You know you are totally and hopelessly addicted to basketball when...

You’re asked in a spelling bee contest to spell Krzyzewsky, Gheorghe, Gugliotta, Marciulionis, Jacikevicius, Ilgauskas and Szczerbiak… and you spell each and every name perfectly right. What's more, you spell Tomjanovich with an 'h' and Rakocevic without one...

… You honestly believe Bill Bradley has just about a 50:50 fair chance to become the next President of the United States, with George Bush trailing a distant second with just a 26% chance....

… You are outraged with so many 'phony' basketball fans who start leaving the game full three minutes before the final whistle...

particularly as you yourself have the odd habit of arriving a full hour before start of any game and refusing to quite the stands till the last second when they start switching off the lights...

…You think Shaq raps better than Dr. Dre and LL Cool J and acts better than Jack Nicholson and Denzel Washington...

and it's celebration time in your home every game Shaquille's free throw percentage rate jumps to double figures...

…You paint your room orange with just some abrupt lines of black here and there

…You never read books. Actually never, until NBA launched its "Read to Achieve" campaign... Now you read 10 books a month!

… You think your kid has a decent one in five chance to make it to the NBA, because he plays basketball so well. You constantly motivate him by saying: "Look my son. If LeBron can make it, so can you. Just train, train, train, and it will surely happen..."

… You think life is so unfair to the poor Toronto Raptors players with all those exorbitant taxes they have to pay to the Canadian government.

… You write Commissioner Stern suggesting NBA franchises must be established in every US city that has a population over 100,000. Hawaii and Anchorage should not be denied this time.

… Next stage? In a true spirit of NAFTA, you campaign for ten new NBA franchises each for Canada and Mexico.

…You only buy "Sports Illustrated" issues when they have a basketball cover on.

…Your friend asks what contemporary American museums he should visit while visiting the States and you suggest James Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame as the best choice.

…You’ve got two television sets put side by side in your living room: one to watch your 900 channel cable and satellite programming, the other to watch NBA TV.

…You suggest MIT takes over the publication of the "Journal of Basketball Studies"

… When, according to you, the most famous international name abbreviations, and in no particular preference order are: USA, UK, UN, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, ABA, CBA, CBL, ABL, BBL, IBL, EBA, GBA, NBA, NBL, NBDL, NCAA, NJCAA, NRL, JUCO, NAIA, WNBA, WPBL, WBL, WBA, PBA, PBL, MBA, NBL, UBA, UBL, USBL, UPBL, SEBL, XBL, FIBA, WABA, COPABA, DIBF, IWBF, USADB.

…Your geography teacher asks for a class presentation and you entitle your subject: The land His Airness made famous.

…You wore a black tie as a sign of mourning for a full month after Indianapolis 2002.

… You readily coughed up with $29.99 and bought a German pronunciation guide just to check how to pronounce the name - Nowitzki or Novitzki.

… Your heart pounds so hard you can hardly say hi to your favorite basketball player

… After games, you never go down to the floor fearing you may unnecessarily cause damage to the basketball court floor...

… You nominate Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as the next basketball sensation duo after Kobe and Shaq.

… 5ive remains your all-time favorite music band and Jay-Z your favorite rapper.

…Your basketball team is down by twenty five points and there's 1 minute 10 remaining on the clock. You get two free throws and you make both of them believing this will fire up your team and give them a decent chance to catch on… Then you look around and there’s nobody left on the stands... and half your teammates have already hit the dressing room...

…You endlessly argue with your English language teacher about the merits of using or not using a hyphen in Shareef Abdur-Rahim's name, while he is responding to you: Yes but who is Shareef Abdur-Rahim anyway?

… After seeing the movie “O”, you genuinely surprise yourself and your literary friends with the conviction that in his time, Othello was indeed an accomplished basketball athlete...

…and you contemplate on the possibility that the multi-talented William Shakespeare possibly created the game of basketball himself and that James Naismith just stole the idea from one of William Shakespeare’s obscure works.

… You reluctantly admit that once or twice every 4 years or so, you are caught watching some few minutes of Formula 1, Wimbledon tennis, perhaps some brief highlights of Super Bowl or FIFA World Championship action. But you add, not to worry, still no sport impressed you much and that nothing can take the place of basketball in your heart...

… You think "Basketball Digest" is the publication that sells the most worldwide, and that it is published in 38 languages no less.

… You know all there is to know about Earl the Goat Manigault, but you've never heard about Michael Owen or David Beckham.

… Asked about the name of the most famous Chinese communist leader, you respond that his name is Yao Tse-Tung.