Each week Jon Marthaler bakes up a delicious batch of links for you. Other times, you can find him here. Jon?
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In my experience, one does not have to look far to find an online opinion that NBA fans are a dying breed. ESPN's Bill Simmons used to write quite regularly that he was "one of 18 NBA fans left," for example, and with the NBA lockout apparently over I've seen a couple more columns lamenting that nobody cares about the NBA. The problem with this is that by most measures the NBA is comfortably the third most-popular sports league in America, enjoyed and watched by millions. I understand this "woe is us" impulse -- I am, after all, a non-Canadian hockey fan, and sometimes it seems like "Why doesn't everybody understand how great hockey is?" is the only thing any of us can talk about. But, at least where the NBA is concerned, this impulse confuses me. NBA fans, worry not: there are many more like you and they're everywhere.
We didn't do the links over Thanksgiving, because RandBall decided that he had to go to Orlando instead, so we've got a number of them from the past two weeks:
*The Sports Economist blog notes that at least one pro-stadium group here in Minnesota seems to think that if you oppose the Vikings stadium, you're too poor to have your opinion count anyway.
*I was thrilled to find out that John "Twins Geek" Bonnes, like me, wasn't too happy about the way that Joe Nathan departed.
*Patrick Donnelly at VikesCentric compares Les Frazier to Les Steckel, to try to answer whether the former will get fired.
*A Wolf Among Wolves thinks that Michael Beasley may be on his way to the margins of the Wolves' lineup.
