Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].
We’ve hated Billy Packer since he dissed St. Joes a couple of years ago. Here’s more Billy Packer magic as he tells us that the Gerald Henderson’s shot to Tyler Hansborough’s face with his elbow wasn’t a cheap shot.
Do Billy Packer and Dick Vitale have a conference call every month to coordinate their schedules for hanging off Duke basketball’s collective jock?
You know what’s a shame? That they don’t release Wonderlic scores for basketball players. Cause Shaq might be challenging Chris Leak and Vince Young for low score.
Shaquille O’Neal says you won’t hear him bashing President Bush in light of an eye-opening visit to the White House with the Miami Heat.
“When it comes to ridiculization, if you can’t walk in a man’s shoes, you shouldn’t ridicule him,” O’Neal says. “When I was sitting in the blue room and seeing all the (stuff) the president has to go through, people bringing him letters and a million people walking around, I couldn’t do that job.
If one of the job requirements for being president of the United States is misusing words (“tacular“), then Shaq should considering running in the next election. We’re sick of people making up words whenever they want. Ridiculization isn’t a word, Shaq. The worst thing about Shaq is that he actually thinks he’s smart. He’s like Mike Tyson without the insanity. Just because you’ve read Aristotle doesn’t mean you’re a smart man, it just means you’ve read Aristotle.
Links:
[USA Today]: Shaq for prez?
1. Geez, Thanks Coach
With under a second remaining in yesterday’s game between the Wizards and the Warriors, Don Nelson picked up a technical foul after a questionable call gave Gilbert Arenas a pair of free throws with Washington down by two. But thanks to Nellie’s tech, Agent 0 went to the line and drained three consecutive freebies with 0.1 seconds remaining on the clock. Arenas was 12 for 12 from the free throw line as he went off for 32 points, six assists and five rebounds in the home win. By sinking the clutch free throws, Arenas has joined a pretty elite club. In the last two seasons only three players have hit game-winning free throws in the final second of play (Channing Frye, Darrell Armstrong and Zach Randolph). However, Arenas became the first player since Karl Malone against the Suns in 1999 to give his team a one point victory on three free throws with under a second remaining in the game.
2. Garnett Seeing Green
As unbelievable as it may sound, the Boston Celtics are NOT the worst team in the NBA. The combination of a Boston four game winning streak and a Memphis four game losing streak has given the Celtics a three game cushion over the grisly Grizzlies. Yesterday, the C’s beat the Timberwolves in a double overtime marathon despite another big day from the Big Ticket. Kevin Garnett seems to like playing Boston as he picked up his second triple-double of the season against the men in green. But the last time these two hooked up, Boston fell to KG and crew for their 18th consecutive loss. Seems like Garnett could use a little help in Minny, but, yet again, the entire weight of a franchise is riding completely on his shoulders. You don’t think Allen Iverson, Ben Gordon or Ray Allen could have helped to distribute the burden; do you?
3. Altitude Agrees With The Answer
He hasn’t even been in Denver for a year yet but Allen Iverson has already said that he wants to remain a Nugget for the remainder of his career. Sounds familiar, didn’t he say the same thing in Philadelphia? But things change and you can’t blame AI for wanting to leave the Sixers, considering their current condition. And Iverson is probably truthful about staying in Denver. The Nuggets have a bright future with Iverson and Carmelo Anthony leading the way. When Iverson was traded to the Nuggets, the duo was ranked number one and two in scoring; now they are first and fifth with AI’s numbers dropping a bit. But that was expected; what wasn’t expected was that the Nuggets would be clinging to the eighth playoff spot with only 25 games left in the season.
