<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\nThe brightest stars of these NBA playoffs: yeah, we\u2019re kind of sick of reading about them, too. There\u2019s a reason Balls Out spends so much time harping on your Durants and your Westbrooks and your Nowitzkis\u2014and no question, we will be parsing and praising and psychoanalyzing these guys for another month. But today\u2014and why today? Because last night\u2019s action was pretty dull, that\u2019s why\u2014we turn our gaze to the little guys. In tribute to the backups, the journeymen reserves and the veteran end-of-the-benchers, we present &amp;quot;Profiles in Obscurity&amp;quot;\u2014the first two paragraphs of glossy-magazine articles about third-stringers for NBA playoff teams. In other words, stories that will never, ever be written. First up, the Oklahoma City Thunder\u2019s Royal Ivey.\n\nFrom &amp;quot;Royal Out Of Exile&amp;quot;\n\nThe car still starts. It is not the newest car in the players\u2019 lot, and it\u2019s certainly not the most expensive\u2014in the high desert dusk, Royal Ivey\u2019s 2002 BMW looks dusty and small and a little slump-shouldered there beside the proud, shiny, candy-colored Range Rovers and elegantly turned-out Maybachs. But there\u2019s nothing to be ashamed of\u2014this car has driven Ivey around the NBA, from Atlanta to Milwaukee to Philadelphia to Milwaukee again and finally to where he suits up now. That being Oklahoma City, the city where Ivey has continued to cement his status as the most important third-string point guard you\u2019ve never thought about. Like Ivey, OKC is something of an afterthought\u2014a city that was never supposed to have a NBA team, a city whose best restaurant is generally agreed to be a Golden Corral and whose zoo\u2019s prime attraction, a chimp named Mwami, keeps escaping his enclosure, as if even he would rather be in Tulsa.\n\nAnd yet here is Oklahoma City, and here is the Thunder\u2014rolling across the great Midwest plains like clockwork after the weather has turned, but also, and more importantly, rolling through the Western Conference, rolling toward what looks a hell of a lot like a bright future. And here is Royal Ivey\u2019s car, right where he left it. It doesn\u2019t look like much, but when he turns the key, the engine turns over, the lights turn on and the old car moves. The car takes Ivey off the players\u2019 lot, past the security guard\u2014a wave, un-awed, and he turns his attention back to People magazine\u2014toward the seven-year vet\u2019s home, and back into an ordinary, extraordinary life...\n\n\u2014David Roth\n\nRoth writes for The Wall Street Journal, The Awl and Can\u2019t Stop The Bleeding."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/profiles-in-obscurity>