The other William WesleyHenry Abbot at TrueHoop is kicking ass in his investigation into this William Wesley dude. He got a call from an anonymous source named Eric, who gave him what sounds like the definitive story of who and what William Wesley is. He’s what’s known as a runner, which is a sort of middleman between the young black players and the old white agents. Go over and read the whole thing – it’s incredibly interesting if you’re into the inner working of professional sports – the stuff you’ll never read in the NBA Media Guide. “Eric” says that the whole situation with LeBron leaving his agent last year was all William Wesley.
Eric confirms the LeBron James story that has been hinted at in a number of places, including in comments on TrueHoop. According to it goes like this: William Wesley and Leon Rose lost the LeBron James sweepstakes to Aaron Goodwin at the time James was drafted.
But Wesley dug his heels in and committed himself to winning LeBron James back. He even went so far as to move into the neighboring condominium. Eventually, it paid off as LeBron fired his agent and became a client of the alleged William Wesley/Leon Rose team.
A runner is basically just a “guy who knows people”, and Wesley is allegedly the best on out there. It’s something that’s made him incredibly wealthy – he has a deal with agent Leon Rose that pays him a full commission for making sure a player signs with him, plus the perks, of course. Stuff like owning 10% of Brand Jordan.
Eric also confirms a tidbit on where Ron Artest is going and when, although his DaJuan Wagner story sounds absolutely ridiculous. Go read that now – for reals. While we’re excited and intrigued to read this, we’re a little disappointed, as well. We were sure we were hot on the trail of this story.
HelloWe were over reading John Hollinger’s chat wrap, and he mentioned that Brent Barry probably wouldn’t report if the Spurs tried to move him elsewhere. This seemed kind of strange, but then we remembered the perfect life and family he has in San Antonio.
We did some checking, and it could very well be that his beautiful wife Erin is who would actually refuse to leave SA. She’s in charge of a child abuse prevention charity in the area, which is exactly the type of nice thing we would expect from her. We’re a bit smitten with the woman – she’s super-beautiful in that nice way, not in that Carmen Electra way.
If we could only tell her somehow…but that’s probably not why she puts an email address on the site, huh? Maybe, at the very least, our friend JE Skeets could write one of his wonderful dialogues, except instead of Kobe and Pargo slow-dancing, it could be us and Erin Barry slow dancing. Or it could be Erin Barry trying to kiss us, and we’re all like, “nah, let’s just hold hands and look into each other’s eyes.” Then she asks us to marry her and we’re all like “wow, you’re neat.”
Princess Zara says “grrrrr!”At least according to the…well, the Paul Pierce Engaged Blog, which has one post. The one post on the Paul Pierce Engaged Blog is shockingly about Paul Pierce being engaged.
Paul Pierce- another NBA star marrying a white girl? Ummm, not exactly. It is true that Paul Pierce, the Captain of Boston Celtics, is engaged to a young woman but the is not exactly your average white girl. The couple has been dating since June 2005 and Paul proposed to her in late November. She has been seen rocking a huge 12carat yellow canary diamond ring. She is from Russia but is a mix of other cultures as well. Being a graduate of Pepperdine University, having a royal blood and those great looks is definitely a wifey material for any man. The question is…what do their families think of the union since the couple is biracial. Paul is tall dark and talented and she is beautiful, intelligent and classy.
She also has huge boobs. There are a couple more pics over there. The post goes on to say the woman’s name is Zara, and she’s actually a Russian princess or something, but doesn’t want to be an actress. It’s all very clear and concise, as is the purpose behind the blog. In other words, if anyone has any idea what the hell this is about, let us know.
Congrats to the Bryants, who are due to have their second child in May. It’s just another in a long string of perfect moments for this perfect couple, who have never had any problems.
“In addition to their excitement, Kobe and Vanessa have been sharing a lot of laughs because after hitting game-winning shots for the Lakers, Kobe has been making late-night food runs for his wife’s pregnancy cravings, only to get home with the food and find out her craving has changed,” [spokesman Rob] Pelinka said.