Sunday’s Player of the Day: Kevin Garnett @ Boston 51 min, 33 pts (FG: 14-28, 3FG: 1-1, FT: 4-5), 13 reb, 10 ast, 2 stl, 3 blk
Monday’s Game to Watch: Houston (36-23) @ Cleveland (34-25) He’s back and he’s not hard to spot. The 7-6 Yao Ming is expected to hit the court for the first time in 32 games after breaking his right leg on December 23. Tracy McGrady is going to have to get use to sharing the load again after making a late MVP push as he carried the Rockets during Yao’s absence. But before Houston can celebrate the return of Yao, they will have to pick up a win in Cleveland where the Cavs are 22-8 this season. And if T-Mac has been hot of late, then LeBron James has been scorching. James has scored between 29 and 39 points in each of his last seven games. This could become a scoring duel between two of the game’s most explosive superstars.
Buzzer Beater: Hitting the century mark has typically been the benchmark of a good offensive game for NBA teams. But what makes a game great is when two players combine for a hundred. That’s what Ben Gordon (48 points) and Michael Redd (52 points) did during the Bulls’ 126-121 victory over the Bucks on Sunday. In the last 30 years, only eight games have seen a duo combine for 100 points and this is the first time since the 1989-90 season that the game didn’t involve Kobe Bryant or Tracy McGrady. For comparison sake, the feat is one of the rarest in all of sports. In the same 30 year span there have been eight perfect games thrown in the MLB, seven 500-yard passing games in the NFL, and five baseball games with four homeruns from a single player.
The authors of this Forbes study are just messing with us right? Kevin McHale? Arguably one of the 5 worst GMs in the NBA?
We’ve always thought that the best measure of a GM is the number of wins he can muster with the payroll that he has. (It’s actually something we track for baseball called the MLB Cost Index.) However, the authors of this Forbes article are using criteria where they compare wins and payroll but relative to the current GM’s predecessor. And that’s where the flaw is. It’s all about how good you are relative to the person who had the job before you. That’s like saying Steve McNair was the best QB in the NFL last year because of his drastic improvement over Kyle Boller.
Listen, when you have Kevin McHale and Billy King as your #1 and #3 GMs in sports, you have to go back and really look at your methodology. Kevin McHale has done nothing with that franchise except retard Kevin Garnett and make dumb trades with his buddy Danny Ainge. Billy King on the other hand has managed to throw money away at guys like Chris Webber, Samuel Dalembert, and numerous head coaches. Meanwhile his “high winning percentage” is relative to a guy named Brad Greenberg who lasted one year and was what Pat Croce called his biggest mistake as a rookie owner. And on top of that, Larry Brown was calling the shots when Billy King “won” those games.
Oh and it’s probably a good idea to remove Bobby Clarke from your list. Sorry Forbes, back to the drawing board.
Links:
[Forbes]: Best General Managers In Sports
In 1973: At the start of spring training, A-Rod admitted that he and Jeter don’t get along that much anymore. Blah blah yawn. And this is supposed to be some type of “huge distraction” according to the New York Media Hand Wringers Association. They should look up “spring training distraction” in the Yankee dictionary (if such a thing existed) and they would find the ultimate one took place on the first day at the very same training camp in 1973. You see, it had nothing to do with actual baseball. On this day, it was announced that pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson were involved in a trade. Some called it the “strangest trade in baseball history.”
It turned out that Peterson and Kekich swapped wives. And their two children they each had (no honey, you won’t need any therapy). Even the two dogs were thrown into the deal. As Kekich said, “we didn’t swap wives, we swapped lives.”
The aftermath was interesting. Kekich and his new wife, formerly Marilyn Peterson, only lasted a few months. Mike’s career didn’t last much longer, as he was traded to Cleveland where he went 2-7 before being released. Peterson — who was considered a pretty good pitcher — went from 17-13 the year before the “trade” to 8-15 the year after. The marriage between him and the former Susanne Kekich has lasted to this day, however. (Full story)
In 1964: Those of us who don’t work during the day were permanatley given something to watch as NFL Films was created on this day 43 years ago. Ed Sabol, father of current NFL Films president Steve Sabol, sold his Blair Motion Pictures Company to NFL owners. The Sabol’s went from filming 30-minute team highlight videos on 16 mm film (which are still produced today with teams being shown in the same positive light whether they were the 14-2 Chargers or the 2-14 Raiders) to amazing Super Bowl shows (still on 16 mm film) with every player and coach (and mom, unfortunately) wired for sound from every conceivable angle. Steve once told 60 Minutes that only World War II has been filmed more than the NFL. Hey, as long as we can find “Football Follies” somewhere on cable at 2 PM on a Tuesday, we’ll keep tuning in.
