My NBA Dream

Andrew Saltzman

My NBA Dream

It was game time. I had just finished putting on my Utah Jazz uniform in the locker room and I was already to go. We were about to play the LA Lakers for the NBA championship. The series was tied up three to three. I am the Utah Jazz's star player so, my performance depends on how I play.

There was about thirty more minutes before the game started so, I went outside to stretched out. Once I was done stretching, I started to warm up with doing some lay ups. After a couple lay ups, I worked on my jump shots, dunks, and three pointers. I was just about ready to go as there was just a little more time before the game was to start.

Once both teams were done with warm ups, the national anthem was sung. It was then time to announce the starting five for the LA Lakers. The announcer said, "Starting at center we have Odem, at power forward we have Paul Gasol, at small forward we have Bill Walton, at shooting guard we have Kobe Bryant, and at point guard we have Derik Fisher!" While he announced all of this, the crowd was booing as loud as can be. Then the announcer said, "Now starting for the Utah Jazz we have Memo Okur at center, Carlos Boozer at power forward, Andri Kirilinko at small forward, Deron Williams at shooting guard, and Andrew Saltzman at point guard!!!" The crowd went absolutely crazy when the announcer said my name.

We were finally ready to start the game. Memo did the jump ball and tipped it to me. I grabbed the ball and headed down court. I past the ball into Memo at the low post and I went cutting through the lane to the basket. Then Memo threw up the ball towards the basket and I caught it for the slam dunk. That meant it was two to zero.

Then they scored a few lay ups on us for bad defense and we hit some jump shots and three pointers and the score was tied up twenty-one to twenty with the Lakers in the lead by a point. There was just five seconds left in the quarter so, we had to get down the court very fast to score so that we could go into the second quarter in the lead.

Boozer passed the ball to me and I took off heading down the court. I could heard the crowd cheering in anticipation. I faked out three different people using my wicked cross over and behind the back dribbling. Then with two seconds left in the quarter, I shot up a three pointer about four feet behind the line. I could see the last second on the buzzer end just as the ball went straight through the center of the hoop. The crowd went wild!!! I felt as if we had won the game even though we still had to get through three more quarters.

We made it through the second quarter barely behind the Lakers by five points. The score was fifty-eight to fifty-three going into the half. You could feel the adrenaline in the arena. I was completely pumped up and excited. The next half of the game was going to be a brutal battle.

During the third quarter it was mainly a defensive battle. Neither of the teams were scoring that much. I scored six points but that wasn’t very much for me. The score going into the final quarter was seventy-four to seventy-two. All of the Utah Jazz fans were as crazy as can be while they were booing the opposing team so loud that you couldn’t hear the plays I was calling out.

The final quarter came down to the last couple minutes and the game was tied up eighty-two to eighty-two. I was going to give these last two minutes my all on defense and offense. I was not accepting a loss in this game.

Then after most of those two minutes were up, the game was still tied up at eighty-two to eighty-two. There was only three seconds left in the game and we had called a time out. So Boozer in bounded the ball to me and I passed to Kirilinko at the top of the key then I went cutting around the outside of him with a couple seconds left and Kirilinko dished me the ball and I drained the give and go jump shot. Two point score!

Then for the second and final time the crowd went wild. We were the NBA champions. It was the greatest moment that had ever happened to me. There was confetti falling from above us and the crowd was cheering MVP for me. Later on, I received the MVP award during the award ceremony. The Utah Jazz were number one.

The Fifteen Minutes I Was Blind

Andrew Saltzman


I felt as if I was in a motionless semi-dead body. I could hear everything but, I couldn’t see anything around me. It felt like I was in an endless dream where everything was dark and nothing was light. It was so weird and felt as if I was getting controlled by a TV’s remote and I was in pause while everything else around me was in play. I stood there in my shower not knowing what to do or if I was even awake.

I had just been woked up by my mom to go to school. I was so tired that I could have been a bear who had just been woked up from hibernation. But I wasn’t just tired, I also felt very light headed and extremely dizzy. I was so dizzy, it felt like I had just got off a roller coaster with five loops. But I still got up and climbed into the shower. Once I was in the shower, things got even worse as I felt all the blood draining out of my face and slowly my eye sight vanished. Then my eye sight was completely gone, it was the strangest thing I have ever experienced. I could still move around and hear around me but everything was completely black. I was blind!

