You and me could write a bad romance.

The Suns
First off, the (kinda old) video that brought me back to the blog:

As this person says, the Phoenix Suns are probably the most fun-loving team in the NBA. Hence, my love for them.

Amare on kids radio!

Maybe Goran can be the Point Guard of the Future!



Lakers v Suns
Tonight is making me hate the Lakers even more. Fouling Grant Hill so hard that he loses his contact and requires stitches. Lou Amundson getting flagrently fouled and not getting the call, causing Alvin Gentry to be ejected. Evil usually wins, I guess.

As a pick me up, have a picture of a napping Earl Clark:














(Courtesy of Jared Dudley's twitter account.)


Mystics News
It's not actually news yet, but on Tuesday the Mystics are having a press conference to announce an apparently awesome new signing. My guess is Katie Smith, which would be super good, but I'm also holding out hope that it's Deanna Nolan (even if she's not a free agent). I don't think it could possibly be Penny Taylor, and she's the only other option of this magnitude.

So I guess we'll see...

I'm not internationally known

WNBA
I think I helped break the internet a little. Thank you to Henry Abbott for adding to the respectful discourse about the WNBA.

With her eyes on Olympic Gold, Lauren Jackson plans to not play for the WNBA in 2012.

The Suns
Barbosa is back in Phoenix. He may see playing time this week, but don't bet on it. He did apparently have a nice no look pass in practice though. Yay for seeing the court (or not seeing it) well! Also, it looks like his mother is still sick, but on the upswing from a very bad lung infection.

Amare is back at practice and still wearing his goggles. Barnes is playing with the starters in scrimmages in place of Hill. And Alando is having trouble with his hamstring. Before that though, he was performing at a high level.

More on the Suns' new identity. I'm still holding my breath.

The Suns played an outdoor game last Saturday night against the Nuggets in Indian Wells, California. The result? It was cold and windy. Oh, you mean you want to know the score? 77-72, Denver. Honestly, which team did you think would win a cold outdoor game?

The only really exciting thing was a pair of blocks by Lopez that almost literally knocked my socks off. Well, those were the only notable moments unless you like watching Raja Bell walking around with his arms completely inside his jersey in order to keep warm.

Other NBA
Looking for work? Don't knock on Stern's door.

I got more records than the KGB

The Suns
10 questions about this Suns' season: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

Insight into Porter's playbook (now with muddled metaphors!)
“I’ve never been a big believer in having 10,000 plays and then wind up only running five of them,” he said. “I’m more of a believer in having just a few, making sure those plays have a lot of wrinkles and options.”
The Suns spent an hour ironing out the wrinkles on one such play in Wednesday’s morning session.
So are wrinkles good? Or bad?

Also from that article:
When the Suns broke the huddle under former coach Mike D’Antoni, they chanted "Suns!" Under Porter, that mantra has changed to "Defense!"
I'm cautiously excited about seeing how they do with this defense oriented approach.

More on Porter's defense and how players are adapting to it.

Nash is in favor of fewer minutes, but not fewer games.
"If I could miss 10 or 12 games and go to the Bahamas, that sounds good," Nash said. "If I have to stay here, I might as well play. But to shift the minutes around a little more and change our style just a little bit to preserve guys' legs ... I think that's possible."

I'm just ridiculously in favor of there being backups for Nash that might let Barbosa return to his natural position. The man just doesn't see the floor well, and that's ok. You'd never ask Nash to post-up, or Shaq to start jacking up threes, so why is it a problem if LB is a (really good) undersized shooting guard?

Speaking of Barbosa, he left training camp to be with his very ill mother in Brazil. My thoughts are with them.

Also in that article:
The players [ran] gassers for every missed free throw.... "I have to change that around because they didn’t run that many," [Porter] said. "There were too many free throws made."

Diaw poked STAT in the eye and now Amare may wear goggles for the rest of his career. It isn't serious, but he's just a cautious guy.

Also in that article: Barbosa hasn't set a date to come back from Brazil yet. The Suns do not expect him back before next week, at the earliest.

A fairly nay-saying look at the upcoming season. Some positive bits, but also featuring many phrases in the vein of as if his feet are nailed to the floor and collection of dinosaurs.


Other NBA
Photo from the Plain Dealer
Information about Anderson Varejao, his off season, and his ankle injury.
The injury also prevented Varejao from playing for Brazil in an Olympic qualifier. Surprisingly, he received criticism in his own country for sitting out the qualifier and rehabbing his ankle.
How is this surprising?

"What was tougher for me is the media in Brazil didn’t know what was going on," Varejao said. "I didn’t know why. Everybody started talking like I didn’t want to play for the national team. That was tough. Brazil is a soccer country. Basketball is not that big, so they didn’t really know what was going on."
No, really, I think that even if they had known why he didn't play for Brazil, they would have been disappointed. Especially b/c he played in the playoffs even with the sprain. And claiming that basketball fans around the world don't know about it when their favorite player is injured? Is shortsighted in the age of the internet.

