Henry Abbott examines a slice of the NBA's culture — specifically, players' dining habits — in this oddly fascinating post at TrueHoop.

[S]prinkled in there among the things players talk most frequently — you hear it again and again — is the Cheesecake Factory.

Nowadays, if ever someone tells me that they bumped into an NBA player out in public, I like to stop them mid-sentence and guess: "Was it at the Cheesecake Factory?" It can make you look like a freaking genius… People always want to know what it's like to be an NBA player. I feel pretty confident that one of the easiest and most accurate things you could do to live just like an NBA player is to eat a meal at the Cheesecake Factory.

Abbott then posits why NBAers are drawn to the Factory and examines who's gone on record in their support of the soulless chain: Gilbert Arenas (natch), Lindsey Hunter, J.J. Redick, Bobby Simmons, and Andre Iguodala, among others.

"Ooh, look at me, I'm a basketball star and can afford to eat with the sultan at the Cheesecake Factory!"  Well, la dee dah, you princes of roundball.  Some of us are getting by on Ramen noodles and Olde English High Gravity, you know.