Dec 09 2008
One Reason Against Living in France
Believe it or not folks, France’s coverage of basketball isn’t that strong. This is especially concerning to your Trail Post blogger because he’s planning on moving there within the next year. The coverage there tends to be focused on the David Stern image of the NBA, meaning the league consists of LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and those other guys. (On the other hand, one could argue that that’s really it for the NBA right now and be right.) The other pieces of coverage are on those who have fled France like the Huguenots to find financial safety and fame in the United States and Toronto.
Yesterday, Nicolas Batum wrote a blog piece about his life with the Blazers so far, and about how difficult the schedule has been, and other bits like that, but the bit that L’Equipe, the most popular sports daily in France, bit onto was a small piece about the habits of warming up.
Cette semaine, Nicolas Batum fait une confidence édifiante sur le blog qu’il tient sur le site basketsession. «On va sur le terrain seize minutes avant le match, écrit l’ailier titulaire de Portland. Seize minutes seulement. Me demandez pas pourquoi, je ne sais pas. Et ça, j’ai eu du mal à m’y faire au début, parce qu’avant j’avais toujours l’habitude de m’échauffer au moins une demi-heure. C’est pour ça qu’au début de saison, les premières mi-temps, j’étais pas vraiment dedans. (…) Maintenant, je sais comment m’échauffer en un quart d’heure et je ne suis plus froid quand j’arrive en match.»
To do a quick translation:This week, Nicolas Batum wrote an educational piece on the blog he keeps for the site Basketsession: “We go on the court sixteen minutes before the game,” says the titular Portland wing. “Only sixteen minutes. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. Due to that, I had a hard time at first, because usually I would always warm up for at least half an hour. That’s why at the beginning of the season, in the first halves of games, I was never really in it…Now, I know how to warm up in fifteen minutes and I’m no longer cold when I enter the game.Ironically, this blog just took on the form of L’Equipe’s site. I have become what I swore to myself not to be. Either way, there’s some fun French translation. Still, I don’t know if I want to be in a place where some big news is the amount of time you goof around before a game. Actually, wait, they have pain au chocolat.
Who can resist?
