If you've ever been so lucky to stroll into a crowded karaoke bar and find BBJ and I blowing the brains right out of people's skulls, you're sure to have noticed that our baritone pipes are remarkably similar to that of the Grammy and Tony-winning Robert Goulet.
After Shaq dropped a Cleveland Steamer on their chests and bolted for L.A., the Magic entered what will probably be a 40-year era of overcompensating and locking anyone decent up in long term deals: The Orlando Magic extended Jameer Nelson at least 5 more years, making the combo of Nelson, Lewis, Redick, and Howard one that will (for better or worse) be around for a very long time in Orlando. The Magic are banking on the idea that the 3 foot tall Nelson will suddenly go from turnover-prone shooter to a savage terminator perpetually avenging his father's death under Stan Van Gundy's system. 
In similar news, Cleveland finally gave up on trying to laugh off its free agent's wishes and resigned Sasha Pavlovic to a three year deal. Sasha wins some sort of award for being the guy in deep fantasy basketball leagues that caused most owners to say, "This guy is doing well...who the hell is he?" Varejao, the Sideshow Bob-looking free agent, and the Cavs are still reportedly far apart in negotiations. Several millions of people betting the Cavs will win it all just took a 2nd mortgage on their house. 
Finally, Juwan Howard proved to the world that he is, in fact, still alive as he agreed to join the Dallas Mavericks. The timing suggests that he read my season preview in which I picked Dallas to win it all, and I will be calling Howard's agent shortly to demand my consulting fee. The Mavs also announced they will be cutting DJ Mbenga, a guy so well known that I blatantly cut and pasted his name in there to avoid spelling it wrong.
The Howeva Files website was created at what some would call "The 11th hour" of the NBA offseason, leaving precious little time for us to preview what we think will happen this year.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
WESTERN CONFERENCE
It's shameless plug time!
As you probably know, rumors of Lakers superstar/"basketball beats and broads" grandmaster MC, Kobe Bryant, and his unhappiness with the team's direction have continued to live on through the off-season and into the start of this year's campaign. Both Kobe and the Lakers have shown little confidence in each other despite their public statements that they'd like to work things out, which has lead to widespread speculation that a trade will occur. For months though, the Lakers have yet to deal their disgruntled franchise player and with Tuesday's opening night approaching Black and Blue Jor and Anubis Taylor decided to go Stephen A - Skip Bayless on ya ass.
KOBE BRYANT IS A VAGINA-FACE! The Lakers have given him everything he could ask for: Including the trade of Shaq and probably various mobsters to threaten Kobe's wife if she ever meddled in his "ho-doing business". Everyone gives him everything he could ask for and he still whines. Fans continue to treat him like royalty in L.A. despite the fact that he is basically shitting on their dining room tables with his actions lately. Even refs treat him like he can't do any wrong (as seen in photo, left), despite the fact that he is one of the dirtiest players in the game!
AT: Ugh. I'm so damn tired of talking about this already. Why won't anything actually happen? I don't care about Bryant one way or the other. He's simply being what playing in LA taught him to be, annoying. Say what you will about obnoxious owners like Cuban, but Jerry Buss continually gets off from being a jackass. The 73-year-old's too-frightening-to-imagine battle with Hugh Hefner to date as many 20-year-olds as possible typifies the unprofessional environment Kobe has been raised in. Ever since the Showtime era, the team and its fans have demonstrated an obnoxious attitude that puts the obtuse ignorance of Duke's Cameron Crazies to shame. Defying all logical explanation, the team takes genuine pride in that Ashton Kutcher is a fan! At this point they more than just don't think their shit doesn't stink, but that it smells like a championship.
B&B: I agree with you that the pieces on the Lakers over the years have made the team tough to stomach...if you put the cocky combo of Rick "Vanessa Williams' Bitch" Fox, Mark "Annoying Towel-Waver" Madsen, Robert "Smug Will Smith-Lookalike" Horry in front of me I would mow them down with a tommy gun like Flat-top in Dick Tracy...but Kobe's attitude just pushes them to new levels of villainy. Even most other NBA players hate Kobe, leaving his fan base as uninformed celebrities and people who like to beat the crap out of Robin Givens. If you think the fans like the Lakers over Kobe, remember the traitor who effortlessly became a Clips fan during their playoff run a few years back. At least the Lakers could be likable without Kobe now. Lamar Odom seems like a nice guy and Luke Walton is at least 7 good years away from wearing grateful dead t-shirts and hawking NBA League Pass.
