NBA Begins and More Sports Writing and Podcasts

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

I've been bogged down with a plethora of sports viewing and sports writing and sports-related projects the last couple weeks, including a weekly preview of Monday Night Football. The MLB season is done. The NHL season is in limbo. But the NBA season is finally upon us. I drew the fortunate assignment to write an NBA preview for British bookies. It's a good life. I can't complain and hope it can continue indefinitely.

It's been a while since I immersed myself deep into pro basketball, especially at the start of the season because the Knicks have been awful the last few years and I had been busy with poker, poker, and more poker. James Dolan is the worst team owner in all of professional sports. Since I live in California, I was considering the L.A. Clippers as a new hometown favorite. Maybe they should be my new team? I could never root for Kobe and the Lakers, so how about the other team in the City of Angels? Or do I abandon the Knicks in favor of the Brooklyn Nets? The Nets are owned are Jay-Z and the Russian mob. You know they'll be plenty of hijinks for any pro team that moves to Brooklyn.

Anyway, I sat down to write a NBA preview over the weekend and thought I was done... and then Oklahoma City went out and traded James Harden to Houston on Saturday night, so I had to start over. Anyway, the original preview ballooned to the size of a short Russian novel, and so I had to break out the butcher knife and trim it down. I also had to split up the preview into two parts.

Here's my NBA Preview for MatchBook:

NBA Preview Part 1: Miami Heat Dominates the East
NBA Preview Part 2: L.A. Lakers Team to Beat in the West

One of my favorite things I do every week is chatting with Jesse May about the gambling world. He records parts of our conversation for a podcast, so you can get a glimpse into what we're thinking and talking about. Here's the last three episodes of Everything Is Bettable podcast hosted by Jesse. I appear in the opening and closing segments:

Everything Is Bettable - Episode 3: Jesse caught me at the tail end of a bender during the baseball playoffs. I had watched four straight playoff games during a rare playoff quad-header.

Everything Is Bettable - Episode 4: Jesse and I discuss the A-Rod situation when he was benched during the series against the Tigers and how he was trying to pic up Australian models during the game.

Everything Is Bettable - Episode 5: Jesse wondered about my thoughts on the upcoming Presidential election. I told him it was rigged and to bet on Obama.

Also, usually during games, I have been live-tweeting snark and other random stuff about my degeneracy over at @OcelotSports. Follow them for sports betting-related stuff. I also created a second tumblr page which will be a temporary home for my sportsbetting tales, rants, bad beats, and existential musings. Check out Ocelot Sports on tumblr.