The Big Restrainee

Phoenix Suns savior Shaquille O'Neal just got served with a restraining order:

NBA star Shaquille O'Neal has been ordered to steer clear of an Atlanta-area woman who took out a restraining order Thursday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks granted Alexis Miller's request Thursday after reviewing her allegations that the basketball player stalked her, threatened her with bodily harm and made harassing phone calls in which he breathed heavily into the phone before hanging up.

...

The court affidavit quotes an e-mail from O'Neal as saying, "I dnt no who the [expletive] u think u dealin wit u will neva be heard from one phone call is I gotta make now try me. Sho me."

Shaq continues to prove, every day in every way, that trading him was the right thing to do. Maybe we should've gotten more, but you can't fault the concept. Congrats Suns, he's your problem now. With Wade back healthy, it's a tossup between the Heat and Suns as to who will win more games next year.

Trapped In The Closet, Part 7

Game 3: Well, we knew that was coming. Role players at home, etc., etc.

In other news, did you know?

A) Kevin Johnson (former Cal Bear, former Sun, owner of one of the greatest playoff dunks of all time) is running for mayor of Sacramento

B) He's close -- down 7 points with 29% undecided

C) He'd be closer if not for rumors of some RKellyish behavior

Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together

I don't have much to say about that game 3 loss other than: we knew that was coming. Hopefully the Lakers will be ready in game 4 to get past the pushing and hacking, and just play their game. A few fewer turnovers and a couple of made freethrows down the stretch and we STILL would've won.

Anyway: on the lighter side of the news, there's this.

Mike D'Antoni, new coach of the Knicks. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!

He. He he. (phew) (catches breath)

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!

Who's Not Honoring Me Now? VII

A couple of these are older -- Crouse for example is punishing the Lakers for those two bad losses. As far as the Lakers go, big deal. But those two losses will absolutely cause Kobe to lose the MVP award to Chris Paul. I'm not sure that anything that happens in the next week will change any of those grudge-holding, homerish, fatass writers' minds. Guess Kobe is the new Jerry West (also MVP-less). Logo2!


#3 - Sagarin/usatoday.com
#5 - Schuhmann/nba.com
#7 - Crouse/cbs.com
#4 - dime magazine
#4 - Hollinger/espn.com
#4 - Steyn/espn.com
#3 - Burns/si.com
#5 - Murphy/covers.com
#6 - Ludden/yahoo
#5 - Pincus/hoopsworld.com

All-Star Gazing

Some random thoughts about All-Star weekend:

• The Rookie game was not as exciting this year. Normally zero defense leads to a lot of interesting dunk attempts, but this time it was Boobie Gibson launching 20 3-pointers. I was booing, not Boo-bie-ing. At least Farmar was aggressive and played with energy.
  
  
• An interesting reason why the Sophomores always win: at this point most rookies are exhausted because they haven't learned yet how to run the full marathon of an NBA season. Play this game early in the year and it would be a lot closer.
  
  
• Last year's rookies who didn't make the sophomore cut: Randy Foye, Adam Morrison, Marcus Williams. New sophomores who took their spots: LaMarcus Aldridge, Ronnie Brewer, Rajan Rondo. Enjoy your reflected glory, Rondo, because if you were on a bad team no one would know your name. And Adam Morrison... why does that name sound familiar? Is he in the NBA?
  
  
• This just in: Shooting Stars is still poorly designed (spend half your time shooting 5 shots and the rest shooting a half-court shot), and still a complete waste of time.
  
  
• The better event was the half-court shooting contests at the end of the practice sessions. J-Kidd hit three in 60 seconds shooting one-handed underhand lobs. I have no idea why Sheed didn't participate, because my money would be on him. I was also surprised that Kobe didn't insist on participating left-handed.
  
  
• The best moment from the practice sessions was overhearing Laker4Life Byron Scott tell Kobe, "You're stealing my glory!" because he finally gets to coach his "main man" but instead he pulls up injured. Obviously Byron was Kobe's mentor way back when, and you can feel the love. We need to make sure this guy is coaching the Lakers post-Phil.
  
