I'm back, and so is Penny Hardaway

I didn't learn much whilst taking intensive Spanish for 10 weeks. Oh sure, I know how to properly conjugate nouns and the like, but it didn't really help me speak the language any better. Especially when it was all crammed in so fast that I didn't even have time to learn the vocabulary, I speak Spanish like Joe Morgan analyzes baseball games. I say the same few things over and over again and hope nobody notices. Except I don't get paid. Minor quibble, really.

There isn't really any way to segue this into Penny Hardaway. I'm just exhausted and am sick of seeing the hiatus post. Penny Hardaway was my favorite player as a kid, and when Shaq left him and Orlando crumbled it was quite tragic. Now he's catching on....with Shaq. Again.

I'll always remember this game against the Bulls they had on TNT, the year when Shaq got sent to the injured list by Matt Geiger, and Penny single-handedly shredded the Bulls. As someone who grew up in Houston, and had all the accomplishments of my favorite basketball team overshadowed by a bunch of pompous jackasses who insisted Michael Jordan would have beaten the 93-94 and 94-95 Rockets, I was pretty much as anti-Bulls and anti-Jordan as any person reasonably can be. You recognize his greatness, but you still fucking hate him and that fucking arrogant tongue and smirk.

And that was still the best performance I can remember anyone having against the Bulls in that timeframe. I'm sure theres probably been others, but I'm not sure any other performances involved a team who's second best offensive player was Nick Anderson. Penny dominated that game and had me and anyone else watching convinced that he was the next great player. Now he's not even in the top two most famous people to star in his own commercial.

And now after all these years, he's re-uniting with Shaq. I've always wondered what would have happened had the two of them stuck together. Penny's knees eventually were a problem, but would that deterioration have gone slower if he had never had to take on the pure scoring role that he was asked to?

So I guess that leads to an inevitable conclusion. Shaquille O'Neal murdered Penny's career, and now he is full of guilt and used his influence with the Heat to try to feel better about himself. Way to go, Shaq.