1. ESPN has reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers are a game-time decision against the Sonics tonight. As everyone in Cleveland surely knows, the Cavaliers sprained their ankle last night right before halftime in Portland. Thankfully, the Cavaliers still took the court in the second half and dominated down the stretch, including the Cavaliers scoring the winning layup with 0.3 seconds to play in an 84-83 victory over the Trail Blazers.
Word is that if the Cavaliers cannot play tonight, Cleveland will not forfeit the game. They will send a team of semi-skilled tall persons out there to play Seattle, which may still be enough to beat the 10-35 Sonics, whose players are playing as if they would rather be cut than face the prospect of trying to find a decent strip club in Oklahoma next year.
2. I love how "expiring contracts" are a prize commodity in NBA trade talks. It's perfectly agreeable for an NBA general manager to trade a legitimate player for one or more overpaid stiffs, with the caveat that they only have to play and overpay those stiffs for a year, after which time they come off of the salary cap and create room for a good player again. Which is what they had in the first place.
I cannot think of any other situation in life where this makes sense. "Okay, how about you give me your BMW, and in return, I will give you Fred Sanford's pick-up truck, which I am leasing for $700 per month. There is only one year left on the lease, so all you have to do is drive Fred Sanford's rickety pick-up truck for a year at $700 per month, but then you're done! You can turn it in and use that freed up $700 per month to get a new car! Maybe even a BMW!"
3. In today's John Taylor blog entry, which can be read here, he included a YouTube link to the all-time classic Allen Iverson "Practice? We talkin' about practice?" press conference. If you haven't already seen it, check it out. If I remember correctly, he says "practice" about 27.5 times in the span of about 2 minutes. (I once saw a version with a "practice" counter. And yes, there's a "pra-" in there, which counts as a half.)
Whenever I see that clip, I mourn that the full Rasheed Wallace "both teams played hard" press conference has never found its way to YouTube.
One night about five years ago, I was randomly flipping channels when I passed ESPN News just as the Trail Blazers' post-game press conference was going to start. I saw Rasheed Wallace sit down at the press table and immediately ceased my male-pattern remote-flipping. I figured that the situation had the potential to get interesting.
Rasheed did not disappoint. Reporters asked detailed questions about the game, and Rasheed answered each and every query with a half-hearted, "Both teams played hard."
On and on it went, with Rasheed becoming increasingly distant with each rote utterance of his cliche du jour. Finally, one unknown journalist, who is my unknown HERO, piped up and asked the following:
Journalist: "Rasheed, do you feel that both teams played hard?"
(Rasheed pauses for a moment while the lethargic hamster in his bud-addled brain labors in vain to spin the The Squeaky Wheel of Witty Retorts.)
Rasheed: "Both teams played hard. God bless and good night."
(End of press conference.)
It was easily the greatest random channel-flip of my lifetime. I was tempted to bronze the remote.
While I can't find the whole press conference, there is a 22-second music montage of 'Sheed's "both teams played hard" press conference, which can be seen here: