All posts tagged NBA

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.

:

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.

Ron Artest Dancing With the Stars

By | August 31, 2011 | Basketball, Celebrity Athletes | 2 Comments

Ron Artest is going to do the cha-cha for you.

I mean I really hope he does, and we only have to wait until September 19 or thereabouts to find out. That’s when Ron — not yet legally renamed Metta World Peace, due to some outstanding traffic warrants — will join the likes of Nancy Grace, Chaz Bono and Ricki Lake, and make his debut on Dancing With the Stars.

I am an eternally hopeful soul, but this is the somewhat disappointing first image that appeared when I googled “Ron Artest Dancing”

Are those finger guns? It just never ends.

Sad. No soft shoe to be had, anywhere, just that terrible, terrible Lakers…caftan?…that David Arquette is wearing. I hope Courteney Cox got that in the settlement.

ANYway, Ron is the first of the NBA stars — and the other athlete this season, along with soccer player Hope Solos — to join his NFL peers in their attempts to make a little coin and occupy their time during an off-season and protracted potential lockout. Remember Ocho at the rodeo? Hines Ward showing up on DWTS too? No? I know. I try to forget it too. Except for this. Never forget.

Ron Artest aka World Peace denied his Dancing turn just the day before, saying he was working on his new single (PS Ron would like you to “cop his new single”) and besides, he couldn’t rock the gear.

I just can’t dance. They asked me, but I just didn’t feel comfortable wearing a leotard.

Ron also had an offer from the Cheshire Jets to play ball in England, while waiting to find out if he and his peers would make jillions or merely squillions more dollars than the average person come wintertime. However, his daughter Diamond, a cancer survivor, asked him to do Dancing With the Stars instead, and he said okay, because he is clearly not a hard-hearted sort when it comes to his little girl. He indicates that he will donate any potential earnings to cancer research.

At first it was not appealing. I did not want to do it. I don’t dance and all of the dressing up and everything, but my daughter Diamond was like, Daddy, you should do it.

That means that no matter what I see on my tv in a few weeks, Ron did a good thing. He is also going to have a very busy early fall, because he says that he will indeed pay his parking tickets, change his name, and have the celebratory name-change barbecue on September 16 like he originally planned.

I’ll pay them off. I didn’t take classes on how to pay parking tickets. I’m taking classes. Anything you don’t know, you have to learn in college. Just don’t park at meters you’re not supposed to park at.

Ron Artest. Buddha. Same difference. And given my memory of him diving into the stands to beat up that fan several years ago? I think he’s probably going to be just fine in the grace department. I’m just going to suggest we all set some goals for September, because I don’t know about you, but so far this guy is running circles around me.

(Check this space. This may be too appealing not to liveblog. Just saying.)

Dallas Evens Series 2-2: LeBron Takes Night Off

By | June 9, 2011 | LeBron James Ego, NBA, playoffs | Comments Off

Despite being on the court for most of game 4 of the Mavericks/Heat Finals series, LeBron seemed content to watch Dwyane Wade and others produce all of the offense, even while they were clearly struggling. Lebron went 3 for 11 and finished with 8 points, seemingly passing up every opportunity to score. Even when being guarded by the 72 year old, 4′ 11″ Jason Kidd, LeBron refused to drive the ball to the rim.  It was almost surreal.

Love him or hate him, I personally have never seen anyone able to take over a game on offense AND defense like LeBron. No pass is safe and no shot is safe when he decides he wants the ball.  When he wants to, he can dominate a game like no other. Last night, I guess he didn’t want to.

I was one of the critics who was almoooost silenced while watching the Heat get it together and become the most dangerous team in the NBA.  But when the arguably the most talented man who has ever stepped onto a court delivers 8 points in a losing Finals effort and is playing like a high school kid who has just been told his girlfriend is pregnant, it has to call into question whether or not he buckles when the pressure is the most intense.

