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NBA Lockout Means No Halloween Candy

By | November 3, 2011 | Athletes on Twitter, NBA | Comments Off
Screen shot 2011-11-03 at 9.30.17 PM

NBA players are going through rough times right now. They’re in the middle of a lockout that has cancelled all regular season games through at least November, and they’re not getting paid. It’s being reported that some players have had to take side jobs to pay the bills and others are just finding ways to cut back until a check is coming in again. They may be waiting a while. Read more…

NBA Cancels First Two Weeks of Season, No One Seems to Care

By | October 11, 2011 | Basketball, NBA | 2 Comments

So to the surprise of no one, NBA owners and players failed to reach a deal yesterday, meaning the lockout will continue and at least the first two weeks of the season will be cancelled.

“We had certainly hoped it would never come to this,” said Commissioner David Stern.

Really?  Maybe you hoped it wouldn’t, but you pretty much guaranteed it would.  As Billy Hunter, executive director of the players’ union, put it, this was “preordained.”    ”We probably need to miss a few games for them to be convinced there is resolve among the players,” Hunter added.

I’m not a collective bargaining expert, but I can offer the following highly technical summary of negotiations thus far:  The owners and the players are still really far apart.  Players and owners are talking a lot, in very serious voices, about hard cap v soft cap, revenue sharing, Larry Bird exceptions, luxury taxes, other stuff about money, more money stuff, players want money, owners prefer to keep money, etc etc oh my god make it stop.

This lockout has been going on for over 100 days. And yet? No one seems to care. Football is exciting and going gangbusters (Lions 5-0? Say what?)  Hockey has started back up (did I ever imagine I’d one day consider hockey a more exciting and marketable sport in the US than basketball? No I did not, and yet here we are.)  And we always have college basketball, where people actually play defense and seem to care about being on a team instead of just showing off their individual skills.

So maybe I’m biased, because *I* certainly don’t care, but from where I sit? Take all the time you need, NBA dudes. No one really seems to miss you anyway.

Sarah Palin and Glen Rice Had Sex One Time, Maybe

By | September 15, 2011 | Bad calls, Basketball, NBA | 4 Comments

The non-news out of everywhere today was that Republican presidential once-and-also-maybe-now-ran Sarah Palin (also ex-governor of Alaska, remember?) had a one-night stand, doing the sex with former NBA star Glen Rice of the Miami Heat.

Yes. Sarah Palin allegedly had sex with a basketball player when she was a sports reporter in Alaska in the years of aught-something.

Beer me.

Here is Exhibit A, Glen Rice, looking happy.

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That is not Sarah Palin in those teensy shorts. That is his former wife Cristina Fernandez-Rice.

She stood on things to pretend she was tall, sometimes, too. Also there was a fan in that room, and they greased him up to put him in those bad, bad jeans.

Those images are also from a site called Baller Wives, so you know, there’s that.

(Getting some air, BRB.)

Okay so basically those jeans (who lets a guy wear those jeans????) made me forget my hypothesis or thesis or topic sentence here. Damn you, Internet.

Cristina Fernandez Rice does not give a damn.

Cristy is @CubanRice on Twitter, if you’d like to add that follow to your repertoire.

So okay, Sarah Palin is now an also-ran political lightning rod wild card. Glen Rice is doing something somewhere, after getting the requisite NBA star arrest for going after a dude who was (I am not making this up) trapped in his wife’s closet. Cristina, now Cristy Fernandez Rice, was featured on the Real Housewives of Miami, and Glen was most recently known as the owner and head of G-Force Fights, based out of Miami, Florida.

Sarah Palin allegedly hooked up with Mr. Rice, who, it must be said, may not be unappealing, jeanless. It is now seven thousand years past the date when that happened, one must undoubtedly assume, awkwardly, at some sort of media meet and greet. I mean, really? How many years ago was this? They could have had sex in pilgrim times, for our purposes here. Also, neither were married at the time. And yes, Sarah Palin, she of the “Todd is gone for months, nay years, at a time,” and “Yes, my daughter had a baby and isn’t married but what? So? (And really. What? So?) is a big old abstinence proponent. But y’all know what they say about do as I say and not as I do.

And please, to be clear, it’s not that I’m supporting you booking a flight to Miami in the interests of hooking up with Glen Rice. MMA is a rough world. You don’t need that kind of trouble. I look out for you. I really do.

I think my favorite quote about this story is that it’s too outlandishly random not to be true, with she “hauled his ass down” a close second. Hi National Enquirer, and also every other news outlet everywhere now.

Thankfully for Rice he was the all-time leading scorer at the University of Michigan, because keeping that at the top of your score card above sex with Sarah Palin? Good call.

Just know that I — still — blame John McCain. For everything.

