Greg's Blog

NBA continued...

If you have missed the entire NBA season, here is a quick recap of what happened in the last year....

Both the Celtics and Grizzlies lost the Kevin Durant/Greg Oden sweepstakes despite having the worst records in the league. Seattle landed Durant, while Oden went to the Portland Trailblazers. Oden however never played a game, having season ending surgery before the season started. Portland ended up being the surprise of the league even without Oden and just barely missed the playoffs.

The Celtics drastically changed their roster, trading away their entire team for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (two perennial all-stars). They went on to acquire the best record in the regular season.

In New York, coach Isiah Thomas had somehow spent more money than almost every other NBA team but could not get the Knicks to produce a winning record. He was charged with a sexual harrassment suit, was found guilty, and is now jobless. The Knicks threw out all the garbage in their front office and are now run by former Pacers GM Donnie Walsh and coach Mike D'antoni.

The Suns made a desperate move to bring an old and injury plagued Shaquille O'neal onto their team in hopes he could guard Tim Duncan when they would play their rivals the Spurs in the playoffs. Shaq couldn't get the job done and the Suns window of opportunity to win a championship looks very small now.

The Mavericks made a similar move getting an old Jason Kidd who lost any ability to shoot a jump shot. Likewise they dumped their coach and are also looking at a small window.

The Lakers were in the papers all season because Kobe Bryant was unhappy with his team's ability. They somehow got All-Star center Pau Gasol for next to nothing and are now the favorites to win the West. Kobe won the MVP just recently.

The Orlando Magic and New Orleans Hornets have been the Cinderella stories of the league so far. Led by the best point guard in the NBA (Chris Paul), the Hornets are in prime position to knock off the defending champion Spurs and get to the Conference Finals. The Magic have found maybe the best center in the NBA in young Dwight Howard and are battling the Detroit Pistons currently.

The Western Conference brought us one of the closest playoff races in NBA history. Only a few games separated the top seed from the last seed.

The Sixers and Hawks brought their fans some great hope for the future as they narrowly lost to huge favorites Boston and Detroit in their first round. Both are young teams that should be very excited for next year.

The Charlotte Bobcats continue to make bad moves in selecting players. Through the years they have tried to increase fan interest by drafting UNC players heavily despite the lack of recent talent from the school. They have given too much power to Michael Jordan, who has shown to be a bad judge of talent in terms of running a team. They are pretty cheap in terms of spending money on their players and are unfortunately not bad enough right now to get into the top 2 or 3 picks in the draft so that they can bring in a college star. I am not sure how they are going to right the ship in Charlotte. On the bright side, they are bad enough that I can get a ticket for 10 dollars and move up to one of the many empty seats in the arena to get a better view of the game.

Yao Ming broke his foot, ending his season.

Dwight Howard showed us the most exciting dunk contest in the last 10 years.

The Chicago Bulls were the most disappointing team of the year.

Utah became the toughest place to play in the country. Great fan base.

Seattle's heartless owner has decided to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

The Miami Heat became the laughing stock of the NBA despite winning a championship a few years ago with basically the same team.

Round 2 Action in the NBA

Due to the length of the blog, I am splitting up my thoughts of the 2008 NBA season and postseason into a few blogs.

As I have written before, this season might be one of the most memorable in NBA history. There are so many interesting story lines and crazy subplots going on that fans of almost every NBA city have built some lasting memories. Through the last few years, the NBA was dominated by the "big three" of the Western conference. Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio were simply playing at a level that no other team could match. But this year, there have been early exits by both the Suns and Mavericks, as well as failed blockbuster trades and coaching changes. While the Suns and Mavericks have been coming back to the pack, it looks like teams like Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Utah, and New Orleans have jumped into the upper echelon of the NBA. At his point in the playoffs, it looks as if anybody could win their series as Utah, Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio, New Orleans, Detroit, and Orlando are the only teams left. The odds on favorites to meet in the finals are Los Angeles and Boston, but after the last two days, neither of these teams looks very dominant.