Adidas is perpetually trying to catch up with Nike, not just in sales but in their ad campaigns. While Nike has always set the bar with great commercials, Adidas usually gives us stuff that doesn’t make much sense and isn’t very good. Impossible is nothing? Uhhhh…whatever.
Anyway, Adidas is set to launch a whole new ad campaign featuring athletes and drawing… we guess to spotlight how creative athletes are or something. Our favorite NBA nutjob Gilbert Arenas has a commercial in the campaign and while it’s designed to show how he overcame adversity to become “the rock star of the NBA“, it mostly just highlights that Gilbert can’t paint for shit.
Links:
[Ad Freak]: Art is therapy for athletes in Adidas ads
People say that the world is in a sad decline and standards have gone out the window. May we present the story of Gia Allemand, student by day, engaged to Yankees pitcher Carl Pavano by night. Gia is hot. And when you’re hot and want attention, what do you do? You enter Maxim’s Hometown Hotties contest.
However, it doesn’t end there. Gia was also pursued by Penthouse for a spread. (Take that, Anna Benson!) However, Gia is a girl of high moral standards and would only do a photo spread if she could cover her nipples with her long hair. Meanwhile, Penthouse too has their standards, a “no hair over the boobs” policy. We imagine their response to Gia to be something along the lines of “we’re Penthouse, you’re lucky you’re not getting peed on.” See? Standards. Alive and well.
Meanwhile, Carl Pavano is still useless.
Links:
[WBRS]: The Next Anna Benson…Ms. Gia Allemand
[NY Post]: UNBRIDLED BRIDE
[Maxim]: Gia’s hometown hottie page
Following in the footsteps of Tom Brady, (isn’t he always following Tom Brady? Well, except for that supermodels thing…) Peyton Manning will host Saturday Night Live on March 24.
At first we weren’t so sure about this since Peyton seems like a stiff, but he has done 6,000 commercials and his appearance on David Letterman after the Super Bowl was pretty funny and not cringe inducing even once so maybe he’ll do a good job. But there’s a big difference between scripted commercials and scripted live comedy as big as SNL.
We wonder if Eli will make a special guest appearance as the fuckup brother.
Here’s Tom Brady’s best sketch from SNL and even he looks a little awkward at times trying not to look at the camera.
1. The Dr. Will Be In Shortly
If you’re a Miami Heat fan, then today is a big day. That’s because Dwyane Wade will receive the much anticipated second opinion on his left shoulder. After that, D-Wade will make his decision between beginning a straight rehab program or opting for a season ending surgery. Obviously, fans want Wade to return this year so that the Heat will have a shot at defending their title, but, in reality, it’s all about the dolla dolla bills, ya’ll. Just ask Pacman Jones. Like all athletes, health is Wade’s most valuable asset, so don’t be surprised when he decides to undergo the operation and leaves Shaq to carry on the hopes and dreams of an entire city. The Heat have moved past Orlando and now sit four games behind the division leading Wizards. But catching the Wiz isn’t going to be easy since they are expected to have their tremendous trio reunited on Friday as Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison both return from injuries.
2. What’s My Name!?!
LaMarcus Aldridge showed everyone why he was selected second overall in the draft. Last night, Aldridge scored a career-high 30 points as the Trailblazers utterly destroyed Charlotte, 127-90. By the end of the third quarter, Aldridge had already put in all of his points while helping Portland build a 37 point lead. His previous high of 18 was achieved in a pair of games against the Wizards and the Lakers last month. The 30 points marked the best offensive game by a Portland rookie in 22 years! But Aldridge wasn’t the only young gun on the Jailblazers to bitch slap the wretched Bobcats. Martell Webster came off the bench to score 20 points and Brandon Roy blew up for 14 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. While Aldridge still has a long way to go before he lives up to his high selection in the draft, it’s good for Portland to see a solid performance out of the franchise’s future; even if it is against Charlotte.
