It has arrived. It's not quite 4X Fast Forward, but it's a definite speeding up of the basketball season. The Sixers have a ton of back-to-backs, most of which coming in January at first glance. They'll be kicking off the season against their alphabetical rivals, the Portland Trail Blazers, on Post-Christmas Day Eve Day Eve, I believe. It'll be interesting to see who actually suits up for the Blazers in Game One.
Other games of note:
- MONTA ELLIS (![!]) and the Warriors will host the Sixers on New Year's Eve. There's a good chance that, Eastern Time, the Sixers will still be in action on the West Coast while the clock strikes 2012. So you'll have the choice of either watching Monta and Louis Williams square off against each other instead of on the same team (ahh, what could have been...) or kissing Lea Michele, Robert De Niro, and Zac Efron. If only Dong were still on the team.
- They get their Miami Heat rematch on January 21st in South Beach. Moving on.
- No Valentine's Day games?! I guess Zumoff will have to hype Girls Night Out all 365 other days of the year (To be clear, I'm not bad at subtraction - it's a leap year, folks).
- After having ZERO nationally televised games during December, January and February, you can catch the Sixers on ESPN....wait for it....FIVE times that month. Also, once on NBATV but wow that's a lot of ESPN time. All night games, no Sundays.
- Finishing the season on a five game road trip visiting the dregs of the Northeast: Cleveland, Indiana, New Jersey, Milwaukee Detroit. Ugly. Not exactly difficult, but they are road games and it's 5 of them in 8 days so....we'll see where we stand playoff-wise.
Anything else jump out at you? Who's excited for actual basketball?