Sometimes mistakes end up being pleasant surprises. Initially, I was somewhat regretting offering up the Memphis game as an option to my cousin (it was either this or the Mavericks or Clippers), but she picked this game because it fit her schedule better. While she had agreed beforehand to help me hold items out for the players to sign considering she had no vested interest in any of them, I think it's safe to say she got bit by the autograph bug. Once she found out the game program was free, she wanted signatures of her own. This game turned out to be the best I've been to thus far, autographing-wise. As I'm standing there and waiting for the players to come off the court, I'm thinking, the next Thunder player I get (aside from maybe the big 3 in KD, Westbrook, and Ibaka), I want to get a picture with. I've reached that point in my limited 'graphing career that I want more meaningful souvenirs. The first player I saw was a small surprise in that it was Thunder player Anthony Morrow, but seeing as how he came over to sign at the Dallas game, I thought I would prepare better this time. He signed one for everyone and even gave his warm-up towel to a kid up front. The next guy I saw was the one player I wanted to get most, and that was Marc Gasol. I had seen him sitting at a bench talking to somebody, maybe from ESPN (it was a nationally-televised game) but who knows. I watched him get up and start making his way over to the tunnels, and I'm probably salivating like crazy at this point. After having been skunked by guys like Dirk Nowitzki and Derrick Rose in the past, I'm hoping for a good outcome. Marc comes over and starts signing for my side of the crowd, gets everybody down the line and then! starts at the beginning of the queue on the other side! That's how you should do it! It's fair for everybody waiting and no one has to yell, scream, or push. He ran with someone's black Sharpie, but I'm glad he at least signed. I don't really care which color marker you use, as long as it works! The next player to come off the court was Ryan Hollins. I only know it's him because I studied the team lineup beforehand. He signs one for everybody, though his signature is nothing more than an "RH." I finally got someone to use my gold Staedtler. It turned out about as well as I imagined it. The day before I had gone out to my local Hobby Lobby (a giant hobby/arts & crafts-type store for those of you who don't have Hobby Lobby) to pick up some Prismacolor Premier paint pens that I'd heard so much about. I tested them out and let me tell you, those signatures are BEAUTIFUL. OMG. Insert shameless plug here. It blows the Staedtlers out of the water. My only concern is whether they'll start chipping in the future (like my Adam Deadmarsh from about eight years ago, which looks worse and worse each time I look at it), or if they'll malfunction and spew out ink all over the place upon use. They also smell like your typical paint pen. But oh man, are they beautiful. Maybe I'll buy a jersey and have a player sign it. Maybe Stephen Curry? :-)) I honestly don't remember when it happened, but Jeff Green ran back down to the tunnel. it seemed like he was in a hurry, and he didn't stop to sign for anyone. That's okay, I got Marc. I only wanted Marc. Everyone else is gravy on top. Next out is a player where I blanked out, brain farted, I mean complete deer-in-the-headlights. Remember how I said I studied a lineup chart beforehand? I did, that wasn't a lie. But I blanked out on this next guy. Was it Jordan Adams? It didn't really look like him, but I wasn't sure. I didn't want to hold out a Jordan Adams photo and it not actually be Jordan Adams. However, if it was actually Jordan Adams, I didn't want to miss out on him signing his actual photo considering I paid for every last one of them in my stack. So I played it safe and held out my logo photo for this guy, and someone to my left said "Hi JaMychal" or something like that and I knew, okay, it's JaMychal Green, I don't have any prints for him, I would have had him sign my logo photo anyway. Score. Win. He really took his time with it too. I like it when they take my board in their hands and sign it nicely, instead of scribbling while I'm holding the board (though I'm okay if they prefer to do it this way in order to sign for everyone). The only other player who took my photo and held it himself as he signed was Cameron Payne, and that one turned out nicely too. JaMychal's a lefty, by the way. After maybe ten minutes, we saw Mario Chalmers and he signed one for everyone. He's a friendly guy, who appears to enjoy chatting with the fans. I guess there was a Kansas Jayhawks fan in the house because that was what he said to Mario: "Rock Chalk," and Mario kind of smiled and said it back. Too bad the back court is a little crowded, because Chalmers can definitely do a lot of damage with more playing time. The last two guys on the court were Matt Barnes (who appeared to be too cool to sign autographs when he ran out on to the court), and Zach Randolph, who appeared to waddle/strut his way out. There were about ten minutes left before we would probably get kicked out of the section, and I'm starting to worry about them pulling a Novak because this isn't enough time to sign for all of us here. Someone's going to get skunked and I don't want it to be me. About 2-3 minutes later, they both came off, Randolph first, who signs for the kids up front in my section (but not all of them), before skipping over to the other side and basically signing right on down the line. The kid he skipped in my section started obnoxiously calling out, "Hey! Zach! Zach Randolph!!" No response. If he wouldn't stop for a kid on this side, obnoxious as he was, he's probably not going to sign for an adult. Matt Barnes did something similar, so while I didn't get Novaked, I missed both of those guys. One of these days I'm really going to go over to the other side because it seems like they have better luck over there! Barnes 0/1 Chalmers 1/1 Gasol 1/1 Green (JaMychal) 1/1 Green (Jeff) 0/1 Hollins 1/1 Morrow 1/1 Randolph 0/1 That's all for this episode, autograph fans. I know you guys need your ThunderGraphs fix, so stay tuned! The next scheduled game on the docket is the February 1st game vs. the Washington Wizards where I'll take on John Wall, followed by the February 27th game in which I attempt to graph Stephen Curry. Until next time, J.R.
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