Rarely do I take handouts from multi-million dollar ball players like that, but the Cleveland Cavaliers locker room was in good spirits and so was I.
Besides, when Mo Williams offers you a postgame quesadilla, you take it.
How could I not? He caught me off guard as I came around the corner and into the locker room. Plus, the guy just shot lights out against Portland. I wasn’t telling him “no”. But let the record show I gently sat the boxed Mexican meal down on a nearby folding chair when Mo wasn’t looking, as not to hurt his feelings.
It was one of his rare misses of the night.
Rule of thumb: messing with a player is okay. Chowing down on his postgame meal in the locker room is forbidden, even if you are starving.
Luckily Wally Szczerbiak asked for some of the quesadilla, so it didn’t go to complete waste.
While James held court at his corner locker with the press pressing in, I caught up with Ben Wallace feet away from the flock for a feature story running Friday on Cavs rookie J.J. Hickson. Yet as I stood there with James’ media moshpit overflowing and finishing up with Wallace, a couple things struck me:
First, James – in all his glory and humanity – lives up to the hype every time I see him play. Covered him when he would come through New Jersey; covered him when he would come through New York; cover him now when he rolls through Portland. He never disappoints. Never. And while Cavs fans will hate me for saying this, there is no doubt in my mind that he belongs in New York when and if he opts for free agency in 2010.
He was made for the stage at Madison Square Garden.
And second, Portland is going to have a hard time making the postseason if they continue to falter against physical superior teams like Cleveland. Denver and Utah come to mind out West; they both play in that Cavs gritty mold. They get after it. They scrap. They put in work. And they actually rebound.
Portland best rub on a little elbow grease before it gets too late.
pic via: daylife
1) did you get sour cream and salsa with your quesadilla?
2) Is there any doubt that LBJ is the game’s greatest player?
3) Ben Wallace is diesel
i’m a guacamole man myself…..and chips. lots of chips.
while lebron was the man last night, i still take kobe with the game on the line….
wallace is always stacked, but lebron is not too far behind. he walked past during pregame – and held court soon after – and you can tell he put a lot of time in the weight room both during the offseason and right now.
the guy is a beast.
Youre Crazy! Kobe? Believe me, I love 24, but you are looking at the body of work and not the “What have you done lately” Factor… Yes He got to the finals last year, but LBJ single handedly got Cleveland within one game… LBJ is diesel.
And Yes, he will be awesome in New York. I, for one am looking forward to the Knicks being a relevant team again. Can you imagine, the Celtics, the Lakers, and the Knicks being major contributers in the league again? Are we talking 2010 or 1985?
And you know you wanted that quesadilla…
yo….it’s about time you got at me D.
figured you were still trying to figure out if the bobcats were from charlotte or “carolina”.
look, i will probably change my mind on the kobe and lebron discussion once lebron wins the one that counts. hard to argue with the reality of rings and kobe’s track record in the clutch.
know this though, lebron gets my vote for mvp this season. so we can agree this: he most certainly is a beast.
as for the quesadilla…..i had to pass. but you know the next day i grabbed a burrito for lunch in memory of mo williams.
[...] As a highlight, I’ve had some brief feature stories (in memory of Kevin Duckworth), occasional interviews with other beat writers (the latest with Chris Tommason and Aaron Lopez from the defunct Rocky Mountain News), and plenty of additional very random thoughts on the Blazers (time for Martell to really hang it up?) – and the NBA to boot (some Mexican food from Mo Williams actually sounds good right about now….). [...]