As Libra's slow decent out of the dark skies marks the end of summer, so too doesAllen Iverson's signing in Memphis mark the end of the 2009 offseason. Like men of old, who once lived by the stars, let us recap the offseason, by tracing the movements of the NBA's Stars. As we all know, every great story begins long ago in Greece, and our tale is no different. A few years after the Achians sacked mighty Troy, the United States Men's Basketball team fell upon Athens, not at the bestowing of Agamemnon, but rather that of Larry Brown. There, in Greece, we find the birth place of our story; there we find our great heroes (of mythic proportions to which only this great artistic mural can attempt to render):
This ancient murals shows us, quite clearly, the players at the center of this offseason:Emeka Okafor,Richard Jefferson,Shawn Marion, Allen Iverson, and soon to be Boozer. Two other heroes nearly brandished new uniforms-Stoudemire and Odom. As it is made apparent this offseason has been about those heroes from Athens, let us see what Nature tells us of these movements.
First: TheMagiclost the championship because they didn't have any players from this heroic period. Let's pull all arguments to rest and agree Odom brought LA a championship (Gasol, another hero of Athens, helped too).
Second: The wise men of the NBA recognize our first point, the offseason "Arms Race" has merely been an assembling of Olympians. Greg Popovich, well versed in Jason and the Argonauts, has been at the forefront of this movement bringing in Jefferson to pair with Duncan. Soon others in the West followed suit: Marion, Okafor, and now Iverson. Finally, LA became self aware of this trend and opted to let the non Olympian (Ariza) go for the sake of the true hero.
The stakes of these moments are high, namely, Championships and West Powers becoming stronger. In light of this, let us now focus our attention on Portland: To begin with,Hedo Turkogluseemed like a good idea initially. Pritchard clearly called upon the Turkey as modern day Troy connection. However, upon consulting the annuals of history, one finds Turkey not to be among those competing in 2004. As such, Pritchard quickly backed out of negations under what we are now calling the "Hellen of Troy" rule-A female face launching ships to the East. Rodriguez was not a participant of the 2004 Olympic (Rudy was)--an unfortunate turn of events for him. Until we can revise history,Andre Milleris still not apart of the 2004 Olympic team.
So as Blazers' fans it is clear that the other West teams have grabbed their US Men's 2004 Olympians and we have stood by. As the offseason comes to a close, what are we to make of our movement, or rather the lack there of? To me, the choice is clear: Before the sands run out on us, let us band together and demand what we know in our hearts to be true: Let today be the beginning of theStephon MarburyProject. Let BlazersEdge carry the torch of true light of Starbury to the sleepy Portland community.
In the event that the 2004 US Men's roster is relavant, which I highly doubt, here it is:
Duncan, Okafor, Anthony, Boozer, James, Jefferson, Marion, Odom, Stoudemire, Iverson, Marbury, Wade
