Pacer / Piston Game

The Mad Ants office made the trek to Indianapolis to watch the Pacers battle the Pistons on Monday. The main reason was to support our guy Walker Russell JR (or Walker D. Russell as the Piston's broadcast team calls him)who was called up in January to the Piston's roster. For new readers of the blog, Walker has spent four out of the past five seasons in and out of a Mad Ants uniform. Walker did not get any minutes in the game, but we were proud to see him in an NBA uniform nonetheless.

We did actually get to see two Mad Ant Alumni play, as both Dahntay Jones and Vernon Macklin played significant minutes. Dahntay had a short stint with the Mad Ants at the end of our inaugural 07-08 season where he dominated and has been on an NBA roster ever since.

Dahntay Jones dunking during an 07-08 Mad Ants game

The very recent Mad Ant alumni Vernon Macklin put up 6 points, 6 rebounds, and 1 block in under 14 minutes of playing time. With Ben Wallace potentially retiring this off season, I think Vernon has a really good chance of sticking around for the Pistons. He is an athletic big, who can alter shots plus help clean the glass.

Vernon Macklin going for the block against Darren Collison on Monday (4-23-12) Photo Credit: Ron Hoskins / Getty Images / NBAE

We stuck around after the game (snuck around is more like it as we almost got kicked out...) to talk to Walker. He seemed in high spirits and was looking forward to the off season, where he will be working hard to earn another season with the Pistons. This will likely entail NBA Summer League in Vegas, then the preseason camp. I think Walker has proven he belongs in the NBA this season, too bad it is not my call! I do think he has a really good shot, as pass first PG's are a rare commodity in the NBA.

Me wearing a jersey dress on the way into the Pacer's game...

I thought it would be funny to wear Walker's Mad Ants jersey to the game. I had a sweatshirt on over it, and was just waiting for Walker to sub in so I could rip off the sweatshirt and start going bananas. Luckily for Walker's sake, this never happened. We did have Walker autograph the jersey and will be giving it to Mad Ants President Jeff Potter as a gift after we have it framed. I can put this in the blog even though it is a surprise as I know Jeff never reads this blog... Have a great weekend! Still working on getting those videos from the road trip up. It's tough when Jeff thinks his newborn daughter is more important than my blog and wants to use the camera to document the new addition to the family...