NBA Talking Points: Is Basketball Becoming Baseball?

Before we get to all the Gilbert Arenas stuff… This has been bugging me.

It happened a few weeks ago, but it’s got to be mentioned: Pau Gasol is making an average of $19 million over the next three seasons. That’s a max deal! It’s only for three years, so nobody discusses it in those terms, but the type of money he’s making is on par with what’s being paid to max guys like Carmelo Anthony ($17 million) and Dwight Howard ($16.6 million). He’s not that good, is he? Like, build-around-him good?

Yesterday, a pretty amusing quote from Stephen Jackson emerged. Below, the quote’s reproduced, as Stephen Jackson explains his free throw routine, and our own Fake Scoop Jackson offers some commentary:

Would you look at that? The brother went and gave love of the game a whole new name. Stephen Jackson. Not alimony, but matrimony.

You might have expected another missive on Gilbert Arenas here, but frankly, it really makes no sense to me, and the whole discussion has become tedious and oversaturated with bombastic opinions on a situation that’s far too nuanced for that kind of coherence. Or maybe that’s just my excuse for not writing about it.

In any case, rather than waste your time with more clumsinesss, I figured we’d let The Wire sort it out. What follows is a different rendition of what’s happened with the Washington Wizards, as told by quotes from the greatest television show in history. Apologies in advance for the language.

For some non-Wire breakdowns of the Gilbert Arenas situation, consult the following. Rather than examine the situation itself, though, I focused more on why Gilbert’s no longer welcome in D.C. Or, at least I think that’s what happened. This whole thing has been pretty head-exploding for me, someone that worshipped Arenas for the past decade (even when he was in Oakland). But here’s my attempt at coherence:

The Rise of Gilbert Arenas:

(In fact, at one point, the Bucks had a pretty murderous roster as far as ugliness is concerned. The principal characters escape me, but I’m fairly certain that Joel Pryzbilla and Sam Cassell were prominently involved.)

But then, JE Skeets had to go and make us all feel like idiots. He’s following Gadzuric’s wife on Twitter, and last night she posted a picture of her New Year’s outfit, which Skeets passed along to his universe of followers.

Some of my initial reactions are here, but buried in the report — or perhaps obscured by the insanity of it all — was this little detail:

And really, that’s the craziest part of the story. Loading and cocking a weapon is one thing, but then singing? That’s just insane. How insane? Well, it depends what he was singing. With that in mind, in ascending order, the most insane possible song choices for Javaris.