#NBA #Straya NEVER FORGET
That’s right, hoist your lockdown tins to the air & strap on your K-Mart special edition Dunlop Gazey-1s, because 21 years ago today, the Grey Mamba himself, dead-set Aussie ledge Andrew ‘Gazey’ Gaze was showing off his legendary moves in his FINAL EVER NBA game for the San Antonio Spurs, going up against the Candy Man Michael Olowokandi & the L.A. Clippers!
Yep — just before spending the rest of his season inspiring the Spurs to their first ever NBA title & birthing a dynasty (from the bench) — Air Gazey played three short glorious minutes of ground-bound magic and didn’t trouble the scorers, missing the only shot he took.
But, see, that’s the beauty of The Grey Mamba. Sure, the fact that the Aussie Larry Bird couldn’t get more run is a bigger outrage than Hot Dogs from Big Brother never winning a Logie, BUT… despite owning more of a dead-eye 3-point stroke than a one-eyed gardener with one and a half lawn mowers… Gazey gave his ALL for his team.
JUST THINK: How much more confidence do you reckon those Spurs played with — on the way to the NBA title, remember — simply knowing they could always bring in the ULTIMATE weapon, the Grey Mamba on to dominate!?!?
To put it in perspective, those three minutes were probably better than the entirety of Josh Bootsma’s AFL career. In fact, I’ve heard that these three minutes from The Grey Mamba & his subsequent bench performance for the rest of the Spurs title run were so picture perfect that Gregg Popovich later commissioned bloody Ken Done to paint an abstract of it, AND it still hangs to this very day in Pop’s guest dunny.
Anyway. Gazey’s final ever NBA game before leading the Spurs to the title from the most important part of the court — the bench — was only a disappointment if you’re a nerd who likes things like ‘stats’.
Basically, Gazey was like a combo of Don Bradman, Dawn Frazer & Winx… and the only reason he didn’t get any run in the playoffs was because bloody David Stern called up Gregg Popovich on the ol’ dog & bone and told him that playing the Grey Mamba would be unfair to the rest of the NBA, and that he’d rig it to deny the Spurs any shot at Finals glory. So Pop did what he had to do… which was a tougher decision to swallow than the jokers at Channel 10 cancelling Cheez TV.
Just the NBA’s pervasive anti-Strayan bias at work I reckon.
#ONYA Grey Mamba! 🇦🇺🏀💪
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