3. Jazz Hole
As the media blitz continues to rush at John Amaechi, he continues to answer the endless questions coming from reporters, and he continues to do so honestly. When on Fox Sports Radio, host Andrew Siciliano asked Amaechi if Utah coach Jerry Sloan is the worst coach he’s ever dealt with. At first, Amaechi took the high road — “No, he’s the best coach I’ve ever played for in terms of his technical ability.” Then John revealed his true feelings about the old-school ball coach. “And without a doubt, he’s the worst person I’ve ever met in my entire life, in terms of dealing with people.” At least nobody can accuse Amaechi of sugar coating the situation.
Thursday’s Player of the Day: Rashard Lewis vs. Los Angeles Clippers 45 min, 31 pts (FG: 10-19, 3FG: 2-5, FT: 9-10), 7 reb, 5 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk
Friday’s Game to Watch: Orlando (28-31) @ San Antonio (39-18) These two had quite a contest back on February 9 when Dwight Howard’s last second inbounds slam capped off an 18 point comeback as the Magic slipped past the Spurs, 106-104. But after losing four of five, San Antonio has ripped off a six game winning streak. Orlando desperately needs a victory as they have fallen to third in their division, five games behind Washington. The Magic have lost 17 of their last 23 games, but it’s not due to a lack of effort from their All-Star. In February, Howard averaged 23 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks per game, and threw down a couple of sick slams over All-Star weekend. Who knows, maybe Howard will “kiss the rim” on a breakaway during the game.
Buzzer Beater: Dennis Rodman is undergoing negotiations that would enable him to get back on the court this season. Where is the Worm heading, you ask. Maybe Dallas since the whole Reggie Miller talk fell through? Or Cleveland who was pursuing Scottie Pippen? The Lakers perhaps? Nope, Rodman is in talks with the ABA’s Rochester Razorsharks. If everything works out for Rochester, the eccentric rebounder would suit up as the team’s celebrity “13th Man” in one of the two final regular season home games which will be played on Tuesday and Thursday. But the Razorsharks might want to consider shying away from the term “celebrity” in their promotions. While Rodman is one of the best defensive players the NBA has ever seen, he is now joining local bar owner Moe Alaimo as the most recent “celebrities” to hoop it up with the defending league champions.
Remember when Bill Simmons went about looking for an English Premiere League team to cheer for and ended up taking Tottenham Hotspur? Well, Philadelphia Eagles fans now have their very own British soccer team to root for. Unfortunately, they play in Football League One which is 2 levels below the EPL. Why Millwall? Because “unnamed investors – thought to be linked with the Philadelphia Eagles American football team – want to sink an initial £5million into the Lions.” (Mirror UK)
And, as Bob from the Offside (and fellow Eagles fan) tells us, “Millwall’s fans have a reputation for thuggery much like the Eagles fans. A marriage made in heaven.” Well, that clinches it for us. Go Lions! (Now, to do something about those Cowboys colors…)
In other news…
[Cricinfo.com]: Cricket player is willing to cut off his injured finger… Ronnie Lott says, whatever
[LA Times]: Dodgers pitcher owns rock quarry worth billions
[The Offside]: Barcelona midfielder likes his hookers… take that, Lasorda
[Steroid Nation]: Are the Little Sisters of the Poor using that much Winnie and HGH?
[The Big Lead]: Scottie Pippen on Deal or No Deal is just sad
[SI]: Grocery store clerk indicted in last year’s dirty bomb hoax
[The Onion]: Report: Almost Nobody Raped During Duke’s First Lacrosse Match
[Valentine’s Views]: Schilling just can’t shut up