Varejao said the ankle is still swelled a little, but not as bad as it was.
Which, aside from some questionable grammar, is both good and bad. Obviously.

The Spurs count their blessings and come up with three.

Lawrence Pedowitz's review of the NBA's referees has been completed. He found that Donaghy was the only ref who acted illegally. But, as Donaghy's attorney, John Lauro, points out: "If this had been an independent investigation we would have gladly cooperated," Lauro told ESPN.com's Mike Fish. "But we knew this was going to be a PR effort. ... It is a way that David Stern can say, 'I put nice little ribbon on this whole case and the only person that has ever done anything incorrect is Tim Donaghy.' That really was the whole purpose of the report."
I gotta say, I agree. I'm on the fence about if there are other refs who were fixing games or doing things that were worse than favoritism, but I don't trust Stern at all.

The Warriors' mascot is named Thunder. The new OKC team is the Thunder. Conflict!
"For the sake of not making things confusing, we're going to do something. We just have to figure out a good exit strategy."
He just might have one -- leave Thunder in China during the team's upcoming trip to Asia.
"He might get lost in the crowd over in China," Rowell said. "There are 1.3 billion people there."


General WNBA
Lauren Jackson will be a free agent and the Storm are bound and determined to keep her. Also, no matter what the title of the article says, she doesn't want to think about the issue yet.


WNBA Finals
You may be able to stop Nolan, but the Shock have more options than that. For instance, they have Taj McWilliams-Franklin. And other veterans like Katie Smith. Also, the awesomeness of Bill Laimbeer. But mostly, they have Taj.

Doris Burke's diatribes about how the Mystics are eeeeevil for trading Taj to a contender have been bothering me a lot during ESPN's coverage of the Playoffs. I'm glad that someone else put it into words. If I had tried, it might have come out as *keyboardsmash*

I would also add that the Mystics picking up a 8.3ppg/3.7rpg 22 year-old rookie center (in Humphrey) is a lot better for rebuilding than the Grizzlies picking up a 4.8ppg/4.9rpg 26 year-old center who has been playing professionally for 7 years (in Kwame Brown). So please don't even begin to compare this to the Gasol trade, Ms. Burke. Thank you.

Them young girls they do get weary, wearing that same old shaggy dress

In the aftermath of the second and third dunks in a WNBA regular season game, I've been thinking about the reaction of (most of) the (male dominated) media a bunch. So I wrote up (what turned out to be) an angry rant, and thought I'd post it.

First of all, if you watch a basketball game without any dunks and don't enjoy it *because* of the lack of dunking, you don't actually like basketball at all. You should be watching And 1, or better yet, nothing but dunk contests.

If you are among those complaining that the league sucks because they don't dunk? You have no place complaining that they should treat Candace Parker's dunks as a matter of course. That dunking regularly "is how it should be, and shouldn't be celebrated." I have two things to say about this pattern of complaint: a) you will never be happy with women playing pro-ball, and b) people who claim that dunks=enjoyable basketball are *the main reason* that the WNBA and its fans celebrated these dunks (and in part Candace Parker's presence in the league) as a milestone.

You helped set the bar. Many of you are members of the media, and you used that power to help put forth the opinion that basketball needs dunks to be exciting and worth watching. Never mind that this opinion shows a lack of interest in the game itself (regardless of gender). If that's what it apparently takes to make the game more interesting to watch, *of course* the WNBA is going to celebrate Candace Parker's recent dunks.

You can't have it both ways.

Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor?

Again, it's been awhile since my last update. This time it's because I was very sick for about 2 weeks. Blech. Some older links are mixed in here, mostly because I found them interesting and/or important. Enjoy!

The Suns
Saturday's Game One loss against the Spurs was pretty hard to take. To lose a 16 point lead and have it go into two overtimes (one of which happened on a 3-pointer from a 7-footer) before finally losing on a last second shot? Just really hard to swallow. In the post game interviews, the Suns all looked so sad. Shaq was barely audible, and Hill looked like he probably had been crying. It broke my heart.

May Tuesday's game go much better, without dumb fouls and dumber luck.

Game recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

It looks like Diaw is key for this first round matchup (and in my mind, the entire playoff run).

Unrelated to the playoffs, Barbosa met Shaq first when he was 7 years old. They shook hands, and then Shaq broke LB's gym's backboard. It didn't get fixed for a week and a half.

Other NBA
Apparently the new owners of the Sonics had no intent to keep them in Seattle, no matter what they told the NBA or the previous owner. I know this is old news, but it's important context to the fact that the NBA team owners approved the Oklahoma City relocation. A few things stood out to me in the second article.

One: Clay Bennett hopes no one understands the concept of context. Bennett said his words had been misinterpreted. When he wrote, "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can," he meant he was determined to find a way for the Sonics to remain in the city. Ha!

Two: Bennett is...facing a class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave. Crazy!

Three: And this week former team owner Howard Schultz announced plans to sue to get the team back, saying Bennett did not make a good-faith effort to secure a new arena deal as he promised when he bought the team in 2006. I'm glad *someone* is paying attention to the emails from the first article, since David Stern seems to be so prone to flattery. Even if Seattlites don't like Schultz either.

