I Can't Believe My First Ever Blog Post Is About Marco Belinelli's Summer League Debut

Well, this isn't quite how I envisioned bursting onto the blog scene...I'd been holding out for something with a little more zazz - like breaking the story that the Fran Vasquez selection of two drafts ago was in fact just the surface of a league-wide conspiracy to prevent the Magic from ever making it out of the first round of the playoffs again. Or if there weren't any conspiracies to unearth, at least I could write a scathing social commentary blasting the league for something far more important than dress codes or racist refs. But the inspiration had yet to strike...

That is until I witnessed Marco Belinelli put on a clinic in his debut Saturday for the Golden State Warriors Summer League team. The fresh-faced Italian rookie looked squarely into the face of pre-draft comparisons to Manu Ginobili and said, "I see your Ginobili, and I'll raise you a Jordan." Belinelli ended up with 37 points, going 14 of 20 from the floor (not to mention 5 of 7 from beyond the arc). That little performance earned him a spot in Summer League history, as only Keith Bogans' 38 point debut for the Magic in 2004 stands above what Belinelli did to the Hornets Saturday. Now I certainly won't go so far as to say that Marco Belinelli is the next Keith Bogans. No incoming rookie should be burdened with those kind of expectations. Talk about setting someone up to fail.

High expectations or not though, I currently have Belinelli on pace to score 3,034 points next season, just edging out Wilt Chamberlain's 1960-61 season for the fourth highest single season total of all time. While it's only probable that he sustains that scoring pace, he should have no trouble fitting into the "shooting a contested three on a four-on-one break is the look we want out of our transition game" offense the Warriors showcased to perfection in the Mavs series and to their demise in the Jazz series.

The more I watched Belinelli torch the Hornets Saturday, the more I realized that his performance wasn't just a ho-hum start to a Hall of Fame career - nay, it was also the perfect analogy for my nascent career in the blogosphere: one that lights up the scoreboard in the summer while no one is guarding it, then quickly fizzles once Bruce Bowen knees it in the crotch in November. How does an intangible blog that nobody reads get an All-Defensive team stopper to the point of even wanting to knee it in its non-existant crotch? Well, my friends, I could tell you the answer, but that would be getting a little too metaphysical for my first post. Let's just sit back and see how it all unfolds, shall we?