And this commercial marked the first time more than 2 people even *said* they believed in the Clippers... no word yet on if any of them actually believed in themselves, the team, or the fans.

In other NBA news of bawful preseason action, here are a few Twitter posts from last night (in roughly chronological order):

sportsminute Delonte West skipped a practice with the Cleveland Cavaliers. It's nothing serious, he just needed time to reload.

RicBucher Scalabrine matched w/Budinger. The all-translucent battle. They're shimmering in and out of sight as they run up and down the court.

jeskeets RT @RedsArmy: Ladies and gentlemen ... Rasheed Wallace has earned his first tech in a C's uni.

jeskeets Slips Sheed a $20 ... RT @RedsArmy: AND HE DROPPED THE 'BALL DON'T LIE' LINE ON THE MISSED FT!

RicBucher Another tough night for the refs. 92 FTs in Dallas on Mon, might break a hundy 2nite. Absolute shamockery if replacements work reg season.

RicBucher Final FT tally from Rockets-Celtics: 102. Fouls: 75. Remember how you drove your first clutch? Relived for all those on hand.

We all saw how well "We Believe" worked for us Warriors fans too. "I believe" in inept management o the part of both franchises.

Ironic comment of the day:

From Ric Bucher's article on ESPN.COM this morning:

"If the Celtics are worried about Garnett's condition, though, it didn't show. Paul Pierce, seeing him in the compression unit [for his injured leg], joked, "They got his leg on life support. When I was hurt, they told me to go home, take some Robitussin and put some ice on it.""

As I recall, when he was hurt he was carted off the court in a wheelchair. The funny thing is that prescription probably was enough to heal that particular injury!

As you know preseason time is Mario West time! He logged 27 minutes and had 6 points with 11 boards! I think the 27 minutes was more then he played during the past 3 seasons combined.

sea_mole - Exactly right. The difference between KG's injury and Pierce's is that KG wasn't faking his.

Anyone else see Shannon Brown stuff Mikki Moore through the rim last night? Ouch.

awesome blind gossip item:

"This one comes from the pilot of a private jet. This big time West Coast NBA star was flying on a private jet to an event and used the bathroom. They flew to their destination and the player left and all was well. Until the pilot checked the bathroom! It was in such a disgusting mess. Unknown substances in the sink and on the mirror, but worst of all, the toilet wouldn’t flush. It wouldn’t flush because the present the star left was so huge, that the pilot had to cut it into thirds to get it to go down.

Not Kobe."


http://mybuzzfoto.com/blog/buzzfoto-blind-item-204/373/

Paul Pierce just leapt into my top 5 all-time favorite athletes for reminding me of the Chris Rock "Mo' 'Tussin!" routine.

Ugh. There is a difference between faking an injury and believing you are injured when you're not. If you think Pierce faked his injury you are a fool and probably have never landed awkwardly before. You are an even bigger fool if you believe the Lakers would have beaten the Celtics had it not been for the momentum caused by his "fake" injury. It's called a six game sweep for a reason. The Lakers were just not good enough. Deal with it.

Okay. That happened a million years ago (PP injury/non injury) so let's all calm down.

B. Are those foul number accurate, or comically exaggerated? O

C. 'Sheed is a basketball institution. He's the all-time ref heckler. I say somebody has to pay him to yell at the refs instead of star players. LeBron, stop arguing. Sheed, draw a tech. 'Yessir!'

I don't know how my belief that Pierce faked his injury (he did) somehow got construed into me thinking his fakery was in any way some pivotal thing in that series, or that the Lakers were actually better than Boston, but just got thrown off by the faked injury. Pierce was only out of the game for about 80 seconds of game time, and that was in Game 1. His theatrics had virtually no impact on that game or that series. All it did is make him look like a hero to Boston fans and a fool to everyone else.

Also, the Lakers were not as good as Boston that year. I felt that before those playoffs, before those Finals and I still feel that way. LA was the bug on Boston's windshield two years ago. Maybe if LA had been fully healthy it could have been different, but you could say the same thing about Boston last year. We'll never know. Hopefully both squads will be at full strength all year this season so we can see who's the best team now.

I'll say this though: if last night's Laker preseason opener is any indication (and let's be honest, the first game of the preseason probably isn't), the rest of the league should be worried. Bynum looked like an absolute beast (against a woefully undersized Warrior "defense"), and Artest fit in more seamlessly than Ariza looked last year. If those two guys are gonna play like that all season, good luck beating the defending champs this year.

And Brian Skinner now has to believe in...uh...wow. I'm not sure. The legacy of the injured Walton era? Watching Larry Brown get forced out? Throwing boatloads of money at B-Dizzle only to see that become a farce, too?

I can't wait for the next Clippers vs. Kings facepalm-fest at Arco.

Wild Yams -- The 4-0 preseason, 0-16 regular season Detroit Lions might not agree that the preseason is indicative of regular season success...

Dan B. - If you re-read my comment above you'll see that I don't think the preseason is indicative of regular season success either. That said, the Lakers are the defending champs (not a team that went 0-fer last year), and look like they may have major upgrades at two positions (center & SF) from last year's championship team, so you can draw your own conclusions.

Yams - I'm with you on supporting the Lakers, but let's be careful with Bynum's performance against GS. I have a rule for friends that play fantasy basketball that they always pick up a big man when he's playing Golden State. Even Matt Bonner put up 30/15 on them.

However, while preseason records have no bearing on the regular season and postseason, I do think it shows you a little about the players. He hasn't looked all that great since he returned from his injury, so seeing him get 24 points is a pretty welcome sight.

