Just think about David Lee's game . . . Slash - dunk, slash - dunk.  Ya gotta admit the boy can finish with a bang.  D Lee has gotten better each year and has shown a desire  to compete.  Now if all of the above is true, picture Lee cutting down the paint and receiving the pass (from whoever wins the job at the point) and finishing with a dunk.  Run, slash and score, that was the D' Antoni way in Phoenix, and it worked, first with Amare Stoudemire and then with Boris Diaw, then back to Stoudemire.  Can Lee play this role?  Can he defend at that position?  Do the Knicks have anyone who can make the pass?  Will Zach allow this to happen?  The questions go on and on and the more I write the more I realize . . . Well . . . With all the talk this election year of hope and change let's hope the Knicks got the memo.

Last weekend at the Rego Park tournament I got the chance to talk to one time division 1 scoring leader Charles Jones. CJ was:

CJ was the man at LIU during that time and the whole time he was doing his thing the Game Over Logo was on his back.  When C Jones started to praise the teachings of Ray Haskins it reminded me of when legendary Coach Ray Haskins gave a small  minority company named Game Over a chance to be a part of the big time.  When blessed with a great opportunity in his life, Coach Haskins still thought of the struggle of others.  Fighting for our place in this harsh jungle called the Apparel industry, where the sharks make Jaws look like Nemo.

I'll never forget how nervous I was heading into the Coach's office that day.  Game Over had never done an order like this before so I had to sound like I knew what I was doing.  Little did I know this man had already made up his mind he was going to give me a shot.

Coach Haskins did what he could do to give us our first big break, he ordered and PAID for an entire set of uniforms for the LIU Blackbirds.  The order included warm-ups, bags, home and away uniforms and tee shirts.  I don't know how we did it but we got the order done.  Night after night my partner, friends and family watched, both on local and national TV as CJ and Coach Ray shocked the basketball world.  Imagine, little LIU was on it's way to the NCAA tournament.  I capitalized the word paid  in this story for a reason.  Coach Haskins took a lot of heat for going with this little unknown company, while the bigger companies where offering to give LIU their uniforms (No Charge).  Coach Haskins chose this  time to demonstrate what he stood for then and always . . . everyone needs a break.

Rumor has it that Coach Haskins lost his job in part due to his actions.  I've heard all kinds of lies about this situation.  Well ten years later here is the truth: Ray Haskins somehow knew how tough this business was going to be for us and decided to give us a break . . . that's it, sorry,  no car chases, no secret meetings, no suitcase full of money.  To all you crabs that couldn't  see the bigger picture, stay in your buckets and tug at each other, because people like Coach Haskins are on a level your claws can't reach.  Game Over

The summer is over and what did we see?  I'll tell you what I saw, I saw that the Tri-State Classic might be the hottest tournament in NYC with Dyckman right up there, and that Corey Fisher of Villanova might be the best guard to come out of NY in years.  CF is a master of the handle.  I watched him perform "in and outs" on a dime in traffic, he showed me deep 3's and soft tear drops all while he was chased by two defenders.  Yo C Fish, if you don't handle your business this year at Nova something is wrong,  you got the total package Son.  Watching you work over Kenny "Sat". over in the Dyckman playoff game was one of the highlights of the summer for me.  I must give respect to Kenny though, he's been killing dudes for 3 straight summers, uptown, downtown and in their nightmares.  Is this the changing of the guard?

What's going on with Last Man Standing NY?  We have no idea, but if you enjoyed LMS you are really going to love "The One".  That's right, Game Over is launching  the hottest new One-on-One competition in the world.  We started out (as you know) as the driving force behind Last Man Standing, a Game Over/MSG/McDonalds collaboration.  (Shout out to Cliff Morgan for coming up with the name).  We then found ourselves on the beaches of Girona, Spain (Can't wait to go back) watch one-on-one Spanish style.  We are now working on Germany, Greece and France.  Just today we laid out the plans for our Mid-West tour which will kick off in Minnesota this Spring.

What's the difference between this and Last Man Standing?  The difference is that winners from one country can find themselves flying to another country to battle for the ultimate title, "The One".  In fact, check out the visit the winners from Spain made to NYC at gameovernyc.com.

The entire quest will be taped for an up coming TV show entitled . . . what else, "The One".   How do you get in?

Stay close to us, visit every week right here at gameovernyc.com.

