Category: NBA General

The Kings are everyone’s darling this week.  They’ve cracked the top 10 in all the polls and even as high as #7 in the Foxsports rankings.  The Kings are red hot at 8-2 in the last 10.  We’ll see if it keeps up.  Once upon a time in this season, the Hornets were hot too.

Here are the NBA Power Rankings by top sites this week.

Finally a bracket we can all agree on. NBA.com has a competition featuring all the dance teams from both conferences squaring off tournament style. Everyone wins in this tournament. And by everyone, we mean all the guys out there. We’re a little late to this one (they’re already in the second round), but we’ll pick the Final Four anyway. This actually takes more time and research than the tournament but here are my predictions:

In the west, the Rockets Power Dancers lose to the Laker Girls. (Come on, they’re the Laker Girls! Like it was even close). In the east, we’ll go with the Heat Dancers over the Nets Dancers.

As for the finals. Well, picking between Lakers Girls and the Miami dancers just made my head explode.

I wish we could do a pool on this one.

[NBA.com]: NBA Dance Team Bracket

Here is the list of basketball players who were invited to join Team USA’s training camp over the summer.  The list isn’t supposed to be public until Sunday but ESPN already got the goods. This is probably the first good bit of investigative reporting that ESPN has done since 1996.

Note the absence of Allen Iverson even though he stated he wanted to play for Team USA and that it would be an honor.  Considering that Iverson was the only pro who gave a damn at the last Olympics, this is a curious move by Jerry Colangelo.  I hope  someone has to back out and they ask Iverson to join so that he can tell them to shove it.

Everyone’s favorite 7-foot-7 NBA player from Sudan was arrested along with his wife for disorderly conduct when they arrived at a police station to file complaints against each other. Bol and his wife had an argument that turned physical but no one was injured.

I’m not sure why you’d pick a fight with Manute Bol. He beat up the Fridge and he’s got arms like a praying mantis. I imagine that he’d devour you afterward.

[SI]: Bol arrested with wife after dispute

Grand theft

If you decided not to watch the fluffing going on in Houston this weekend, you actually missed some good stuff. But you also didn’t miss a lot of good stuff either so whatever you were doing was probably better than the time I wasted watching TNT.

Here are the highlights:

• Sophs win the Rookie Challenge. Andre Igoudala is the MVP.
• Dwayne Wade wins the skills challenge.
• Dirk Nowitzki wins the three point shootout.
• Nobody wins when we have to watch the Shooting Stars. Negative Branding for Radio Shack.
• Celebrities can’t play ball but Becky Hammon might be the cutest WNBA player.
• Igoudala wuz robbed in the dunk contest. Nate Robinson wins because he’s 5’9″.
• LeBron James brings East back from big deficit and wins All Star Game MVP.

Look at these lineups folks:

Clutch City
Coach:  Queen Latifah
GM – ESPN’s Greg Anthony
Bow Wow, hip-hop artist/actor
Andrew Firestone, ABC’s The Bachelor
Donald Fasion, actor
Chris Meloni, actor
Ice Cube, actor/performer
Kevin Frazier, Entertainment Tonight
Swin Cash, WNBA’s Detroit Shock

H-Town
Coach:  Eva Longoria
GM – ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith
Nick Cannon, actor/singer
Chris Brown, R&B singer
Carlos Bernard, actor
Nelly, hip hop artist
Brandon Routh, actor
Tony Potts, Access Hollywood
Becky Hammon, WNBA’s NY Liberty

Here’s your problem, you want to root for Eva Longoria but you can’t because Stephen A. Smith is the GM of that team and, well, he’s a huge douchebag. Your only hope is that Eva decides to strip during the game.

If you don’t know who some of these celebrities are, don’t worry, neither do I.  I love how Ice Cube is no longer a “hip hop artist”, just an actor/performer.   My money is on the Eva team even if they are hampered by Tony Potts.  Plus, they have Superman.

Lots of jostling back and forth between the first 3 teams but everyone agrees that the Suns are the 4th best team and that the Knicks are the worst. Also, since they never seem to update on time, we’ve replaced Yahoo with Teamrankings.com.

Here are the NBA Power Rankings by top sites this week.

Everyone is in love with the Clippers and Hornets this week. The Clip show is as high as #6 on some polls while Hornets are at #8. Meanwhile, Lakers, Bucks and Sixers lose steam. Here are the NBA Power Rankings by top sites this week:

Not to coach but to shoot a pilot for a TV show about an expansion basketball team, the San Diego Stingrays. (Rumor has it they’ll drop the Sting and just go by ‘Rays’ after a few year.) George Clooney is the producer and hopes to sell it to Showtime or HBO. Does anyone remember 1st and Ten on HBO? We’re hoping it’s going to be something like that.

Nellie takes a shot at Peter Vecsey in the show:

There was one scene, Nelson recounted, where the Stingrays are thinking about signing a new player. A sportswriter, Peter Vecsey , is quoted by general manager Nixon as saying two or three other teams are interested in the player. “Who cares?” Nelson said. “He’s wrong over half the time anyway.

[Ben Maller]: Former Mavs coach goes Hollywood?

Basically everyone agrees that the Pistons, Mavericks, Spurs, and Suns are the top 4 teams. Should be a hell of a western conference playoffs. There were a couple of new entrants as the Sixers and Bucks made it to #10 on a couple of polls. Here are this weeks power rankings by major sites.