These, to be sure, were farfetched hopes, hopes born of despair, but hope is, after all, mostly for the desperate.

Mine is not an obedient writing. I think that literature as any art has to be irreverent.

They are hometown heroes. I know they are going to be excited about coming home, but it's not about us against Steve Blake and Juan Dixon. We are trying to get the win and get back to .500.

In the first half, we forgot our game plan and (James) was just getting down the lane. In the second half, we tried to cut the lane off, and I don't think we gave him a field goal.

When I first signed my deal, they said if I made the All-Star Game in the first three years, we could rip up this contract and sign a new one. Well, I made it last year and they blew me off, and nothing has happened this year either. All I want is to get my face out there. If I'm the last person on the totem pole, just tell me I'm not in your future -- don't keep my hopes and dreams up.

I didn't have any idea (the success would happen),