The Nuggets had major bus problems on the way to game one. Bad omen there with black smoke and everything.

Isiah Thomas finally got fired, but he's been kept around seemingly for kicks. My friend Anna suggested that this may be to avoid paying out the nose to let him go. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's (mostly) gone to stop the poisoning of that franchise (and the league as a whole).

FIBA and Other International Ball
Here, have an overview of Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic games themselves.

Brazil is optimistic about their chances to get through the Olympic qualifiers. I'm definitely rooting for them.

Tiago Splitter's sister, Michelle, has been dealing with leukaemia for awhile, and recently had a recurrence. I hope her health improves.

Shabtai von Kalmanovic treats the members of his basketball team (Spartak) really really well. That includes Dianna Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Tina Thompson. He has a little more than a smidge of smarm though.

Becky Hammon signs with the Russian national team to play in the Olympics. This was weird to me, until I read that article. She's right, her choices were to sit on my couch and watch the Olympics, or play in the Olympics. It made it an easy decision.

The WNBA
The WNBA draft happened while I was not busy maintaining this blog. It was a pretty awesome (if semi-predictable) draft, and the Mystics got a pretty good (and local!) pick-up in Crystal Langhorne.

The Seattle Storm (who are my preseason guess for a championship) recently entered into a sponsorship deal with Olivia Cruise Line. This is (probably) due in part to their off season pick up of Sheryl Swoopes (longtime spokesperson of Olivia). This is the first time that I know of that a WNBA team has officially entered into any kind of partnership with a high profile member of the lesbian (or gay) corporate community. However! Their press release on this cracked me up and not in a good way. The only time that they mentioned anything about the GLBT nature of Olivia was when they mentioned famous personalities that had been involved with the company in the past (and present). Entertainers and athletes aligned with Olivia have included stars such as Melissa Etheridge, Heart, KD Lang, Missy Higgins, Paula Cole, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and the Storm’s own Sheryl Swoopes. No other GLBT mention, even though olivia.com literally announces that it's "Where Lesbians Go."

The New York Liberty are going to play an outdoor game this year. It marks the very first regular season game of it's kind in pro-ball. Male or female.

Tamika Catchings is working hard to rehab from last year's torn Achilles Tendon. She wants to help win the Fever a championship, and she really really wants to play in the Olympics.

WNBA Transactions:
* Nikki Teasley, who was my favorite Mystic two years ago and who I still love a lot, is pregnant. I was all excited for her, b/c a little Mystic baby! But then she got let go, for reasons that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Raise your hand if you believe that. No, me either. Pretty crummy.
* Former Mystic, Stacey Dales retires from the Chicago Sky to focus on broadcasting.
* The Minnesota Lynx picked up Ashley Awkward. This is mostly notable because my sister will love her name. She came from Australia's WNBL, and it'll be interesting to see how she does in the WNBA.
* Sue Bird re-signed with the Seattle Storm.
* Yolanda Griffith gets signed to the Storm. Yes, they're collecting fairly old players, but I have the feeling that they're going to be really good.
* The Phoenix Mercury lock Dianna Taurasi down for another three years.
* The Mercury sign Yuko Oga from Japan. I don't know much about Japanese women's basketball (they'll be in the Olympic qualifiers in Spain in June), so I can't wait to see her play.

You can't step into the same river twice

The Suns
Thursday's game was a big win. I didn't get to see a lot of it, but I appreciate that even after (or while) adjusting to Shaq, they can still get out there and play small ball with the Warriors.

All that, and 4 technicals. I kind of love that (as an isolated incident), because it shows an injection of spirit into the team that's been lacking this year. I hope it continues, although without the Ts. I also really love the bit in that article about the triangle offense. D'Antoni finally says what I've been thinking since I heard of it: Any time anyone has three guys on a side of the court, someone can call it a triangle. Exactly!

Game recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune.

Shaq is an pretty good playmaker. In his words, the great John Wooden said the true definition of a great player is how you make everyone else play around you, so it's my job to take (my teammates) to the next level.

Barbosa knows his shortcomings, and wants to work on them. His goal? To be number one in steals for the league. I have nothing but ridiculously positive things to say about that.

Shaq sends the bench scattering in the game against the Grizzlies. I love stories about what happens on the bench, and I love to see these guys poke fun at one another. This article gave me the warm fuzzies.

There's more about that in this article about Gordan Giricek. Highlights for me included Shaq apologizing to the man who split his lip when Shaq dove into the stands, and Iavaroni coining the word Shaqlimated. I already had been using Shaqceptance, this is a great new one to use. Thanks, Marc!

Other NBA News
Caron Butler comes back, is the leading Wiz scorer, helps win a game against the Cavs, and turns 28. All on the same day. I hope he plays again on Saturday against the Clippers when I'm there watching.

LeBron James is on a very misguided Vogue cover.

FIBA and Other International Stuff
Nene is recovering, doesn't know how he'll be for the Olympic qualifiers this summer, and really likes God. A lot. If that's how he gets the strength to beat cancer, more power to him.