After making that statement, we picture Rob hanging up the phone, pulling out a gun, a bottle of pills, and a noose, then doing some serious thinking. No surprise that this all came originally from Entertainment Tonight.
Is this a good time to bring up Vanessa’s nose job? Not that we care – she’s made herself into a poor man’s Angelina Jolie, and we’re not complaining.
It seems our post about the Francis/Mobley happy friendship sparked off a few reactions out on the internets. Over at the excellent freedarko.com, we were taken to task for beating up on the lads in such a gossipy/mocking fashion. Fair point, although we have never held ourselves up as anything but what we are. We is what we is, and what we is…is handsome.
The Deadspin franchise got an email regarding the Franchise’s nickname when he was with the Rockets. You can go over and look for yourself, but here’s a hint: strategically rearrange the letters of the word “moho”.
We want to make this clear to all of our friends in the blogosphere. We don’t post rumors or gossip because we like it or because we think it’s funny or something. We do it because we enjoy it and because it makes us laugh. Those are two very different sets of circumstances.
Yesterday we finally finished ESPN the Magazine’s NBA preview issue, and inside was a long article about Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley’s rock-hard friendship. Just to backtrack a bit, does everyone remember Franchise’s comments when Cat got traded in January?
“I can’t put it into words,” he said. “Playing with a guy, living with a guy, just knowing that every day when I wake up that’s something I can count on, that I’m going to be in practice or in a game with Cuttino.
“Him not being here is going to be tough for me. I don’t know what I’m going to wake up for.”
Okay, we’re all caught up. Now, we’ve all heard the gay rumors about these two, and that’s simply ridiculous. The ESPN piece makes it clear they’re just unbelievably happy. Here are some excerpts:
In Philly they got their first furs together. In Atlanta they bought belts by he fistful, two of each because each knew if he liked something, then the other would too. Once they went to LA and had lunch at the oh-so-trendy Ivy, staying for more than three hours.
And when the girls came around – at dinner, after dinner, at clubs – Francis watched Mobley’s back, warning him off the ones who just wanted to tear off a piece of NBA fame for their scrapbooks. Sometimes they’d just sit at the bar, backs to the rest of the room, engrossed in conversation.
Shopping for furs? Trendy dining for hours on end? Waving girls away for each other? Nothing here but two good friends being happy. No big deal.
[Francis] and Mobley are at yet another of their infamous dinners, interrupting each other as they talk about all the good old times, filling in each other’s gaps [snip]
Let’s just skip ahead.
And on road trips they still rode one behind the other on the bus.
Um.
Okay.
Something else…something else…oh – they get compared to Batman and Robin, who are like super masculine superheroes and stuff.
Look, they were happy together. That’s all there is to say.
Good for them – they’re happy.
Eva Longoria has a tattoo on an “intimate” part of her body of Tony Parker’s initials.
“You can see [three] of my tatts, they’re all on public display, but the one that has Tony’s initials is only seen by him,” she reveals.
“I’m not saying where it is – but let’s just say he gets to view it on a very regular basis!”
The funniest thing about this is how bad of a typist we are. That originally said “Evan” Longoria, then we figured nobody would buy that rumor, since we’ve posted all those pictures of TP and Eva at the beach.
Really, there’s only two assumption we can make on this: it hurt and we’re reluctantly jealous of Tony Parker. Like, A LOT reluctant and A LOT jealous.
Sactown Royalty is being highly critical of one of the local columnists for their story about Mike Bibby and his boys starting fights in local bars. R.E. Graswich says that the Kings PG and his “fight crew” are no longer welcome at certain Scaramento bars.
We see where Royalty is coming from on this, but us? We figure this is why 78% of the internet exists; to spread news about bar fights and talk about famous people getting into trouble.