  
• The 3-point contest is so boring that thankfully Charles and Kenny talked about something else entirely during most of it.
  
  
• My favorite dunk was Howard's 1st in the finals: block off the backboard with his left to create a follow up dunk with his right. But then again, I couldn't stop smiling during replays of the Birthday Cake dunk. Howard's first dunk is right up there... his head was behind the backboard! That ain't right.
  
  
• It's early, so I haven't read any news articles about the game yet. I hope someone points out how utterly retarded those uniforms were. I mean, whose brilliant idea was it to have different colors front and back to begin with, let alone having the East back and the West front almost identical? As guys move around you see three different colors on the court... or during a fast break you might only see one. What the hell?!?
  
  
• Only somewhat on display, much less restrained than I expected: the presentation of New Orleans as a city of hapless victims whose continuing problems are a direct result of the greed, racism, and selfishness of the rest of America. Hey, Bob from Cheyenne, why do you hate black people so much that you don't come down here and spend your time and money rebuilding these people's houses? Or demanding that the Feds spend your money doing so on your behalf? What do you mean other areas were hit much harder by Katrina and seem to be rebuilding just fine?
  
  
• I thought it was pretty funny that Reggie Miller advocated Ray Allen as the clear MVP... do nothing all game then hit some key 3s late. Sounds like Reggie ball. They gave it to the right guy (Lebron) instead -- who by the way absolutely demolished Amare on the game-clinching drive and dunk.
  
  
• No Kobe, no win. Simple as that. Take heed Team USA -- we better hope he's available for the Olympics.

More evidence of global climate change

The Heat have cooled off considerably -- hard to do when they were chilly from the get-go -- and now own a 12-game losing streak.

I only care because this is former Laker Promiser and Deliverer of Back-to-Back Championships Pat Riley's longest losing streak ever. Look what they've done to my brain, ma! (They picked it like a chicken bone and I'm-ah just about to go insane, mama.)

The Heat are hovering around #28 in most of the rankings, and you hear a lot of comments about injuries, losing Kapono and Posey (!?), etc., but really you have to go back to the original trade for Shaq. The cost/benefit was clear: a 2-3 year window to win a championship or two, followed by having to carry an aging, injury-prone, and increasingly irrelevant center on their roster eating up cap space and making any rebuilding process nearly impossible. To quote Airplane!: "They bought their ticket, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."

This is the same dilemma the Lakers had, and they chose plan (ko-)B. And how's that working out for them? Currently the youngest (and, uh... heaviest?) of the elite teams.

Knicks @ Heat tonight... set your tivos to stun.


[Evening Update: Make it 13. The Heat score only 15 in the 4th, can't contain Lil' Nate, and Shaq goes for a Kwame-esque 10 & 5 with 5 TOs.]

Trapped in the Closet, part 41

You may remember me from such Laker moments as The 2000 Championship Season, and Getting Traded for Horace Grant:

Former Miami Heat star Glen Rice was charged Friday with felony battery after Miami-Dade police said he beat a man he found hiding in his estranged wife's bedroom closet.

Rice went to Christina Rice's home near Coral Gables Friday afternoon, demanding to know the identity of the man she was with and asking why the man was in her house, according to a police report. Glen Rice then quickly found Alberto Perez, 37, hiding in the closet, police said.

Perez called 911 about 1:30 p.m. after Glen Rice hit him several times on the head and Perez was able to run out of the house, police said. Perez's facial injuries, mainly a laceration on his forehead, required nine stitches, according to the report.

SWSBOGW

Nice win by the Lakers last night, but it was the Pacers so... let's talk about the Knicks.

They got trounced by the Warriors last night in front of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who actually said afterward: "I'm sorry that the New York Knicks lost. They've been playing poorly, very poorly, and I'm disappointed."

This prompted the best line of the year from one of the SportsCenter crew: "Confronted by millions around the world without clean water, even the Secretary-General is sickened by Knick basketball!"

(SWSBOGW = some would say because of global warming)