In my opinion, he left Cleveland because of the pressure. Every year it was the same thing: “Why haven’t you won one LeBron? You can’t be the greatest until you win one.”  So rather than building a team to lead, he went to be a role player on another team, and now he’s seemingly content to let Wade and Bosh do it all by themselves.

As we remember the greatest players in history, their ability was only part of the equation. Magic, Bird, Jordan… these guys weren’t just great basketball players, their hearts were enormous and they were fierce competitors. They were born leaders and inspired others to be great. Their presence made everyone better and it was their wills that lifted their teams to victory. Not just their play, but everything about them. They were in the game 1000%, especially in the Finals. Last night, LeBron was playing as if he had just finished watching the first episode of Lost.

First, let me apologize to Jason Kidd and ask him not to beat me up. Compared to LeBron, you are 4’11 and 72. Comparatively, I would be 4′ 7″ and 75 or something, and it’s not cool to beat up old people who are smaller than you. I’m not sure how it works if they’re bigger than you. I think then it’s okay.

The buzz around LeBron is warranted. He is just that awesome and why he’s constantly being compared to the greatest players in history. His talent as so immense that we expect him to be great and when he’s on, he’s unstoppable. But one has to question whether or not he has the heart of a champion. So far, he’s shown everything but.

It Wasn’t LeBron, It Was Cleveland

By | June 8, 2011 | Basketball, Celebrity Athletes, LeBron James Ego, NBA | Comments Off

Brian Windhorst is one of the best beat writers in the NBA, but today I discovered he’s also a modern day Upton Sinclair.

It’s tough to be a reporter, truth-to-power, taking a stand in the face of adversity and all that.  And sometimes you need to dispel egregious misconceptions.  Sometimes, you need to point out that the emperor has no clothes.  You have to stand in the face of a thousand dissenting voices and yell, “NO!  This shall not stand!”  Let not the ocean of opposition drown you out.  You must defy all those who would silence you.  Thank God we have men such as these.  Thank God for Brian Windhorst.

I am shocked – shocked to find out things aren’t what we’ve been told they are here.  Contrary to the the scuttlebutt on Cleveland, turns out IT SUCKS!  Oh, wait, what?  How can that be? Didn’t I just hear Joakim Noah saying it was his favorite road city?

No?  I feel so deceived.  Every day we’re all bombarded with how great it is here and how shit doesn’t catch on fire and Drew Carey, blah, blah.

But — holy fuck — was I misled.  Now I find out it’s actually a gigantic putrid asshole?  Damn what would I have done without the intrepid Brian Windhorst?  What with all the jokes about how ridiculously great Cleveland is, one is almost forced to believe it the best place on earth.  I distinctly remember that not once did I hear anyone suggest LeBron’s “the decision” was based on the fact that no one would ever want to live in Cleveland by choice.

Now, almost a year later, he springs it on us.  I’m glad he was finally able to muster the courage.  I have to think his job is now on the line. But he’s taken the risk for us.  He’s revealed the truth despite the obvious peril it exposes him to. While I appreciate that, it’s almost too much to take.  Next thing you know he’ll be telling us it’s a BAD idea to put pictures of your cock on twitter.  (No jinx!)

Finally, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.  It was only a year ago Windhorst was saying LeBron “had blood on his hands” for his performance in the playoffs and that 2010 would be a “permanent mark” on his career.  Now we find out LeBron was just so distracted by the declining population in northeast Ohio that he forgot to make baskets!  His concern for our economic well-being was so great he had to shoot foul shots left-handed in order to demonstrate the backwardness and corruption rampant in Cuyahoga County!  It may have APPEARED he was standing idly by as his team fell apart, but in actuality he was busy drawing up ways to reconfigure the tax structure to attract new businesses.  I take back all the bad things I said about you, LeBron.  It’s shameful I was unable to solve this mystery myself when everything was right there in front of my face.

So carry on, Brian Windhorst.  Shine your beacon of truth wherever the dark shadows of deceit would obscure our vision.

Image: Clevescene.com

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