Glendale, Arizona wants to become the home of USA Basketball. No big surprise, Jerry Colangelo is pushing for that to happen.

Apparently, Switzerland attracts Brazilian basketball players. Who knew?

The WNBA
The Mystics are helping to sponsor a walk to raise money for people with breast cancer. It's May 11th at 9 am. It sounds very cool.

WNBA Moves:
* Bo Overton has resigned from his post as the head coach and GM of the Chicago Sky amidst allegations of sexual harassment. I hope we get more news on that. Steven Key, formerly assistant coach, has been named GM and head coach.
* The New York Liberty have re-signed Janel McCarville and her faux-hawk.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

The Suns
Another good game! I mean, it was against the Grizzlies--but it was a big forceful follow up to Sunday's win. Now they need to keep it going.

Recaps: Associated Press, East Valley Tribune, Arizona Republic.

According to the Republic, the Suns have been improving on both ends of the floor.

Grant Hill is doing better on defense. I guess he feels like he has something to prove. (Also in that first link, how cool is this? Phoenix recorded its 1,800th victory in club history in its 3,229th game [against the Spurs]. Only the Celtics, 76ers and Lakers won 1,800 in fewer games.)

Shaq has to resort to hitchhiking, because he can't park his huge truck anywhere. Thank goodness he's flexible. (More pictures here.)

Other NBA News
Caron Butler has returned to practice. Antawn Jamison is like a kid at Christmas.

Nellie's been asked back, now it's up to him to decide what he wants.

Pat Riley has decided that the Heat's season is over, and has shut Wade down to recover from his injuries. This makes me feel bad for Marion. He's going to really end up appreciating what he had with the Suns. Or he's going to be happy being the number one guy for the first time in his career. It's a toss up.

FIBA and Other International Stuff
What the Olympics mean to players in the NBA. The article mostly looks at international players (I'm not complaining on that count), and mostly at the Lakers (blah).

After reading this article, I really want to go to games in other countries. It reminded me strongly of watching the Mexico v Argentina game at the FIBA Americas.

The WNBA
Becky Hammon from the San Antonio Silver Stars has generous and thoughtful fans.

WNBA Moves:
* In a move that shouldn't surprise anyone, the Detroit Shock re-signed their big three.
* The Silver Stars re-signed Becky Hammon ( to a contract extension through 2011) and Ruth Riley (to a two-year deal).
* The Phoenix Mercury re-signed Tangela Smith to a three-year contract.
* Connecticut Sun forward Nykesha Sales is taking a year off to recover from injuries. She should rehab with Dwyane Wade. Or not.
* The Washington Mystics signed Amber Jacobs (of the Minnesota Lynx) to an offer sheet. The Lynx have until Saturday the 15th to match or beat the offer. I know this one isn't too big a deal, but I'm a Mystics fan, so I'm putting it in here.

Get down off the cross, we could use the wood

Today's post is going to be loooong, as I've been reading and collecting things to post, but I just haven't done it. So let's get to it.

The Suns
Wasn't yesterday's game just what the doctor ordered? Let alone the beautiful +1 in the win column and the fact that it was against the evil Spurs, it made me so happy to see hustle like this:


Game recaps: Associated Press, East Valley Tribune, Arizona Republic.

Suns.com gives us the secret to beating the Spurs in five easy pieces.

Don't expect D'Antoni to go any deeper in his rotation. There's a surprise.

Bell isn't against the trade, but he thinks the team was doing fine before it. And just in case you were wondering--yes, Bell is still a good defender.

Old news, but the Suns did, in fact, sign Giricek. And apparently he has something to prove.

Kevin Johnson is running for mayor of Sacramento. From everything that I know about him (which, admittedly, isn't a ton), I think he'd do a good job. Let's go, KJ!

Other NBA News
Anderson Varejao's parents both had to have surgery this past summer, making his time even more stressful and up in the air.

Gilbert Arenas and Etan Thomas are back to practicing with the Wizards. Caron Butler hopes to return to practice this week, maybe as soon as today.

Sam Cassell did sign with the Celtics, making them a better team and probably limiting House's minutes all at the same time. I don't know if he's starting for them or coming off the bench behind the much younger Rondo.

First Isiah Thomas intimated that Marbury was going to need to find a new job next year. Then he refused to talk about his player, multiple times. Then Marbury sounded sad. Now there are hugs and trade rumors. The last one is poorly timed, as any way that he managed to get to another team right now, he'd be exempt from being able to play in the playoffs. Such a toxic organization.

Apparently there were a lot of ejections in the Spurs v Pacers game last week. Including one on Indiana's David Harrison, who earlier in the quarter had taken an elbow from Bonner, turned to an official and declared, "I'm going to (expletive) kill him." Crazy.

Last week Dirk got suspended for a flagrant-2 against Andre Kirilenko. Want to see it? Here:


FIBA and Other International Stuff
Since I expressed interest in how they're picking the host country of the 2014 FIBA World Championship, here's the press release. Speaking of that, Russia has officially become a candidate.

