Death: From the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies (via TrueHoop): "Larry H. Miller, husband, father, grandfather, a well-known entrepreneur, community advocate and humanitarian, died from complications due to type 2 diabetes today, at home, surrounded by his family. He was 64." Read more here, here and here. The NBA lost a great owner and a real class act. Epic sad face.

The Charlotte Bobcats: It's not so much that they shot 37 percent and lost at home to the Orlando Magic. It's that their offense devolved into a lot of selfish, one-on-one junk...so much so that their self-indulgence made Rafer Alston look like Father Christmas. And that fact wasn't lost on Larry Brown: "We had so many possessions where it was one pass and a shot or no passes and a shot. Even when we stole the ball and we're on a break, we wouldn't pass the ball." Yep. I just checked. There's only one set of prints on that ball.

Rafer Alston, dissing his old team machine: Skip To My Lou left a squad that included once and (maybe) future All-Stars Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest. But, after dishing out a game-high 8 assists in his first outing with the Magic, you can infer his feelings for that trio from these postgame comments: "Everywhere I looked, I had a weapon to pass it to. I think point guards in this league would love to be in that situation. Everywhere you turn, you've got a guy who can flat-out shoot it or can drive it and finish." I guess Rafer got tired of passing the ball to Knee-Mac or Ron-Ron, and then watching them spend 15 seconds dribbling their way into a shot.

The Toronto Craptors: Talk about never even in the game. The Knicks scored the game's first 9 points and were up 42-22 by the end of the first quarter. New York led by as many as 30 in the first half and went up 98-60 with 4:27 left in the third before coasting in for a comfy-cozy 127-97 win. Said Craptors coach Jay Triano: "They were in one of those modes where everything they shot was going in early in the game. We just dug ourselves a big hole." I dunno, Jay. It seemed to me like your team skipped the grave digging and went straight to cremation.

Update! Chris Bosh: From Basketbawful reader Colin G.: "I'm not sure that being emphatically blocked by a guy more than a foot shorter than you qualifies, but I found this pretty 'bawful."


The Minnesota Timberwolves: The Al Jefferson-less T-Wolves lost to the Danny Granger-less Pacers at home in a game that can best be described as scalpers night off. And while we shouldn't expect too much from Minny without Big Al, I'm still going to have to file this defeat under "Losses That Are Worse Than Others" since the Timberwolves missed 18 [!!] of their 41 free throw attempts. Which, you know, is a lot...especially in a 7-point loss. Oh, and you know what else hurt? The 19 turnovers.

But the multitude of miscues isn't all that surprising; if the postgame comments are any indication, Minnesota's players and coaching staff aren't exactly on the same page. Said Randy Foye: "We ain't going to be able to find our way without Al." Countered Kevin McHale: "We're going to have to find our way how to play without Al." The Minnesota Timberwolves: Seeing eye-to-eye like Manute Bol and Mugsy Bogues.

The Memphis Grizzlies: The Kings, otherwise known as "The Team With The Worst Record in the Entire League," were playing their first game without John Salmons and Brad Miller. And Andres Nocioni and the other spare parts they got from the Bulls weren't available because their physicals hadn't been finalized. Didn't matter, though. The Griz played the part of gracious host and let the Kings break their latest losing streak -- a six-gamer -- in impressive fashion: Of the eight Sacramento players who logged PT, seven of them scored in double figures. Said Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins: "It started early. It was a lack of energy and effort. It's humbling. We see the Sacramento Kings 11-34, but we can never disrespect anybody. Not in our position." Apparently not.

The game itself was such a stinker, here's what the always-objective Associated Press had to say: "There was plenty of sloppy play in this matchup of teams at the bottom of their respective divisions. Players fumbled passes, there were shot clock violations and turnovers that came fast enough that the racing up-and-down the floor was reminiscent of a tennis match." A tennis match between blind children maybe. Assuming they were playing in the middle of a tsunami.

