Ric Bucher drove 345 miles for hoop the other day. That's love, man.

A former girlfriend once presented me with a photocopied enlargement of a dictionary oddity. It showed that the definition of "basketball" immediately follows "basket case." The inference: my jones for the former qualified me as the latter. (At least, I think that was her inference. Hence the "former" label.)

So it would have come as no surprise to her when I checked the NBA master schedule, saw that I could drive the 180 miles from San Francisco to Sacramento to catch the Jazz at the Kings, then cruise the 165 miles to Oakland to catch the Hawks at the Warriors ... all in the same afternoon! Is that living, or what?

This, of course, was not a pleasure trip. One, I wanted to show my face in Arco Arena after writing about CWebb's pending free-agency plans. (The only flak I caught was from the Kings' mute lion mascot, who shook his head dourly and tried to steal my cell phone. Oh, and a Kings official said the fan who hung the sign, "Nice Try, Media, but We Still Love CWebb" meant it for me.)

Two, I'm doing a NBA department piece for The Magazine on Donyell Marshall and his remarkable makeover since joining the Jazz. Catching both games meant I could talk to Donyell and the Warriors' Adam Keefe, who traded places as part of the three-team deal that put Marshall in Utah. And, three, I could compare the best and worst the NBA has to offer; essentially see how both halves live.

All went well. Donyell delivered a big-time performance, Keefe talked about his frustrations, and the difference between the two games was crystallized by the tip-offs -- John Starks lunged in front of Doug Christie for the ball like an XFLer while the Hawks' Jason Terry fumbled it out of bounds. I didn't stay for the entire Hawks-Warriors game; scheduled to leave on a week-long trip the next day, I thought it best I spend some time with the current girlfriend. That photocopy thing was funny -- once.

Ric Bucher covers the NBA for ESPN The Magazine. If you'd like some relationship advice, e-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com.