The nightclub owner who witnessed a brawl where Kings guard Mike Bibby was present last month is “100 percent sure” the basketball player did not throw a punch. “It was his boys, Team Dime, the guys who hang with him,” said Danny Torza, co-owner of Harlow’s and the MoMo Lounge on Jay Street. “We had nine security people there, and I told Bibby to get his guys under control and get them out of there. They are not welcomed back.”
Several members of Bibby’s party fought with a customer, giving him a “fat lip,” Torza said, before security broke up the battle. “We brought the guy into the office and kept him there until Bibby and his crew left,” Torza said. “Some of them were still hanging around outside, so our security people escorted the victim to his car and he left.” Cops interviewed Bibby, but he is not listed as a suspect, police said. “We have always had a good relationship with the Kings,” Torza said. “It’s a shame when we have to say a Kings player is no longer welcome.”
The Bloods. The Crips. Biff Tannen. Team Dime. Awesome.
We wonder how long it will be before Peja’s boys from Down With the P and Team Dime rumble. And what about Brad Miller? Isn’t he like in the Team Skoal gang or something? And people say Sacramento is boring!
It never hurts to find out what Dennis Rodman is up to now and then, and today has been no different. Not only is Dennis signed up to play for the ABA’s Tijuana Dragons, but now we stumble upon the fact that he’s also the Commissioner of the Lingerie Bowl.
It’s a little sad that these are the best things he can do to promote his new book, of which Hoopshype has an excerpt. In it, Rodman explains why Dennis thinks he may be the best rebounder of all time.
The Rebound Rate measures “the percentage of missed shots a player rebounded” when he was in the game. My percentage is 23.44. That means that when I was on the floor, I pulled down about one out of every four rebounds that came off the rim. That’s fucking amazing. One out of four balls that pop off that rim, consistently, every night. That’s unbelievable even to me. No wonder I rank number one, all time.
Numbers don’t lie. So let’s get down to it with some tried and true, traditional stats that will tell you exactly where Dennis Rodman ranks. Bottom line? I am not the best rebounder of all time. That’s pretty much a dead heat between Wilt Chamberlain, who reportedly averaged 22.9 rebounds per game for his career — unreal — and six times averaged 24 or more during the regular season; and Bill Russell, who averaged 22.5 for his career, including seven straight seasons of 23 or more. Again, that’s unreal. These two giants got almost 10 rebounds a game more than I did. My career average of 13.1 puts me at number 12 all time, which brings me back to Rebound Rate, the percentage of available rebounds a player pulls down. How do Wilt and Bill Russell compare? Wilt places seventh, and — I find this hard to believe — Russell doesn’t even make the top 50. Could be a mistake there. But if you’re looking for somebody to crunch the numbers, this phys-ed major is not your boy. There’s one number I do understand though: number one. And after 58 years of NBA play, that’s where I rank for Rebound Rate.
Interesting argument, but if we’re going to cough up 24 bucks for that book, we’re going to need to know the exact ratio of statistics stories to Carmen Electra-having-sex-in-limos stories. If it’s anything less than 96% stats, count us out. If there’s one thing we love, it’s stats.
This is from The Airing of Grievances blog and a post titled “Some Guys Never Learn”. Classic.
UPDATE: We’re just now getting to the Paul Shirley chat on ESPN.com. Here’s an on-topic excerpt:
Kufere (Harare, Zimbabwe): I have sent you about 4 to 5 messages and you haven’t answered one yet. Here is another question I hope you answer: when you were on the court with Kobe did he trash talk or do anything that makes people hate him.
Paul Shirley: I’m doing the best I can here. Four years of professional basketball have left me significantly less intelligent than when I was in college, so I can’t manage this multi-tasking…When I was in camp with the Lakers, my first year out of school, Shaq was, by far, the coolest professional basketball player I had met. No comment on Bryant. Draw your own inferences from the way I handled that question.
We’ll be back on Monday!