Jason Kidd: He got his revenge game against the Nets last week and then transformed back into, well, The old Jason Kidd (as opposed to "The Jason Kidd of old"). Kidd finished with 3 points (1-for-4) and 5 assists in the Mavs' 93-86 loss to the Rockets. Worse, he was thoroughly outplayed by Houston's fill-in point guard, Aaron Brooks, who scored 19 points, dished out a game-high 8 assists (eat THAT Rafer!), and hit the game-breaking three-pointer with 24 ticks left in the game. But as bad as Kidd's night was, at least he wasn't as craptastic as...

Dirk Nowtizki: We often discuss the notion of offensive efficiency 'round these parts, and the general consensus is that a player did okay as long as he finished with more points than shot attempts. Well, Dirk scored 9 on 18 tries. Apparently somebody replaced his fingers with soggy egg bratwursts.

The New Jersey Nets: They suffered a double-digit home loss to the Washington Wizards Generals, otherwise known as "The Worst Team in the Eastern Conference." They are now 11-17 at the Izod Center, 24-32 on the season and 13-24 since Devin Harris said: "We knew we were going to be a playoff team." And, as a sad postscript to New Jersey's defeat, they let Mike "The Amityville Scorer" James pimpslap them with 19 points. Said Nets coach Lawrence Frank: "I'm just doing poor job because I'm not getting these guys to play and compete as hard as we need to. I am going to figure it out." Uh, yeah. Good luck with that.

Mike Brown, coaching philosopher: Regarding LeBron's 55-point game, in which King Crab hit eight of his 11 three-point attempts, some of which were truly, truly, truly outrageous: "I've just got to coach myself. I've got to make sure that I'm not overcoaching. And I just need to sit down, be quiet, and watch the show like everybody else."

As for what LeBron did to the Bucks, well, let me put it this way: If that happened to me during a game of NBA Live, I would chuck the game out the window and never look back. Insanity.


Charlie Villanueva: If you're going to get ejected, you might as well get some good licks in. And Charlie sure did that, "bodyslamming" flopster Anderson Varejao and then choking Zydrunas Ilguaskas when the Z-Man came over to protect his floundering teammate. Chuck, if David Stern suspends you for a few games, I bet Vince McMahon has some part time work for you.


Scott Skiles, quote machine: It seems that Scott felt that Sideshow Andy might have, ahem, taken a fall against Villanueva: "I hope they'll launch an investigation to find the sniper that shot Varejao. I thought there was some acting involved." Some. Or a lot. Yeah.

The Denver Nuggets: They entered their game against the Bulls with the West's second-best record, but they left the United Center in third place in the Western Conference. Ben Gordon scored a season-high 37 against them, Carmelo Anthony finished with only 12 (on 18 shots) and Chauncey Billups got shut down by Kirk Hinrich in the second half as the Bulls won going away, 116-99. And Denver's play left coach George Karl singing the same tune as Larry Brown: "In the second half, our offense was too individualistic, 'me' basketball. For most of the year, we've been playing unselfish basketball. We had opportunities to attack the rim, but tonight we chose to play one-on-one basketball."

The Oklahoma City Thunder: They became the latest victim of the new-look-which-is-actually-their-old-look Suns, who became the first team in 18 seasons to score 140 points in three straight games. That's one helluva dead coach bounce.

Steve Nash, dramatic overstatement machine: Regarding Leandro Barbosa's career-high 41 points on 16-for-21 shooting: "Incredible performance. What can you say? That's Jordan-like numbers." He did not just make a Jordan comparison, did he? Seriously?

Channing Frye: Uhm...what's he doing to Mike Bibby?!


Chris Paul's sixth foul: Paul fouled out with 1:32 left in OT of what was a really exciting game between the Hornets and Lakers. It was the first time Paul has ever fouled out. Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics of the call -- maybe Kobe pushed off, maybe Paul was overacting -- but I will say this: It was cheesy no matter how you look at it. And it tainted a great game. Man, I hate that.

Chris Paul: From Wild Yams: "Paul completely cost his team the game on Friday with that stupid charge on Fisher. When you're up 3 and you have the ball with 20 seconds to go and the shot clock turned off, why shoot it at all? Even worse, why get into a position where you might could get called for an offensive foul? At that point running time off the clock is more important than scoring points. All he had to do was dribble it out or wait till he was intentionally fouled and if he'd made one of the two free throws New Orleans would have won. That was one of the stupidest plays I've seen all year, and it ended up costing his team a win."

