Spaceman Spiff

As people are coming to grips, quickly growing trend of his rape case and the mentions of it. That Sonmez story is picking up steam and now the sanctimonious Will Leitch has penned this article: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/kobe-bryant-died-inspiration-many-not-all-we-can-t-ncna1124311 While the article paints an accurate picture, I disagreed with his closing. Kobe Bryant's case has been mentioned a decent amount over the past couple of days. How it has been mentioned, I'm sure people will battle over. But it's not like it has NOT been mentioned. Leitch, IMO, is correct to a certain extent...some people just do not want to hear it at all.

I follow that logic and I like it.

Quick, quick. Was Ernie the GM back then? WHO DO WE BLAME FOR SCREWING THAT UP

Or you could just say, "My name is Jumbo, I'm a moderator on Extremeskins" and see what kind of reaction you get.

I saw some reports, apparently that dude wasn't an average joe helicopter pilot. He was Kobe's private pilot and, if I understood correctly, an instructor, too. Kobe had been taking helicopters for years in order to skip traffic in LA and be able to spend more time with his family.

Jesus Christ, what kind of lawyer are you? First you throw out the "oh, I was drunk, so my memories are hazy" defense, followed up by the "Look at what you made me do!" defense. Sheesh, public attorneys are really going downhill these days, and that's saying something.

No, don't. Then you're turning into a slightly classier Mickalino when he was running around Wal-Mart taking photos of women. I'm assuming you're better dressed and perhaps slightly more educated.

Ah, using the "drunken shenanigans" and "alcoholic haze" defense. Do "nearly all smokers" throw cigarette butts on the ground at all times? Counselor, where's your evidence? What percentage of smokers is "nearly all smokers"? 75%? 80%? Higher? At all times? Are you suggesting that every smoker, at all times, is throwing their butts on the ground, outside? CDC says that in 2018, 15.1% of the USA population smoked every day. If every cigarette pack holds 20 cigarettes, I'm assuming I should see at least a few hundred, maybe even a thousand or so cigarette butts on the ground while I go about my daily routine. If this epidemic is as bad as you make it seem, there should be small piles of them in parking lots the way the state department of transportation piles snow after a snowstorm. For the record, I agree with you and it's gross. I just like giving you ****.

Didn't you go to WVU and light couches on fire and ****? I'm sure you've seen someone finish a Coke or a Natty Light and throw the can on the ground.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7935023/Prince-Andrew-offers-cooperate-Jeffery-Epstein-investigation.html What a piece of ****. But not surprising that a guy who associated with Epstein is a coward.