Yao Ming expects to be recovered from his season-ending foot surgery in time to play for China in the Olympics. I wonder if that would be true if the Olympics were not in Beijing.

Lisa Leslie is looking forward to playing for Team USA this summer. And I'm looking forward to seeing how well she plays after having a year off (and y'know--having a baby).

The WNBA
Shannon "Peewee" Johnson is heading to the Comets. That's a big (if unheralded) move. Much like Sheryl Swoopes, she's a great motivator and teacher. The Comets are lucky to have her.

It was a long walk in a slow rain and nobody tried to be John Wayne

The weird thing about the Suns' shortcomings after the trade (to me) is that Shaq seems to be a pretty terrible defender. I knew he was a good inside offensive presence, and I knew that he wasn't about to shoot the three--but I figured that he would be able to stop the opposition down low. So far I'm not seeing it.

Paola Boivin has an excellent list of things that need improvement for the team to start winning. I also worry that D'Antoni's not going to be coaching in AZ long after this season if things don't get better soon. Which is kind of unfair considering what he has done for the team.

(At left: D'Antoni is ready to box anyone who thinks he should lose his job over the difficulty post Shaq trade.)

In the "Free Throws" section of Coro's latest article for the Arizona Republic, he says that Gordan Giricek may play with the Suns as early as tonight against the Trail Blazers and that Tyronn Lue decided to go with the Mavs.

James Jones is realistic about his on-court performance, and I want to give him a hug. For a good part of the time I was there, I was inconsistent and had trouble with my shot.... Even though there were times I struggled and thought I was the worst player in the league, I guess people still felt I had value. He *was* inconsistent. He *did* struggle. But he was pretty far from the worst player in the league. He wasn't even the worst player on the Suns. Man, would I love him to still be in Phoenix.

Another piece of evidence that Steve Nash is awesome. I wonder how he is as a coach.

There is a witty way to link to this I'm sure, but since I can't think of it: the do-over between the Heat and the Hawks is happening on Saturday with the new rosters.

Sam Cassell should be winging his way to Boston today to sign with the Celtics. They're just so stacked. I bet this means that House gets fewer minutes. Thank goodness I just traded him for Bell in my fantasy league.

Arenas is going to practice today, but judging from his attitude and possible fear, don't expect him to play anytime soon.

Nowitski takes Kirilenko down. Everyone seems to be fine.

WNBA moves:
* Sheryl Swoopes joins Swin Cash as new additions in Seattle. This is huge. She won't play much, but having a player of that character and caliber on the bench and in the locker room is a big confidence builder. If the new coach is any good, the Storm is going to be amazing. She will be missed in Houston.
* The Sacramento Monarchs resigned Rebekkah Brunson and Nicole Powell.
* The San Antonio Silver Stars resigned Sophia Young and Shanna Crossley.
* The Mystics resigned Laurie Koehn. Now maybe they can play her. 46% career 3-point shooter? Amazing.

Cheryl Ford is up for a Nickelodeon Kids Choice award. My guess is that she won't win because she's up against the Williams sisters and Danica Patrick (all three very famous and popular), but I'm hoping that she does well. It's very cool regardless.

Some bigotry in Colorado high school basketball. Fun! I hope that gets changed.

Is your game MVP like Steve Nash?

Another disappointing game on Saturday night. They need to pick it up. If they're only 2.5 games in front of the 8th ranked Warriors, it's entirely conceivable that they might not even make the playoffs. Sad, but true. Really sad.

The Suns aren't just interested in adding Gordan Giricek, they're are also interested in Tyronn Lue. Also, apparently Shaq's been practicing a lot lately and D'Antoni says that we shouldn't hold our breath to see Skinner on the floor anytime soon.

Butler will not be having surgery for his hip injury, but he's not going to be playing for awhile either. Here's a lot more information on that.

Two men plead not guilty in the Donaghy betting case. Donaghy himself gets sentenced on April 18th, and these two men go to trial on April 28th.

In keeping up with the major signings in the WNBA free agency period, I need to note that the Detroit Shock resigned Plenette Pierson.

God put you in front of me, so how the hell could you front on me?

Brent Barry went back to the dark side. It looks like Gordan Giricek will be the newest member of the team, but that's not 100% yet. According to the first two articles, even though Sam Cassell got waived by the Clippers, he's almost definitely not going to Phoenix, but instead will most likely become a Celtic.

I was linked to this by a friend, and it is kinda amusing even if I don't know anything (or honestly particularly care) about wrestling.

Oh no! The Wizards just can't catch a break.

The Storm are going to stay in Seattle no matter what happens to the Sonics. Yay separate (and female) ownership!

Tamika Catchings signed a four year deal with the Indiana Fever. She still might not be ready to start playing when the season begins due to the torn Achilles that she suffered in the playoffs.

Here's a very interesting (if long) overview of the future of international players in the NBA. The conjecture is fine, but what I really like is the discussion of what role they play now.


Charles Barkley is seriously awesome. If you don't want to read all that, just watch the youtube clip that is in that post too:

What I'm burning is your attire

Sometime this morning we should know if Brent Barry will be wearing purple and orange.