Friday lacktivity report: Chris continues to let the lacktators have it:

Magic-Bobcats: Juwan Howard may share the same first initial and last name as Josh Howard, but unlike Josh, he has faded into the smoky haze of lacktivity. Tonight Juwan gave Charlotte 2:43 of non-contribution with a suck differential of +2 via brick and foul.

Kings-Grizzlies: The purple paupers may have sent ex-trillionaire champion John Salmons to Chicago, but the Maloofs' commitment to non-excellence continues with Kenny Thomas's stint at the FedEx Forum, 5:12 of nothingness with a brick-and-foul +2.

Mavs-Rockets: Mark Cuban's most known for his ability to become extraordinarily wealthy in the tech boom, so it should come as no surprise that he has an eye for burgeoning innovations. Tonight, he put his support behind a motion-sensing wireless controller, by having Matt Carroll earn a 24-second Mario! Ryan Hollins also brought Dallas a slight Voskuhl of 4:3 (4 fouls and 1 giveaway against 3 rebounds and three bricks, two of them misses from the charity stripe!) in a stint of 10:21.

Pacers-Wolves: Josh McRoberts was actually very contributory in a 26-second Mario for Indiana, managing one made field goal and one offensive board.

Nuggets-Bulls: On the same day that tony.bluntana nominated Sonny Weems as an All-Lacktion selection, he showed the world exactly why he was a prudent choice to be recognized, earning some decent bling with a 1.25 trillion! But he wasn't the only rich man on the evening, with 1.1 trillion going to one of Bill Simmons' favorites, Lindsey Hunter of the Bulls. Hunter's teammate Aaron Gray earned a bit of a Voskuhl in his 18:58 of playing time off the bench, taking 5 fouls and giving the rock to Denver twice against 2 made field goals and 2 rebounds for a ratio of 7:6.

Cavs-Bucks: In Tarence Kinsey's absence, fellow All-Lacktion candidate Darnell Jackson has kept his claws sharp to pinch out some small stints of insignifance for the Crabs, tonight fouling once for +1 in 2:10. Milwaukee's Malik Allen wanted in on the fun of forgettability and found himself a one-time bricklayer for +1 in 4:39.

Hawks-Blazers: Mario West's career so far has already put him on the fast track to the Lacktion Hall of Lame, and 31 seconds was short enough of a Mario to impress Princess Peach with his namesake stat! However, Ms. Peach probably then started flirting with Portland's Michael Ruffin, who got himself a 17 second Mario of his own. Mario West's compatriot on the Atlanta bench, Zaza Pachulia, earned a Madsen-level Voskuhl in 14:58 with a foul and turnover against one rebound and a brick for a ratio of 2:1.

The Philadelphi 76ers: They shot only 37 percent in a 97-91 loss to the Heat in Miami. It was Philly's third straight defeat. Not to be alarmist, but the Sixers have been playing poorly the last couple weeks...pretty much ever since they were named "Andre Iguodala's team." (Iggy scored 14 on 4-for-16 shooting, FWIW.) And they're only a few more losses away from falling out of the playoffs. I'm just sayin'.

The Washington Wizards Generals: One night after that hope-lifting win against the Nets in New Jersey, the Generals got mashed into paste at home by the Spurs. Washington shot 33 percent from the field, missed all nine of their three-point attempts and even bonked nine free throws. And here's some more lulz from the ever-unbiased AP: "Oh, the humiliation! The player that got away, Roger Mason, comes back with the San Antonio Spurs and drops 25 points—on a night the awful Washington Wizards post their lowest points total in six years. A season of embarrassment for president Ernie Grunfield's front office hit another low Saturday as the travel-weary Spurs beat the Wizards 98-67. San Antonio wrapped up its annual rodeo road stretch with a 5-3 record, while Washington was left to wonder how much better than 30 games under .500 it would be if Mason were still playing in his hometown."