Being in jr. high in the early 90s and hitting high school in the mid 90s, I found myself really getting into basketball. I'd always watched baseball and football a lot but I had friends that I grew up with that were into basketball and it rubbed off on me, too. Took a big jump forward when the Bullets drafted Juwan Howard and then TRADED FOR CHRIS WEBBER. Obviously, like everyone else, I loved Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Nationally televised games on NBC, every weekend it seemed like Knicks/Bulls and those games were all out wars. I also really loved GP and Shawn Kemp in Seattle. Iverson in Georgetown and then Philly! The Fab 5. Duke/UNC. Of course, the Dream Team and the subsequent Olympic teams. And not even watching NBA/NCAA basketball, but you had awesome stuff like NBA JAM and NBA Live to play. I remember getting NBA Live '95 for Sega Genesis on Christmas and playing it non stop for months. And then NBA Live '96 was even better. And I know I'm missing out on a ton of other memories/teams/players from that time but it was such an amazing time for basketball. I don't mean to be that guy saying things were better in my day, but things were better in my day. Maybe that's not fair, maybe they weren't better but I don't think you'll ever have another time like that for basketball. It was a really interesting time, you had these guys who largely defined their teams that they were on...like Patrick Ewing defined the Knicks. Jordan defined the Bulls. Stockton/Malone defined the Jazz. Kemp and GP were the Sonics. And then in the NCAA ranks you had these teams that would stick together for years, there was no "one and done." You had Duke and if you loved them or hated them, you still got to watch Laettner and Hurley go through their entire careers in college And then Grant Hill. And you had two years of the Fab 5 in Michigan. Basketball at that time just seemed to have such an incredible amount of momentum and excitement at that time...lead by Jordan but everything else outside of Jordan was just so damn exciting, too. It doesn't come across that way to me anymore...basketball is still great, but I think a lot of the greatness is wrapped up in the yearly summer drama of which star player is going to go which team. And which young star that did his time in the NCAA for a year and is making the leap. It's still a great time for basketball, the players are incredible...but I just don't think you'll get another time like there was back then. Lost in all that was something we can't get now and something we haven't had since the LeBron's entrance into the league, which is the rash of kids that were going straight from high school to the NBA. I remember getting a Sports Illustrated (I loved getting Sports Illustrated, I'd devour it every week) delivered to the house with someone named Kevin Garnett on the cover. It said something about how he was going to the prom and then how he'd soon be a top pick in the upcoming draft. And he looked SO YOUNG. I think I was headed into my freshman year of high school and it blew my mind that someone who wasn't that much older than me was headed into the NBA draft. I learned that Garnett was going to be the first guy, IIRC, to go to the NBA after their senior year of high school since Moses Malone and/or Daryl Dawkins or something like that. And then after Garnett did it, it picked up steam. You had seemingly a bunch of high school basketball stars doing the prep to pro thing after that for a span of a few years. And it was up to me and my friends to try and to deduce who'd be the good ones and who'd be the ones that wouldn't make it. Some of them turned out great, you had Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O'Neal (who didn't have a great start but then turned into a really good player) and some other guys that turned out to be pretty good pros like Tyson Chandler. There were busts like Eddy Curry, Korleone Young and...of course...Kwame Brown. Some of those guys are stretching into my college years but every year there were guys coming out of high school who were hotly debated about if they were ready to go to the league or not. But there was one that we all agreed on, and that was Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant entered the league, IIRC, when I was a sophomore in high school and my buddies and I that loved to watch and talk about basketball were all consumed with him. We didn't understand how he signed with Adidas and had his shoes made by them (remember Crazy 8s?), but whatever. We all loved reading up on him, watching his highlights and just thinking...wow, this guy is amazing. And so thinking about that, watching a guy who was only a few years older than us get into the NBA...just made you think, as a high schooler, that anything was possible. Not that any of us could have ever even sniffed the NBA but you had an understanding that greatness could be achieved at any age if you wanted to work for it. Watching his whole career unfold was just incredible, the dunk contest...squaring off with Jordan! Teaming up with Shaq, watching them tear through the league for three years in a row and then when they broke up you had to pick a side. And then the later years where he proved that he could do it without Shaq. 81 points. 60 points in the final game. Like I said in my previous post, he transcended the game to a point where you were forced to appreciate him. I was a Shaq guy so when they split I held it against Kobe but always respected him. Had to, he was so damn good. The closest thing you'd get to Jordan in a time where so many people were looking for the next Jordan. Remember Harold Minor? But one of the things that strikes me tonight is that how rare he was. And I'm not just saying that he was rare from a basketball standpoint, he was exceptionally rare from a LIFE standpoint. For all the high schoolers that came out straight to the NBA between Garnett and LeBron, Kobe was the one who everything really worked out well for, aside from Garnett. And as good as Garnett was, he wasn't Kobe. McGrady is a basketball Hall of Famer but he was always hurt, you only really got a glimpse of what he could be. O'Neal was a really good pro. Kobe had such an amazing career and then an amazing career after basketball. Can't say the same for the rest of the prep to pro guys from that era, except Garnett. We see so many players get drafted that have high expectations and it's rare that they actually live up to those expectations...or even surpass them. Kobe did it on the hardwood, he did it in life after retirement. The other thing that struck me was that I thought about one of my friends growing up, his name was Andre. Andre was perhaps the most basketball obsessed of all of us, he devoured everything all the time. We went to high school together and we spent a lot of time playing pickup basketball together at lunch. Spent a lot of time reading Slam magazine during study hall when we should have been doing our homework. Played a lot of NBA Live together when we could. We were great friends and then we ended up going to the same college together, were roommates freshman year. Still played pickup basketball, watched a lot of basketball in the dorm, played whatever video games we had. And Andre was a giant Kobe fan. Can still hear his voice, can still hear his laugh, infectious. His smile lit up a room. Can still hear him yell "Kobe!!!" the way kids do when they go up for a shot and try to imitate one of their favorite players. I transferred schools after the fall 2001 semester, 2.5 year into college and by that time Andre and I were growing apart. He was spending all his time with his girlfriend, someone who I, quite frankly, wasn't a big fan of...and when we spent time together, she had to be there. When I came back the next semester to visit, I couldn't find him. Tried to reach out, didn't get in touch. And since we had grown apart some, it didn't really bother me too much. I thought of Andre yesterday because about 7 years ago, right before Christmas I got facebook chat alert on my phone that included a bunch of my high school buddies, started by his sister. I remember right where I was, in a parking lot walking towards a shopping center looking for a gift for my mom. Andre had died. We were all in shock and pretty broken up about it. I found out later from one of my high school buddies that he was up in Minnesota and that it had something to do with alcohol and drugs, which didn't make any sense because the guy I knew didn't have a sip of alcohol while were in college, never tried any drugs. He didn't have all the details, and none of us still really do, it's a bit of a mystery. He died really young and I felt bad that I didn't do more to keep up the relationship. Maybe had I been there, he wouldn't have wound up that way. A life lost, way too soon. Kobe's death reminded me of Andre, a guy who pops into my thoughts from time to time, but especially around the holidays when I'm reminded about his passing. Kobe, being as young as he was when he broke into the league...for me and a generation of fans, it feels like we grew up with him. He really marks the time for us in the way that great athletes and artists who are cultural touchstones get to define for us. Watching Kobe grow from the time he was in high school to the pros...it marked the time. It marked high school, college, my professional career...he was there. And now he's not and it's terrible. I'm rambling now, I'm just gonna let it go. And keep watching the talking heads on ESPN today.

Moving to the middle of nowhere suddenly doesn't seem to be a bad idea. You guys can keep the city life.

Kobe and his kid perish in a helicopter accident, yet Billie Ellish wins best album. Life doesn't make any sense.

It's a sports tradition, homie. They do the same **** in baseball.

15 assists from Lonzo Ball. I'm not sure if that guy will ever turn into a scoring threat but as a pure, pass first point guard, he's pretty good.