Dirk Nowitzki is like my baby

"Know this; It gets better every day. As cool as your kids are when they are 5, it's even better when they are 6. As great as that is, it's even better when they are 7. And so on.

"So if you are about to embark on the journey of parenthood, I hope you embrace it. Whenever a friend tells me they are going to have their first child I say the same thing, 'Welcome to the greatest club in the world, parenthood.'"

The two little paragraphs above made me feel all warm inside, kind of like how Vancouver Canucks fans can make a Smart Car feel all warm inside. They were part of a Father's Day blog post by Gus Ramsey, one of the tamer characters from Sports Guy Bill Simmons' circle of funny friends.

My experience with parenthood so far has been a mini version of what Gus is talking about: every month, heck every week, seems better than the last. I feel a little weird talking smack about two-minute-old Sports Baby but it's true — nine-month-old Sports Baby is just way cooler. Granted, two-minute-old Sports Baby had just gone through the wacky waterslide of life, but still, he wasn't exactly cracking off one-liners (eg. "Hey Doc, could you leave the cord for a little while, I just figured out how to do cat's cradle.")

But after we washed the little birth canal bits and bobs off his head, Sports Baby got down to the business of getting more and more awesome with each passing day.

He has already figured out a whack of physical things like babbling, sleeping, crawling, eating and Skyping — now he's developing his own little personality. Right now I'd call his personality "loveable rascal." He's got a great move where he'll crawl toward something he's not supposed to touch, look back at us mischievously, then turn back and double his speed while laughing hysterically. He drinks from a regular cup — no sissy sippy for him — and when he's had enough he'll blow bubbles up his nose. He's a hilarious handful already and I can't wait to see where he goes from here.

His development reminds me a bit of the career of Dirk Nowitzki. Always regarded as a talented basketball player, Dirk finally joined the game's elite this season, guiding his Dallas Mavericks to his and their first NBA title with a six-game win over the super villains from Miami last week. To get to this point he has continually worked on and improved his game, getting harder and harder to guard. Here's how he looked when he came into the league:

 Yikes! That's him on the left, looking like a friendly German lesbian, alongside former Dallas coach Don Nelson and Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath. Dirk came into the league as a seven-foot-tall 19-year-old who had a nice scoring touch but who also was, very understandably, a little terrified.

Since that time he has continually added to his arsenal while also becoming a team leader. Working with former German national team player Holger Geschwinder, Nowitzki added new moves every summer, eventually earning a title reserved for a select few: unguardable.

He's like Lebron James except the total opposite. Lebron seems a bit like a basketball Benjamin Button — he came into the league as a fully formed basketball man and has since regressed into a confused, mean-spirited little boy. Meanwhile Dirk has just gotten better and better.

Is it a coincidence that Lebron has no father in the picture and Dirk, if you count coach Holger, has two? Probably.

Happy Father's Day!

Photo (Nowitzki MVP) Roland Martinez/Getty Images

Photo (Nowitzki, Nelson, Nash) Carolyn Herter/NBAE/Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Vancouver is like my baby

My baby has started to, as they call it in the infant industry, "make strange." That's when a baby begins to recognize that the person holding it, looking at it or blowing fart-kisses on its belly is not one of the recurring characters in the drama that is its little baby life.

It's a weird expression, don't you think? Make strange. It sounds so German to me.

"Hey Spatzle face, vy don't you macht strange und schtop schtaring at me vile I macht sexy mit diese apfel strussel?"

It sucks for our friends and family who get an earful of screaming whenever they are reintroduced to the little guy but it's also a great boost to my confidence that I can lord my non-strangeness over everyone else not named Mama.

The city of Vancouver, itself practically a baby at the tender age of 125, made strange when the NBA arrived in town in 1995 in the form of the Grizzlies. As the team approached the city, Vancouver lost it.

"Ahhh, what is that?! Why isn't Trevor Linden on the ice? Wait, where the hell is the ice!? Ahhhhh, black people!" To be fair, most Vancouverites didn't encounter many black people during their formative years in Hong Kong.