The after-shocks of Sunday's mind-numbingly embarrassing 116-86 loss to the Pistons. I'm divided on this. Yeah, they need to have some time to build a cohesive team, but at the same time Shaq's mouth appears to be writing checks that his body (and the team as a whole, it seems) can't cash. I guess we have little choice but to wait and see what happens.

To quote Sports Night, "it can't rain at Indian Wells." This article is especially cool, because I didn't know that this had been done before, and it was interesting to read the players' recollections.

The "big man club" doesn't really talk to one another, but that's alright with Shaq. I'm glad to see that he's not mad at Dwight Howard for taking on the nickname Superman. Even though "you can't give yourself a nickname." Why yes, I am feeling like quoting Sport Night as much as possible tonight. Thanks for asking.

Butler, Thomas, and Arenas all have setbacks in their returning from injury. I feel really bad for the Wizards, as they're an awesome team, but just can't escape from being injury laden.

Tony Parker is back to practicing with the Spurs. Damn.

One of the men responsible for the death of Michael Jordan's father is having trouble getting parole. Legal jargon and loopholes commence.

WNBA free agency is open. In list form here's some highlights:
* The Washington Mystics re-signed Alana Beard. YAY!
* The Minnesota Lynx signed Nakia Sanford (of the Mystics) to an offer sheet. The Mystics had five days to match or beat the offer.
* The Mystics matched the Lynx's offer. YAY!
* The Lynx picked up Anna DeForge.
* The Connecticut Sun (boo hiss) re-signed Lindsay Whalen (who I actually kind of like).
* Katie Douglas (boo hiss) (of the Sun) went to the Indianapolis Fever in exchange for Tamika Whitmore.
* As predicted, Swin Cash went to the Seattle Storm from the Detroit Shock in return for the number 4 pick in this year's draft.

Speaking of the Draft Day, the WNBA draft will be held on April 9th to coincide with the NCAA Women's Final Four.

The Mystics are holding open tryouts a week after the draft. I don't know what else to say about that, but it's kind of interesting. I wonder if other teams do that.

Jesus can kill you if you don't get along

Oh, Cedric. What were you doing driving with a suspended license? And more to the point, what's going on with the clerk calling the cops for an invalid credit card? I want to hear more about this story, but I bet this is all that will come out about it.

I've never felt that Barkley hated the Suns, just that he doesn't want to be seen as playing favorites so he's hard on them. I think he wants them to be better, wants them to win a championship, so he gives what he feels is honest criticism.

Here, have an interesting comparison between Sir Chuck and Shaq.

It looks like the deal is going through to send Kidd to the Mavericks. This bums me out a little, but whatever. Mostly I'm happy that I actually remember who Van Horn is considering he last played in the 2006 Finals, and I was still trying to figure out what was going on then. I can't wait for the trade deadline when all this juggling will end.

Juggling like this. It's just a rumor, but man do I not want it to happen. It would make the Lakers better and the Wizards worse, and neither of those makes me happy.

Arenas and Thomas have started practicing with the team. No solid idea when either will return.

Arenas will probably not be asked to join Team USA in Beijing. This has got to be rough for him, considering that he once said that he'd rather win Olympic Gold than the Larry O'Brien trophy (scroll down because Gilbert loves to write novels instead of entries).

I saw this suggested somewhere else last year and still wish it would happen. I would love to see a team of international All Stars. Even if it couldn't be the new face of the ASG, I'd love to see it happen as a part of the weekend.

Speaking of the NBA making international play a regular part of the season, my guess is that this won't happen, but how cool would it be? I would love to watch an NBA team play in an actual international competition.

Team France has picked their new coach. It's Michel Gomez. Apparently he used to coach for them in the mid-nineties. What does Diaw think about him? So glad you asked.

Denmark has just thrown their hat into the ring of potential hosts for the 2014 FIBA World Championship. Again, I'm mostly just interested to see how this process works.

Today marks the first day of the WNBA free agency. The first blockbuster trade? Swin Cash has reason to believe it'll send her to the Storm.

Is he strong? Listen, bud.

First things first: LEANDRO BARBOSA HAS A BLOG. *ahem* Ok, now for the rest.

This is almost a week old, but I wanted to put it in here in case I wanted to find it later. Nash really really wanted to play with Shaq.

Yesterday I talked to someone who kept insisting that I had to hear what Shaq was saying about Bill Walton. But I couldn't find it anywhere. Tonight I found it, and it was worth the anticipation.

Any little crack in the armor can cause disruption. I don't want to be the crack in the armor. I want to be the extra coat on the metal. Boy, Shaq sure likes his extended metaphors.

The pluses and minuses of playing with Shaq and without Marion.

I have been (clearly) having the "can Shaq still play?" conversation with a lot of people lately. One thing that I keep bringing up is the amazing training staff at the US Airways Arena. I'm glad that this finally got addressed in the media with regard to Shaq. Now I feel less crazy. About that, anyway.

