LAUNFD "For the City" Charity Basketball Game 11-27-11

I was horribly sick with the flu the day of this charity game. However I still went out to LA Southwest College with my friends James and Nick to check out the LAUNFD "For the City" Charity Basketball Game with the goal of getting Paul Pierce's Autograph on a basketball and Russell Westbrook on his signature Nike Hyperfuse shoes. The charity basketball event was one of the many basketball events last year that were available due to the NBA lockout. Baron Davis and Tina Thompson hosted the event and scheduled players to play and participate were, Paul Pierce, Russell Westbrook, Dorell Wright, Amir Johnson, Darren Collison, Jason Collins, Ryan Hollins, James Harden, Nick Young, Arron Afflalo, Jordan Hamilton, Trevor Ariza, Demar Derozan, Craig Smith, Jarron Collins, Matt Barnes, and Chase Budinger. During the day of the event we found out that the lockout was over which was bad news in that a lot of players were no shows including Pierce, Westbrook, Collison, and Budinger and the players didn't really try hard when playing. It felt more like a practice as opposed to a real game. It was one of the more disappointing charity basketball games i've been to especially since I was sick with the flu and both Pierce and Westbrook were no shows.

I intially tried to get players coming in. The few people I got coming in were Trevor Ariza and Aaron Afflalo. Aaron didn't even play in the game as scheduled but just hung out with family and friends probably due to the fact that he didn't want to get involved in a freak injury especially since the lockout was officially over. I ended up starting a new team basketball featuring all the great UCLA players who made the NBA so I had both Trevor and Aaron sign my basketball.

Security was tough since they didn't let graphers wait near the parking lot. It was much easier getting players to sign inside. However I didn't do much graphing afterwards since I was sick and also due to the fact that i've gotten the other players featured at this event before last summer at the Drew League and other summer pro am leagues like the Nike Real Run in Inglewood High School.

After the game ended I had Baron Davis sign his All Star Li Ning shoes for me.  This model was the same ones that Baron wore during the NBA Slam Dunk Contest when he threw the lob pass from inside the Kia to Blake Griffin for the dunk contest victory.