How Tree Records Post Marked Stamps Singles Explain The Rookie-Sophomore Game Starters!

If you're of a certain age and reading Negative Dunkalectics, it's likely that you also owned one or several of Tree Records great late-90s split singles series Post Marked Stamps.

Pressed in limited quantities to satisfy the exclusive desires of backpack wearing, travel journal writing emo kids everywhere, the Post Marked Stamps records came packed full of, well, rare stamps... along with some of late 90s emo's favorite bands and tunes, like that one Braid song that you couldn't get anywhere else until their discography dropped:

Well, everyone knows that the Post Marked Stamps Singles have nothing to do with the likely starters of the NBA's All Star Weekend Rookie-Sophomore game.  What this blog post presupposes is: "what if they totally did?"

(I'm also appreciatively aping a fun post over at Fanhouse: "How Joy Division Explains the All-Star Starters.")

I give you "How Tree Records Post Marked Stamps Singles Explain The Likely Rookie-Sophomore Game Starters."  And since there were only nine records, I'll throw in the Charles Bronson/Ice Nine split 7" too!

Rookies

• Blake Griffin / Postmarked Stamps #4: "Illinois Statehood" featuring Braid "Forever Got Shorter" and The Get Up Kids "I'm a Loner Dottie, A Rebel." Unquestionably the best record in the series, I give this one to Blake Griffin, who's unquestionably the best player in the game. Like The Get Up Kids, Blake's probably destined to have a great early career followed by a steady slide into disappointment and then possibly an attempt to reinvent himself by playing in a new band that apes The Rentals.
• DeMarcus Cousins / Postmarked Stamps #3: "Kansas Statehood" featuring Ethel Meserve  "Belated Blues" and Giants Chair "Lost Dauphin." A few teams were probably scared to draft DeMarcus because they feared his work ethic might cause him to spend a lot of time sitting at the end of the bench in a giant chair. Eating M&Ms on TV at the McDonalds All America Game didn't help his case. And just as Ethel Meserve's one of the most underappreciated bands of this era, DeMarcus Cousins has lately been one of the most underappreciated rookies in the league.
• Landry Fields / Post Marked Stamps #1 "Brooklyn Bridge" featuring Ida "Post Prom Disorder" and the Deadwood Divine "And Where Did I Leave Off." I award the prettiest Post Marked Stamps record to the prettiest member of the rookie squad. Landry's also the NBA player most likely to attend an Ida show at some children's museum... or at least to run into Daniel Littleton in a bookstore while he's getting his read on with teammate Andy Rautins. Rautins might even ask for a Hated tape.
• Gary Neal / Post Marked Stamps #5 "Project Mercury" featuring Haleah "Fallen Away" and Aspera ad Astra "Black in the Eye." Both of these songs are very efficient at doing what they do: making you bob your head and maybe even dance around in your seat on the bus when they shuffle onto your iPod. Likewise, Gary Neal's steady and efficient play has the Spurs and their fans upbeat about their prospects for another title.
• John Wall / Post Marked Stamps #9 "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" featuring Hal al Shedad "Solitaire" and Rainer Maria "Pincushion." I award my favorite record in the series to my favorite rookie in the league. Like Wall, Hal al Shedad's jam is driving, intricate, and multilayered with an excitement throughout that does not disappoint in crunch time (viz., the end of the song). And I once saw the drummer from Rainer Maria do the John Wall dance, right after he wiped all the germs off a public telephone he used outside the Orpheum in Tampa.

Sophomores

• DeJuan Blair / Post Marked Stamps #8 "Professional Baseball" featuring Sweep the Leg Johnny "Walking Home on the Emergency Bed" and A Minor Forest "Inter Continental Stalker." These are the toughest and most disjointed songs in the whole series. They shouldn't work, but they do... just like Blair's legs. 
• Steph Curry / Post Marked Stamps #6 "Seattle State Fair" featuring Jen Wood "Sheltering Arms for the Birds" and Tim Kinsella "A Picture Postcard." Both of these songs were mixtape favorites for emo kids otherwise unable to serenade sweetly the objects of their affection. Curry's got a few of his own totally sweet mixtapes on youtube.
• Brandon Jennings / Post Marked Stamps #2 "Maine Statehood" featuring Cerberus Shoal "A Lighthouse in Athens Part One" and Still Life "Looks Like Tomorrow." Half of this record's very disappointing: the Still Life side. Similarly, Jennings lost half the season due to injury.
• DeMar Derozan / Charles Bronson/Ice Nine split 7". Charles Bronson was an exciting fastcore band that never really lived up to its potential and produced a lot of really unlistenable material -- just try making it all the way through their discography CD. Derozan's an occasionally exciting player who takes a lot of bad shots. I guess that makes Ice Nine Sonny Weems: the B-side that totally overshadows the A-side.
• Serge Ibaka / Post Marked Stamps #7 featuring Very Secretary "Nagarkot" and Compound Red "Building." I know I've been exposed to all three of these before, but I can never remember anything about them. 

I dare you to top this, Bethlehem Shoals!