Ernie, start the reactor

Wizards owner Abe Pollin has seen better days. But on the brighter side he does have his own organs, unlike his doppelganger from Total Recall.

Kobe's best commercial

Looks like Arenas beat Obama to the punch

As seen on Jeopardy yesterday.

Going Greek

Mediocre Atlanta Hawks swingman Josh Childress is leaving the NBA to play in Greece with a team called Olympiakos for a reported $20 million over three years, after taxes. Childress is the fifth player to leave the NBA for Europe this offseason joining Primoz Brezec, Bostjan Nachbar, Juan Carlos Navarro, and Carlos Delfino. Brezec averaged 2.2 points per game last season, the other four averaged between nine and twelve. Childress is the high man at 11.8. This doesn't include Brandon Jennings, a high school student who signed with Virtus Roma instead of going to college.

I have no issues with Jennings headed overseas and legally drawing a salary instead of being paid under the table while the NCAA and whichever college pays off his AAU coach gets rich off of unpaid labor. But for someone to jump the NBA for a foreign country when a reasonable offer was on the table (Atlanta reportedly offered five years, $33-36 million) is both a testament to Childress's motivation being money and the fact that Atlanta has cemented it's spot as the worst sports town in America.

The Atlanta Braves are on their way to missing the playoffs for the third straight year after making it 14 years in a row. The Atlanta Falcons joined the NFL in 1966 and have never had consecutive winning seasons. The Atlanta Thrashers have one playoff appearance in five seasons (half the teams in the NHL make the playoffs) and could easily be perennial cellar dwellers for the next decade after they inevitably lose Ilya Kovalchuk in two years. Which brings us to the Hawks.

The Hawks made the playoffs last year despite being eight games under .500 for the first time since the strike shortened 1998-99 season, giving the Celtics a tougher series than the Lakers. Since 1999 they have won 255 games over nine seasons, or 34.6% of their games. They trade for Mike Bibby, make the playoffs, finally have some buzz surrounding the team, and their sixth man bolts for Greece. Sucks for them.

You got served!

Well this is the coolest thing I've seen today.

NBA trades continue to baffle me

Marcus Camby has made NBA All-Defensive First Team the last two seasons, after being Second Team the two seasons before that. He won NBA Defensive Player of the Year the year before last, and was second in the NBA in rebounding last year with 13.1 per game. He's signed for two more seasons at a very reasonable $10 million per, so his contract expires when Lebron, Wade, et al will be free agents. So how come he has zero trade value? (The right to swap second round picks in 23 months can be approximated as zero.)

NBA trades baffle me. I came to the conclusion in February that Portland did a great job getting Channing Frye for Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, Fred Jones, and $30 million. But this one takes the cake. Do you mean to tell me that no team could offer anything for Marcus Camby? Or is it that nothing is more valuable than something. It's not like the Nuggets traded Camby to a team in the East either; the Nuggets and Clippers have been within five spots of each other in the Western Conference the last four years.

I keep having to remind myself that the Clippers aren't the team dumping salary here. The fact that they're the team making a killing plants a seed of doubt in my mind that it's a wise move. The best apart about this trade is that the Nuggets will be even more entertaining to watch - they were 29th in the league in points allowed last year at 107.0 (also the second most since 1997) and could challenge 110 this year.

Fire enough bullets...

SI has a great piece today on Shawn Kemp, Jr. at the Reebok All-American camp. He's 17, and has contacted many of his half brothers and sisters around the country on Myspace, which must be a boon to the various illegitimate children of professional athletes. This reminds me of a great line from Huggy Lowdown: Shawn Kemp didn't make the All Star Team, but if he got all his kids to vote for him he'd be a starter.

Anybody but Isiah

Former Pacers GM Donnie Walsh is set to oversee the basketball operations for the Knicks, and while Corky from Life Goes On would be an upgrade over Isiah Thomas, but Walsh is so overrated as a talent evaluator it's ridiculous. He destroyed the Pacers and built the Warriors in an incredibly one sided eight player mega deal about a year ago, hired Isiah Thomas as coach, traded Antonio Davis for a top 5 pick, and used that pick on Jonathan Bender instead of Shawn Marion, Rip Hamilton, or Wally Szczerbiak. His one great trade was Dale Davis for Jermaine O'Neal, but that was an obvious move at the time.

Where Isiah happens

I'm not a huge Bill Simmons fan, but he had a fairly humorous script for a potential "Where Isiah happens" commercial. Cue Philip Glass.

(Picture of the '05 Suns celebrating after a playoff win.)
Where Phoenix dumps the Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway contracts on someone and remakes its team into a contender happens.

(Picture of the '07 Bulls celebrating after a playoff win.)
Where Chicago dumps Eddy Curry for two lottery picks and copious amounts of cap space happens.

(Picture of the '07 Raptors celebrating after a playoff win.)
Where Toronto finds some dummy to take Jalen Rose's contract and aid its rebuilding process happens.

(Picture of San Antonio's 2005 trophy celebration.)
Where San Antonio dumps Malik Rose's contract for a center who helps them win the title happens.

Picture of the '08 Blazers celebrating after a last-second win.)
Where the 2008 Blazers become the most likable young team in the league because they found a taker for Zach Randolph happens.

(Picture of a white SUV.)
Where a Truck Party happens.

(Picture of Anucha Browne Sanders celebrating on the courthouse steps.)
Where a humiliating $11 million sexual harassment settlement happens.

(Picture of Curry and Randolph looking overweight.)
Where an NBA frontcourt that includes two C-cups happens.

(Picture of a mostly empty Madison Square Garden.)
Where a 60-year tradition of professional basketball goes down the tubes happens.

(Picture of Isiah sitting on the bench with that frozen, blank look on his face like he's either flatlining or planning to kill everyone on the locker room after the game.)
Where Isiah Happens.

The real loser in the NBA trades

Some guy thought it was a good idea to purchase the domain heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com, and now he's stuck. Sometimes life can be so unfair.

NBA trade are weird

To show how weird NBA trades are, let's go back and try to evaluate a draft day deal from June: Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, Fred Jones, and a 2007 2nd rounder for Channing Frye, Steve Francis, and a 2008 2nd rounder. Portland promptly bought out Francis' contract for $30 million, in fear of his negative attitude rubbing off on Greg Oden and company, and let's cancel the 2nd rounders out, so the deal was more like Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, Fred Jones, and $30 million for Channing Frye.

Randolph is averaging 17 and 10, Frye is averaging 6.6 and 4.5. The Knicks are on pace to win 24 games after winning 33 last year; the Blazers are on pace to win 44 after winning 32 last year. So Portland trades a perennial 20 and 10 guy, 2 decent contracts, and mid eight figures for a 6'11" pulse, and they win the trade. How the hell is anyone supposed to evaluate NBA trades, when this has to be considered a decent haul? You can argue other reasons for Portland's improvement and the Knicks' fall, but there were no other substantial changes in terms of personnel. The moral of the story is you don't want to have negative personalities on your team, no matter how productive they are.

The NBA hot stove league

First came the stunning fleecing of the Grizzlies by the Lakers, made all the more shocking because Mitch Kupchak was the one doing the fleecing. Then came the blockbuster Shaq for Shawn Marion deal, which seemed to be incredibly one sided in favor of Miami by everyone except Shaq and everyone Shaq was able to convince. Now Jason Kidd may or may not be going to the team the drafted him, which is on hold because the very mediocre Devean George and his "small" $2.4 million salary has blocked the deal. But he may be doing Dallas a favor.

Why did Phoenix felt the need to trade a 29 year old averaging 16 and 10 this year for a 35 year old averaging 14 and 8 this year? And throw in their backup point guard and go over into luxury tax territory to do it? When they were a couple suspensions away from the Championship last year? The reason I root for the Suns versus the rest of the NBA elite is because they play a nontraditional brand of basketball, and now they feel the need to trade one of their big three for a center with an unmovable contract.

In response, the Mavs overpay for a traditional point guard, trading all their roster flexibility and maybe their best young player (Devin Harris) for another unmovable contract. More and more I'm convinced this is the Lakers' year, thanks to the maturation of Andrew Bynum, and even more impressively, Mitch Kupchak.

DeShawn Stevenson is bad at gambling

About a year ago, Gilbert Arenas bet DeShawn Stevenson $20,000 that he could make more one handed college three pointers out of 100 than Stevenson could make two handed three pointers. The video made it up on Youtube and it became somewhat of a national story. I know from experience if someone wants to make a bizarre bet like that (say, if they say they can beat you at pool with an axe handle that happens to be sitting by the pool table), you're not winning the bet. Naturally Arenas took Stevenson's money, despite making over ten times as much this season.

Stevenson's sucker bet this year involves a beard growing contest with Drew Gooden. Gooden is five inches bigger and has a history of mixing up his hair going back to Kansas, most notably with his Hare Krishna like patch from last season. It looks like Stevenson has a long way to go, because Gooden already looks like a black Santa.

Meow indeed

The Wizards Insider had some of the highlights of Kwame Brown's run with the Lakers, in particular the shots Phil Jackson took at him.

Two months into his Lakers tenure, Jackson questioned Brown's toughness and his inability to recover from a strained right hamstring. "I'm not putting pressure other than just call him (a sissy) every time I see him in the locker room," Jackson said. Jackson accented his assessment by making cat-like "meow" sounds as Brown walked past him. Later, Jackson walked into the locker room, pointed to a brown mink coat stashed on top of the coat rack and started laughing hysterically. "See that's Kwame's," he said.

After a triple-overtime loss to the Charlotte Bobcats in December of last season - in which Kobe Bryant scored 58 points - Jackson put the blame on Brown, who had three turnovers down the stretch. "We're going to feed him Butterfingers on the flight home just so he can feel the effects of it."

A few months later, when the Lakers visited Washington, Jackson skipped the morning shootaround and took his team on a tour of the monuments. He didn't waste the opportunity to take another dig at Brown. "I think we had other guys who'd never seen them, like Kwame Brown," Jackson said. "I hear he came here but I don't think he ever did that."

Yesterday, Jackson basically blamed most of Brown's struggles on injuries that have robbed him of his explosiveness and quickness. Then, he added, "Kwame still has an upside that people haven't seen. He's going to get better opportunities than he did here."

That might be news to Memphis General Manager Chris Wallace, who explained his reasoning for making the Pau Gasol deal by stating, "Brown was the largest expiring contact we could find." Ouch. He didn't even waste any time trying to make anyone believe that the Grizzlies expected anything from Brown, who might not be around long enough to get booed out of Memphis, like he did in Washington and Los Angeles.

I know Kwame has notoriously thin skin, but I'll give him enough credit that it wasn't Jackson's jokes that stunted his development to the point where he's averaging the fewest points since his rookie year.

How does Kwame keep getting traded for All Stars?

Mitch Kupchak was a slow starter, but he's come around as a GM. Today he landed Paul Gasol and a 2nd round pick for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, and 2008 and 2010 1st round picks. The 2008 1st rounder will certainly be in the 20s, so this a coup for the Lakers, who can put Andrew Bynum, Gasol, Lamar Odom, Kobe Bryant, and Derek Fisher on the floor when Bynum returns from his knee injury. They also fill a need without giving up Bynum, who they wouldn't include in a deal for Kidd.

An interesting sidenote to this trade is it unites two notable Michael Jordan draft picks - Kwame Brown and Juan Carlos Navarro. Memphis could be headed to a historically bad season because they'll have no choice but to play Kwame 40 minutes a game, with no other legitimate big men on Memphis. But with Kwame and Stromile Swift coming off the books Memphis may be in a position to make a run at Gilbert Arenas.

Beastley

It might be forgotten by next week, but Kansas State freshman Michael Beasley guaranteeing a victory against Kansas was one of the all time sports guarantees, up there with Joe Namath and Mark Messier. Kansas had won 24 in a row in Manhattan, going back to 1983. But before the season Beasley said "We're going to beat Kansas at home. We're going to beat them in their house. We're going to beat them in Africa. Wherever we play, we're going to beat them," and he dropped 25 on the previously unbeaten Jayhawks, droping his average to 25.3, 4th in the nation and the only guy in the top 12 from a BCS conference. He's leading the country in rebounding, and he's also dropped eight threes the last four games. He's a lock for the Naismith. The question is - is he the best freshman ever, or just since last year?

Beasley and last year's historic freshman Kevin Durant have a couple things in common: both were born in Washington, DC, both played high school ball in Maryland. Beasley was dominant at Riverdale Baptist and National Christian Academy in Prince George's County; Durant starred at Montrose Christian School in Rockville. The last dominant freshman before these two, Carmelo Anthony, was born in Brooklyn but also played high school ball at Towson Catholic High School in Baltimore. These are maybe the three most dominant freshman in the history of college basketball, and the University of Maryland gets none of them. They at least got a sniff of Anthony, neither Durant nor Beasley, listed Maryland as a school of interest.

The collectively bargained rule that forces prospective NBA players to spend at least a year in college has been a boon to the college games, in my opinion. The two best players in the country last year were freshman, and you could argue that Beasley, Kevin Love, and Eric Gordon are the three best players in the country right now (sorry Derrick Rose, you're not there yet). So what if we can only watch them for a year? I'd rather see these guys playing 35 minutes a game in college than 15 minutes in the pros.

Player hating

This is exactly why I hate the NBA. The Memphis Grizzlies, in the midst of a horrible season, agreed to buyout Damon Stoudamire's contract last week, and now he's going to sign with the defending champs for the veteran's minimum. New Orleans comes out of nowhere to lead the Southwest division ahead of Dallas and San Antonio. But who are the Hornets going to add for the veteran's minimum? What's the upside of rooting for a team that's not the Spurs, Suns, Celtics, or Pistons this year? Even if the Mavericks or Nuggets trade for Kidd, then what? Then there are five teams that it's not pointless to follow.

Gil's Island

This went up on Fanhouse this morning, and it's maybe the most bizarre two minutes or anything ever brought to film. There's three more at Wizznuttz and GilTV.com.

Now it's only Prince

Sportswrap pointed out this weekend that Boston owes Minnesota big time for giving up on David Ortiz and Randy Moss (although he went to Oakland first), and trading them K.G. for half their roster. I couldn't find any connection between Matt Ryan and the Golden Gophers, although their colors are similar to those of B.C.

The title of this post is of course a reference to Chris Rock famously saying "the only black people in Minnesota are Prince and Kirby Puckett." With Torii Hunter a free agent, it's really going to be down to Prince and Adrian Peterson.

How big of a dropoff after the big 3?

One thing I hate about the NBA is the extreme unlikelihood of a team coming out of nowhere to win a championship. The Golden State Warriors won a series last year and were won of the biggest Cinderella stories in NBA history. So how unlikely is it for a team outside of the big three (Spurs, Mavericks, and Suns) to take home the hardware this year? Bodoglife.com (they've had issues with their domain name) lists the Spurs as the favorite to win it all at 7:2, the Mavs and surprisingly the Celtics at 4:1, the Suns at 9:2, the Rockets at 5:1, and the Bulls at 9:1. The Nuggets at 20:1 and the Pistons at 15:1 look somewhat attractive, but I'd take Dallas and Phoenix against the field if I had to bet on NBA futures. Defending champs are always overrated, and I'm confident it will come down to one of those three teams. If you take the two with the longer odds I think you're getting 60% odds at a better than 2:1 payout.

I find it pretty surprising that the Rockets and Celtics are in the rare air. I started this entry assuming there'd be a dropoff either after the Suns or Pistons, but Detroit shares the same line with Miami and Cleveland, and there's barely any dropoff after Phoenix. KG is still an elite player, but I don't see how his addition, when you traded half your roster, is enough to go from 24 wins to elite status. And I don't see how Ray Allen is that big of an improvement when he's the clear number three option on offense.