The Sacramento Kings: A night after a rare win, order was restored to the NBA universe as the Kings got punched in their communal groin by the Mavericks. And what made that crushing even more, uh, crushing was that the Dallas bench jockeys scored 32 of their team's 40 second-quarter points as the Mavs cruised to a 70-50 halftime lead. And yes, those were the most points Dallas has scored in the first half this season. As a sidenote, Andres Nocioni scored 10 points on 2-for-11 shooting in his first game as a King. Great trade. Speaking of the Bulls' castoffs...

Thabo Sefolosha: He went scoreless (0-for-3) and committed five fouls in just under 18 minutes of lacktion during his first game for...

The Oklahoma City Thun-er: Just a month after getting their O's back, the Thun-er lost their "D" by giving up 273 points in back-to-back games this weekend. One night after the Suns dropped 140 on them (while shooting almost 60 percent), the Warriors put up 133 on 56 percent accuracy. And since this is becoming something of a theme, here's what the AP had to say about the game: "[Golden State's] 133-120 win over Oklahoma City was pure, vintage Nellieball. Golden State played indifferent defense and made 17 turnovers, yet produced more than enough relentless offense to counterbalance the mistakes. Nelson lost his temper and nearly got kicked out in the first quarter, but calmed down enough to watch a superb fourth-quarter surge in the Warriors' fifth win in seven games overall." In addition to the rather stunning defenselessness, the Thun-er committed 22 turnovers.

My retina injury anecdote: Since Henry Abbott was sharing them on Friday, I figured I'd add my own story to the growing list. A couple years ago, I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras with a small group of my closest friends. We were in the process of wiping the previous night's grime off -- and trust me, there was a lot -- when my buddy Brett asked somebody to hand him his overnight bag. I chucked it to him, but he didn't react at all, and the bag hit him right in the stomach, causing him to let out a comical "OOF!"

The room broke up. Brett's clumsiness was a running joke amongst our little group, mostly because it seemed to defy reason. He was something of a prodigious amateur athlete: He'd run Boston, done the Iron Man, he participated in competitive bike races throughout the world...yet he couldn't catch a football or shoot a basketball. In fact, on those rare occasions when we were able to lure him into a pickup game, he was more likely to run into his own teammates or catch a pass with his face than do anything remotely helpful. Thus, as his friends, it was our duty to mock him.

As the laughter was dying down, I said: "Geez, Brett, it's like you're blind or something." To which he replied: "Well, I am. In one eye, anyway." The laughter stopped immediately. "Brett," I said, "I've known you for over 10 years. How is it you've never mentioned the fact that you're blind in one eye?" He replied: "Don't you remember back in college when I had surgery for that partially detached retina?"

It took me a minute, but I was able to conjure the foggy memory of a period in which Brett wore an eye patch for, like, a couple months. So I asked: "Was that why you wore an eye patch for, like, a couple months?" He said: "Yeah. That was it." Oops. I guess guys can be pretty clueless. Anyway, short story long, Brett's vision never healed and he is blind in one eye to this day. Let's hope that doesn't happen with Amare.

Ken Mink: You might not recognize the name, but Ken is that 73-year-old dude who inspired literally ones of people by walking on to Roane State Community College's varsity basketball team. But a wet blanket was thrown over this moving tale when Mink was kicked off the team...because he flunked Spanish and was therefore declared academically ineligible to play. Amazingly, Mind came off as kind of indignant about the whole mess: "I feel like I'm suffering the slings and arrows of administrative injustice just like I did 50 years ago." You can read the rest of the sad tale here, but the saddest part is that it looks like Mink could miss the team's home finale on Wednesday 25, at which he planned to dress in a retro jersey and perform rap song he had written about this season's team. I'll let you decided which part(s) of that last sentence were the "sad" ones.

Saturday lacktivity report: More Chris, more lacktion.

Sixers-Heat: Royal Ivey slumped into contributory basketball lately, precluding a candidacy to All-Lacktion status...but made up for that slight nicely with a three-brick special in 13:30 for +3, including two building blocks from downtown. On the other hand, Joel Anthony justified his selection to the squad of star sleepers with a +1 (foul) in 3:50 for Miami, which also represented a Madsen-level Voskuhl of 1:0.