At first I thought it was just a dream or something and I thought I would eventually just wake up. But I did wake up so, I knew that what ever was happening was terrifyingly real. I just started crying and freaking out and fell in the shower, which made things even worse.

A little later my mom was walking down the hallway and heard me crying. She asked what was wrong and why I was crying and I told her, I went blind and I couldn't’t see a thing. So at first she didn’t believe me and asked, "Andrew is this a joke?" Then I replied, "No!!!" Then my mom replied, "Are you sure you don’t just have soap in your eyes?" I yelled, "Yes I am blind!" So she ran in and screamed for my dad because when she saw me, all of the blood in my face was drained out so I was white as a ghost and my dark pupils covered my entire eye.

So my mom went running for the phone to call 911 while my dad hopped out of the other shower in my parent’s bathroom and came sliding into the bathroom crashing into the sink. He got up and screamed to call 911 while he got me out of the shower and guided me into my parent's room. A little while after that my eye sight came back and the ambulance had arrived.

Then the paramedics took me to the ER in the ambulance to find out what had happened. The emergency doctor ran a ton of different blood test and then decided that I had some kind of fainting syndrome where the blood quickly runs out of your head and you end up going temporally blind while blacking out and eventually fainting. This can happen to growing teens when they get up too fast from a laying down position.

The fifteen minutes I was blind was one of the scariest events in my life.

A Basketball Snap-Shot

Andrew Saltzman

A Snap Shot Of My Life

I see it all in my head, it is glued into my brain. It's my moment of greatness. It was exciting; nerve wracking, intenseful, and it was my medal round basketball game. My team was playing for the third place bronze metal in the Utah Summer Games and I had a hurt back, which hurt more than any broken bone that I've ever had. The pain stopped me from playing in the game. But later in the game my team was down by ten points going into the fourth quarter. Despite the sharp pain in my back, I decided that I needed to go in to the game and try to make a difference.

Soon after taking my position on the court, I scored two lay ups, I gained one assist, and my team had made one foul shot so we were only down three. I wasn’t about to let my team down. It was my time for us two tie up the game game up because the was only a couple minutes left in the forth quarter. But as time went on, my back pain only got worse. I wanted to help my team out one more time before I could not do anything with my back at all.

Then, I had a perfect chance to contribute to my team once more. We had just finished stopping Snow Canyon and we were heading down the court to set up our offense. Right as I got down the court, I went cutting through to the three-point line. I was wide open because Nate had set a pick for me while I was down low cutting through. I yelled for the ball saying, "I’m open!" Just then, Dillon passed me the ball. Right as I turned to release the ball for the three pointer, I saw the defender running towards me. I was tasting the flavor of the Gatorade that I had finished drinking earlier and the gross salty flavor of sweat that was running down my face. I could hear the yelling of the defender that was getting closer. I felt the smooth, strong, leather grip of the basketball which was slowly leaving my hands as the defender jumped up trying to block the ball. But he missed the ball by about four inches and I drained the three pointer. Score!

The Crowd went crazy and the game was tied up. My scoring really made Snow Canyon mad. Everyone on our team believed that we could now finish Snow Canyon off. Unfortunately the sharp pain in my back was hurting way too much for me to stay in the game any longer so, I was benched for the rest of the game with a minute left in the game.

The last minute of the game was intenseful. Snow Canyon went down and missed a wide open lay up and we received the rebound. Then we went down and made a lay up. With twenty seconds to spare, they went down and made their lay up. So we had to try to score once again but, unfortunately we failed. The game ended with them running down the clock and hitting a three pointer for the win. We had lost out on winning the bronze medal but, we played a great game and we had a fantastic time at the Utah Summer Games.

When we arrived home, I went to the doctor and found out that I had a broken vertebra in my lower back. When my coaches found out about my diagnosis, they looked back on that snap shot of time and were amazed and pleased with how well I played basketball during the Utah Summer Games despite my having a broken back.