More fun NBA stuff tomorrow, ladies and gents. Thanks for reading.
As you probably heard, the Orlando Magic won approval by city and county councils to begin constuction of a new, expensive, state of the art arena as soon as they could get their cute little star-bedazzled shovels in the ground. It was one of the more feel-good stories of the summer in an NBA that had its name trudged through the mud. 
Let's begin in the Whoville of Orlando. For Magic fans, the name Harris Rosen was akin to something that shot out of you after a poorly-planned Mexican dinner. Rosen is the head of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, the modern day exclusive "cave on the snow-capped mountain". While Orlando fans, politicians, players and city charity organizations below were elated at the prospect of a new arena for the Magic (coupled with a downtown redevelopment package) Harris Rosen was not. He wanted more of the city's money to go towards other things (cough, cough, things that would help tourism in his hotels, cough)."It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight."
Annoyed and seeing the venues get cleared through the city council vote, Rosen tried to get a pair of county council members on his side to sway the votes needed to veto the venues package...The county council votes went 5-2. People were really celebrating. Rosen was REALLY angry now. "He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos, Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown,
At the warm lighted windows below in their town."
This did not stop the Terminator-like determination of Rosen to stop the arena at all costs. This is that part of the story you are probably very familiar with:"Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!"
He sent people door-to-door to collect signatures, with the message that the new venues would be bad for them. You could almost see him collecting these signatures from houses, and climbing the snow-peaked mountains with his dog leading the way. "They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
Then the Whos down in
Whoville will all cry BooHoo!"
"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!"
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low.
Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same! "
Your favorite NBA coach who's spent time in the clink, Scott Skiles, apparently has yet to let go of his ludicrous stance that should-be phenom, Tyrus Thomas, is still a "peripheral player." If you recall the Bull's playoff run last year, Skiles defiantly refused to play Thomas, opting instead to give huge minutes to the 90,000 year old PJ Brown while Thomas averaged over barely over 12 minutes per game.
fundamentals. Although he may sometimes lack Noah's motor, Thomas is one of those valuable players that uses his freakish athleticism to change the outcome of games without having one play being run for him. We understand that can equal "lacks basketball skills" in coach speak, but he's not going to improve by watching a team of youngsters.
While we at THF are basketball writers first, lovers second, and writers for other sports third, we would be remiss if we didn't discuss a disturbing trend that is sweeping America: Boston teams are winning everything, and many of their fans are becoming insufferable.
The Red Sox, whose fans by and large are arguably the most annoying because they seamlessly made the switch from "woe is me" losers to "in your face" braggers, are up 2-0 and on their way to another World Series. I pretty much hate baseball, and a good reason why is that you can rest assured that whomever wins it all probably has a gonzo payroll that dwarfs other teams like the Royals and Marlins. Suddenly, anyone with a jersey or pink hat (THAT'S the worst) with a Red Sox logo acts like their shit don't stink. Newsflash: You are beating up the Colorado Rockies, an underdog team that has almost 1/3 the payroll you have, league schedulers messed up and made them wait a long time to play you, and their location has made them practice in the snow. You are this generation's Yankees, and before you grin at that please realize how much you hated those guys.
Then you have the Patriots. You can't even turn on ESPN anymore without being subjected to Sean Salisbury slowly masturbating over Tom Brady. While it is interesting that they are winning in the grand fashion that they are, they are also a team that has been a Goliath beating up on Davids and cockily laughing about it (the team's 2007 opponents have a combined 17-28 record...What a feat to beat those guys!) 
Ask them if they were fans of the team back in the 80s, or preferably if they remember that old gremlin-looking Patriots logo they had before Brady got there. 
