David Stern Reminds The NFL Sports Are Supposed To Be Fun

While it is a sport I absolutely love, I have been increasingly annoyed at the NFL with its "no celebration" rules. It's getting to the point where ANY touchdown celebration is getting a flag, and players are scared to do anything. Santonio Holmes made one of the best plays in super bowl history, and you still had idiotic sports writers yelling that he didn't get a penalty for holding the football while he did a little dance (they argued that it was a prop).

Contrast that with this:



If that video seems excessive and very, very entertaining, that is because David Stern has come out and said that he welcomes celebrations. This is news to me, since I've seen Davey-boy fine Richard Jefferson and others for very small post-dunk celebrations. The economy and attendance shortages seem to be forcing the NBA to resort to appeasing the groundlings (thank goodness).

In addition to encouraging more Cavs goodness, this means more of one of my favorite celebrations: The Ron Artest Beast celebration. This is captured perfectly in NBA 2k9:



Note: I do this celebration after I win at checkers. I also drink a pair of beer cans, smash them together, throw them at the child or relative I am playing against and give the two-finger salute like Stone Cold Steve Austin. You DON'T come to my black and red checkered house without a whoopin'.

BIRDMAN!

I don't write about the Denver Nuggets nearly enough. Whenever I do write about them, I find myself having fun (evidenced by one of my favorite videos ever).

-The team is led by George Karl, who might be completely crazy.

-They are having one of its best seasons ever despite having a starting lineup that should be nicknamed "The Outsiders" for how little respect they get.

-Rocky, the mascot-type thing pictured above, is a completely under-appreciated gangsta (his wikipedia page...yes he has one...states "Rocky once made his patented backwards half court shot in 9 consecutive games.")

-They are named after a popular McDonalds happy meal food.

Toss all of these things into a cauldron, stir, and you have a great team to root for.

The only thing that could make it better is if they had a crazy, heroin-addicted big man who was the laughingstock of the 2005 slam dunk contest and somehow has come back despite all that to be a solid player in the NBA...

ENTER THE BIRDMAN!



Chris Andersen, or "Birdman"/"Birdzilla", is a fantastic player to watch because you can cheer for him and laugh at his antics all in one sitting. The play above elicited this reaction from me:

"WHOA! THAT WAS AMAZING! Who was that? BIRDMAN?! Hahahaha! I love that guy."

I went from shock, to awe, to confusion, to surprise, to amusement, to admiration...all in 10 seconds. It takes a special player on a special team to do that to a guy. Chris Andersen and the Denver Nuggets, I salute you.

Yesterday Was Pretty Awesome

Yesterday the weather completely sucked, I had to wait a whole 24 hours for the Wednesday night Lost episode, and I had an exhausting day at work...and it still rocked.  Why?  The NBA games, especially how a few of them finished yesterday, were incredible.

Take a look at the top 10 plays from yesterday and you'll see some of the many plays that had me jumping up out of my seat.  Especially plays #2 and #1:

Good golly Miss Molly.  If I were Rasual Butler, I would have just retired right after that shot.  It's all downhill after that.

Ugh, this post was pretty mushy with all the NBA love, and I have to say that in retrospect I honestly hated reading it.  But alas!  Every so often even the most Grinchy of writers has a soft day.  I promise to be back to my pissy, sarcastic, laugh-at-the-ugly-cheerleaders self tomorrow.

These Celtics Take Themselves Seriously

I've posted a lot of team hijinks on this site, and somehow the Celtics keep popping up as one of the silliest championship teams in history. Here is Eddie House and the rookies impersonating Ray Allen and singing various tunes:



Tune in next week for the Celtics dance-off and nude slip-n-slide with Glen "Big Baby" Davis!

Goodnight, Spurs!

Today the Spurs came out and said Manu Ginobili is officially done for the season. Anyone with any knowledge of the Spurs, which are essentially a three-headed monster (Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker), knows this means their hopes of winning a title this season are toast. -Or at least as good as Michigan State's chances of winning the championship this year (too soon? The game has been only going on for a while now and already it's ugly).

This leaves only a few teams with legit chances of winning an NBA title this season:

Lakers
Cavs
Celtics
Magic
Denver

I know, putting the Nuggets on there is not a popular pick, but they might be able to sneak in the championship game if the Lakers stumble somehow (although I doubt it).

With this in mind, look for an emphasis on the Eastern conference playoff games on television come playoff time. It's a little too obvious the Lakers will steamroll their way to the finals this season against the rest of the West, but with an unproven Cavs roster, a gimpy Garnett-led Celtics team, and a depth-less Magic squad, the East appears wide open. I look for the Hawks to actually scare a few people with a strong first round against the Heat.

Anyhow, enough about the future. I ain't no tarot card reader, dag nabbit! Here are some Ginobili highlights from last year to remind you Spurs fans what you'll be missing:

Checking Out The Latest Leon Powe Twitter? FRAUD I SAY!

For those of you hoping to catch up on the latest hot Leon Powe-related action via Twitter, I have some news for you: Leon Powe has no idea how to use Twitter...so for the (according to accounts) 300 or so of you subscribed to his Twitter feed, you've been had.

For good measure, Powe added:

“I don’t even mess with the computers like that. If I did, it would be cool, but nobody has come to me and talked to me about anything like that,” he said, adding, “I think being an athlete, it could be a positive but sometimes it could be a negative, too. Being an athlete, you’re always out there and people are always going to find stories and find what you did eight years ago. So it’s basically the same thing.”

This begs the obvious question: Who in the heck are these people subscribing to Twitter feeds from Leon Powe? Are they friends? High class prostitutes (Hey there, Sham-wow guy!)? Maybe just really misinformed fans of Edgar Allen Poe.  I have no idea, but I'm going to spend the rest of my night Twittering as Emmanuel Lewis as a result.  Yay for identity theft!

Greg Oden Is Pretty Crappy At Basketball

April Fools.



Goodness gracious. How anyone could make that shot and NOT win a car is beyond me.