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SQ12#1 An Introduction–for several years I have tried to produce a Summer Quandaries series to fill the basketball drought with pensive pondering. The last week in July almost always signals the beginning of the Dead Zone of the NBA seasons. October starts the training camp, November the regular season, February the trade deadline, April the playoffs, June the Finals and the Draft, July the free agent signings. Then, in August and September—nothing. The print media moves on to football and the second half of the baseball season. The blogosphere fades to a trickle–mostly dregs of FA signings, celebrity tweets, police blotter entries, and player sightings (there’s probably an NBA Audubon list for fanatics to check off). By mid-August about half of the scanty NBA blogging will be complaints from diehards that the media writers aren’t digging up any info on the players’ off-season activity.

Into this blackout, I will endeavor to inject some thought provoking ideas, conjecture, leaps to conclusions, and plaguing conundrums. Some will be Celtic-centric, others will be broader covering the Association, the foreign game, basketball in general, and hoops as a parable of life. I started this series because there was nothing I wanted to read—well duh, do something about it! Though occasionally inane, banal or Quixotic, more often I try to create mental engagements that would tickle the little grey cells, the kind of stuff I wished I could find to peruse.

Initially the numbering (SQ12#1) of the entries will count up from whatever day I start, and I try to get something out every day. Later, when we get a start date for camp, I’ll switch the numbering to a countdown to camp. Camp starts, Summer Quandaries ends.

I usually write it and leave it, comments welcome but seldom sought out for discussion. However, in the summer I try to follow responses and if you make me think, I’ll try to bounce your ideas back with some feedback spin. Topic suggestions are welcomed. Hope to see you here.