Which brings us to the main point of this long and rambling entry: How does one enter this NBA season with Boston getting both Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and NOT acknowledge that all of the luck seems to be with Boston teams lately? Will America automatically hate this Celtics team simply because of all of the success of other area sports teams? Will Celtics fans become hotheaded and pompous despite the fact that they have the mentally handicapped Doc Rivers at the helm? Will the always nice, fun, and entertaining Scott Pollard suddenly become a douche because of where he's living?
With the NBA still suffering from the fallout of the Tim Donaghy scandal, commissioner David Stern today announced changes in the rules regarding gambling for the league's referees.Stern said an internal review had found that all of the league's 56 referees violated the contractual prohibition against engaging in gambling, with more than half of them admitting to placing wagers in casinos. But Stern said none of the violations was major, and no referees had admitted to wagering in a sports book or with a bookie.So what do you do when everyone's breaking the rules? Change 'em! Referees will now no longer be in violation if they sit down at a poker table and limp in on the flop if their holding sailboats or even if they do something as stupid as say '7' aloud at the craps table (which we all know will result in me screaming the vilest of obscenities at the offender).
Now maybe it's because BBJ and I both attended college 20 minutes away from both Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun or that I am so obsessed with all things MJ that I sent my saint of a mother to spy on him at said casinos, but we here at The Howeva Files don't actually mind Stern's decision. Obviously, buying a Powerball ticket doesn't put the integrity of the sport at risk and with the league considering having a franchise in Las Vegas, Stern was going to have to reach some reasonable middle ground before the league is crushed under the weight of the public's Tommy Heinson-esque conspiracy theories.
Sonics fans across America cleaned their collective undies with a smile yesterday as they found out that Kevin Durant's injury won't be serious. 
This brings to mind the age-old question about whether Kevin Durant's skinny frame is prone to getting injured in the rough NBA. Durant's official playing weight is 225, but we think this number HAD to be inflated by drinking gallons of water before the weigh in like that fat guy on The Biggest Loser (I haven't seen that many fat people angry at one of their own since Star Jones got her weight sucked out of her and began looking like Skeletor). 
Headlining the All-Emaciated squad is one-meal-a-month and owner-of-the-80-year-old-guy's-body Tayshaun Prince. There is rarely a moment that fans can look at the screen without worrying that he will just collapse on the floor and begin eating a referee's shoe for nourishment. -Still, Prince managed to be one of the few players to play all 82 games last year. He also plays a high contact game that his body type helps him in since his elbows are sharp as ginsu knives.
Next is Jamal Crawford, who looks like a lollipop due to his sickly frame and bulbous head. Despite driving to the lane quite a bit, Crawford has also had a surprisingly healthy career, missing significant time last year after years of playing in almost all of the games. We are not sure of the secret to his success, but players at MSG are conditioned well by rapidly fleeing daily contact with Isiah Thomas that could result in lawsuits.
Topping off the list is Mr. Kirilenko, a man I like to call "The Scarecrow" for his body type. While he has been knocked around with injuries quite a bit in the past few years, he still made it his first 3 years relatively unscathed before his body crumpled up like an ant in the sun. When his body realized its limitations, his mind appeared to do so as well with crying to reporters and trade demands lately. We'd feel bad for him, but fuck him...his pop star wife lets him have sex with another woman once a year.
As if it wasn't before, now it is official: Kevin McHale is simply trying to fuck up the Timberwolves beyond recognition.
This, coupled with the news that Kevin McHale turned down several better offers to drop All-Star Kevin Garnett into his old team's hands, just set the offseason benchmark that inept GMs will have to try to hit in the future. Wow...good luck trying to beat this one, guys.
Earlier this month, I was awoken by a late night phone call from Black and Blue Jordan. My partner in crime was sobbing profusely and was so distraught that he couldn't form a complete sentence. The only words I could discern were 'boilermaker' and 'coach from Hang Time.' It took me until the next day to figure out that he was yammering about Brad Miller's cornrows. "The season's peaked! We'll have nothing hair-related to write about now!" he said."My mom doesn't like it, and I like my mom. I won't bring it back. Sorry."
I had no idea, but Kaman looks funnier without the handful of locks that allegedly took over 2 years to grow. The shape of his dome seems to have a built-in crest, vaulting him into direct competition with David Beckham to see who has the best faux hawk in LA.
Zombies Can Dunk Copyright 2009
