2010 has been a funky adventure for a Life In The DPC. I saw the Cardinals partake in a record setting playoff game against the Packers. My alma mater was sullied by an athlete that was charged with prostitution. Two members of the Pack made the NBA. But the man most responsible for Nevada basketball prominence was sentenced to three-years in prison. All in all my favorite teams were competitive but not necessarily championship caliber but there’s always next year.

DPC’s Sports Highlights From 2010:
1. January 10, 2010: Cardinals 51 and Packers 45.The Highest Scoring Playoff Game in NFL history.

2. The sad realization that Kurt Warner wasn’t coming back and that we were stuck with the three-headed monster of Derek Anderson, Max Hall and John Skelton. If you could mesh their better qualities into one uber QB then the Cards may have had a chance to win a weak NFC West. Instead we had the canon strong but very inaccurate tosses of Anderson, the heart but minimal passing ability of Hall and stature of a Fordham grad at the helm. I imagine that Larry Fitzgerald misses Kurt Warner in the same manner that Nick McCabe and Simon Jones missed Richard Ashcroft when The Verve broke up for a few years. So sad, because we are wasting the talents of one the best receivers in the league.

3. Nevada upsetting Boise State. This is the greatest Nevada Wolf Pack football team ever and I need to write Head Coach Chris Ault an apology and also state that I was wrong when I thought they should drop down to FCS.

4. Luke Babbitt and Armon Johnson getting picked in the first and second rounds of the NBA draft, respectively. Ultimately they both ended up in Portland but as of this writing Babbitt has been relegated to the NBDL.

5. Kirk Snyder was sentenced to three-years in prison for assault.

6. Devin Hester setting an NFL record for punt/kick return touchdowns.

7. Picking the Golden State Warriors as my NBA team. I am starting to waver on this decision. Not that I want another team. Mainly because I never follow the NBA. But Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball is a must read.

8. Jay Cutler cementing his legacy as the greatest Chicago Bears’ quarterback of my lifetime. That’s not hyperbole. He beat out Jim McMahon, who was perpetually injured and a bunch of flunkies like Cade McNown and Chad Hutchinson. I realize being the best Bears QB of the last 32-years is akin to choosing Foghat’s greatest song (Slow Ride!!) but Cutler is legit and I am enjoying the simple fact that the Bears have a franchise QB for once.

9. A University of Nevada athlete getting busted for prostitution. Not soliciting a hooker but being one. Yet another reason why student athletes should receive cash stipends.

10. Matt Leinart getting released. This transaction didn’t seem like a big deal until the Cardinals’ community realized that Derek Anderson wasn’t the answer as a starter and that their backups were an undrafted rookie and 5^th round pick out of the QB chasm Fordham. Put simply, Leinart would have been the best option but now he is a Houston Texan.

11. Being reacquainted with my old friend the Montreal Canadiens. Reunited like Peaches and Herb and it feels so good.

12.The Chicago Bears hiring Mike Martz as offensive coordinator. This was similar to one of my moves in Madden Franchise mode. Pairing Martz and Cutler is like a dream being realized. The teacher/student relationship will go down in history like Socrates to Plato but with a more cerebral approach to the vertical game.

I am a still a Golden State Warriors fan. Even if I rarely mention them at Life In The DPC. Like I have mentioned way too many times I am not a big NBA guy but I am hoping that if I have a favorite team I will pay attention to the association.

As of this writing GSW is struggling with a 9-18 record and Steph Curry is still out with an ankle injury. Monte Ellis is playing well, he threw down 44-points this past Monday against the Houston Rockets.

In all honesty I don’t check ESPN.com on a daily basis to see the latest Warriors news, like I do for the Nevada Wolf Pack, Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Bears, but I am hoping that I will develop the habit.

I recently received The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons and I am about 400 pages into it and it is rekindling my interest in the NBA

A while back I made the decision to be a Golden State Warriors fan. Ultimately the Warriors beat out the Chicago Bulls and the very local Phoenix Suns. It was a close race and I was swayed by an email from Chief Macho that showed all the positive facets of being a Warriors fan. He’s a good writer and great salesman of Oakland based Athletics.

Mrs. DPC was not happy. She is a Suns fans and our son, DPC2, will likely be a Suns fan too (at this point he owns a Suns shirt and has a stuffed Phoenix Suns Gorilla) and she figured that DPC2 and I could root on the local team together. Obviously I threw a wrench into that concept and looked to the East Bay for my hoops heroes.