There's not a very good chance that Shaq will play tonight against the Warriors. He might play tomorrow against the Mavericks (though I doubt it). Most likely is that they would wait until after the All Star Break and have him play in the game against the Lakers. As an aside to this, I'm kind of pissed that he would find it funny to put down Erick Dampier by comparing his play to the WNBA. What is he, seven? "Hey, Dampier! Shaq says you play like a girl." WTF?

I'm so nervous about tonight's game. Apparently I'm not the only one. Facing the Warriors all depleted? Ugh.

While I'm not a Wizards fan, I do have an appreciation for them. I hope that Arenas coming back helps them, but I'm more eager to see Caron come back.

This is crazy. I wonder what he thinks of Donaghy. It's probably not safe for work or small children. Just a guess.

All Star Weekend from a WNBA perspective. Yay for Nikki Teasley being involved!

An interesting article on how women's college coaching is changing because of the WNBA.

A few videos:

Jeff Green misses a dunk in the Sonics @ Suns game on 2/8



Wally Szczerbiak calls a time out when his team doesn't have one, making the Suns glad that that rule has been changed since 1976.



A WNBA/The L Word fanvid that has a song that keeps getting stuck in my head (stupid Gwen Stefani). It's mostly up here to show my sister, but I think it's fun--so there.

Actual commentary (with many parentheticals)

This Finals have been talked about a lot in terms of contrasting styles. It's the Bad Girls of Detroit vs. the Running-and-Gunning Mercury. During the Eastern Conference Finals, some of the announcers were saying things about how the style of play wasn't very pretty or entertaining. The Phoenix team was obviously set up as the contrasting style.

In this season (34 games) and the first two rounds of the playoffs (4 games), Phoenix had 16 games in which they put up more than 95 points. Of those 16, 9 games were over 100 points (including 2 losses). All of that does not include a double overtime win against Connecticut (111-109) on July 6th. It's important, especially for NBA fans, to remember that these scores (save for the Connecticut game) were in the context of a 40 minute game. It seems that Paul Westhead has finally found a team that can play Paul Ball and play it well. He's only been looking since 1980, when his Lakers won the Championship.

The three main scoring threats for Phoenix are Diana Taurasi, Cappie Pondexter, and Penny Taylor. It's proven difficult for opponents to guard them, and in fact the trio has been averaging 66.6 points in the playoffs (54.2 in the regular season). As Kara Lawson said in one of her half time commentaries, teams need to have three great defenders to shut down the Mercury entirely. Most teams do not have three defenders of the caliber necessary to do it. Hell, most teams don't even have two players that can defend at that level. (It's interesting to note that even in game one's eight point loss to Detroit, these three combined for 69 points. That's even with Taurasi's meager 10 points in 22 minutes, and Pondexter's clear irritation with Deanna Nolan's tight defense.)

(As a side note, Penny Taylor was the MVP for the Australia team that won Gold at last year's FIBA World Championships. This is especially a big deal considering she was on the same team as the 2007 WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson and Indiana's Tully Bevilaqua. Also considering that, for the most part, the rest of the world hasn't nearly caught up with USA's women and that they were far more favorites to win Gold than even the Team USA men. This not only illustrates what an amazing player she is, it also gives her one of the more entertaining cheering sections in Jackson and Bevilaqua.)

Basically, much like today's Suns or the Golden State Warriors (or any team that Paul Westhead has coached in the past), the Mercury have their best chance at a win if they can keep running. Slow half court play is like poison to them.

(Here's an article about how wacky Westhead is. Some years ago I knew my team had a real struggle, so I went to National Geographic and got a two-minute clip of salmon jumping upstream, indeed!)

Theoretically the Shock's biggest threats are Nolan, Katie Smith, and Cheryl Ford. This is only theoretical because Smith has been in a slump the entire season, and Ford was out for 19 of 34 regular season games, and the first game of the Finals with a knee injury.

These problems are balanced out by a few factors. One, when it's needed Deanna Nolan can put her team on her back and carry them through rough patches until other people find their hot hand (witness her 20 points in 14-minutes in the first half of game three of the Eastern Conference Finals).

Two, a slump for Katie Smith is a good season for most players. She has more career points than any other professional female basketball player, and this season was only a disappointment from that perspective. She still averaged double digits in the regular season, and her assists are up.

Three, Cheryl Ford has been amazing when she has played, and when she hasn't the other big players like Kara Braxton and Katie Feenstra have really stepped up their play and filled in the hole admirably.

Detroit's biggest liability is that sometimes they don't play up to their potential. Bill Laimbeer has a habit of benching some of his stars (Swin Cash and Kara Braxton) because they start playing lazily, but it's an attitude that can extend to the entire team. It seems odd saying that about a team that had the best record in the league this year, but they sometimes visibly lag. They aren't quite as quick to come back up the court, especially on defense, and you can see that their drive to win isn't there. If they can avoid that, their chances are very good in this series.