For now, I have to rest my back and let heal it until Jan. 2009. I can hardly wait until I can get back on the court and play basketball!

My Football Memory

Andrew Saltzman

My Football Memory

My memory is of my 5th grade football season. It all started one morning. I had just got up at 7:00 a.m. Today was the day; it was win with a perfect season or be forgotten about with second place. I was so excited for my championship football game. During the regular season we were undefeated. Olympus, "the team we were going to play for the championship," was a tougher team that we played earlier in the season. Plus my dad agreed that he would buy me a 2005 Nissan Z if I got ten hard tackles on defense.

I played tight end and defensive end in that football season. When I first got up in the morning, I took a hot bath to relax my muscles. The hot water was so soothing I almost completely forgot about my game. After a little while, I got out of the bath and threw on my pads. On the drive to the game I was so nervous because I wanted to win this game more than anything. The year before I had played Bingham in the semifinals and lost by an extra point. I wasn't about to let that happen again this year. Alta was going to be number one. But one small slip could cost us the game.

We had just arrived at the field. It was 8:30 am and it was a freezing cold day. There were bits and pieces of snow on the ground. It was below thirty-two degrees and I was surprised that it wasn't snowing. The game was supposed to start at 9:00 am but our coach wanted us to arrive thirty minutes before the game started so that we could do our warm ups. We would stretch, hit, and run laps for our warm ups. We were as focused as can be.

The game was about to start and I was named one of the captains for the coin toss. I called the toss and said heads but it was tails. That meant we had to kick off to Olympus. So we kicked off and it landed on the thirty-yard line. Olympus picked up the rolling ball and started to run with it and they got to the forty-yard line before they got tackled. It was time to stop them on defense. On the first play, I faked the tight end out by pretending to shoot though the outside gap but, as soon as he went my direction, I cut towards the inside gap. Just as I got through, I saw the quarterback hand the ball off to the running back. The running back tried to cut around the outside of me but, I ran full speed towards him and flattened the kid on his back. Unfortunately, they still had gained four yards, which meant they had only six more yards to go.

A few plays after that they had gained around thirty-four yards. So they were on our twenty-yard line. On the next play, we sacked the quarterback and they lost five yards and it was second and fifteen. The very next play they gained ten yards. So it was now forth and five and they went for the first down. The quarterback was in shotgun formation and he dropped back to pass. The quarterback threw it to the wide receiver and he caught it at our ten yard line then ran it in for a touchdown. After the touchdown they made their extra point. So it was seven to zero and we were in for a tough game.

Right after that they kicked off to us and we ran it all the way back for a touch down. Plus we made our extra point. So it was tied up, seven to seven. Thing were getting pretty intense for us because we weren't used to teams scoring on us that easily.

Then we kicked off to Olympus with around thirty seconds left in the half. They got to the thirty-five yard line, then they ran a couple plays and reached the forty-yard line and the time expired. The score was tied up seven to seven going into the second quarter.

After that not much happened, the game just kept going back and forth until the forth quarter. Near the end of the forth quarter they had just finished scoring and were up fourteen to seven.

When they kicked off to us, there was about one minute left in the game and we ran the ball up to the thirty-five yard line. On the very first play we ran a reverse and got to the fifty-yard line. Three plays after that we scored with the game tied up fourteen to fourteen going into our first over time.

We won the coin toss for the over time so, we got to try to score first. In a overtime game, if you score on the other team, they would have to score also. But if you do not score, you would need to stop the opposing team on defense to stay in the game. Both my team and Olympus kept scoring and stopping people on defense in over time after over time until we finally reached the eighth overtime.

In the eighth over time, my team scored and we stopped Olympus on defense. The crowed went crazy and rush inward onto the field for the Alta Hawks was victorious with a perfect winning season and the state championship. There was hundreds of people watching our game because our game went overtime into two other scheduled games.

No one was sure of the final score, we lost track in the fifth overtime. We were all over the news including ESPN and on the front cover of the sports page. Unfortunately, I was one tackle short of the Nissan Z but, I was still very happy with how the game turned out.