The next time I blog, it will be March. Baby step to the summer, kids.

As far as your professional teams in this great city of Chicago are concerned, the Hawks are taking on the Penguins tonight at the United Center. If you’re anything like Adam Burish, though, you may not have heard of this Sidney Crosby character. Sunday, they have the Kings at home.

Barack Obama is checking out the Bulls-Wizards matchup tonight in Washington. Tomorrow, the Rockets come to the United Center.

Oh hey: Down in Arizona, the Cubs and Sox are playing each other tomorrow, too.

To send you out on the week, here’s yet another video today. But, it’s a good one. Here’s Norm Van Lier at the Luvabulls tryouts this summer. Have a good weekend, and tell your family you love them.

Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras rejected the Dodgers last night, for the third time. (Cue a bunch of journalistic losers making Biblical references, right?) Of course, when this happened, the Dodgers acted swiftly, making sure the public knew it was a rejection by Man-Ram’s camp.

A rejection that involved Manny saying “no” to $45 million. That’s a tough public pill to swallow in these economic times, especially when guys like Adam Dunn are scraping by on chump change. But it turns out perhaps it isn’t all Manny’s and Boras’ fault: the Dodgers were trying to stick him with a contract that involved largely deferred money.

Under the terms of the contract that Ramirez was offered by the Dodgers on Wednesday, he would receive $10 million this year. And by exercising the option for the second year, he would receive $10 million in 2010. Colletti confirmed today that deferred payments were involved.

Ramirez, who turns 37 in May, would’ve been paid the remaining $25 million over the next three years without any added interest. He would’ve received $10 million in 2011, $10 million in 2012 and $5 million in 2013.

It seems odd, of course, that the Dodgers would rather not pay Manny his full money during the duration of his contract. This is really only OK in those rare occasions when you’re lucky enough to be contacted by someone like Mrs. Roselyn Bermudez and you have to hand out your credit card and wait a few months before you collect the $2,130,000.00 she promised me in November. Er, whatever.

Keep reading →

It’s official: Stephon Marbury is going to be a Celtic. I still wonder about the motivation behind Boston bringing in Stephon Marbury of all people for a team that has some pretty good chemistry, but I suppose it’s nothing more than a solid backup option for Rajon Rondo. Plus, it reunites Marbury and Kevin Garnett. That should be fun.

Over at SLAM today (via TrueHoop), Sam Rubenstein, who is now a teacher, recently brought up Marbury during a lesson on Homer’s Odyessey. You see, Marbury was Brooklyn’s boy, and traveled to the frozen tundra of Minnesota and the scorching sun of Arizona and um, New Jersey, before returning home to New York as a member of the Knicks. And when he brought him up to the class? Well, here’s what happened:

“I’m the best point guard in the NBA.” – Stephon Marbury, January 1, 2005.

In the midst of a lesson on the themes of hospitality and manners and big fat Greek weddings and respect, I read the quote out loud, pulled my Marbury jersey out of my bag, and showed it to the children.

The hatred, oh the delicious hatred…

One boy started shaking violently and just ranted “He sucks!” over and over again. One girl compared him to Ajax, who proclaimed that he didn’t need Poseidon’s help to cross the sea. (As if!!!) Another said “Yeah so what though, he’s getting money!” and that led into the whole discussion of how this student was correct, but that Steph failed in his quest to be the boy from Brooklyn to go on a journey to exotic new places: the frozen twin cities, the ghastly swamps of East Rutherford, the bone dry desert, an ODYSSEY if you will, and then come back home victorious.

Keep reading →

Oh hey there. The Mouthpieces have been a little video-heavy today [via there being nothing to blog about, y'all], but I would be remiss if I didn’t pass along this video of 50 Cent talking about sports with a generic, possibly frightened ESPN News anchor:

I’m not exactly sure why this happened. Besides the video game promotion thing, obviously. It’s painful and shallow, and 50 sort of has that weird Mark Wahlberg-in-the-climactic-scene-of-Boogie-Nights look going on. He seems spaced out and mildly amused, but not at all engaged. It’s strange.

Perhaps it’s because 50 Cent doesn’t enjoy doing anything except beefing with Rick Ross. Seriously. What started as Rick Ross taking minor shots at Fiddy has turned into all this, not least of which includes cartoons and a shopping trip 50 took with the mother of Rick Ross’ child. I have no idea why the two dislike each other so much, and I don’t really care, so long as it keeps inspiring a played-out rapper to do stuff like this:

I’ve watched this clip an unhealthy amount of times, and I’ve come to this conclusion: The kid going to the corner of the court, getting down on all fours and barking like a dog didn’t really enhance his team’s chances on this inbounds play.

First off, look how the defense is set up here:

From the start of the play, both No. 23 and No. 1 are wide open under the basket. Sure, there is that tall dude from the other team that is technically right under the net, but why wouldn’t he have a body on these guys at the start? Or at least on one of them? Also, why are there another two defenders on this team on the opposite side of the dude under the hoop?

In sum: The kid barking like a dog makes this video an Internet meme. But I’m not buying this actually helped his team score on this particular play.

And now I’ve just analyzed a middle-school basketball game far too much.

Via Deuce of Davenport.

UPDATE: Thanks to C. Mott, apparently this barking dog trick isn’t new. Whatever, my point on this particular one still stands.

Lost Time Is Not Found Again is what the MPS blog crew has been reading today. Maybe.

+ Tom Brady and Giselle have tied the knot. Where was my invite? {EMQB.}

+ Manny Ramirez is still refusing offers from the Dodgers. How long can this last? {Walkoff Walk.}

+ Your first big free-agent sigining: Albert Haynesworth inks a seven-year deal with the Redskins worth over $100 million. {DC Pro Sports Report.}

+ NBA players Trey could beat in a fight. {The Blowtorch.}

+ Non-sports: After 150 years, the Rocky Mountain News shuts down operation today. {Washington Post.} VH1 has censored out some comments from Kanye West’s “Storytellers.” {Stereogum.}

Quotable:

“He was hard to get around if you had the basketball. He was hard to figure sometimes. And his hardheadedness was legendary.

He wasn’t a superstar. He was a presence. He was the checkpoint you had to get past. He had to be accounted for. As a player, he demanded that.” – Rick Morrissey

I’m almost embarrassed to say there was once a point in my life when I disliked Shaquille O’Neal. I don’t know what it was, but I hated him. I hated that his game, which to me seemed built more on his size than on any real skill, dominated the NBA. I hated that it prevented those much more aesthetically pleasing Blazers and Kings teams from winning a title. I hated that it elevated Kobe to the level of “next Jordan,” when at the time he seemed little more than a clueless poser.

I was young and stupid. I now sort of love Kobe, and as far as Shaq goes, well, there are few people in sports I adore similarly. I mean, the dude holds Twitter contests for who can touch him first. He dances with the Jabbawockeez before the NBA All-Star game. He makes up funny nicknames for himself all the time. Everything about the man is endearing.

Anyway, please enjoy this brief but entertaining clip of Shaq playing goalie in Suns practice. (HT: Skeets, who had this first.) He stops Leandro Barbosa’s penalty kick, and then does what I assume is his mental approximation of a soccer celebration. It’s not half bad, either.