NBA Lockout Handbook: Don’t Act Really Rich

By | August 31, 2011 | Basketball, NBA | 1 Comment

After the 1998 labor dispute, NBA players learned their lesson about crying poor mouth to the struggling public. And as Patrick Ewing said back then, athletes “make a lot of money, but they also spend a lot of money.” Amen, Patrick. Strippers don’t grow on trees, unless, of course, you have the kind of money that can have a team of scientists genetically engineer stripper-tree seeds so you can grow them hydroponically in your master bedroom closet. If I made 24.8 million last year, that’s what I would do. And chances are, that’s exactly what Kobe is doing, too, but you won’t hear him bragging about it.

That’s right, NBA players are smarter now and learning lessons from the past. You won’t hear any more complaining about $75,000 car insurance bills or the outrageous expenditures associated with partying, Mercedes maintenance bills and… golden accessories. Nope. Derek Fisher has issued a handbook explaining to the players that people without money hate it when people with money complain about not having any.

This phenomenon dates back to when people began exchanging shiny things for food and IKEA furniture, and the one who accumulated the most shiny things would sit on his shiny pile and complain about having to always guard this massive pile of shiny stuff. “A burden” he would call it.

This enraged the people without shiny stuff, so he hired some people to protect himself, took on a lot of overhead, called himself “King” and took everyone else’s money to maintain his lavish empire. And so began the endless feud between the haves and have-nots.

Then we all start thinking, “It would take me a million years to make what you make, and my job isn’t fun AT ALL. What do you do all day?” We then might say things like, “What is it again that you do for $14 million per year? You… get to play ball? What’s the catch? Are you on fire when you play? Do the games take place in a cactus field that’s loaded with land mines? Are you playing against the Mexican drug cartels? Can you fly or time travel?”

The answer is “no” to all of the above and why we hate hearing about people who make millions to do something they love (that also happens to be a game) while complaining about making too little, especially right now. This is why Derek Fisher gave out the handbook, so people like Dwyane Wade won’t make jokes about filing for unemployment after making 15 million dollars last year. In his defense, I don’t believe the handbook was out yet.

As you can tell, I have no opinion on the subject. I think it’s great when a seasoned veteran tries to teach the younger players lessons like, “Making sure the public doesn’t think you’re a spoiled asshole” and “Having the bartender pour your Cristal into a Miller can” and shit like that. The key is in that even though you wipe your ass with fifty dollar bills, pretend that you still use toilet paper. Just like everyone else.

The players won’t actually lose anything until November and only if the lockout isn’t resolved. Until then, you might expect to run into NBA stars at places like TJ Maxx, Applebee’s and The Dollar Tree to show us how much they are suffering. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kia Sol became their preferred mode of transportation, and as one player recently joked, they will now have to “buy items in bulk.”  It’s so funny because that’s the way I do it, and I’m totally poor. They’re finally relating to me AND I LOVE IT.

I don’t know about you, but my perception of this whole thing has completely changed. These are regular joes getting shafted by the man. And the thought of them having to cut back… well, I’m getting all teary-eyed and weepy, almost like I just pulled a “The Notebook” and “Old Yeller’” marathon.

It reminds me of the mine workers, or migrant field workers… or the countless children working in sweatshops across the globe. I’m smelling a super pop-star collaboration here. Bono? Are you listening? We can call it, “NBAID” and get the whole crew together. John Mellencamp (I would have never dropped Cougar, by the way), Neil Young,  Lady GaGa (is that how you spell it?)… I’m talking everyone. Who would not come out for this? Only those without souls, that’s who.

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Javaris Crittenton Wanted on Murder Charge

By | August 28, 2011 | Bad calls, Basketball, NBA, Unsportmanlike Conduct, WTF? | 1 Comment

Former Washington Wizard Javaris Crittenton is wanted on charges that he killed Jullian Jones, 23, in Atlanta, on August 19.

Reports indicate that Crittenton fired shots from a sport-utility vehicle, perhaps intended to hit two men walking with Jones, as retaliation for an April robbery. Jones was struck in the leg, and died in surgery.

There is a warrant for Crittenton’s arrest, but he has not turned himself in. He was reportedly in “the L.A. area” over the weekend, and the FBI is assisting with the case.

While still a Wizard, Crittenton was involved in a firearm dispute with teammate Gilbert Arenas. Crittenton went to court on the related misdemeanor gun charge, and both were suspended for the rest of the season. Crittenton tried to start over with the Charlotte Bobcats, but they released him last October after two weeks, with no room for another point guard.

Arenas tweeted and deleted the following this weekend:

“I really wanna say sumthing but I wont becuz theirs a dead women involved…”

Good call, Gilbert.

Following his issues with the Wizards, Crittenton seemed in the right spot to turn things around. Plagued by ankle injuries, he landed with the Dakota Wizards in the NBA Development League. Last October, he said:

Use wisdom in everything and just don’t get caught up in foolishness and nonsense and crazy people around you. It was a bad decision on both ends and we’re trying to move forward with our careers and our lives.

Shooting to injure or kill never makes any sense, and even less when a guy with talent and opportunity chooses actions like this. Whatever the reasons may be, none of them are good. If Javaris Crittenton is responsible for the death of this woman, it’s a shame that he chose the opposite of wisdom. He really didn’t need to do that.

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