“One Man’s Opinion” by Gordon Curvey

BIG NEWS on “Sports Inner City TV” expanding to television coming at ya soon right here on “S.I.C-TV”

As a NBA and basketball junky I am upset AGAIN that our dearly departed Seattle Sonics are not here anymore. I am still upset even though our Sonics have been gone to OKC since 2008. I don’t give a damn. I miss the NBA.

I have been producing “Music Inner City TV” for 25 years. All of those years I have mixed entertainment and sports. I covered the Sonics at morning shoot arounds the day of games at Key Arena. I was lucky enough to conduct interviews with Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Coach George Karl, Gary Payton, Rip Hamilton,  Dale Davis, Shawn Kemp, Grant Hill and many more and are you ready for this….I even interviewed Micheal Jordan in 1998!! Yeb MJ!!

But one player I was not able to interview was Kobe Bryant. As many of you know Bryant announced he is going to retire after 20 seasons in the NBA all with the LA Lakers. So we now can watch another farewell for another great player who is ending their career. Just like Dr. J and Kareem and now Kobe. Of course we here in Seattle have to watch the farewell to Kobe on TV etc.

This is truly truly sad. We had the Sonics here in Seattle for 41 years and then all of a sudden they left. Kevin Durant was a rookie and so we had a chance to watch him just one year. Russell Westbrook was drafted the year the Sonics left for OKC. So of course we could not watch Russell and KD turn into great players in person.

Bryant is not playing well at all. He is 37 and has logged miles and miles of running up and down NBA courts on his legs and as we all know father time does not play games and father time has hit Kobe big time. Most of the shots he is taking are 3 pointers and sorry to say so far this season I have saw a lot of air balls thrown up by Kobe. Kind of sad to watch readers.

Stephen A. Smith on his TV show with Skip Bayless said the other day that Bryant should retire  NOW. He is playing that bad according to Smith but come on now Stephen A., Bryant is making 25 MIL this season!! Would he walk away from that? I don’t think so.

So let’s enjoy the final season of one of the greatest NBA players ever. Hopefully Kobe can have a few games when he turns back the hands of time and shows us why he was so great. Some say Lakers head coach Byron Scott is playing Kobe to long and is allowing him to toss up 24 or 25 shots a game while other players wave their hands for the ball. Will this continue?  We will see what happens.