Dear Guardian Angel #045

I threw away the basketball video game today. Life is short and I want to focus as much as possible on my writing. It was old anyway, a distraction I got out of the Game Stop discount bin; it’s so outdated that Westbrook, Durant & Harden are all still with the OKC Thunder. The game’s only real purpose was nostalgia, creating players & simulating seasons: I’d make you as defensive specialist; Mike Harrell as all-round jack-of-all-trades SG/SF; Del as a Byron Davis-type guard with a bad knee but who still had crazy hops; you know Rah was the Matrix, an athletically superb swingman; Stan would be the bruising PF; and I was an undersized C who only shot skyhooks. Before the funeral, I had created a tribute season with just you on the Celtics (Jackson uniform colors) and today I finished simulating it to see the outcome. I didn’t know yet that I’d be throwing the game out afterwards. But then the Celtics won the NBA championship; you won regular season MVP; you won Finals MVP; you were the NBA all-star team starting PG; you were NBA 1st Team PG overall; you were NBA Defensive 1st Team overall; oh yeah, you were Rookie of the Year too. I used your real age so you were the oldest rookie in history of NBA and I think the only player older than you in the league was Steve Nash. Now here’s where it all came full circle–the WOW moment–when the Celtics went into the off-season the game retired you on its own. Yes you were old, but Nash was older and the game didn’t retire him AND prior to season I manually altered your contract and added extra years just to avoid something like that happening; yet, the game retired you still. How fitting… Your jersey has been retired and no player in that video game will EVER WEAR #45 AGAIN! You know why? Because the game is in the garbage. So, Guardian Angel #045, until our next spiritual encounter, rest in peace out.