Because my son is roughly 18-months old Mrs. DPC and I make all of his decisions for him. This is what parents do because if he had his own way he would eat marshmallows all day while watching Dinosaur Train. I’m not a fascist but I decorated his room with the teams I hope he likes. This includes pennants of the Nevada Wolf Pack, Miami Hurricanes, Oakland Raiders, A’s, Chicago Cubs, Bears and Arizona Cardinals. There is mini ASU helmet, poster of USC and a Phoenix Coyotes bank. There used to be Chicago Cubs Mr. Potato Head but its parts are scattered around our home, DPC2 enjoys chewing on his arms and hid his feet in the couch.

The decorations are a passive form of brain washing and I used a lot of sports propaganda to possibly influence my son. The unfortunate part of my excessive use of propaganda in his room is that there are very few winning teams represented. I have figured out a way to get around my son rooting for a bunch of losing teams and never knowing what a winning traditions is and I can accomplish this by having him root for the Montreal Canadiens.

Conveniently I am a Canadiens fans and having DPC2 root for the Habs is a win-win situation: We get to share in the experience of Original Six hockey and he gets a team that went to the Eastern Conference finals last season. Because my son is Phoenix native the local teams don’t have a lot of history, the Suns are the elder statesman and they opened up for business in 1968. The Canadiens are hockey’s equivalent to the Yankees, minus the astronomical payroll, and give a young fan, such as my son the opportunity to embrace:

• 24-Stanley Cup championships. The most in NHL history and second to the Yankees for North American professional sports titles
• A member of the Original Six
• 52-Hall of Famers
• 15 Retired Number for 17 Players
• Celebrated their Centennial in 2008
• Legendary players such as Lafleur, Roy, Richard, Dryden, Cournoyer, Plante, Geofrion, Vezina (as in the trophy given to the top goal tender)

Like I said before, having DPC2 rooting for the Canadiens is a win/win in our house. We get to share in the experience of the Habs and my son has a winning team to love. Unfortunately my son missed out on the Cardinals Super Bowl. Yes, he was there but in the womb. Since then he had nothing but the misfortune of losing teams and also rans. Rooting for the Habs is a chance to offset some of the losing.

Since Saturday, October 30th I have been a Golden State Warriors fan. It was an slow, arduous process t come to that conclusion and I feel better for it. So far I have been a GSW fan for three-days and in that time the only thing of note is a lopsided defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers.

On Wednesday, November 3rd the Warriors host the Memphis Grizzlies. Due to living in Phoenix I won’t see the Warriors on TV until November 26 on ESPN3 against the Grizz and then on TNT on December 2nd against the Phoenix Suns. I have lived through this scenario before as a University of Nevada fan that rarely sees his alma mater on TV. This year Nevada football will be on TV twice. Simply put, I am used to rooting for a team that I never see on TV.

With the Internet I will be able to keep tabs on the Warriors and for the most part my game viewing will be limited but I will still be a loyal fan. As I have stated before, my hope is that if I have a team to call my own I will become more involved in the NBA and actually follow the Association.

After sleeping on my decision to find a favorite NBA team the past couple of nights I feel finally feel confident in making my choice. Besides sleeping on my decision I also asked the people close to me for their feedback on which team I should select from the Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns.

In an email from my Dad he noted that Phoenix Suns’ owner Robert Sarver was against SB1070 and had his players wear Los Suns jerseys this past season as a sign of solidarity for the area’s Hispanic community. This gesture was not lost on me and I have nothing but respect for Sarver because it took great audacity to take a stand against a controversial law in state that is decidedly conservative.

Mrs. DPC also sided with the Suns because it could be the team that I and DPC2 could share together as he grows up as an NBA fan. As of this writing my 17-month old son has not shown any desire to participate in basketball but he looks very sharp in his size 2T Steve Nash jersey. Yesterday I ordered him a Suns T-Shirt with his name on the back and the number 2. The pull of my family is strong and the local angle is cool too because all of their games will be televised and I can be a proper member of the community cheering on the home town team. Also, with a possibly crappy season on the horizon tickets for Suns games could be plentiful and cheap. In my five years of living in Phoenix I have attended one Suns game and I enjoyed it immensely. U.S. Airways is a cool environment and I wouldn’t mind catching a few games there in the 2010-11 campaign.

No one close to me mentioned rooting for the Bulls. Quite frankly this doesn’t surprise me because most of my friends and family have ties to Arizona and California. The exception being my Father who is a Chicago native and a Bulls fan but said I should root for the Suns. Very confusing advise from a lifelong Bulls fan but I don’t know if I will heed his words.

