NBA Talking Points: Where The Little Guys Get Some Love

Anyway, there’s a lot to get to, so we’ll skip the prelude. Like last week, you can click any of the links above to jump to a story, or simply read it as chronologically. Or you could not read it at all, and check out this website, because, “Have u ever noticed that arms are just arms..like if there not in pockets or doin something..they’re just there to dangle.”

Well, perhaps we jinxed him last week with the Taylor Swift-Rihanna analogies. No man can be that perfect.

And after playing pretty much flawless basketball over the season’s first few weeks, Chris Paul is now out indefinitely with a severe sprain in his ankle. That’s a bad injury, but it’ll be compounded when CP comes back a week early (at least) because that’s just how he gets down. He’s one of the most competitive players in the entire league, and even though his team’s already sorta out of contention and everyone would understand if he just hung out on Bourbon Street till Februrary, he’ll be back sooner than expected, and play the rest of the season on a kinda-bum ankle. It’s just the way he’s built.

Ladies and gentleman… Nicholas Cage!

Who’s the NBA’s Nicholas Cage? Probably post-Indiana Ron Artest. He’s clearly insane, his skills have been declining for years, and yet his name still sounds like an All-Star, and nobody will say otherwise because it’s so entertaining having him around. I mean, seriously: how soon can we greenlight the third National Treasure?

(My only regret? I didn’t ask Ernie about playing with Bernard King at Tennessee. Damn.)

What does that mean for us? Well, that’s a longer conversation… But for now, check out the George Karl stuff at Denver Stiffs, because it’s really fantastic.

We should all read Hardwood Paroxysm. While I still have no idea what that second word means, it’s an excellent combination of high entertainment and astute analysis. And even if they were terrible, this post makes it completely worth checking out.

They stumbled across a set of photos on Flickr, and the rest is history. A sample:

But whoa whoa whoa… Let’s back up for a second and look at the motivations here, and highlight why, exactly, this is such a transparently selfish move. To keep things super simple, let’s recount a conversation I had with my girlfriend at the game Wednesday night. Swear to God we actually had this conversation:

Yeah, this is sort of like that, except Lebron wants everybody talking about Lebron. And as for honoring MJ’s contributions to basketball… Are we to pretend Lebron doesn’t mimic about eight other things that Jordan made famous? This whole routine is certainly the most egregious:

Because he wanted the money. And that’s fine. But if someone is dumb enough to reward a declining player an extension that lucrative so late in his year, the least that player can do is be loyal to the idiots that gave it to him. Instead, Jackson basically decided he wanted to leave, and was going to be as disruptive as possible until the Warriors sent him packing. Can you say Charlotte Bobcats?!

No harm done, but it meant going from a symbol for doing it the right way to a cautionary tale. Overnight, he became karma’s cruel joke. That Knicks team lost 59 games, and now with Charlotte, he’s got the most offensively inept team in the entire league. It hurts to watch Bobcats games on a nightly basis. Will Stephen Jackson help solve some of those woes? Maybe, but since he’s… ah, impetuous (and due to make $27 million), the cost almost certainly outweighs any benefits.

I don’t say this lightly, and most compilation videos are usually pretty lame, but this may be my favorite thing the internet has ever done. Even better than those Chinese trading cards. If you’re a fan of The Wire...

Is you takin’ NOTES on a CRIMINAL F---IN CONSPIRACY?! ... I don’t know about cards, but I think these 4-5s beat yo’ full house ... Chewin on a homeless fella? ... Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiit.