via Get Banged On

EuroBasket 2011 has had its share of fun moments, and this is one of them. This isn’t a particularly flashy or creative dunk, but it has its own merits. This dunk is the climax of a hard-fought sequence, a pinnacle achieved not in one part, but in several necessary parts.  This is the kind of dunk I love.

Before the chance to dunk ever arises, Noah is already positioning himself strongly for the offensive rebound, in a way that many centers avoid and neglect. He sneaks in between two of Greece’s players (who are primarily focused on the driving player), and follows the ball with his eyes as it begins to rise towards the basket. Noah’s feet and body seem to move separate from the focus of his eyes, together serving as tools that combine but still act as individual mechanisms. As the ball bounces slowly off of the rim, the Greek players finally come alive and realize there’s a 7-foot rebounding machine standing next to them. They swat at the ball, but Noah’s elbows are not to be trifled with as the ball descends from the rim.

When Noah catches the ball, he makes a natural statement with his body language. Every movement he makes is so rough and yet flows together so fluidly. Noah rebounds like a skilled blacksmith strikes metal, firmly and yet uniquely. Once the ball is in his hands, the Greek players flail desperately, but Noah’s uninterested in their defensive attempts. His actions work apart from the defense. He takes a quick power dribble (gathering rhythm as he steps towards the basket) with a goal in mind, a goal he’s reached countless times in the past. The Greek defender in front of him makes one last desperate plea as he jumps in front of Noah, but it’s too late to stop the inevitable sequence of events taking place.

Noah is airborne and back on the ground in the blink of an eye, with an impressive dunk in tow. He dunks the basketball relentlessly, like the basket belongs to him. In this moment, it’s undeniable that it does. It’s a play that many have made before and many will make again, but it sums up Noah in a sense that few other plays can. He isn’t a gifted scorer or a harbinger of creative post moves, but Joakim Noah consistently does what he can do best: rebounding and dunking, ideally in succession. That’s his niche, and during this dunk, that was his basket.

Photo by Dave_S. on Flickr

On June 28th, 2003, Harvey Pollack wore a t-shirt. Because it was late June, you likely wore one, as well. The difference between you and Harvey, though, is that Mr. Pollack has worn a t-shirt for 2999 consecutive days since, counting Thursday, and that fateful day back in 2003. And because you, like Harvey, are good at math? You’re likely realizing that Pollack will have worn a t-shirt for 3000 consecutive days on Friday, should he decide to pull yet another t-shirt out of his drawer that morning.

Is this some sort of record? Well, yes. According to the Philadelphia 76ers, Pollack has already set a record for the most consecutive days wearing a t-shirt, and he’s hoping to be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

via Ball Don’t Lie: NBA legend Harvey Pollack has set a record for wearing lots of t-shirts 

As far as “Random World Records Somehow Connected To The NBA” go, this is probably number one. Breaking any world record is impressive, especially if it’s as chill as Harvey Pollack’s current streak. Pollack’s record inspired me to come up with some current NBA players that might be in contention to break world records in the future.

Most Three-Pointers Attempted In A Single Game

J.R. Smith is headed to China, which could be both great and terrible for the team that’s signed him. It’s great in the sense that he’s bringing his considerable talent to play against inferior competition. It’s terrible in the sense that he’s bringing J.R. Smith, the (occasionally) mind-numbingly frustrating basketball player, with him. I like to think of crazy basketball J.R. Smith as a sort of detrimental alter ego, albeit one that can be thoroughly inept and misguided. Alter Ego J.R. Smith loves his ridiculous three-pointers, and I have a feeling the added freedom of a China locale will only heighten his powers.

Highest Number Of Relevant Alternative Events Attended

When it comes to NBA players, Matt Bonner is about as “alt” as it gets. He hangs out with Arcade Fire, he’s been featured on the Gorilla vs. Bear “indie” music blog, and he maintains a beautiful, red beard that coincides with a distinct niche game. Matt Bonner provides two clear quantifiable skills: Making three-pointers and serving as the NBA’s unofficial ambassador to the indie music scene. Matt Bonner may not play a lot of “defense”, but you better believe he’ll have backstage passes to the next Animal Collective show.

World’s Worst High Jumper

Number of Times Doing What Toney Douglas Do 

Ah, Toney Douglas. You’ve held this record for years, but you’re sure to keep extending it. What a quandary you are. You offend my basketball sensibilities in nearly every way with your erratic, sometimes great, sometimes terrible play. But you try your best, Toney. Nobody does what you do better than you do, whatever that means (I’m still not exactly sure). You’ll always do what Toney Douglas do. It’ll help your team sometimes, and sometimes it won’t. Either way, you’ll always be the most Toney Douglas-y Toney Douglas there is.

Most Jaw Juts In A Single Trip To The Grocery Store

Let’s say the lockout actually causes us to lose a season. The ever-competitive Kobe Bryant isn’t going to be happy sitting around without the chance to hit a baseline fade away jumper, stare at Luke Walton on the bench, and jaw jut his heart out. He’s going to need an outlet, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that outlet found a place somewhere in the occurrences of everyday life. If Kobe finds riceroni on sale at the supermarket, it’s jaw jut time. If Kobe gets the last close parking spot at a crowded event, it’s jaw jut time. If Kobe wins at scrabble because of a triple word, it’s jaw jut time.

Photo from nathangibbs via Flickr

Owners and players initially found reason for optimism during Tuesday’s meetings. Commissioner David Stern and Peter Holt, the head of the owners’ executive committee, felt that the players’ proposal to take 52 or 53 percent of basketball-related income, compared to 57 under the previous agreement, was basically fair, sources said.

Owners were seriously considering coming off of their demand for a salary freeze and would allow players’ future earnings to be tied into the league’s revenue growth, a critical point for players. The owners also were willing to allow the players to maintain their current salaries, without rollbacks, sources said.

But when the owners left the players to meet among themselves for around three hours, Cleveland’s Dan Gilbert and Phoenix’s Robert Sarver expressed their dissatisfaction with many of the points, sources said. The sources said that the Knicks’ James Dolan and the Lakers’ Jerry Buss were visibly annoyed by the hardline demands of Gilbert and Sarver.

via NBA lockout — Derek Fisher of Los Angeles Lakers emails players, says owners have rift – ESPN Los Angeles.

So much for the owners being more united than anything ever.

Ever since cautious optimism and way too many “How u” jokes were quickly put out by an unproductive labor agreement in New York on Tuesday, details have been slowly trickling as to why the NBA’s owners and players still can’t bang out a deal that would bring basketball back to our arenas and TV sets. Among those details, we’ve been hearing of increasingly problematic rifts in both the owner and player camps. The latest on the former, courtesy of ESPN Los Angeles’s Dave McMenamin, appears in blockquote form in front of your very eyes, and it is annoying, to say the least.

It’s annoying because the owners of the NBA’s 30 teams have had at least 2 years to get their heads wrapped around what the hell they want, anyway, and yet they still have too many issues in their own house to get us out of this hellhole of a nothingness that the NBA has regressed to. It’s annoying because of the the two owners in question: the guy who sold away Steve Nash’s prime, and the guy who enabled LeBron James into what may just be the greatest sense of entitlement among the planet’s athletes, then played martyr when that same hubris-inflated superstar exercised his contractual right to change his terms of employment. It’s annoying because, dammit, we want basketball already.

However, behind all the incessant rage and the twitter outburst that I am partially proud and partially ashamed of, here are some thoughts on what this and other lockout things actually mean from a blogger who is currently a volatile mix of rage, incoherence, and exhaustion:

Sarver and Gilbert can’t block everything alone

Scapegoats are always convenient escape pods for all anger management issues, but it’s important to note that it is virtually impossible for 2 owners to single-handedly block a 30 (technically 29+David Stern in the name of the Hornets) owner vote. Either Sarver and Gilbert are just the most vocal of leaders among a substantial group of owners whose demands were still far from met; or the NBA as a whole isn’t as close to agreeing to terms as stated; or, they really are the only two owners who have remained unsatisfied, but the league is confident it has enough time to bring those two over to the side of good sense. If all that’s left for a deal to be made is 30 names on a dotted line and all the NBA can muster is 28, things will go through. We’re just not there yet.

This is actually pretty good news

Original reports from Tuesday were obviously on the doomsday side of affairs, as public rhetoric dictates. However, we now learn that matters are much brighter. Suddenly, giving up on the hard cap “blood issue” is being seriously considered. Suddenly, we have owners admitting, even behind closed doors, that missing games is not something that we’re interested in. After hearing Billy Hunter say that we may lose up to half a season, the wind is back in the negotiation sails, if ever so slightly.

This is a market thing

The main culprits here are Sarver and Gilbert, owners of two supposedly small market teams. The two owners mentioned as the most annoyed with this split of idealism among owners were Dolan and Buss, the two biggest market owners of all big markets. While this does come right on the heels of the news that Buss is all in favor of revenue sharing, a hard cap, and other small-market agendas, this is still a pretty clean split down the middle, even if we only know of 4 opinions out of 29. The market war of the NBA was in the making for quite a long time, much longer than this current labor stoppage; whether it gets solved this round or next, it’s an issue that will remain present for the NBA until either a solution is presented or small markets are absolved completely. It’s sad, but it’s out there.

Another note which is completely irrelevant to recent developments but has to be made:

The hard cap will not guarantee competitive balance

Many a word was written on the ideals of hard caps as restorers of parity. I see many problems with this approach. Tom Ziller addresses one of them (a hard salary ceiling also, in essence, necessitates a hard salary floor, thus handicapping financially strapped teams into sending they can’t afford) here; and Henry Abbott has been wondering aloud if parity is even achievable for quite a while.

My main issue with a hard cap, though, ties in to what has been brought up by Zach Lowe quite a while back. A hard cap virtually guarantees the division of NBA players into 3 key groups: superstars, who will always be paid either the maximum possible or something close to it, as their value as far as merchandising and marketing goes far beyond the restraints of a contract; rookies, tied to whatever the rookie scale looks like; and everybody else, who will be fighting for the scraps left under an ominous ceiling of a number.

Basically, the mid-level salary range will be all but gone. We’ll have max guys, and minimum guys. Minimum guys whose deals won’t be guaranteed – can’t clog up that cap, right? – and who will gun for their own numbers so they can get another, slightly larger unguaranteed deal next summer.

But even worse, in creating an artificial upper limit to the mid-level player’s salary, you’re effectively writing out 25 of 30 teams in the race for his signature. You thought Ron Artest was happy to take a discount for the Lakers by taking 30 million? Just wait for the summer of 2012, when free agent Kirk Hinrich can choose between re-signing in Atlanta for an unguaranteed 2 year, 4 million deal and signing in Miami for a guaranteed minimum deal of 2 years, 2.5 million. Sure, a hard cap kills your salary dump Gasol deals, and it stops the Lakers from doubling the Kings in payroll; but it also opens the door to even more contender discounts, even more market considerations (those Florida tax advantages are looking pretty good now, I’d venture). Big markets will pay the same amount of small markets, but willing players and willing agents will make sure they still get twice the value. How’s that for competitive balance?

And besides: what, exactly, will make sure that these max deals alloted to supposed superstars won’t be just as damaging as current max deals? How does a hard cap convince the Hawks that Joe Johnson isn’t, in fact, a superstar? How does a hard cap prevent a team from signing a shooting guard in a point guard’s body who’s just coming off major surgery to a max deal just because he was awesome the year before he blew his knee? You think the Brandon Roy deal doesn’t happen under a hard cap? Nonsense. Teams will always go all in for guys they think are superstars, whether there is any semblance of rational or not. A better system won’t save bad owners from bad ownership.

The bottom line, of course, is that none of this really matters. As I type this, I continue to curse the meddling likes of Sarver and Gilbert while (somehow, incredibly) rooting for the Buss-Dolan tandem that I otherwise despise with every fiber of my being. But we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors. All we know is that we want basketball back, and if 2 franchises who had their fair share of blown chances are annoyed with the terms in which we get it, that’s their problem. Just fix this mess already, because writing these articles about finances instead of grown men throwing an orange ball in colorful jerseys is really depressing.

Photo from Jon Ragnarsson via Flickr

SI.com’s wonderful Zach Lowe sat down with the Philadelphia 76ers’ wonderful Thaddeus Young for a fascinating interview over at The Point Forward. Young is coming off a career year that saw him cut down on those pesky outside jumpers and emerge as a sparkplug off the 76er bench with his athletic rim-attacking ways, playing a huge part on a defensively-oriented team that needed any offense it could get. This doesn’t stop Young from seeming very down to earth throughout the entire interview. Young covers a vast array of topics, from his impending restricted free agency and the chances it leads him to China, training with John Lucas as he strives to improve his mid-range and long-range shooting, and his first year under coach Doug Collins.

The interview should immediately be regarded as a must-read, a far cry from the depressing NBA lockout rhetoric that has dominated most talk with NBA players lately. However, the best part of the interview comes on the very last question.

SI.com: I have to say, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a player more committed to the 2-for-1 concept at the end of quarters than your teammate Lou Williams.

Young: We actually have a play called “Go Lou.” It works every time. We run it when we’re taking the ball out under our own basket, on the other side of the court, and it’s pretty much just giving the ball to Lou, setting a screen and just watching him go. Sometimes we’ll discuss it at the last minute, and he’ll tell me that instead of shooting, he’ll drive inside the three-point line, bring the ball back out and have me set a screen for him so he can run a screen-and-roll.But, yeah, it’s known around the league that he loves the 2-for-1. If there are 35 seconds left, he’s getting it. Everyone knows that.

via The Point Forward » Posts Q&A with 76ers forward Thaddeus Young «.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that Go Lou is now officially the best basketball play of all time. In general, most of what revolves around Lou Williams is the best of all time – after all, Lou is basically Monta Ellis if Monta Ellis played on a team that thought he should chillax a bit, and you can’t hate anything about a chillaxed Monta Ellis. Though I would be hesitant to run Go Lou for the likes of Lou Amundson, this play is tailor made for the entertaining Williams, a bumbling pile of energy in a compressed body of insane athleticism and major tattoo work. With Lou having gained quite the reputation as a 2 for 1 enthusiast, it warms one’s heart to see that Philly plays to these strengths. As Thaddeus himself says about the play – “it always works”.

While on first thought a play such as Go Lou doesn’t fit with the notoriously uptight Collins, the opposite is true. Collins’ coaching career has revolved around taking the best players on his teams and driving them to ground, demanding that they shoulder entire offenses for seasons on end. Since these Sixers don’t have anyone nearly as dominant as Jordan on the late 80s Bulls or Grant Hill on the mid-90s Pistons, it makes perfect sense that Collins would replace his 1-on-5 offense with an ensemble of 1-on-5 offensive plays, each one of them seeing a different player take over the role of “1”.

Luckily, we at HP managed to get a hold of Doug Collins’ playbook from the past year, enabling us to discover even more hilarious isolation plays for hilarious isolation players.

Go Elton

Elton Brand gets the ball and makes an awkward mid-range jumper with a release that looks as though he’s trying to reach a really high shelf. Then everybody reminisces about how good he was before he was injured.

Go Dre

Basically, this.

Go Jrue

Jrue Holiday sets up on the right side, while everybody else goes left. Jrue jribbles around, jrags his defender into a jrowse, jrives to the basket, and jraws the foul. Afterwards, everybody celebrates with a jrink.

Go Jodie

The ball goes to Jodie Meeks. Jodie Meeks dribbles around aimlessly for approximately two years, convincing everybody that he isn’t an NBA caliber player. Then he buries a 3 in their face.

Go Marreese

Ironically, this play doesn’t actually involve Marreese Speights at all. This play also doesn’t involve passes, ball screens, or player movement. It has no guidelines, and it has no rules. But you can be 100% sure that even though it should, on paper, be a fantastic play, it won’t reach its potential.

Go Noc

Whenever Andres Nocioni walks onto the court, everybody kindly asks him to leave.

Go Spencer

The Sixers try to run “Go Noc” for Spencer Hawes, only to realize he’s the only center on their roster. Spencer Hawes turns the ball over. Everybody becomes sad.

Photo from ell brown via Flickr

“I wanted to display all of my shoes, so I had this 500-square-foot closet made. I just thought this would be a cool idea, and it would almost look like a museum. I had a fingerprint sensor put on the door to make sure I’m the only one who can get in here. I mostly wear Air Jordans. All of the Jordan guys are selected by Michael Jordan himself. It’s kind of hard to tell MJ no. I have 436 pairs of sneakers in here, and they’re mostly unworn. I’ll wear all of them eventually.”

- Joe Johnson 

via What’s in Joe Johnson’s Closet? | Stacey Pressman | ESPN The Magazine/Page 2

If the lockout has done any good, it’s really allowed us to forge a connection with these players that often seem larger than life. Learning more about their lives outside of basketball has brought a clearer perspective of who these guys are as people. For an upcoming issue of ESPN The Magazine, Stacey Pressman takes a look at Joe Johnson’s wardrobe, his must-buy tips, and makes a startling discovery: Joe has an enormous shoe “museum” with fingerprint security.

…Wait, Joe Johnson has a what now?

And to think I thought I was at the vanguard of high tech security. My laptop has an eyeball scanner to make sure I’m the only one with access to my information. Except it only works in brightly lit conditions, and only when I’m awake enough to open my eyes wide. And sometimes it lags for quite a while. But it’s worth it, because I know I’m secure.

I know Joe Johnson understands me, because this fingerprint sensor is essentially the same concept, except 120 million times better. I’m sure he can stroll into his closet at any time, even if he’s sleepwalking with his eyes closed. See, I can’t do that with my laptop. But it isn’t just for show. When you’re in possession of 436 pairs of rare and valuable sneakers, security isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Likewise, behind my eye sensor are Google Chrome windows with over 50 tabs of old Penny Hardaway articles from the Sports Illustrated Vault, neglected homework assignments, and food blogs. I have to ensure the safety of these links from the deviance of my cruel roommates. If anything were to happen, it’d be impossible to know when I’d ever see those links again. Luckily, I can sleep well at night knowing that a breach will never happen. I’m sure Joe Johnson sleeps well at night too, for reasons that go beyond futuristic shoe-protection technology.

Moral of the story? Joe Johnson is very, very rich.

Photo from floridamemory via Flickr.

“The actors by their presence always convince me, to my horror, that most of what I’ve written about them until now is false. It is false because I write about them with steadfast love (even now, while I write it down, this, too, becomes false) but varying ability, and this varying ability does not hit off the real actors loudly and correctly but loses itself dully in this love that will never be satisfied with the ability and therefore thinks it is protecting the actors by preventing this ability from exercising itself.”

- J.D. Salinger (as Buddy Glass in Seymour — An Introduction) quoting Franz Kafka.

…

So, Franz Kafka.

Hello, I’ll be your narrator. Apologies in advance; my bias is evident.

This is about Alexey Shved (FIBA tells me it’s Aleksey, but I’ll trust every other source on the internet saying otherwise). If it was possible for me to wax poetic about Shved without entering the realm of mindless self-indulgence, I would’ve opted for that route.

That route doesn’t exist, by the way.

For those who haven’t had the fortune of watching EuroBasket 2011, Alexey Shved is a Russian point guard. He is 6’6″. He’s rail thin, and looks like a baby crawled into a novelty shop and bought himself a pubescent mustache. He’s shifty, he’s quick, and he’s downright devilish in an open court. He’s 22, and if the prophecy is to be fully realized, he’ll have to reach the NBA eventually. But that’s a dream for another day.

It’s a wonder the way Shved moves around the court — lithe yet composed, with a joviality that bleeds out the pores of an otherwise steely front. He was once the most impressive prospect in Europe, as he dominated consecutive Under-20 tournaments only three years ago. The potential is still there. He has a decidedly Western game, with NBA-level quickness and athleticism to match.  Unteachable scoring instincts off the dribble and a solid stroke made the shooting guard a possibility with his size, but he was a point guard. He is a point guard. In his youth, he was an erratic, overconfident shooter with only instinct to rely on in terms of creative playmaking. Four years later, playing in the grueling pace and physicality of the Russian Superleague, he’s emerged far more in control of his skills.

There’s no need to lament the death of volatile creativity ala Jason Williams in the Hubie Brown era. Shved was never that kind of magician. His flash doesn’t stem from technique, but from the fluidity in every motion. To put it simply, Shved makes smart sexy. Shved cuts into the lane around a pick from Andrey Vorontsevich with an extra burst of speed that so few European guards seem to possess, never losing eye contact with his roll man. But as quickly as he accelerates, he decelerates even quicker, and it almost seems as though the polarity of motions compels the ball to glide from Shved’s palm and into Vorontsevich’s clutches. The events leading up to the easy layup blend so seamlessly, it’s almost baffling that such an easy play could have existed. Shved’s true flair exists in how he positions himself to make a pass, not the pass itself, though he isn’t a slouch in that regard either.

I wish I could say that Shved’s talents make him a singular prospect, but I can’t. Since 1996, when the Create-a-Player feature was introduced in NBA video games, ordinary people were given the power to imagine themselves as a superstar, or a functioning cog in a multi-million dollar machine. I was never good at basketball, and I stopped playing seriously before I developed any kind of identity as a player, thus creating someone with the likeness of myself was a pointless venture. It’s fun to imagine something that was never there, but I was more interested in unlocking what was never seen. My created players were 6’5″ – 6’7″ hyper-athletic combo guards that could do a little bit of everything. It was my homage to Penny Hardaway, to Larry Hughes (Whose halcyon days in D.C. still didn’t capture the immense potential he had at his disposal. Though he did indeed dispose of it. All of it.), and more recently, Shaun Livingston. I fetishized the tall combo guard. And since so many failed to hit even a modicum of their potential, I found closure in retelling their stories with an editorial license.

The unfinished story — at least for me — continues with Shved. He’s not as freakishly explosive as Hardaway or Hughes, and not the creative savant that Livingston was at the age of 18, but he still has the tools to become a good player; one that can make a difference on a team at the highest level of competition. He’s only 22, and in a short period of time has shown the ability to mature his game for the better. Luckily for Shved, he’s been immersed in the sport by basketball obsessives like Ettore Messina (learning how to run a grinding, low-tempo team) and David Blatt (learning to read the floor effectively on and off the ball in a Princeton offense) early in his career. He has his limitations — he has a tendency to allow players to blow right past him, and he simply does not have the strength to fight through screens — but he’s shown more restraint in his shot selection in the later stages of this tournament, and his ability in the pick and roll has been second to none.

My vested interest in Alexey Shved is undeniable and untenable. I make no efforts to obstruct this fact. There is a chance Shved will never become more than he is, and will never live up to the immense promise first seen five years ago. If he doesn’t, he’ll eventually have his own unfinished chapter. Whether triumph or collapse is in his imminent future, I won’t know, but he’s made for a great story so far.

Photo by farouqtaj via flickr

In the market for an inflatable Ben Wallace? You’re in luck: it’s Woot.com’s deal of the day.

(Don’t miss inflatable Ben Wallace’s major motion picture debut, either.)

via Inflatable Ben Wallace Can Be Yours For A Low, Low Price – From Our Editors – SBNation.com.

That’s incredible! I’ve always wanted my very own life-sized Ben Wall…oh, wow. The I.B.W. is three inches taller than the actual Ben Wallace. That’s even better! I mean, if you’re going to get creepy with toys for your children, then you might as well blow everything out of proportion as well.

That’s not simply my personal belief – it’s the corporate philosophy behind the newest line of NBA-related merchandise aimed at getting the kids hooked as soon as possible. We here at HP were given a pre-release tour of this product line and felt an obligation to break the non-disclosure agreement and offer you a glimpse into the hottest toys of the upcoming holiday season. While you may not be able to give your basketball-loving rugrat actual NBA games this Christmas, at least you can get them one of these!

Chris “Birdman” Andersen Coloring Book - for ages 6-65

Chris Andersen is a man – and a marketing tool – made for the 240-crayon world of Crayola. Now you too can live that technicolor life! Each of the 487 pages inside is taken from a unique part of Andersen’s tattoos. Precocious artists will find a life-sized foldout, color-by-numbers version of the Birdman at the back of the coloring book…but don’t touch the special stamps on the back cover! Those are for mommy and daddy when they take their annual “vacation” to Burning Man. Product liable to be suspended due to federal statutes. No refunds on Birdman-brand products.

Vince Carter Magic 8-Ball - for ages who cares-*shrug*

Life is full of tough decisions, especially when you’re in the fourth grade! Does Sally have cooties? Do I know how to multiply double digit numbers? If I don’t do my chores, can I blame it on the dog? Take all the guesswork out of your complicated existence with the Vince Carter Magic 8-Ball! Simply shake the sphere while silently asking your question (don’t say it out loud or the other children will steal your wishes…or mock you!) and flip it over to reveal potential Hall-of-Famer Vince Carter’s advice on how to live! Possible responses include: Ask Again Later, I Don’t Know, Meh, Who Cares? and a surprise feature where the Magic 8-Ball leaves your home to attend its college graduation! Boy, will you be angry that it placed an education over your priorities!

Carmelo Anthony Presents: The Telephone Game!* - for ages 7-however long it takes to learn to keep your mouth shut

Nostalgia is the name of the toy game this season, and what better way to spend an evening playing games that grandma and grandpa can relate to than with Carmelo Anthony Telephone! Think up a phrase and write it down, then whisper it to the person next to you. Send the phrase on down the line until the last person sees if what they heard matches the initial phrase – which, regardless of what you wrote down, is always “Stop snitchin’!”

*Note: Carmelo Anthony Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots discontinued due to a technical limitation that forced the robots to flee after throwing one punch.

David Stern Monopoly - for ages 19-45

This time-honored game has seen countless iterations, from NASCAR to Star Wars, and led to countless late-night arguments and vows to never own property. The David Stern Edition takes out all of the enmity engendered over generations by refusing to let anyone play! Each box contains nothing but a smug sense of self-satisfaction and the ability to destroy everything that you enjoy and hold dear. Even then, each round of David Stern Monopoly will last at least five hours – three of which you’ll spend arguing with yourself! Rush order today. Limited quantities available. Price to be determined by free market demand and will continue to rise regardless of how much you claim the product is declining in value.

Photo from Pewari via flickr

An important element of the plan is that it puts pressure on owners to run their businesses well — some teams struggle because they face long odds, and there’s an appetite among owners like Buss to help those owners.

But nobody wants to help owners who simply aren’t running their businesses seriously.

via Digging deep to share revenue – TrueHoop Blog – ESPN.

Dr. Jerry Buss received his doctorate in soul-crushing.

That’s the only way to explain that quote, in which Henry Abbott pulls back the curtain on the blood-thirsty tendencies of the Lakers’ owner. It’s not enough that he and his team vanquish you and yours on a regular basis (COUNT THE RINGZ!). Being one of, if not the most, attractive free agent destinations in the league doesn’t suffice. No, if one truly wants to placate the Good Doctor, the prescription is simple:

1. Get knocked down.

2. Let Buss help you back up.

3. Black Mamba Evisceration Strike Force, activate!

Dr. Buss has no time for the Kings and Bobcats. His sights are squarely on the pretenders to his crown, those who wisely use their resources to foolish ends. It is no accident that Abbott used the word “appetite” in describing the way that Buss views his prey. Buss’s business is basketball, and he knows that he makes money when the product on the floor is the best it can possibly be. That condition for profitability encompasses both teams; the Lakers are most profitable and most exciting when they win, but win in exciting fashion. The blowouts are fun in the moment, but fans of both teams remember the games like the triple-overtime marathon between Phoenix and Los Angeles this past season.

Helping to prop up the less fortunate, then, is not just an altruistic gesture by Buss. It’s good business – so long as the people he supports recognize good business as well. Teams in smaller markets or burdened by the sins of their GM-fathers with effective plans of action and resources in need of development bring a gleam to the eye of Dr. Doom – an opponent who offers both a challenge and a chance at profit is the preferred kind. Like the very best movie villains, this doctor has his monologue at the ready. All he’s lacking is a hero worthy enough to look him in the eye as he delivers it and a handsome face on which to stamp his boot forever.

If you need a minute, dear hero, Dr. Buss will give it to you – and a place to rest your weary head for the night. After all, he needs you at your best for the blockbuster finish.

Photo by o0mouse0o via flickr

NEW YORK — Full committees of NBA owners and players met Tuesday with a hint of progress on the economic split but no signs of compromise on the hard salary cap owners are trying to impose.

After five hours — most of it spent with each side symbolically huddled amongst themselves, apropos of their deeply entrenched bargaining stances — National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher warned that it appears the season will not start on time. Hunter said he has advised players that they “may have to sit out half the season before we get a deal.”

“We can’t come out of here thinking that training camps and preseason are going to start on time,” Fisher said.

via NBA talks at stalemate, start of season imperiled – CBSSports.com.

That’s the dagger, ladies and gentlemen. After a week of optimism, the Wicked Witch of hope is dead. The munchkins of the lockout are rejoicing. By my calculations and Billy Hunter’s estimate of a half-season lost, the most die-hard among us (no, not you, Bruce Willis) are looking at 29,520 minutes of game time taken away.* That’s 492 hours. I don’t know how many days that is – I’m not a wizard – but I know that filling the gap is going to be an on-going struggle, an uphill battle of Sisyphean proportions. Fortunately, I’m here to offer a handful of activities to help while away the time.

*Commercials not included. In these incredibly difficult times, I suggest you still use commercials in your day-to-day lives. Do nothing for more than 12 minutes at a time. Make liberal use of the television timeout. Most importantly, never prepare a sandwich or other ready-made food unless you are explicitly within the friendly confines of a commercial break. You’ll thank me once the league returns.

• Volunteer to coach a Boys & Girls Club youth basketball team

Wit the owners and players setting a bad example for the children, you can show them that basketball isn’t just a modern 3-ring circus. It’s also a great game to play and teaches them lifelong lessons about discipline, teamwork, and blaming the people in charge of enforcing the rules for everything that doesn’t go your way. Most B&GC leagues operate with four 8-minute quarters, so you’ll only need to coach 922 games (plus an additional half, which you’ll probably cover with a few overtime sessions) to make productive use of this lockout. If you’re even more motivated to help the youth of America, you can hold two practices each week – an hour apiece. Then your services will only be necessary for 194 weeks (or just shy of 4 years) before you’ve taken back what was once yours! It’s what LeBron would want.

• Become 5% of an expert

By every indication I got from the people I cheated off of to get through college, being smart is really hard. Malcolm Gladwell famously stated that being an expert in a given field requires 10,000 hours of intense study or practice – and it has to be the right kind of practice. An orangutan cannot become an expert on the guitar, even if you allow him 10,000 hours of practice and dress him up to look like Jimi Hendrix. He simply lacks the necessary funk in his soul and the mental ability to appreciate the pentatonic scale.*

*Lemur monkeys are better suited for these purposes, but be sure to keep them away from housecats, as they are susceptible to toxoplasmosis.

Fortunately, you now have almost a full 1/20th of the time necessary to look everyone else in the eye and say, “No, trust me. I am an expert,” so pick a subject and get to it! Have you ever wanted to be able to maintain your own vehicle and save yourself money? You probably don’t have the dedication to learn that much, so why not take this opportunity to become the most proficient air-conditioning vent operator on your block? Your children will thank you. Admire Shakespeare but bemoan the fact that the dude wrote so darn much? Pick a sonnet and earn renown as the world’s leading authority on any single couplet. Now you don’t just speak English – you are the English master! And it’s all thanks to the lockout and your well-earned free time!

• Watch the Top 16 Basketball Movies on a continuous loop.

Coincidentally, you’ll be able to watch them sixteen times in your 29,520 NBA-free minutes. With a remainder of seven viewings of Eddie. It’s like your own NBA Playoffs, with Whoopi Goldberg as the Finals!

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If none of these ideas appeal to you, don’t fret. You have plenty of time to figure out your own NBAlternatives. Feel free to share your best suggestions; if the negotiations stay this productive, we’ll have another 29,520 minutes to spare.

Photo by hellojenuine via Flickr

My mind was on winning the whole thing, and we had a chance to get the second spot (in the Eastern Conference), and we ended up getting the fourth spot. I even told (Boston General Manager) Danny Ainge not to do the Kendrick Perkins deal with Oklahoma City. I told them I might not be ready, and I’m definitely not coming back. Those guys did what they’ve got to do. I wasn’t surprised; I’ve seen it before. They say all that blah, blah, but you know it’s always going to be something different.

via Shaquille O’Neal discusses retirement, NBA, future — nola.com

Shaquille O’Neal can never keep quiet can he? Whenever a few weeks, or maybe even a couple of months go by, O’Neal has to insert himself into the NBA conversation with a controversial statement. Whether it’s a team, player, coach, GM or country, O’Neal always has a newsworthy piece of advice for someone else. The list of people he has taken shots at over the years makes (the rapper) Game’s list of victims look miniscule.

Calling out opponents is normal, though; athletes do it all the time. But a weird trend O’Neal has started over the course of his 19-year career is criticizing the former organizations he played for. Orlando? Check. Los Angeles? CHECK (seriously?). Miami? Semi-check. Phoenix? Check (he even stole Steve Nash’s reality TV show idea! STEVE NASH. He is the sweetest guy. Have you ever looked into his eyes? It was like the first time I heard the Beatles.) Cleveland? Eh, check, he’s never said anything too blatant, but he’s hinted at a major disconnect between himself and LeBron.

The Celtics, his most recent team, were the only franchise to have not taken public abuse by the Diesel (or whatever the hell his nickname is these days) thus far, but if you really know Shaq the way I’ve grown to know him, you knew it’d be a matter of weeks or months until he had something to say. First, he unofficially “blamed” Rondo’s postseason (and second half of the regular season) struggles on President Obama’s subliminal verbal-attack of the All-Star point guard. Semi-calling out the president and your former point guard’s mental stability (the president said he can’t shoot, so he sucks it up for the rest of the year? really Rondo?!?!)? Not too bad, right? Well, O’Neal was just getting started.

In a recent interview (at his statue unveiling at LSU no less), he basically questions the credibility of Celtics’ GM Danny Ainge, proclaiming O’Neal told Danny he wasn’t healthy, and that the C’s should keep Perkins (instead of trading him for the washed-up-everywhere-else-except-for-EuroBasket Nenad Krstic and the I-equally-suck-at-every-aspect-of-basketball Jeff Green), yet Ainge refused to listen to Shaq, replying “blah, blah, blah.”

So a championship contending team traded away it’s starting center because it had faith in your body recovering and your drive/motivation/work ethic (Boston’s first and BIGGEST mistake) to win, yet you still take shots at them?

Danny Ainge: “Guys, I know you’re not going to believe this, but we’re putting all of our faith in Shaq and his 7-foot-1, 350 lb. body! Therefore, we’re going to be trading away Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City, that young, up-and-coming team that needs a center. In return, we’ll be getting a finesse, past-his-prime center and a jack-of-no-trades forward. How does that sound?!?!” 

A few months later, the Miami Heat dispose of the Celtics 4-1 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Another few months go by, and Shaq responds. 

Shaq: “That was a f****** stupid decision. I told you I wasn’t healthy. You should listen to me. I got a PhD from DeVry University. That’s Dr. O’Neal to you Danny Ainge.”

Look, Shaq, you’re a great player. Top-10 in the history of the game. But that doesn’t mean you can metaphorically crap on all of your former teams. Do you really have that many insecurities that you have to belittle anyone and anything you’ve ever been associated with? We get it, you’re great. We get it, you’ve gone to 10 different universities and have a bunch of degrees and occupations. But seriously, show some gratitude for once. It doesn’t always have to be about what you did right, or what you know, or how no one else is on your level (and this is coming from someone who will religiously claim Shaq is their favorite player).

Sometimes, a simple “thank you” would suffice.