No caption. I just love the look on Vince Carter's face.
Mike D'Antoni: Last week, I said: "I really hope that coach D'Antoni keeps playing [Brian Skinner]...but my guess is that once Grant Hill gets back, Skinner's going back into cold storage." Well, Hill came returned from organ removal last night and played 27 minutes. Skinner played five minutes. Now, I know Skinner's abilities are limited, but I tend to think the Suns need at least one player who likes to bang and do the dirty work. And nobody else is doing it.

Boris Diaw: Yeah, Diaw played well against the Lakers and Nets, but let's not pronounce him "back" just yet. Last night he shot 2-for-6 and had a team-high 4 turnovers. Yet he got 24 minutes and Brian Skinner got five. Why? You'll have to ask the coach.

Mo Williams: The Bucks starting point guard missed last night's game against the Suns due to injury. What kind of injury, you ask? A sprained left pinky finger. Seriously. Don't laugh. I once sprained my left pinky. It was terrible. Never healed right, either. Now I have a little baby arm. True story.

New Jersey Nets: Another night, another brutal beating for the joyless Nets. They've now lost seven of their last eight games. And the lone win in this latest stretch was against the Sonics, so that doesn't really count. The Nets average margin of defeat: 17 points. They were lethargic on offense and absolutely lifeless on defense (the Kings shot 57.5 percent and pounded them on the boards 41-29). All that and Vince Carter, not Jason Kidd, led the Nets in assists (he had 8). As New Jersey coach Lawrence Frank put it: "Just a dismal performance. We are simply playing very poorly."

Jason Collins: Scoreless again. And in the 10 minutes he played, he contributed nothing beyond a pair of hard fouls. But Collins wasn't the only inept New Jersey roleplayer; Josh Boon (0-for-5), Bostjan Nachbar (1-for-5), Marcus Williams (1-for-7), Jamaal Magloire (0-for-2) all sucked pretty hard, too. Another sad note is that little Darrell Armstrong (6'1") outrebounded Collins (7'0") and Magloire (6'11") 2-to-1 in oly four minutes (compared to their combined 16 minutes).

Shaq: The Big Injury out again, for at least two weeks. Speaking of Shaq, here's a look at The Big Spender's monthly expenditures: $1,500 for cable TV, $110,000 for vacations, $17,000 for clothing, $26,500 for babysitting, and $23,000 at gas stations. Man, I need to quit my job and get hired on as Shaq's nanny. That has "hit sitcom" written all over it.

Larry Brown: The former Knicks coach thinks that management had spies "throughout the arena" to keep in eye on him. Sure, Larry. Look, I know conspiracy theories are a lot of fun and all, but it didn't take a spy to see that the team sucked and your players hated you. A 90-year-old woman watching from home could have come to the same conclusion. Let it go.

Peter Vecsey: I've never really liked Peter Vecsey. He's not quite important enough to enter into the Rogue's Gallery of Basketbawful Villains, but he is a douchebag of the highest order. He's arrogant, imperious, looks like he should be managing a professional wrestler (think Jimmy Hart, but not as cool), and his "witty insults" usually sound like a bunch of nonsense (like when he said that Mike Bibby went to Wendy's to figure out why he was shooting poorly; don't ask, just read it).

But my biggest problem with Vecsey is his history of blatant inaccuracy. How many of his trade scoops* have actually happened? He spent five or six years publishing "100 percent true" trade rumors concerning Karl Malone (to the Knicks, to the Mavericks, etc.), and yet Malone was never traded. I know I make mistakes from time to time, but this is a not-for-profit blog. Hell, I may actually be operating at a loss. But Vecsey gets paid to do what he does. Shouldn't he do some fact-checking? Take this article, for instance. In it, Vecsey criticizes Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson's misuse of Mike Dunleavy Jr. prior to his trade to the Pacers. And while that's totally true, Vecsey goes on to say: "It should be noted, in 28 years of coaching some exceptionally talented teams, Nelson's brilliance has yet to shimmer on a single conference final."

*I call them "trade poops." Mostly because I think poop is funny.

There's one problem with that statement. Nelson's Milwaukee Bucks made it to the Western Confernece Finals in 1978. (Yes, the Bucks were in the Western Conference back then, along with the Bulls, Pistons, and Pacers.) The Bucks also made the Eastern Conference Finals in 1983, 1984, and 1986. Furthermore, Nellie's Dallas Mavericks went to the Western Conference Finals in 2003. Now, I'm no arithmeticologist, but I still have fingers to count on. And that looks like five conference finals appearances for Don Nelson, which is five more than the zero Vecsey claimed. So Peter, next time you feel the need to bust on somebody, could you at least make sure you know what the hell you're talking about first? Thanks.

George Bush: According to a new study conducted by two nonprofit journalism organizations, George Bush and top administration officials "issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks." Furthermore, the study "counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both." Turns out none of that was true? Really?! That's one seriously cutting edge study. Anyway, you know you're a big, lying jerk when a bunch of poorly paid journalists spend a few years tabulating your lies for free.

Yi says: "NBA action really is FAN-tastic!"

Labels: Boris Diaw, George Bush, Jason Collins, Larry Brown, Mike D'Antoni, New Jersey Nets, Peter Vecsey, Shaq