The Grizzlies' biggest attraction, literally, wasn't even black (which might help explain why the team is long gone).

Really, who wouldn't make strange at a basketball team fronted by a huge, brush-cutted, white boy hill-billy baller nicknamed Big Country (see photo at top)?

The Grizz fizzled in Vancouver, lasting only six years before moving to

Memphis.

But the basketball radar blipped once again this week in Vancouver when commissioner David Stern mentioned his regrets about losing Vancouver as an NBA city while acknowledging that there have been talks of bringing a team back here.

“We’ve had visits from, believe it or not, Vancouver, where the Canucks are absolutely doing a spectacular job there,” Stern said on ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons' podcast on Tuesday in advance of this weekend's all-star game.

He didn't mention that the "visits" were from a couple of homeless guys asking if they could sleep in Stern's garage. (The answer: "No. And if you have to get high you can do it in the alley but then get the hell out of here.")

Actually, the owners of the Canucks made the visit but right now the talks are just talks and all reports seem to indicate that Vancouver is not one of the first choices for a new or relocated NBA team.

It pains me to say it but I don't think an NBA team will be back in Vancouver for a long time. Why? Because ballers don't bounce in the rain, according to a column I wrote for the North Shore News a couple of years ago. I've attached it below for your perusal. I've left it unedited and a few things have changed since I wrote it: the Grizzlies and Thunder are no longer terrible; Portland is now a young and arthritic team, not a young and talented team; and the fledgling B.C. Titans basketball team has now folded. Who are the B.C. Titans you ask? Exactly. I stand by my remarks about Toby Bailey though.

Anyway, enjoy the all-star game. And remember, if you don't want to get screamed at, try not to be so strange.     

Ballers won't bounce in the rain

North Shore News

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008

Andy Prest

THE loss of two NBA teams from the Lower Mainland-Pacific Northwest area in the last 10 years disturbs me.

(By the way, I think there should be a name for the combined Seattle/Vancouver corridor. SeaVan might work but it's a little boring. What about SeaWeed?)

Of course Vancouver lost their mostly un-beloved Grizzlies to Memphis in 2001, forcing hardcore junkies to travel to Seattle for their NBA fix -- a trip that can take anywhere from three hours to 47 days, depending on border wait times.

Now this season the Seattle Sonics are no more, packed up and carted off to thriving metropolis Oklahoma City. That makes the closest big-time pro hoops team the Portland Trailblazers, which is nice -- because they are a talented young team -- but also terrible because Portland is not close to my house.

Sure the Sonics and Grizzlies were terrible when they left (and still are) but even awful teams are fun to watch for hardcore fans. The good people of Oklahoma get to see Kevin Durant, one of the most exciting young scorers to enter the league since Michael Jordan, blossom into a superstar for a few years before he goes somewhere nice as a free agent. And the people of Memphis they . . . well, they get to watch great players crush the Grizzlies night in and night out.

But what about SeaWeed? More than 5 million people live in or near these two cities but combined they have fewer NBA teams than Charlotte, N.C.?

What's the deal? Maybe the laid back West Coast can't handle games with so much scoring. Maybe basketball players who know how to "make it rain" aren't welcome here.

Whatever the reason, it stinks. Anyone who has taken in an Argyle vs. Handsworth North Shore finals series or stopped by the provincial championships at the Agrodome knows that there is no shortage of love for hoops here.

Maybe there's hope -- a pro team called the Vancouver Titans is set to start play in something called the International Basketball League next year. To give some kind of indication of what kind of talent you might be able to expect, the Titans are holding an open tryout today at SFU. I don't think Steve Nash is going to give up his Phoenix Suns gig to suit up for the Titans anytime soon, but there appears to be some "where are they now" appeal to the league.

Toby Bailey plays for the Los Angeles Lightning. If you know who Toby Bailey is I'd bet you'd pay eight dollars to watch 33-year-old Toby try to dunk on people with the rage pent up from years spent not in the NBA. I know I would.

Well, maybe four dollars.