raptors

tonight we had a draft for raptors tickets. 9 teams drafted for season tickets (a pair). monchichi and i are sharing, and we got the lakers, 76ers, celtics, heat, and chicago (preseason). we were forced to take a preseason ticket because we got one of the top 4 picks. we got 2nd.

i'm excited.. i really like the Lakers this year, even if Kobe ends up in jail (more on this later), they still have Malone, Payton and Shaq. It's a stacked team and should be able to compete with teams like the Spurs or Kings, who are stacked as well. 76ers, another player I've always wanted to see is Alan Iversion. He plays with so much heart and desire. Sure he jacks up 30 shots per game, but it's the valiant effort that I admire. We got Celts too, Paul Pierce -- all heart and soul.

The Heat's rookie Dwyane Wade is my pick this year for rookie of the year. I think he'll get tons of playing time, and he's the only scorer on the team. All you need is a high scoring average to get an ROY. And yeah, it IS spelled 'Dwyane', not D'wayne like D'wayne Bates of the Minnesota Vikings..!

Finally I'm happy about the Chicago preseason game too, although I would have preferred the game against the Greek team, Chicago is Toronto's final preseason game, so I suspect we'll see maybe 1 quarter of Vince, and then a good 36 minutes of Chris Bosh.

Kobe. This is just speculation, but in my honest opinion, I think a woman gets a certain amount of unfair power in rape cases. If it's down to his word against hers, the woman almost always gets the benefit of the doubt. What if Kobe had sex with this girl, and afterwards she asked if he'd call her, and he said no way! Easily she could have been upset enough to claim rape, knowing that a guy with a high profile like Kobe (or Mike Tyson) would at the very least pay her off. Either way, she gets her revenge.

Hypothetically, any woman would have an easy time winning such a case.

The thing that has always bothered me about Mike Tyson has been that the woman called him in the middle of the night and asked him to come over to her hotel room. If anyone has seen or read about Mike Tyson, you know he's not exactly the type of guy you call over for some emotional or family crisis. This girl called him over for sex, plain and simple. Okay, so maybe he was a little rough on her? It still doesn't take away from the fact that she intended to have sex with him. That bugs me that he still gets, what, 5 years in prison?

Now if the same thing happened to Kobe, that would be a different story, because he's a nice guy who someone WOULD be call over if there was a family or emotional crisis. Also I read that this woman accusing him has mental instabilities and recently tried to commit suicide, twice. And she isn't going to be put on the stand. What's up with that? How do we know she isn't just doing this for the fame and money? A woman who is suicidal, could just be out for some attention and a big settlement.

Bah.. what bothers me most about all of this is that Kobe Bryant is my favorite basketball player. He's never said anything foolish or stupid that I've seen in his one-on-ones or post game interviews. He married his highschool sweetheart, he's brimming with talent. I know it's naive to think that this guy might be perfect and that he's probably not.. but i'm a believer.