manner closest to childlike fascination, drawing directly from Sunda

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A week ago after waking up in Paris to flurry of congratulatory text messages, Serge Ibaka wasnt quite sure how to feel about the NBA draft night trade that landed him in Orlando.But one text message in particular helped him feel better about his transition from the Oklahoma City Thunder -- a team contending for an NBA championship -- to a young team trying to figure out how to make the postseason.One of things that made me feel good at that moment was dad texted me, Ibaka said Thursday a news conference. Before I could get excited and happy, my dad was happy. He congratulated me and said he was real happy for me. Thats what changed everything at the moment.This is a business, and things happen for a reason. So Im happy to be here and for my family and for my daughter.The Magic aggressively went after Ibaka, trading Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova and the rights to Domantas Sabonis (the No.11 overall pick) to land the veteran power forward. They were looking for an inside presence and leadership; Ibaka, a veteran who has gone deep into the playoffs, gives them both.Orlando hopes the 6-foot-10 Ibaka is the player the Magic were missing last season as they fell short of making the playoffs for the fourth straight year. The three-time NBA All-Defensive first team member is one of the leagues top shot blockers.Serge Ibaka is such an important piece to taking this organization to where we want to take it, to become a defensive monster, be one of the best defensive teams in the league, said coach Frank Vogel, who was hired by the Magic last month after coaching the Indiana Pacers. We are going to preach defense as much as I always have. But you have to have the people that can get the job done.Ibaka, who wore a black t-shirt with Orlando United on front in recognition of the recent club shooting tragedy that left 50 dead and another 53 injured, said he is looking forward to a likely expanded role that will include being more of a leader and offensive presence while certainly adding the defensive muscle the team needs.It feels good, said Ibaka, a native of Congo. I feel like my first year in the league, Im that excited. Im looking forward to the new challenge. I know its not going to be easier. Thats how we become great when we beat the challenges in front of you.Ibaka, who had a slight dip in productivity last season with the Thunder averaging 12.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocked shots, will fuse with a young core of players and will be looked to be versatile enough to play both power forward and center when needed. This team will look much different than the Thunder team he is coming from that was headlined by stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.Ibaka said he is up for the challenge as he takes what he learned over the last seven seasons with the Thunder organization to Orlando.They have great guys and young talent. Its always good to know I am going to work with good people, thats how I am, said Ibaka, who speaks four different languages which include Spanish, English and French. Im excited because I know Im going to bring to them the seven years Ive been in the league playing with two of the best players in the game learned me a lot of things and Im sure Im going to bring those things here to help the guys. Air Max Cheap Canada .ca! Kerry, Two nights after the Scott-Eriksson incident in Buffalo, the Bruins returned home to play San Jose. In that game, Zdeno Chara put a check on Tommy Wingels that clearly targeted his head. Air Max Canada . Coach Tom Thibodeau says the former MVP will probably start travelling with the team in the next few weeks. Rose tore the meniscus in his right knee at Portland in November and was ruled out for the remainder of the season by the Bulls. http://www.cheapairmaxcanada.com/ . However, he did make them miss him a little less. Cundiff, who had the unenviable job of replacing Dawson last season, agreed Thursday to a one-year, $1. Air Max Clearance Canada . Here are his mid-season NBA awards. MVP: (KEVIN DURANT-Thunder) - Has been sensational this season and more importantly, the most consistent player in the league. Considering that his team has been without star guard Russell Westbrook and with the free agent departure of sharpshooter Kevin Martin, hes had to carry the majority of the load to not only keep his team afloat but more importantly, at an elite level. Air Max Cheap Online . Three came down to the fourth quarter while quarterbacks continued to shine in all four games; so important to the overall quality of the game. Wimbledon will be in its second week when this appears, but I write on its eve. I look forward to it more than I have any cricket series in the last year. Or anything else in the next few months, unless Australia agree to play Tests here in October. Then, too, I dread the pitches, the empty stands.I found it mildly disturbing that my unquestionable, indisputable, all-time