While the national media are busy eliminating any desire to actually watch Team USA play (don’t click if you want to watch today’s exhibition without knowing who won already), Shaq is busy setting up his own little international activities, having yesterday signed to endorse Li Ning sportswear and apparel.
Sorry, but we exhausted our Li Ning Photoshop skills when Damon Jones signed with them way back when, so “random international NBA cartoon” will have to suffice.
Anyway, here’s what Shaq is up to.
The apparel line, called Intensify O’Neal, will be sold only in China, beginning next year, Hong Kong-based Li Ning said in a statement.
Li Ning is trying to take market share in China from foreign firms such as Nike Inc. and Adidas. The O’Neal pact is part of a strategy to draw Chinese consumers’ interest by using the images of Western athletes. The pact’s value was undisclosed.
Anyone else notice the fact that “Li Ning” is really just “lining” with a space between the “i” and the “n”? That’s the first “i-n” combo, not the second. If it were the second, it’d be “Lini Ng”, which makes no sense. Thus, we like it better.
We have no point. Go Team USA! Even though you start in an hour, we already know who won! That’s what makes watching the game so shitty FUN.
(NOTE: We’d love to do something with all these rookie portraits, but it’s literally sensory overload. There’s gold in there – too much gold, however. They speak for themselves, when The Basketball Jones isn’t speaking for them, that is.)
((NOTE II: Happy belated birthday to us – our very first post on the YAY was 08/12/05.))
While Manu Ginolbli goes on and on and on about the quality of international play (and/or the trade of Ruben Patterson to the nanny-dense greater Milwaukee area), LeBron James and crew are conducting basketball clinics all over Asia, as part of their shoe contract commitments prep for the world championships.
In conclusion and apropos of nuttin’, the end. (And not many people would dare attempt to pull off the “adjacent apostrophe-comma” move, so be impressed.)
A lot of you have sat back and done nothing as we suffer through the day-to-day news void of the NBA offseason. If this describes you, it’s time to spend more time thinking about us, and less on your own life.
The freshly shaven Steve Nash, on the other hand, held a charity game in Canada over the weekend, apparently with the sole purpose of providing us material to work with.
In conclusion, be less like yourself, and more like Steve Nash. Here’s his official site, where Steve is growing a small army of children or something. Does any of this sound familiar?
As Shaq said, last night was the first almost-good game the Heat has played in these Finals. Is it as simple as letting Shaq become an efficient role-player while Wade fully assumes alpha male status?
Don’t get all excited. We don’t really think aliens came down during pregame and gave Miami special cosmic powers. It actually happened in the locker room – all that stuff was just for show. It’s no less scary, if you ask us.
Much has been made of the Boston Celtics new dance team, and that it goes against tradition, and the team was unique for not having one, etc blah blah etc blah.
Well, tryouts have officially begun, and the turnout has been huge. Now nobody knows what to think.
Yes, Doc and everyone else must be rethinking their thinking thoughts, as the eager young ladies all vie for a chance to be a Celtics Dancer.
“I thought there was going to be about 30 girls here,” 18-year-old Brianne Hoey said. “I was fighting with my mom this morning about getting here so early.”
“Work your props and booty,” Gonzalez instructed, speaking in time with the tempo. “Show me some S-E-X. Be sexy.”
Surely Boston fans are still gearing up to boo little 18-year old Brianne in her little clothes shaking her ass at them while she’s thinking about sex. No worries there – stand by thy principles.
By the way, what exactly are her “props”? Is that just another word for “overall goods” or “boobs”, or is it a specific bodypart? We only ask because if it was “overall goods”, why did he then mention Brianne’s “booty” specifically?
Here’s what all your ESPN guys are saying – everyone except Sheridan likes the Mavs. Our in-depth analysis below.
That sure felt like an impending disaster last night, but the Mavs managed to hold off the Spurs in OT, and 98.4% of the country walked away happy.
We’re not sure what makes us feel better – that we get to watch more Mavs, or that this cuts down the number of times we have to hear the “never underestimate the heart of a champion” by at least half.
The phrase was kind of special when Rudy T said it like 11 years ago. Does it truly need to be dragged out every time the Spurs or Pistons score a basket?
Anyway, Mark Cuban is happy as hell, and offered some analysis after the game.
“When they took the lead, we took back the lead,” Cuban said.
Words upon which billions of dollars were made, right there.
The big question becomes “where do the Spurs go from here?” The big answer, of course, is “who cares?”
The best series of the second round (for now) is going on in the West, and it’s a toss-up whether it’s Mavs-Spurs or Clips-Suns. Last night the Clippers evened their thingie at 2-2 behind a dominant performance from Sam Cassell, so we’re going with that one until the Spurs win tonight.
After the game, Sam Cassell reiterated his desire to be a head coach when the playing career is over, and it’s hard to argue against him being a good one. We tried and failed. You know how the old chant goes – we couldn’t do it, and therefore no one can.
“I’m going to be a head coach in this league some day. Coaching is a feel,” Cassell said. “I don’t blame Coach Dunleavy. I knew in Game 4 I was going to be in the fourth quarter a lot. I didn’t even worry about Game 3.”
The only question is whether he’ll be allowed to complain about his situation and switch teams every year. That flies when you’re a player, but there’s no way an NBA head coach will ever get away with being like that.
Oh – and Elton Brand is really good. It’s all over the news, for reals.
We don’t dislike the Suns. We really should love them – for their style of play, their scrappy attitude, and frankly, their likability. (Minus Tim Thomas, who should never be allowed to smile and/or taunt.)
Something about them really bugs us, though. Maybe it’s the faux-MVPness of Steve Nash, or simply the fact that they cheated the world out of Lakers-Clippers. Whatever the case, we better learn to like them – they went up 2-1 on LA last night, and did it without scoring a bagremlin points, which J.A. Adande will tell you (via that link) is a dangerous thing.
Lesson 1 in avoiding cliche – “bagremlin” = “bajillion”.
Lesson 1 in embracing cliche – “gay jokes”.
When we came into this series saying we were pretty satisfied with the season and we hoped the Cavaliers would just make it competitive, that was for us. The actual team wasn’t supposed to actually adopt that attitude. Hack-a-Ben in the second quarter? That’s embarrassing.
What can we really say? The Pistons are better, the Cavs don’t think they can win, and that’s exactly what they’re playing like. They’re scared, theyre intimidated, and their gameplan has no focus or aggression.
It was a nice little comeback attempt, but as Chauncey will tell you, that was just Cleveland being cute lil’ fellas. Hate to say it, but somewhere between 2004 when they won the title and right now, the Pistons became really unlikable, and that has nothing to do with this series. We’ve been saying it all year, if you’ve been paying attention. They’re awful arrogant for a team who won one title two years ago.
Also, Ben Wallace has never fouled anyone. That’s just the aggression of the Defensive Player of the Year. Apparently you’re quite literally not allowed to touch him, though, as LeBron learned on that rebound in the third quarter.
One last thing – looks like Scoop Jackson is right about what this series is really about, at least for LeBron.
