The Washington Wizards/The Golden State Warriors

Alas, I'm in Korea, I still keep up with all the sports news from home. I need it to make my Korea experience better because sports is a major part of my life.

I'm a huge NBA fan, and the playoffs are in full swing back at home. Unfortunately, my hometown team, the Washington Wizards, met their doom swiftly. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers gave them the broom: the Wizards were swept 4-0 in the playoffs. I was sad, I wanted at least for team captain Antawn Jamison and boys to get one win for pride, especially for the home fans.

Yet on the other end of the United States, one 8th seeded team is making headlines in the basketball world, and they are the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors are a club that were always epitomized for bad chemistry, switching coaches like a clean man changes underwear daily, and poor draft picks. After major line-up bust ups and hiring an old-timer head coach in Don Nelson, who was the last coach to take the Warriors to a post-season in 1994 (I was living in Germany and in elementary school), the Warriors are on the verge of pulling off one of the biggest upsets in basketball history. They are about to defeat (if they can, which I believe they can) the Dallas Mavericks, last year's NBA finalists and who ran out to a record 67-win season this year. If the Mavs lose, then there goes all their accomplishments for one season, to be embarrassed duly by a team who is hungry for success, pent up all this year like carbonated soda about to explode.

The Wizards were just unfortunately struck with injuries, especially to their two biggest players and all-stars no doubt: Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. G.A. is one of my favorite players (Allen Iverson is my favorite player), and it was just tough to read from Korea that your franchise player went down, and when you had so much expectations from a player that is having a career year. Wizards head coach Eddie Jordan made an interesting and inciteful point about how Arenas and Butler are not just your best players, but they bring something special to the basketball court: personality. With the fiery personality that both players have, it definitely rubs off and influences the other players. Team captain Jamison also competes very hard every night, but he cannot hold the line by himself, he needs help. The other young players simply don't have the experience nor fire to make things happen. Tough way to end the 2006-2007 season, and I know changes are in store for General Manager Ernie Grunfeld.

Yet I now have more higher expectations from the Wizards next year, and I hope they win the NBA championship next campaign. But for now, I go on to root for my second-favorite NBA team, the Warriors, who will run the Mavericks to the ground and prove that they got what it takes to make play-off history: the first 8th seeded team to upset a 1st seed since the seven-game format was introduced to the NBA playoffs. They have what it takes: desire, hope, and creativity, and energy. They also have an experienced head coach guiding them to victory.

In life, despite what label or "seed" people give you, i.e. "you're dark-skinned," "you're too small," "you're not that smart," "you can't do it," etc., people try to put labels on you and you're expected to be that way. Heck, Charles Barkley has been making fun of the Warriors because they are winning "fluke wins," but the Golden State team has proved them wrong.

Same here. Let me tell you something, its not easy being a dark-skinned foreigner in Korea. Koreans tend to put this label that I'm probably a "migrant worker," or "I don't look like a typical English-speaker." But just like the Warriors, I'm a Warrior for God, and I'm out to show them the raw material that has been formed by God to be something more (reference: C.S. Lewis). This is my time to shine.