in 2006, to Charlotte.  

He’s like the Thunderbird of wine: nearing extinction.

It wouldn’t hurt as much, if his name translated into one of the great “Morrison’s;” Jim for one. But it doesn’t, it would be make believe. The dude from the Zags, yes, a guy who averaged 28.1 points per game his Junior year, leading Gonzaga to a 29-4 season, into the sweet sixteen, finishing with a National Player of the Year Award, whom was heralded at times by the narrow-visioned Jordan, to be the next “it” thing, has been tossed into the sea of pro-hopefuls like myself, waiting tables at Marie Callenders, and drinking cheap beer. The last two years he’s done as much basketball–watching, as any overweight bartender has, playing forty-one games, and averaging a pea-size 2.1 points with the L.A. Lakers.

The mop top, slinky white kid, from Glendive, Montana, with the awkardly perfect stroke (42.6% 3pt his Junior year) has been given over to the harsh reality of linguistics. A reality that some people have it, and some don’t. As Darwin would say, a game masquerade in survival of the fittest, where the biggest fish eats the littlest fish, then grows into a bonafide superstar. Unfortunately Morrison has been ingested.

I have travelled the country quite a bit. My travels have taken me to parts of Africa, most of Indonesia, in the slums with the Abo’s in Australia, and the list continues to mount. But no matter how much my Spanish speaking friends continue to quiz me on the difference between ‘que’ and ‘quien’ I am a lost soul awaiting a certain type of death: death by stupidity. Attempting to be a linguist would be less attainable to me than would walking the tight rope from New York to New Jersey; it just isn’t happening. Period.

So I’ve taken to being the laughing stock of our gatherings. And it’s awarded me with a comedic role, one I now relish in, considering most of the pretty Latina girls are taken by my humbly sensitive English-only-quiet-naturedness. But when it comes to professional sports, none of this funny. We all remember watching Morrison drill tough minded Michigan St. for 43, then, two weeks later doing the same against Washington, on 18-29 shooting, 6-9 from downtown.  He followed that with 27 against Virginia one week later, and then 34 against Memphis the next. Without a doubt he was the risen, beetles clad, better looking version of Larry Bird. So on draft day, going to the Bobcats could not have been a more perfect fit. He would certainly be the starting swing man and begin his ascent as the teams go-to, and the leagues best Caucasian player since Nowitski or Nash.

Nonetheless, the me-first, stylistic NBA clashed with Mark Fews pick setting sets at Gonzaga. Morrison, who’d lived off the pick and pops, no longer had that luxury, playing with athletic freaks like Gerald Wallace, who would rather go 1 on 5, jumping over his defenders, then work a team oriented set. This lack of a team concept suprised the non-athletic forward his rookie seasion, as he averaged 11.8 points per game. Though that was an understatement for what people thought he was capable of, we still saw it as a partial success. He could continue to build on such, and would hopefully assert himself more and more on the wayward, loss heavy Bobcats. But a seriously sprained knee in training camp his sophomore season deterred him. He played 44 games, starting just 5, and clearly lost his perfectly dopey looking demeanor. He was now tense, and it showed, as he shot 36% from the floor and averaged 4.5 points.  Guys like Nazi Mohammad made Morrison’s slow feet look like blocks of concrete. At that point, the slow forigiving Larry Brown  asked his personal chefs what the fat content would be with roast de Morrison. The answer was zippa-roo!(As they skipped to the Sounds of Music)

His trade to the Lakers, on the eve of his third season, was a salary dump on Charlotte’s part. The deep and experienced Lakers allowed the soft tempered Morrison to drown in the background, lose touch with his could-be abilities, and collect rings in the art of all things sitting. The days of comparisons were clearly over. He was more of a poor man’s Keith Van Horn than he was Larry Legend. His translation abilities were like a blind man reading letters in a darkened optometry office. He scored a zero.

The latest news on Morrision is close to null.  He was waived by the Washinton Wizards on the eve of the 2010-2011 season, over lost projects like Yi Jianlian, and Hilton Armstrong.  A Washington team who as of Saturday is 13-31, and without a doubt would lose to ranked elites like Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, or Syracuse.

Morrison has become more intriguing as an unexpected flop, than he would have, as a success. Not only because of our cultural  fondness for his days of railing teams for 30+ with Gonzaga, but because of our interpretable use for him, as we further try and compare and translate others at the college level with similar skill sets.

Jimmer Fredette is one of these translatable college players. Breaking on the scene last year, the 6’2, 195 pound guard, torched Arizona for 49, a BYU record.  Later, in the Mountain West conference tourney, Fredette put up 37 against TCU, a conference tourney record.  His record setting did not end with personal numbers, as Fredette led BYU to their best season in their history, losing in the 2nd round, 30-6, and ranked #16 in the polls.  In their opening round game against Florida, a double overtime thriller, Fredette put up 37, hitting two clutch threes down the stretch to ice a 99-92 win over Billy Donovan and co.

Then the questions began. A limited athlete, and short for his position, Fredette became the talk of the NBA draft. BYU’s up-tempo offense allowed for Fredette to put up a lot of shots. Which bore the question, is he really this good, or is he a product of a fast paced environment? His numbers answered the question. Last season, Fredette shot 45.8 from the floor, 88.9% from the free throw line, and 44.0% from the three point line. He averaged 22.1 points per game, first in the Mountain West, and his 4.7 assist per night, ranked second on his team.   

Before the start of this season, Fredette had been determined to be a late first to early second round pick, based upon his lack of athleticism, and size. This is because of players like Adam Morrison, who without the pick and pops simply could not get open. Not to mention Morrison had six inches on the stocky Fredette, and could shoot with the same depth.

According to Charlie Zeggers, a free lance writer with rotowire.com, and others, Fredette will have a “career path [that] will most closely mirror Redick’s, unless he has the good fortune to land with an NBA team that will play to his strengths and hide his weaknesses.” This is based upon the current comparisons to: Steph Curry, J.J Redick, and Morrison,  whom were great college shooters, but lacked either the size or athleticism, to translate it at the next level.

Or so we thought. As of now, Steph Curry is a budding all star with Golden St, and is arguably the best player of his draft class. Redick has become a solid role guy with Orlando, and is used as both a three point specialist, and a spark off the bench ala Tony Delk. Both players have ignored the translation factors, and outplayed a large majority of those drafted above them, further giving Fredette fans hope, because Morrison is the exception of the three.

 Which is why we need to live in the moment and enjoy what he’s doing now. His 27.4 points per game, on the 16-1 eighth ranked Cougars, without question places him as the early favorite to win the National Player of the Year Award. Three 40+ nights in his last four games, have us admiring not only his hard-nosed play, but his godly, astronomical greatness. And to top it off, the dude is humble, a class act, a guy who says more about his teammates than he does his individual accolades.

I believe he’ll translate something positive into any NBA arena next year. His humility should earn him kudos with the brash arrogance of the NBA elites.  He’ll rival Curry, Redick, Mike Miller, and Jared Dudley, as one of the premier three point shooters in the league.  And with his work ethic, could become like a Mark Price, who with hard nosed determination, and shooting ability, earned himself top fifteen point guard status in the history of the NBA.

If not, then you can expect a write up on the guy three years from now. It will be entitled: “Only the Good Die Young,” and will leave you wondering why the NBA is more popular than the momentary game of college hoops.

–Luke Johnson