Trail of tears ends at my gym

I'd been meaning to post about this for awhile, but ESPN.com beat me to it with this article.

Basically, former Gonzaga basketball star Adam Morrison is doing his pre-NBA draft training here in LA. And he's doing it at my gym. Now I don't like Morrison's game. He's a great player, but plays kinda like John Stockton. Pesky, hard, gets in guys' faces. Annoying. But, it seems off the court, he's a pretty normal, likable kid.

So I've seen him just about everyday for the last month, hanging out with various near-anonymous NBA-types (okay, I never saw Devean George at the gym) and practicing under UCLA's Don MacLean (who has a pretty sweet ride-at least, I'm assuming a blue sports car with UCLA stickers, a Bruins personalized plate, and a UCLA alumni license plate holder that I never spotted before is his). I also saw current USC guard Nick Young there one day, no word on if MacLean the Bruin ran him off.

Usually I spot Adam and co. around lunchtime in the gym's little cafe area, flaunting the 'no wet clothes in the cafe' rule and talking shop. Surprinsgly, I don't think anyone recognizes him. He is pretty hard to miss, but only once have I seen anyone else talking to his table. And that was a couple of old guys (which is 95% of my gym's daytime demographic) who I now realize probably recognized MacLean.

Strange too, is that I've seen him hanging out in the lounge after practice, like he's waiting for a ride. It's got to be weird to already being worth a good deal of money (endorsements), about to worth a whole lot of money (contract), and still be waiting on rides.

And I've thought about shaking his hand and wishing him luck in the draft, but now that the article reveals his love of Metallica, I think I'll definitely have to say hello.