For those of you who have been watching the playoffs, I am sure you have noticed how much better the TNT coverage has been compared to ABC and ESPN. ESPN has been especially awful to watch as they have Stephen A. Smith almost forcing viewers to change the channel during pregame, halftime, and postgame shows. TNT on the other hand has provided maybe the most entertaining coverage in the history of sports. They hit the jackpot with their postgame show "Inside the NBA." The show focuses on Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith throwing out all of the normal etiquette of your basic sports show and gives the viewer funny, honest opinions on teams.

While "Inside the NBA" has written the book on how to have a great postgame show, former-head-coach-turned-announcer Jeff Van Gundy has been equally as impressive as the color commentator in several of the games. His off the wall, yet insightful opinions on the games have been hilarious, confusing, and outrageous all at once. Most recently he demanded that Lebron James wear a scarlet "F" on his jersey for the rest of the series because of his excessive flopping (flopping is a term that describes a player diving onto the ground as if he was hit by a truck when in reality he was barely touched).

Business of Business

A couple of this quarter's classes revolve around the business aspect of operating a successful practice. There are so many different ways in which chiropractor's can design the way that they want to do business, that it is a pretty daunting job making sure you can keep track of all of your first year expenses. While Sherman College does not accept insurance, many chiropractors choose to include it as part of their payment plan. Unfortunately there are dozens of little nuances to filing insurance that must be remembered or you can dig yourself into an unpleasant hole. Hopefully I can continue to get advice from the chiropractors around campus about billing and managing records so that everything runs smoothly when I begin my own practice.

Nice Weather

With the 80 degree weather finally returning to Spartanburg, it is time to get out the basketball, volleyball, football, and soccer ball and start utilizing Sherman's athletic facilities. Currently, Sherman students have been playing soccer on Thursdays and Tuesdays around 6 at Sherman. I think this might be changing though to 5 at USC Upstate on Saturdays.
I have been playing basketball a lot lately and have noticed that the world has gone mad. My friend Jake bought this brand new Spalding basketball that is basically as close as you can get to an official NBA ball. He brings the ball to every pickup game we play. lt has an unbelievable grip because it has not been worn down by time and Jake takes care of it pretty well. The strange thing is that whenever we begin to start a game, everyone finds the oldest, slickest, most beat up ball to play with. Yesterday I practically forced everyone to play with Jake's ball despite the protests of the group. They felt it was too small for some reason and were looking at it like it was some kind of alien device. This happens every time I force people to play with the new ball, and five minutes later everyone starts hitting every one of their jump shots because of the outstanding grip on the release. Yes, Will Ferrell, I do feel like I am taking crazy pills.

Somebody should organize some weekly volleyball games. It seems like everyone always wants to play but nobody wants to organize a game.

On a side note, I have been getting hassled a lot for drinking 1% milk by both sides (the 2% and the skim milkers). I can never win because each side feels that the other milk is gross and since I am apparently the only 1% guy in the world, I have no common ground with either. So for you readers, if you see a 1%er downing a glass of delicious milk, give him a thumbs up and not a disparaging remark.

NBA PLAYOFFS ARE HERE!

      For those of you who are unaware, the NBA playoffs have begun! Although we are only 4 days into the playoffs we have already had an unbelievable Phoenix-Spurs double overtime thriller, a Philadelphia win over heavily favored Detroit, and memorable games from Chris Paul, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan.

      In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers have been blowing the doors off their opponents. All three teams should be shoe-ins to make it to the next round. Although the Detroit Pistons lost their first playoff game, they should be able to bounce back and win a tough series against the Sixers.

      In the Western Conference, the L.A. Lakers have shown why they were able to get the top seed by outscoring a talented Denver Nugget team. We will more than likely be seeing them match up against the Utah Jazz (2-0 against Houston so far) in the second round. San Antonio managed to sneak out a double OT victory against the Suns, but I think this is going to be the year that Phoenix finally gets their number. I see Phoenix advancing in 7 to play New Orleans.