Former New York Knick and Truman High School star is heads the list of 8 new inductees to the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame on September 17th.  Other inductees are Kenny Anderson, Sam Perkins, Lou Bender, Eddie Younger, Coach Pete Gillen, Bob McCullough, and Joe Goldstein.  Strickland led Truman to its only City Title in 1984 and then beat Sweet Home High School in double over-time with a reverse lay-up to capture the State Championship.

Kenny Anderson is was a point guard extraordinaire out of Archbishop Malloy before he started the path down to Bobby Cremin's Georgia Tech teams (Stephon Marbury would follow shortly after).  Sam Perkins is best remembered for his winning a national title for Dean Smith at North Carolina.  The one thing adding 8 names to the roster of the Hall is that here will always be plenty more to follow from the furtile playgrounds and high schools of New York City.  Game Over

The words legend and superstar are used as if they are everyday language nowadays.  We call everyone a legend or superstar, watering down the meaning when when a true legend or superstar should be appreciated.  While not getting into a debate on the topic today, does LeBron James, a "superstar" truly deserve the title today?  What title's has he won, other than an Olympic Gold last month?  Does he truly belong in the same breath of superstars, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, etc. that have the hardware and resume to substantuate their inclusion?

Which brings us to the unfortunate passing of a true legend, Coach Don Haskins, this past Sunday.  Most of you only know of Coach Haskins from the Disney movie "Glory Road".  The movie recounts the story of his 1966 Texas Western (now UTEP) team becoming the first all-black starting five to win the NCAA championship.  "The Bear" as he was known, is credited with breaking the color barrier, but that is not what he was trying to do.  He was what we should all strive to be . . .  color blind.  He wanted to win, and his best starting five just happened to be black.  The championship game took on further significance because it was against Coach Adolph Rupp and his Kentucky Wildcats (Coach Pat Riley was a starter).  Rupp was out spoken about his dislke for black players and was the last to recruit any in the SEC.  Haskins received death threats and hate mail during that part of career as he changed the social order in college basketball.  To New Yorkers, perhaps the best known name to play for Haskins is Nate "Tiny" Archibald.

What elevates Haskins to legend is not his 719 career wins (19th most in the NCAA).  It's not his coaching of 1966 or 38 years on the Texa Western / UTEP bench.  It's his understanding and teaching to his players, to his peers, to those that follow college basketball, to all that just pick-up their pool sheets in every March, and bluntly, anyone that breathes oxygen.  You base the quality of a person or persons of what they can do in their capacity.  Hopefully, as we go to the voting booth this November, we will all use Coach Haskins' lessons and view the candidates by their potential to better the human condition instead of their skin pigment.  Game Over

Almost out of a science fiction novel, Patrick Ewing is coming back to the Garden.  Well, almost.  Today the Knicks traded Frederic Weis, yes, that Frederic Weis who was drafted with a first round pick in 1999 (and the passing on of St. John's Ron Artest) to Houston for Patrick Ewing, Jr.  To add more irony to the trade, Ewing, Jr. was included in the trade from Sacramento to Houston with . . . Ron Artest!  Now Weis, if he decides to leave France, will play with Artest.

We liked Ewing, Jr. when he was at Georgetown.  But he is not his father (and in all fairness, very few are) and playing in New York is going to bring unfair comparisons.  He is a good defensive player, but has not the offensive skills of his Hall of Fame father.  Then again, his father didn't have the offensive skills when he came to New York either.  Time will tell if the apple has fallen close to or far from the tree.

After our recent rip to Barcelona, Spain for Last Man Standing - Spain and then hosting the winner and runner-up here in the world's basketball capital, NYC, we were not disappointed in seeing Spain in the Gold Medal game against the USA.  With that said, the physics of the world was corrected early Sunday morning in the USA's Gold Medal win.  Water once again flows downstream, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and the USA is the best basketball team in the world.

And its because order was also re-established in the NBA pecking order.  It was not LeBron James or Dwanyne Wade (though he was high scorer), but Kobe Bryant who hit the big shot with about 3 to go.  And let's not discount having the right coach, a coach that would be and was universally respected by all players, Coach K, at the helm.  The world is now right with itself.  And don't think there won't be a lot of smack talk before the tips of NBA games by all the USA Olympians to their counter-parts.  For the first time in a long time, Game Over.