number one sport no longer occupied a pedestal. I never had to consider the matter before. Cricket wasnt selected as a choice, it was in our blood, in our air, and it absorbed us as osmotically as we absorbed it. I wondered if the realignment of affection had something to do with the fact that I had been playing tennis for the last year. I also read relatively little tennis press. I could approach it in a manner closest to childlike fascination, drawing directly from Sunday-morning knocking to the glory of the gods on the screen.But that didnt fully account for it; playing tennis, or football, or basketball as a teenager, I never felt the intimacy I did with cricket.More likely was that tennis provided better what cricket once did, an immersion. At Roland Garros the cameras always lingered. On the players taking the court, taking their seats, warming-up, the Parisian crowd, the French skies, the world of tennis and its players and its environment, subtly and consummately relayed without gimmicks of propaganda. As much as for the actual tennis, I liked leaving Roland Garros on through the evenings for the beauty of the clay courts and the soothing coverage.In his review of Andre Agassis autobiography in the New York Review of Books, Michael Kimmelman wrote that players shape points by moving the ball around the court to make it arch and zig, devising patterns that from a spectators perch map crisscrossing lines. The fans pleasure, after a particularly good exchange of shots, stems from redrawing those lines as a memory, every point, like every creative mark on a page with a pencil, being slightly different. Within sameness, there is variety, artists have proved. Athletes have, too.Kimmelman is probably talking about watching live, but television coverage of tennis, like the restrained appreciation of a tennis crowd, complements perfectly this ephemeral, elusive marvel of the tennis point.A good sports broadcast ought to always bring out the essence of the sport. I remember Channel 4s coverage of Indias England tour in 2002, able to capture crickets expansive langour as well as its urgent obsession with tactics and trends and its family-soapish quibbling over decisions made by the captains or umpires. Cricket on Indian television is now unendurable. The Neo Sports telecasts dont have the mid-over advertisements of Sony Maxs IPL telecasts, but Neo makes up withh the length and volume of its breaks between overs and every minor stoppage.dddddddddddd The logic of a passage of play is so utterly damaged as to feel dismantled.Cricket, with its huge capacity for roles, needs all the more latitude to play out its proper drama. It isnt, like tennis, a straightforward rivalry. Crickets rivalries include a team versus another, a team versus an individual, an individual versus an individual, and in that, a bowler against an opposition batsman, a bowler against an opposition bowler, bowling or batting partners of the same team versus one another, a captain versus a captain, sometimes a captain versus one of his own team-mates.We watch sport to see the response of human beings under forceful pressure. The tennis rally is a conversation. Its truest thrills are the moments when the balance of power shifts, like dialogues in old films. Crickets exchange is an interrogation. There is pathos in a dismissal that I think has no parallel in sport. But for the interrogation to feel significant, one needs good pitches and good bowling attacks. It is unrevealing when the interrogated run the show like ringmasters, as they do these days.At times tennis has out-cricketed cricket. I mean, of course, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in exquisite counterattacking symphony at Wimbledon two years ago. With its seven-hour span, its rain breaks, and subsequent influence of weather and intervals, its all-white attire - Fed swan-like, Rafa like a punished Dennis the Menace - it recalled a day of Test cricket. In fact, it was the most exhausting days Test cricket since Sydney 2008.I envy tennis - and I use tennis here as an illustrative example. In the four grand slams, the ATP tour finals, the nine ATP masters events, one can be assured of a minimum level of excellence. This no longer holds true for cricket. The last two years have been the least inspiring I have seen in the last two decades. Perhaps that is a cyclical thing. More worrying is the confusion among cricket followers. Tests are hardly watched. Nobody is sure what form one-dayers ought to take. If Twenty20 proliferates at this rate, I fear it will stale faster than one-day cricket did.I have no faith in the administrators. I only hold on to the hope that, as it sometimes happens, half a dozen players of such calibre arrive into the world game that no matter how awful the pitches, the calendar, the coverage, they cannot help but illuminate for us the essential wonder of the sport, à la Fed and Rafa.PS The signs are everywhere! There was a three-day match at Wimbledon. Theyve been beaming parts of the tournament on Star Cricket. ' ' '