As far as the Finals are concerned, I have to remain in the front seat of my "homer" bus and pencil the Celtics in the Eastern slot. The West is more difficult because of the talent level of the teams. I like the Lakers, Suns and Jazz, but I am familiar with the NBA's need for a Boston-LA finals so I imagine the Lakers will be getting every close call imaginable.

Pau agrees with the picks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSaR38uAiBI Here is LeBron's ridiculous game 1 dunk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD6yHYo58qo Some C's playoff action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWlGXya4124&feature=related The best game of the playoffs so far

New Spartanburg Restaurants

I decided to write about some of Spartanburg's new restaurants. In the last year or so we were lucky enough to have a Copper River Grill put up about 5 miles from Sherman College. They offer a similar menu to that of Outback or Chile's but the food is significantly better. They make their own croissants as well which are outstanding.

Another place that has just appeared is Heart's restaurant, located on the same street as Copper River Grill. They have a similar menu to that of the Clock,specializing in "southern" food.

Ron's Barbecue is another southern style restaurant that has opened within the past year. They specialize in pulled pork and their spicy mater barbecue sauce is phenomenal. Their prices are a couple of dollars too expensive, but if you get a sandwich instead of a dinner plate you can get a good deal.

Mini Golfing in Greenville

On Friday I waited patiently for patients to walk into the health center for 6 hours but had no luck. To cheer myself up I went to Frankie's Fun Park in Greenville with my girlfriend Jaclyn and my friend Phong. Located about half an hour from Sherman College, this is one of the more entertaining places to go in the Upstate area.
When we got to the park, we quickly found out that it was packed. There were about 20 people waiting in line for miniature golf alone. Delighted that there was a black ball I could choose from, I ended up playing some of my best mini golf and won the first game we played. We decided not to play the 18th hole so that we could pick up our ball and go back to the beginning hole and play again (the 18th hole sucks in your ball unlike the regular holes).
Frankie's Fun Park has 3 mini golf courses so we went to a different course, where Jaclyn managed to win a hard fought contest (despite my record 5 hole in ones). Phong continues to improve his game. Below are some of the pictures and videos I took of our time. Please enjoy.

Back In Business

I have taken a little time off from blogging because school was getting a little stressful and I lost a little motivation to write. Since March, I have taken the National Boards and finished my 10th quarter at Sherman College. The boards were pretty terrible. I had never even heard of some of the things they were talking about, so I hope I can get a passing grade.
I realized that I really enjoy working in the Health Center instead of sitting in classes all day. The hardest part of Clinic is finding patients to come in and get under care. Since we are required to be in the Health Center 240 hours this quarter, it doesn't leave a lot of time to get your business cards out around town. Hopefully I can continue finding patients to work with through our school's "walk in" list. I think a lot of people don't realize that their first visit is free so they don't want to take the time to find out what chiropractic is all about.
Currently our school is under a lot of construction. Things should be all cleaned up by next month, and should look fantastic.

Toughest week of the Quarter

Boards are here on Friday! I have been accumulating funds to pay for the boards since last November, but only studying for the last three weeks. I feel like I have a good grasp on the material and look forward to getting them over with. I think everyone at Sherman is blogging about how boards stink and they wish they were doing something else so I will just say I am not looking forward to them. I am going to have to decide between studying and church basketball this week. Eeeeeee!

I have been using my girlfriend's ROOMBA a lot lately. For any of you who are unfamiliar with this machine, it is a vacuum cleaner that moves along the floor all by itself. It does a great job cleaning up dirt and is fun to watch.

In the sporting world my beloved Boston Celtics are currently in 1st place in the NBA and are coming to Charlotte on April 5! I have gotten the NBA ticket and have enjoyed every second of it. One of the best purchases I have ever gotten.
Here you can see Kevin Garnett watching the ROOMBA video.

As an added bonus video I present you with the Trunk Monkey compilation. Please enjoy.

Video Introduction to Sherman College

I recently found out that we have an introductory video on youtube that is floating around. Since many students were not aware of it, I have decided to post it on this blog. It is highlighted by the Frank Yanik "slow walk" down the hallways.

Click here to watch it