Basketball Daily

The basketball fanatics among us always love a good film based on the sport.  There have been almost 40 movies in the past 30 years or so about basketball or basketball oriented.  I have listed my top two picks and a short summary of the movie.  I also included a 15 movie poll so everyone can vote and see what the census is among basketball fans around the world.

1. Above The Rim (1994) - Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with his two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.
   I thought this was an extremely engaging film that depicted the constant struggle between good and bad, on and off the court.  Without a doubt my favorite.
   
2. One On One (1977) - A basketball phenom at his small town high school that moves to a big city university on a scholarship, soon realizes that he has few skills outside the sport.  Expected by his coach to contribute significantly to the team, he is overwhelmed by the demands of college sports, and the fact that he never fully learned to read.
   You can tell my age on this one.  While this is an older movie, I thought the pressure of achieving success in basketball and keeping up your grades in school has a somewhat realistic feel to it.

Your Favorite Basketball Movie
( surveys)

The Los Angeles Lakers backup center DJ Mbenga from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been re-signed to the team.  Last season Mbenga signed two ten day contracts with the Lakers and then finally signed for the remainder of the season.  Mbenga only appeared in 26 games and had averages of 2.0 points per game, 1.7 rebounds per game and 0.6 blocks per game in 7.8 minutes of game time.

This seems as a slightly bizarre move since the Lakers have Pau Gasol and the hopefully injury free Andrew Bynum.  Not to mention the 29 year old Chris Mihm.  Maybe the Lakers franchise aren’t 100% sure of the status of Bynum and do not want to take any chances on their roster.

DJ has been in the NBA league now since 2004 and hasn’t really had a chance to prove his skills.  I think he would be better suited with another team so he could see more playing time that could develop into a starting role.

It’s a sad day for PC basketball enthusiasts that have been playing the MMO (Massive Multi-Player Online) game of Freestyle Street Basketball.  Sierra Online who bought the rights to the game from JC Entertainment Incorporated is shutting down their game servers and effectively abolishing the game from existence in North America.

This actually comes as a shock as this game has been available for the past 16 months and had almost a million account holders signed up to play the game.  Sierra has yet to mention any reason for shutting down this game.

Freestyle Street Basketball was only an online game, so now there is no need to keep it on your computer.  It can be deleted and uninstalled forever.  What is even more sad is that there is nowhere for PC basketball gamers to turn for interactive online play.  EA Sports is not releasing NBA Live this year on the PC platform, although that wasn’t an online game last year either.  Hopefully in time PC ballers will have another option.