{"id":347,"date":"2004-09-21T08:59:43","date_gmt":"2004-09-21T12:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=347"},"modified":"2007-09-07T05:07:15","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T10:07:15","slug":"bicycle-thief-my-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bicycle-thief-my-ass","title":{"rendered":"Bicycle Thief, My Ass!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watch a lot of professional basketball. During the years, I’ve followed the careers of some pretty, um, quirky (read: troubled) players:<\/p>\n

Take Gary Trent<\/a>, who reportedly would destroy all competition in practice (demoralizing Brian Grant, at one point), couldn’t function on court, and once beat on a friend with a cue-stick for accidentally setting off his burglar alarm;<\/p>\n

Ruben Patterson<\/a>, who would shut down Kobe Bryant on a regular basis in practice when he was on the Lakers, went 8-0 vs. LA when he went to Seattle as a free agent, and opened the sports world to the “modified Alford plea,” when he was on trial for the rape of the nanny of his kids (the plea evidently is a “no contest, but I admit that I’d likely be found guilty if this thing went to trial”);<\/p>\n

and now, Keon Clark<\/a>. I first saw Keon when he was a rookie with the Nuggets. My friend invited me to a Knicks game one Sunday night, and I saw this impossibly skinny pogo-stick of a man (who bears a strong resemblance to Delroy Lindo<\/a>) throw down a putback dunk of unbelievable ferocity. I thought he had a serious future in the league.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Keon got injured a bunch, showed no work ethic, and liked to get baked a lot, so he’s fallen off the radar in the league.<\/p>\n

Except in Cleveland, where they’d like to bring him in as a backup center\/power forward for next season, according to the Akron Beacon Journal<\/a>. Problem is, it looks like they’re having trouble finding Keon. Sez the article: “The team is trying to locate free agent Keon Clark — a well-known free spirit and wanderer — who apparently is beyond the bounds of modern communication devices.”<\/p>\n

Oh, but that’s not all<\/em> the article sez. Seems Keon has other issues weighing on him, including this biggie:<\/p>\n

“He’s also experienced some personal problems. His father was sentenced to 65 years in prison for murdering a friend in a fight over a bicycle in February.”<\/p>\n

Just read that again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watch a lot of professional basketball. During the years, I’ve followed the careers of some pretty, um, quirky (read: troubled) players: Take Gary Trent, who reportedly would destroy all competition in practice (demoralizing Brian Grant, at one point), couldn’t function on court, and once beat on a friend with a cue-stick for accidentally setting … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Bicycle Thief, My Ass!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball","category-sports","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-5B","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":947,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hoopalike","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":0},"title":"Hoopalike","author":"Gil","date":"May 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Ladies and gentleman, the basketball\/celebrity lookalike page. Personally, I think Keon Clark looks more like Delroy Lindo than Lamar Odom does, but that Bill Walton one is just cruel. (This came up because Amy marveled over how much Drew Gooden looks like Ray Nagin, and marveled over why I never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1991,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-11-2008","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Apr. 11, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"April 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Co' rockin' the links, dear reader! Enjoy! Water-heater rocket was one of the greatest things I've ever seen on TV. (video here) * * * William F. Buckley: Captain Crunch. * * * I think I'm on the outer cusp of the generation that Michael Blowhard is damning\/referring to in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4034,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/family-affair","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":2},"title":"Family Affair","author":"Gil","date":"June 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This piece by baseball player Doug Glanville on how little players know about their teammates' lives reminded me of the story about how Michael Jordan was shocked to discover that his teammate Steve Kerr's father had been shot to death, albeit under much different circumstances than Jordan's dad's shooting death\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "baseball"","block_context":{"text":"baseball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/baseball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1278,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/balling","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":3},"title":"Balling","author":"Gil","date":"January 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The itinerary for the first day of our St. Louis trip was as follows: 9:10am flight to St. Louis Land 11:30-11:45am Get baggage (we needed the full-sized suitcase to bring along the birthday presents for my niece) and rental car Get lunch at Amy's favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Mai Lee Check\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":333,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/swoopin-and-hoopin","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":4},"title":"Swoopin’ and Hoopin’","author":"Gil","date":"August 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The U.S. Olympic basketball team got drilled by Italy in a tune-up game yesterday. The Italians managed to drop 15 3-pointers on a team composed of NBA stars. A lot of big names dropped out of the Olympic squad (or turned down invites) because of security concerns, exhaustion, injury, and\/or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1561,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/theyre-strong-finnishers","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":5},"title":"They’re strong finnishers","author":"Gil","date":"June 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a new favorite basketball team: the Honka Espoo Playboys.","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}