I asked my man Lex Ice, an Alameda native, why the Golden State Warriors would be a good team to root for and he put forth a very convincing argument: …new cool log0o, Steph Curry is the equivalent of yourself in the NBA(at least whenever I’ve made you in NBA 2K Shaft Dynasties), new owners who have been a part of winners(Celtics), and we’ve got a coach with the last name Smart. All this points towards a upward turn for Warrior fans. The Bulls are good except for that cancer Carlos Boozer. The Suns play the same brand of ball as the Warriors but their crew is getting too old to go deep in the playoffs without a complete makeover. It’s like Marcelous Wallace said,”You were good, but if you were gonna make it, you’d have done it already.” Steve Nash & company may have one good series in them where they can play spoiler, but I don’t see them winning the big trophy. Better to get on the Warriors bandwagon at the beginning, then you can claim rightful dominance when we win it all in 2015.

I am being pulled from all sides to make a decision and pick an NBA team that DPC can call his own. I got input from a variety of folks and I took all arguments and ideas into consideration but ultimately this is DPC’s decision. Each team has its own appeal. The Bulls will be playoff bound with the trifecta of Rose, Boozer and Noah. The Suns have future Hall of Famer Steve Nash and will continue to score points by the bushel. The Warriors are under a new regime and they have a dynamic backcourt with Curry and Ellis.

So who is it gonna be? I’ve spent the better part of the week mulling the decision over and the NBA season has already begun, without me participating as a fan. But enough stalling…I am going with the Golden State Warriors from this day forward.

Like I mentioned in my previous post I am looking for an NBA team to call my own. I have always liked basketball and if I was asked to rank my favorite sports basketball would finish ahead of baseball and NASCAR but still finish behind hockey and football.

But alas I am a bigger fan of the NCAA than the NBA and this is likely due to my love for my alma mater, the University of Nevada. March Madness is a holiday when the Pack are readily involved and ultimately I have expended more energy rooting and working for the Wolf Pack than any squad that the Association has to offer.

My hope is that if I find a favorite NBA team than the 82-game regular season and subsequent playoffs will finally have meaning to me. Right now I am a lost sheep without an NBA shepherd and I feel that I am missing out on a great sport and a plethora of great young talent. The Association is filled with transcendent young pros like Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Blake Griffin, John Wall, Luke Babbitt, Armon Johnson (sorry shameless Nevada plug), Derrick Rose, Brandon Roy and a bunch of other guys I forgot to mention because my knowledge of the NBA and it’s personnel is lacking because I barely watch the sport.

In my prior post I mentioned that I needed to “sleep on it” before making a decision on which team would be DPC’s. I am a step closer to making that decision but I also realize that haste makes waste and I need to think about this one some more before making a final decision. So, once again, I will go to sleep with dreams of an NBA team to call my own dancing through my head.

The 2010-11 NBA campaign starts on Wednesday the 27th and I am still an undrafted free agent from the University of Nevada without an NBA team to call my own. I went through this same exercise last season and ended up as a Phoenix Suns fans. Good times as they made their way to the Western Conference Finals but in all honesty I didn’t follow them on a daily basis. I probably watched a grand total of 10-games, playoffs included, throughout the season. Do I consider myself a Suns fan? Sorta, I guess. As you can see I have minimal conviction with that proclamation. Essentially I like the Suns because I live in Phoenix but they don’t flick my switch.

With the NBA season about to start I have two days to find a team and fall in love. This will be a similar exercise to last year but I want this relationship to last. By my greatest recollection I have rooted for the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns within my lifetime. None of these relationships have been long term and some were based purely on aesthetics, such as my love of the Celtics’ uniforms. This year I promise to be different. I will pick a squad and stand by them through thick and thin.

But what teams should be on the ballot? That’s easy because I will base my decision on the places I have lived or currently reside at. So the choices will be limited to the Phoenix Suns, Chicago Bulls and the Golden State Warriors. Each squad has pros and cons going into the 2010 season. The Bulls, for example, have the best team amongst the three and a greater chance of going deep into the playoff. While the Warriors are rebuilding with young talent and the Suns seem to be in limbo as they have older talent (Steve Nash) and some young guns, such as Robin Lopez and Josh Childress, in an ultra competitive Western Conference.

This is no easy decision and I will sleep on it before making an kind of choice. At this point I am not leaning towards any particular squad. My Blogger profile notes that I am Chicago Bulls fan but that can be easily changed.