As an aside, it's pretty awesome that Greg Oden has put up 18/9 and 20/10 in two games. It sounds pretty meh considering it's the preseason, but considering how whistle-happy the refs are this preseason, it would be amazing if he even got to play 5 minutes, let alone get that many points and rebounds.

NarSARSsist - Did I not qualify Bynum's performance adequately enough when I said he had it against a woefully undersized Warrior "defense"? I thought that pretty well tempered my statement about how well he performed. I was mainly encouraged just by how injury-free and confident he looked out there. I think we're on the same page here, I'm just puzzled by you thinking I wasn't aware that a big man going off against Golden State (especially in the preseason) doesn't mean a whole lot.

Yams - Sorry if it came across that I was directing that at you. I mostly said to show that we do have tempered enthusiasm about Bynum's performance, and that we're not the OMGZLOLLAKERSRULECELTICSCLEARLYSUCK type of Laker fans.

Which do you find most encouraging, Artest's 12/9/7 with 2/4 from 3PT, Bynum's 24/5, or Vujacic and Farmar showing some life out there (especially the latter)?

Speaking of Golden State, how are preseason schedules arranged? Three games against Golden State, Sacramento, and Charlotte. The Lakers will end up playing 4 games against horrendous defenses and 1 game against a horrendous offense. Talk about extremes.

Wild Yams - All of your opinions are instantly invalidated because you are a Lakers fan. I thought you would have realized that by now. ;)

Yams said: "I'll say this though: if last night's Laker preseason opener is any indication (and let's be honest, the first game of the preseason probably isn't), the rest of the league should be worried. Bynum looked like an absolute beast (against a woefully undersized Warrior "defense"), and Artest fit in more seamlessly than Ariza looked last year. If those two guys are gonna play like that all season, good luck beating the defending champs this year."

Preseason games mean absolutely nothing. Derrick Rose and John Salmons are shooting a combined 66 percent so far. Greg Oden finally looks like the next great center. DeJuan Blair looks like he should be starting for the Spurs. Etc.

If you can name one thing -- and I mean in the entire annals of NBA history -- that ever happened in the preseason that actually meant anything in the regular season and then into the playoffs, I would be very surprised.

Dan B - That's exactly why I didn't challenge you. Laker opinions mean nothing; life sucks rooting for the evil empire.

Bawful - If the NBA kept better track of preseason stats like the NFL, I'm sure I can dig up plenty of stuff on Greg Ostertag to checkmate you there. By the way, did you know that searching for Greg Ostertag Preseason Stats on google hits up this blog on the very first link? Good job keeping the man relevant to contemporary society sir!

NarSARSist said: "If the NBA kept better track of preseason stats like the NFL, I'm sure I can dig up plenty of stuff on Greg Ostertag to checkmate you there."

Consider me checkmated.

Mr. Bawful - Spoken like someone who is truly afraid of how good the Lakers are going to be this year!! :) This is probably the most meaningful thing I can think of to happen in a preseason game.

Once again, for the record, let me repeat my quote from above, this time emphasizing what people seem to have overlooked: "if last night's Laker preseason opener is any indication (and let's be honest, the first game of the preseason probably isn't)..."

You can all now get off my back and go back to quaking in your boots. I'll be taking my victory lap if you need me :)

We all agree preseason is useless, other than the fact that at least its baskteball to talk about again.

That said, I do think the Kings have a leg up on the John Wall sweepstakes. Evans looks like he was the right pick. But he will be a turnover machine this year and they are K. Martin injury from struggling to beat the 15 win plateau. They may even miss Mikki Moore.

And I heartily endorse the Blake Superior era.

I'll give you something that happened in the preseason that had an impact into the regular season and arguably the playoffs as well from last season - Derrick freaking Rose sticking his big foot under Deron Williams during the Jazz-Bulls preseason game last year.
Deron missed the first month or so of the season, tried to come back too early, missed a few more games, and didn't even come close to looking right until February. He says he still feels it. You can't tell me that the Jazz wouldn't have won at least a few more games if he had been healthy the first half of the season, thereby missing the Lakers in the first round and making a bit more noise in the playoffs. That being said, with the way they were playing after Carlos "superprick" Boozer came back, they probably would have lost in the first round anyway. Aside from injuries, you're right that not much that happens in preseason means anything.

Anonymous said: "I'll give you something that happened in the preseason that had an impact into the regular season and arguably the playoffs as well from last season - Derrick freaking Rose sticking his big foot under Deron Williams during the Jazz-Bulls preseason game last year."

Oops. Right. Forgot about that. Yeah, that was a killer. But in all honesty, did that injury keep the Jazz from competing for a title? Because I don't think they would have won it all even if Deron hadn't gotten hurt. Maybe they would have gotten another round into the playoffs, but that's probably about it. And that's nothing against Utah, since they're one of My Teams.

No, I agree with you that the Jazz probably wouldn't have made it past the second round even if he'd been healthy all season. Like I said in my first post, Boozer completely killed chemistry on that team when he came back last year. Deron finally got healthy, they won something like 12 straight, then Boozer comes back and they're a .500 team the rest of the way.

I was really hoping they'd trade him and his oversized ego this offseason, but I suppose I'm glad the team didn't dump him for nothing. Hopefully they'll get a better return on him sometime during the year, although the Jazz are so hesitant to pull the trigger on any major deals that I could see them just playing out the string and letting him go at the end of the season.

BTW, I'm loving the Living Large stuff. I'll be sad to see it go. Love the blog period. Keep up the good work.