Hornets-Jazz: Melvin Ely -- a former Clippers' 1st-rounder -- gave up the rock and took a foul for +2 in 4:06 for the bayou insects, good for a 2:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl. All-Lacktion candidate Jarron Collins nearly put his Stanford education into good use, edging close to a four trillion, only to get a rejection and miss a shot for +2 in 3:59, providing his own 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl as well!

Thunder-Warriors: In a battle of truly efensive basketball (where the Warriors never scored fewer than 31 in a quarter), Nenad Krstic avoided rebounding in 13:08 for a Voskuhl of 5:2 (four fouls and one giveaway against one made field goal in two attempts), proving he is a man possessed to give Clay Bennett some love in the lacktion report!

The Chicago Bulls: After a bigtime win over the then-second-best in the West Denver Nuggets on Friday, Chicago's new guys -- Brad Miller, John Salmons and Tim Thomas -- were available for Sunday's game against the Danny Granger-less Pacers. It should have been a gimme, but what the Bulls got was a tough loss that knocked them another half-game behind the Bucks for the final playoff spot in the East. Troy "See?! I'm just as effective as David Lee!" Murphy had a season-high 27 points to go along with 14 rebounds. The Bulls were also victimized by T.J. Ford, who burned them for 9 points in the final four minutes to close things out.

Mike D'Antoni, quote machine: According to the AP recap, Dr. D'Antonistein said his team's defense "wasn't firing on all cylinders" in the second half of their 111-100 loss to the Craptors, then added: "I was just a little disappointed in our getting back on defense. Maybe we were surprised by them but we lost the theme of the game right in the middle of the third quarter." It never ceases to amuse me when Mike bemoans his team's defensive indifference. It's like a butcher getting upset about a cow jumping into a meat grinder.

The Phoenix Suns: I just knew the new "Offense first" attitude was going to get the Suns into trouble at some point...I just didn't think it would be against the KG-less Celtics. Talk about awful D. Rajon Rondo -- who scored a career-high 32 points (13-for-18) to go along with 10 assists -- was basically running a layup drill. And Ray Allen (31 points, 10-for-15, 4-for-8 from downtown) probably wouldn't be able to identify the hands of any Phoenix player in a police lineup even if the lives of his wife and children depended on it. Boston shot 63 percent for the game and won by 20 despite missing 12 free throws and committing 19 turnovers.

Update! Pointless stats: Basketbawful reader Ricky emailed in to say the following: "Sometimes the guys at ESPN Research really have nothing better to do than to fill our life with completely pointless stats. Today they've analysed guys achieving career highs in points on their birthdays, ostensibly because of Rajon Rondo's performance but most likely because someone had already done the research and it was just lying around on their desk. Did you know that Myles Patrick had a career high 3 points on his 26th birthday in 1980, that George Brown had a career high 1 point on his 22nd birthday in 1957 or that George McLeod had 4 points on his 22nd birthday in 1953? Don't you feel better with this information? Just out of curiosity I checked these douches out (thanks Basketball-Reference!) and it turns out Myles's career consists of 3 games played for the Lakers (career average 1.7 pts), G. Brown 'played' one game in his career (on his birthday, maybe someone bribed the coach for him to play his 6 minutes), and G. McLeod is the Kareem Abdul-Jabar of this lot, having participated in 10 games for the Baltimore Bullets. The conclusions: (1) ESPN Research couldn't recognise good research if it turned up at their office and sang a Christmas carol and (2) I care too much."

Tracy McGrady: Not to dogpile on Knee-Mac or anything, but after their 99-78 road win over the Charlotte Bobcats, the Rockets ran their record without McGrady to 15-6. Compare that to their 20-15 record WITH him in the lineup and, well, yeah.

Charlotte Bobcats: The heretofore "rapidly improving Bobcats" capped off a winless weekend with their second straight home loss. They shot 36 percent and bumbled the ball away 21 times...which was one away from their season-high. Said 'Cats coach Larry Brown: "Our offense was awful."

Enver Nuggets: Welcome back to the ranks of the defenseless, Enver! Their 120-117 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks was low point of a weekend that saw them give up 236 points and go 0-2 against two sub-.500 Eastern Conference teams. That doubled the number of losses the Nuggets have suffered to sub-.500 teams this season.

The Miami Heat: Dwyane Wade scored a career-high 50 points and the Heat STILL lost by 23. If some magical force suddenly transformed all Miami fans into Kobe followers, they'd be calling for everybody else on the Heat roster to be banished to the Negative Zone. I wonder: Will the same people who said Mamba should have won the MVP in 2006 for leading the Lakers to the playoffs despite a substandard supporting cast be giving D-Wade their vote this season? Somehow I doubt it.

More from Wild Yams: "[ESPN's Daily Dime] had Wade up for yesterday's best performance for that 50 point game in a 20+ point loss, yet had this to say about him elsewhere in the piece: 'Wade, the first player to outscore all his teammates combined in one game this season, became only the fourth player in NBA history to score at least 50 points in a loss by 20 or more points.' Mr. Bawful, since you called out Kobe lovers by saying they're probably hypocritical for presumably not wanting to give Wade their MVP votes, I'd like to point out the slight hypocrisy of the media (yet again) for praising Wade for a performance that if Kobe had had would no doubt call for a whole week's worth of hand wringing and outrage from sports media outlets from coast to coast. Considering the controversy Kobe got for scoring 61 in an easy win a couple weeks back, imagine what would have happened if the Lakers had lost that game by more than 20 and Kobe had outscored the rest of his team. But, good job, Dwyane."

Update! Larry Hughes: When the Knicks cut a deal for Larry Hughes right before the trade deadline, it was suggested the Mike D'Antoni was just the man to bring the best out of Hughes. This was not the case in Big Shot Larry's debut game: Hughes scored 3 points on 1-for-9 shooting. He put up those 9 shots in only 15 minutes of lacktion, by the way.

Stan Van Gundy, quote machine: Regarding Pookie's 50-pointer: "My concern is when Dwyane goes into the Hall of Fame and they start putting off his top career games, it's going to be like 50 versus Orlando. We're going to fill up the entire screen. So, I don't know what to tell you. When I coached Dwyane I really liked him, but I'm not so sure anymore. Our relationship is strained." I love this guy. I hope Satan makes Pat Riley's fire pit extra fiery for canning this guy so he could go for another title.

The Los Angeles Clippers: An anonymous commenter said: "Nomination for the L.A. Clippers already after the first quarter. Down by 22. Steve Blake has 14 assists in the first 12 minutes! Aldridge has 18 points on 9-for-10 shooting. Blazers shooting is a touch under 70 percent (0.692). Granted it's only the first quarter. But what a quarter indeed." No kidding. It allowed Blake to tie the NBA record for assists in one quarter. (San Antonio’s John Lucas set the record of 14 assists during the second quarter against Denver on April 15, 1984.)

Mind you, the Clippers were without Zach Randolph (serving the second game of two-game suspension), Al Thornton (sore right foot), Marcus Camby (ear infection), Chris Kaman (left foot), Brian Skinner (right foot) and Mike Taylor (right thumb). And Baron Davis was playing with a "painful toe injury." So that sort of explains why The Other L.A. Team went into "roll over and die" mode. And Daniel T. sent in the following picture, which provides the perfect graphical representation of the Clipper -efense:

New defensive strategy: It's called "Stand and Watch."
The Los Angeles Lakers: Barely beating the Al Jefferson-less Timberwolves is kind of like me nearly losing a spelling bee to a head wound patient. The Wolves shot 50 percent, hit 10 threes and finished with 108 points against L.A.'s "improved" defense. It's gotta drive Lakers fans crazy, the way they play down to their competition.

Kobe Bryant: Basketbawful reader Mick Dundee said: "Did you see Kobe nearly blow that game against the Timberwolves? Missed an open layup in the crunch and then nearly got stripped before launching a stupid, stupid leaning three that Lamar Odom cleaned up with a tip-in. His teammates really bailed him out of that one. I think for nearly every great final quarter Kobe has, there is an equally boneheaded one." I officially have no comment.

The Detroit Pistons: Yesterday's blowout loss in Cleveland was the Pistons' sixth straight and the 15th in their last 20 games. They're now .500 (27-27), barely clinging to the East's seventh playoff spot and they just started a five-game road trip that also includes matchups in Miami, New Orleans, Orlando and Boston. In other words: Trouble. Said the Not-Answer: "We stunk the gym out. We acted like strangers out there tonight." Is their a scale out there that can measure how much Joe Dumars would love to have Chauncey Billups back? I doubt it.

Update! Allen Iverson: (Found via TrueHoop) First A.I. has a King Crab dunk blasted off his noggin...


...then LeBron gives him an atom smasher-style ego-ectomy. Ouch.


Sunday lacktivity report: Chris wraps up a weekend of extreme lacktion.

Celtics-Suns: With Patrick O'Bryant being sent off to Toronto to form the Little Three of Lacktivity, the Celtics appeared to be shying away from having an extra human victory cigar on hand, an early analysis bolstered by KG's ankle problems. Yet this monumental trade (which assembled a force not to be reckoned with for the Craptors) may have taken place because of a hidden gem up Danny Ainge's sleeve! J.R. Giddens, the 2008 first-round pick for the Celtics, was recently recalled from Boston's D-League affiliate (the Utah Flash!) and wasted no time making a non-impact by beginning a wealthy career in the Association with a nationally televised 1.4 trillion cashout! This impressive debut no doubt will put him in the running for the lacktator rookie of the year award, as an even stronger stat line of snooze than Nathan Jawai's first NBA minutes! And Gabe Pruitt stepped up to the plate in a bigger role of boredom for Boston by bricking a three and giving Phoenix the rock for a +2 suck differential in 5:19.

Solar power however wasn't exempt from the ledger today as Alando Tucker and Courtney Sims spent 1:59 on the court together, each putting out a +1 via turnover in an interesting example of synchronized lacktion. Courtney's turnover also guaranteed him a Madsen-level Voskuhl of 1:0.

Bobcats-Rockets: Dikembe Mutumbo's days as a defensive force in the Association are long gone, but that doesn't mean he can't be recycled as a human victory cigar, smoking out a Madsen-level Voskuhl of 3:1 (2 giveaways and a singular foul against 1 rebound) in his failtacular 4:12 on the hardwood.

Nuggets-Bucks: Eddie Gill got to enjoy a new privilege tonight at the M.A.S.H. Unit: a dusty old Famicom to pass the time during his inpatient stay, with a 54 second Mario!

Heat-Magic: Sure, D-Wade's 50 points took the headlines, but hidden underneath that performance was another semi-notable storyline: the failure of Joel Anthony to produce any meaningless lacktion, ruining a three-foul run with productivity on the glass and successful defense. Thus their Miami teammate Jamaal Magloire had to do the not-so-dirty work in garbage time, cleanly spending 3:31 on the floor with a foul and missed shot for +2 (which also counted as a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl!). Orlando's Jeremy Richardson gave the home team their human victory cigar, missing his only shot attempt for +1 in 1:38.

Lakers-Wolves: DJ Mbenga got in the way of a shot the same way he recently served as an obstacle to Chris Mihm's fist. This block denied him a suck differential. However, with no boards or shot attempts, his 3:08 at the Target Center punched his ticket into the world of mediocrity with a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl via foul.

Pistons-Cavs: With 4:12 left in the nationally televised late game, JJ Hickson was crawling nicely into an on-court coma when he attempted to ruin it with a basket - only to accrue a suck-saving 24 second violation! Then he threw the rock at Darnell "Lacktion" Jackson who nervously came close to an assist; Jackson smartly aimed for the rim to prevent Hickson from pinching out a productive statistic.

Unfortunately, a minute or two later, Hickson then grabbed the ball from the rim for a debilitating offensive board, boiling out any last chance at non-notability. Compounding the disappointment was the ultimate stat curse: The ESPN commentators mentioned the fans' free taco excitement (with Cleveland at 99 points) on the last possession RIGHT before Mike Brown ordered Hickson to deny the crustacean crowd their reimbursable dinner. With this extended lacktivity lost, the Crabs looked down the bench and luckily located Lorenzen Wright, whose undersea exploration unlocked a treasure chest of 2.4 trillion as the game ended!

Labels: Worst of the Weekend