The biggest misconception about Detriot is that they are a slow team. They do have a lot of traits that are generally grouped with sluggishness, much like the old Bad Boys of Detroit in the late 80s and early 90s they're physical, gritty, and great at grind-it-out defensively minded games. However, they really don't shy away from running, and indeed in Deanna "Tweety" Nolan have one of (if not the) fastest players in the league, with or with or without the ball.

They should not be fooled into thinking they can run with the Mercury for the whole series though. Not only is Phoenix hoping that they'll do exactly that, but if Ford decides to play in any of the upcoming games, they will have a major player (who wasn't too fast to begin with) sporting an injured knee.

However this series shakes up, it'll be interesting (and fun) to watch.

Mystics and Donaghy

Well, I missed my last Mystics game of the year. That's the only bad news of this part of the season right now. Detroit and Phoenix (and their fantastic Westhead offense) are at the top of their respective conferences, and all signs are pointing to DC making the final playoff spot in the East.

The Mystics have been really impressing me this year. I believe that I was among those who said that they'd never reach the playoffs. And yet, here they are at the brink. It's especially amazing considering the WNBA's very short season. Of course, the smallness of the league helps. I just wish that (if they make it) they wouldn't have to play the Shock in the first round. But that's a pretty much impossible wish.

I was getting frustrated with the lack of Tim Donaghy news that had been coming out lately. A coworker and I were making up stories as to what happened. "Maybe the mob had him killed!" "Maybe Stern is keeping it quiet so we can forget about it and pay more attention to the problems in baseball and football," etc. A couple days ago, I found this article confirming that he is alive, and has a decidedly (if justifiably) grumpy wife.

But then! I found this article last night. It seems that he's probably going to turn himself in today. Which is good.

I just have major problems with how the league (and to a lesser extent, the media) has been dealing with this down time. Obviously there have been many closed meetings at NBA HQ about this whole ordeal. If Stern is serious about his proposed transparency, then he should be letting us know general information about how the league is dealing with this. Nothing specific, but just bare bones. To help us, as fans, know that they're serious about this never happening again--and more to the point to reassure us. This is (obviously) a very big deal, and the silence has been deafening for more than three weeks.

On the 24th of July, in his press conference about this scandal, Stern said, "And we will continue to both not only keep you advised, but I think it's my obligation as commissioner to retain the best outside experts in these matters and consultants to advise the NBA on what we can do better to assure our fans that our games are being decided on their merits. I think that's the obligation that every sports league has." It is my feeling that he has not met that obligation as of right now.

I just realized that Ray Allen is going to Boston, where there is no WNBA team for his daughter and him to support! And here I was all excited for him to be on a team with Allan Ray. Basically for no other reason than the symmetric silliness.

But I guess that he has more than enough money to go down to Connecticut (or anywhere else he wants to go) for a game. So that's something.

In international basketball news, I'm going to go to an entire day's games of the FIBA Americas! I get to see Brazil, USA, Argentina, Canada, Virgin Islands, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. It was affordable too.

Brazil has almost all of the major players accounted for. Nene has decided to stop being an ass about Team Brazil, and should be playing this summer. Tiago Splitter isn't yet playing for Popovich (who has a reputation for convincing his players not to play for their national teams), so he'll be there. Anderson Varejao is his usual excited self, and seems to be completely committed to the team.

Barbosa is a different story. He seems committed to the team, but I'm not sure if he'll be able to act on that commitment this summer. I was angry about how he was playing in the Spurs series, but as it turns out he was injured and in need of surgery. So I guess I owe him an apology.

The recuperation might interfere with the tournament, and also he has problems with insurance. I love the fact that he's made this a public issue in the press. Now granted, that article came out almost three weeks ago, but I haven't heard anything new on this subject. (Although FIBA is terrible at all things internet-related and it's not like the American press cares about international teams, so anything is possible.)

This all means that if insurance gets dealt with and he recuperates well, I could be seeing Leandrinho in August. Which, y'know, is all that really matters. Right?

(Also interesting, at least as a footnote, is his work with the college basketball system in Brazil. This is in huge contrast with Nene, who basically said, "fix it yourself.")

Well that's that.

I'm probably not going to pay too much attention to the rest of the playoffs.

That being said, the WNBA season started last night. So there's still more basketball that I care about! Yay! I got to go to the Mystics opening game and was pleasantly amazed by it.

Alana Beard is currently out for a sore shoulder that she suffered while playing for Team USA this spring. Without her, they still managed to keep pace with the Connecticut Sun (boo hiss) until the end. In order to try to take the lead, the Mystics tried a very foul heavy strategy. It failed, as the Sun sunk (almost?) all their free throws.

I just really adore the WNBA. I love watching it, it's a high level of quality, and it's just so exciting. Being there live is amazing. I loved the NBA games that I went to, but (especially as an away fan) being there was full of negativity. Going to Mystics games is just so positive.

It's so family friendly, and actually just so friendly period. I wish there were more people in attendance, or at least that they sat us all on the first floor so that there was the illusion of a bigger crowd. But even though they don't, it's just such a charged atmosphere. Last night, fourth quarter was so exciting. The crowd got involved, and I just was very happy.

It was the perfect antidote to Friday night's misery.