YAYsports! NBA

Unless you want to wildly speculate on what, where, when, and how crooked NBA referee Tim De-whatzit shaved some points for his gangster buddies, there are only small tidbits of various things to talk about this fine Saturday morning. As such, this is what we shall do.

Kobe has his first taste of Team USA action as the squad gets together for a three day mini camp in Vegas, and Chris Sheridan says he’s down 19 pounds since the end of the season.

He’s done this on purpose - guess this has something to do with the new rules, faster pace, etc. He really doesn’t look any different to us, and 20 pounds is a lot of weight. We think Kobe’s exaggerating for some sort of unknown effect.

A far more intriguing piece of info in Sheridan’s column may help explain the asinine trade Phoenix made when they sent Kurt Thomas and not one, but TWO first round picks to Seattle for…a second round pick and an $8M trade exception.

Turns out neither of the No. 1 picks the Suns surrendered has any lottery protection, which could make the 2010 draft pick especially valuable if the Suns’ fortunes take a precipitous fall by then. The scuttlebutt around the league was that Phoenix GM Steve Kerr made the deal as the precursor to another deal, which he will make using the $8.092 million trade exception he acquired from the Sonics.

We hope there’s another trade coming, because otherwise the Suns just gave away their 14th straight 1st round pick in 2 years or something. We know they’re not like super high, but there value in those things - their own Sixth Man of the Year Leandro Barbosa came late in the first round.

Barbosa was the name of one of the pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, also. He was always trying to eat apples and going all like, “I’m a pirate, ya-de-ya-de! I’m a pirate, look out for me, cause I’ma pirate your boat! It’s a bad time on the pirate ship when it rains! Rain is water that falls from the sky, yo-ho!”

Eddie Johnson over on his Hoopshype blog says Stephono Marbury shouldn’t be heading over to Italy in two years, unless he’s ready to get hot coins and such through at him from the stands. He goes on to note that, “I’m a pirate, ya-de-ya-de! I’m a pirate, look out for me, cause I’ma pirate your boat! It’s a bad time on the pirate ship when it rains! Rain is water that falls from the sky, yo-ho!”

The new (and final) Harry Potter book comes out today. We’ll be heading out to acquire it in a bit, and then blocking off all media input for 72 hours while we madly rush through reading it. We’re bitter about having to do this, but we know some idiot is going to spoil it somewhere on the net/radio/truthbox before we can calmly enjoy reading it at a normal pace.

You do it here, and you’ll be forever banned, then we’ll come to your house and sing our new pirate song over and over until you apologize.