Michael McCann on tanking. One way to make sure it doesn't happen: make every rookie a free agent. Worth discussing! I'd add some wrinkles like a salary cap, and an ability for teams to pay local players slightly more (calm down, we could carve up the nation into regions with similar populations) to inpsire homegrown pride.
Gilbert Arenas is healthy enough to blog: "I told them to cut the leg off a couple times. You know, cut it off and then bring it back to me when it was all healed. Because, you know, Heather Mills on Dancing with the Stars, she had that leg. I was saying I could borrow one of those and finish out the season. But they wasn't going for that." He also has 20,000 jerseys and 6,000 shoes that he's giving away. Unclear how it will happen, but he says to start by registering on his website.
Dan Steinberg of the D.C. Sports Bog talks to Bill Walton about, you know, everyday stuff: "'I'm a big believer in curses,' Walton said. 'I've got many of them on my own soul. January 19, 1974 loss to Notre Dame; March 23, 1974 loss to North Carolina State; April 18, 1978, when I took the painkilling injection in my foot and the bone split in half, the curse of my failure to get it done with the Clippers, and the curse of a life of failure, starting with ruining John Wooden's life. And how you get rid of these curses, it's the greatest question known to man.' But how, I wondered. What's the next step? 'Well, one time somebody sent me a letter,' he explained, 'and it said that the curses were there, Bill, because a witch doctor in the Philippines had placed a curse on you. And they sent me a map of where to go in the Philippines to break the curse. And while I've been to the Philippines, I couldn't pinpoint the position that I had to go to. There was a special rock that I had to find, according to this letter and the map. I couldn't find it.'" He's not crazy, though, not at all. Read that whole post. He finishes up giving Eddie Jordan's son one hell of an amazing speech. Really. UPDATE: There's a follow-up post, too. Amazing. Dan Steinberg needs an award.
A theory that the WNBA exists to give the NBA a good name overseas.
Anthony from Australia emails a problem: "... it taints the championship when the East winner gets to play the beat up West winner. It might happen this year, it happened in last year and 2004, and almost in 2005 if not for Ginobili. The Heat on their form wouldn't have made it past the first round in the West last year." Solution (seems like it's libertarian day on TrueHoop: no rules!): scrap the conferences. I'm being knee-jerk, but what's so great about conferences and divisions? They don't mean a thing. Seed the playoffs one through 16 and play it out.
Yesterday, I wondered how commited Mark Cuban is to the NBA. Preetom Bhattacharya of Hoopsworld points me to his recent interview with Cuban with this amazing, past-tense quote: "I hated dealing with the minutia of the NBA. They specialize in administrivia a lot of times and that's not me. We just have a different view on the business side of things and from there, it's my choice."
The Akron Beacon-Journal's Brian Windhorst has plenty of thoughts about Cleveland's atrocious end-game execution against Miami last night: "I find it impossible to excuse LeBron James' decision-making with the final shot of regulation. When he got the ball, Pat Riley screamed for Jason Williams to go double-team him, but Williams had to run 25 feet to get there everyone in the gym saw it coming. I have never been in the spot James was in, but I would assume he would either start moving toward the basket to split the double or pass in the direction of the double to catch the Heat in rotation. Instead, he did the worst possible thing, he stood still and dribbled." James ended up shooting a double-teamed three-pointer, even though he had open teammates and the game was tied.
Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel points to another little Cleveland snafu: "... it was odd how the Cavaliers opted to foul O'Neal when the Heat wasn't in the bonus, yet bypassed the opportunity when it could have put O'Neal on the line. Could his 2-of-5 free-throw efficiency have scared them off?"
Wizznutzz: Not down, not out. And always hilarious.
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