Amir Johnson

I just watched another Pistons beatdown tonight, this time they took out the T-Wolves by about 745 points after being down two at the break. At the end of the game Amir Johnson came in and challenged Darko for the title of Human Victory Cigar. See I like Darko, I don't think hes gonna bust and I think his biggest problem is that he is just too young right now. I'm having a hard time adjusting to law school at age 22, and I don't have to study in front of 19,000 fans, huge expectations, in a foreign country where I hardly know the language, and with little cotton swabs taped to my earlobes, but I digress.

Anyways I, like everyone else, always looked forward to Darko coming in to finish off Pistons blowouts. I liked the way the crowd got fired up whenever he stood up and made his way to the scorers table. It often was enough to make me put off studying for another 20 minutes or so, although this really isn't saying much because I'd put off studying for just about anything, change a light bulb, rearrange my bookshelf, because I'm having stinky farts.......pretty much anything. Anyways I always found Darko Time to be interesting, because it was like a glimpse at what it would be like if I played professional basketball, a tall skinny semi-athletic white guy who prefers to play twenty feet from the basket even though he's the tallest guy on the court. It was also interesting to see him going after rebounds with one hand, getting offensive fouls for moving screens, and watching the guys on the other team just lining up for a chance to dunk all over his face like one massive basketball, (I put a joke in here that was so filthy and out of character I had to delete it myself after facing a big moral dilemma, like in case my kids or parents were to read this one day, anyways if you want to know the magic missing word e-mail me.)

However tonight things changed with me, probably forever, as a younger, faster, super athletic-er(?) blacker kid (not me) named Amir Johnson came in for some major Darko Time minutes. He looked nervous at first and it seemed as though Amir Johnson's debut would go down as a non-descript beginning to what will probably be a non-descript career. But in the final minute a flurry of action started by a Darko steal (who else) led to a pass to Amir Johnson for a thunderous windmill dunk. Amazing, when was the last time someone windmilled for the Pistons? Stackhouse? Maybe. Darvin Ham? Possibly. Terry Mills? Never. I immediately grabbed the phone to call my friend T.J., who you may remember from waaaayyyyyyy back from the Macker tournament post, when at the other end Amir Johnson denies a shot, which leads to another jam this time by Mo Evans. By now the Pistons bench is going crazy, Im fumbling my phone and mashing the numbers on the keypad, and when I finally get through to T.J. it goes to his voicemail because we were both frantically calling each other at the same time, and I'm thinking when was the last time I did this in a game that had been decided an hour ago?

Well the answer, me and T.J. concluded, was never, at least not in the Darko era of garbage time. This was much more exciting. As much as I enjoyed Darko getting stuffed by the rim, seeing the ball actually go through it was so much more gratifying. Darko was a constant reminder to Pistons fans to be humble, because it was possible for someone to adorn the red, white, and blue, and still struggle and suck (at least for now he does, like I said I still have faith in him). But I don't know if I can get excited for that anymore, like how I felt about the Magnum after riding the Millennium Force, o.k. thats the worst analogy Ive ever come up with but if youve ever been to Cedar Point you know where Im coming from. What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry Darko but your garbage, errr..... I mean, Amir time minutes are dead to me now.