But after looking at an initial screenshot of the game, a new NBA Jam could face a lot of pitfalls. Because how do you duplicate or improve on a game that was great because of its imperfections?

The original version of NBA Jam didn’t have Michael Jordan. It also didn’t have pick and rolls or reliable goaltending enforcement. But you know what, we liked it that way.

So here’s what we’re hoping for in this new incarnation of a 1990s classic. They can gussy up the graphics all they want, but the gameplay should be true to the original. Otherwise, you might as well go play NBA Live.

Forget three players at a time, put it at two
NBA Jam started off simply as a 2-on-2 game, but its later descendants like NBA Hoopz expanded it to three. That just doesn’t feel right. The more players you throw on the court, the more this game actually resembles a basketball simulation. All you really need in this game is a shooter and a big man, that’s it.

The best way to play defense in the game remain to be shoving
NBA Jam actually hurts itself the closer it gets to realism. And that holds true with calling fouls. They should continue to be nonexistent. Shoving an opponent all game long would get the average NBA player banned from the league (unless you’re Bill Laimbeer), but NBA Jam players should be rewarded for their shoves like in the old days with constant turnovers.

Players still need to score on the corner 3-pointer about 75 percent of the time
Anyone who played this game routinely knows that there are two sure-fire ways to score. The first is to dunk with the big man while holding down Turbo. The second is to spot up in the corner with a 3-pointer. The top of the 3-point line is pretty effective too, but it can’t match the corner for sheer deadliness. That needs to stay true in the new version as well. Because that last minute of every quarter needs to be a mad dash for the corner.

The final team you play should be a pair from the 1990s
This is the final area where NBA Jam needs to call back to its heritage. If a player can beat all the other NBA teams, they should be pitted against an original NBA Jam team. It could be Karl Malone and John Stockton, or Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley. Even Patrick Ewing and John Starks would be a fun boss to face. But no matter who it is, the new NBA Jam needs to bring back some old faces.

LeBron James and Kobe Bryant need to be absent from the game
That’s right, the new NBA Jam needs to forget including two of its best players.

We all know that the original NBA Jam didn’t have Jordan because they couldn’t secure his rights. I’m assuming there won’t be a similar problem with Kobe or LeBron, but the new NBA Jam needs to forgo its biggest super stars for one major reason: Because the original NBA Jam was actually better due to Jordan’s absence.

If Jordan had been a playable character when the original NBA Jam came out, every kid that wasn’t a Knicks or Pistons fan would have picked the Bulls every single time. The team-selection process would have turned into a mad scramble to pick Chicago first. Could you imagine being that poor kid at the skating rink, trying to beat an older kid with just the Charlotte Hornets. You would have been banished to playing Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalker”.

There simply would have been no stopping a Jordan-led NBA Jam team. But because the game didn’t have him, most of the elite teams (Charlotte, New York, even a Scottie Pippen-led Chicago) were similarly elite enough that you stood a chance in every match up, so long as you didn’t pick a crap team like Dallas. And the game was better because of it.

Now, you could argue that the talent is better distributed nowadays, or that the game’s programmers won’t make Kobe and LeBron unstoppable, but today’s generation will be robbed of a true NBA Jam experience if they have every player at their disposal.  And while not having Jordan in the old days was an obstacle we all had to overcome, you could certainly argue that we’re all better for it.

At the very least, it helped us appreciate the subtle shoving genius of Horace Grant.

Three weeks ago, everything was different for Tiger Woods. That’s not that long ago. Twenty-one days ago, he was a billionaire who changed the game of golf forever and did it as a pillar of society.

He was John Galt … if John Galt had infidelity issues. Which, I guess would make him Henry Reardon. Either way, he was better than us.

Some might cringe at the suggestion that anyone is better than anyone else. Don’t cringe. It’s unbecoming. Your face looks vaguely reptilian when you scrunch it up like that. Relax your muscles and realize that we encouraged Woods to be better than us. It’s what he was selling, and seeing as how he’s a billionaire, I’d say we were happy to buy it.

Tiger Woods, in reality, isn’t worse than the other athletes with front page scandals. Kobe Bryant may or may not have raped someone (he definitely fooled around). Mike Tyson had his fair share of lady-problems. Michael Jordan is a gambling addict. Pete Rose too.  Charles Barkley drives recklessly with lady friends. Ray Lewis and O.J. Simpson have both been suspected of murder. Manny Pacquiao has cheated on his wife at least once and is under scrutiny for having recently done it again. Andre Agassi wore a wig. Plaxico Burress wore sweatpants in public. Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Milli-Vanilla … they all lipsynched their songs. That’s pretty bad, no?

Tiger Woods? All he did was treat his wife like Tony Soprano treated Carmela. And that show was on HBO for eight years! People loved it. So why has it only taken three weeks for Woods to go from pillar to pariah? He’s still great at golf, right? Why is everyone leaving? Where’s everyone going? And why?

Tiger Woods sold himself – not his skill – to the public. His ability to hit a golf ball with power and accuracy is why we cared to examine Woods further, sure, but he made his fortune from the public measuring ourselves against him. And just as one can only measure something accurately if it is shorter than the measuring stick, so too was it true that Tiger Woods had to be better than all of us in order to see how we stacked up.

People get upset if you lie about the skills you have. They’ll drop you forever if you lie about the kind of person you are.

No one ever believed Bryant was perfect. He was always cunning and a teensy bit cold. A hard worker, always. But a good man? I dunno. Probably not. Because he never seemed like he cared to be liked. He cared to be respected. Same thing with Jordan or Armstrong. They never wrapped their personal lives in with their profession. The media tried (they always try), but fans know the difference between the media connecting the dots and the athlete doing it for them.

Woods carved out a place for himself in the public eye as a family man and a son who’d learned the lessons taught to him by a loving family and heckuva father. The media didn’t connect those dots. His advertisers did. They packaged it, sent it out and if you were one of the millions who bought it, then this has been a nasty three weeks for you too. Not as bad as Tiger, but still bad. Bad because his connection with his family, the institute of marriage and the lessons handed down through generations of fathers was something that many of us aspire to. Hell, it’s something that many of us achieve. Just like Tiger Woods. I can’t hit a golf ball more than 250 yards, I haven’t been able to dunk in five years and I’m scared of a 97 mph fastball, but I can raise a family. I can learn from my parents and be a real man.

Just like Tiger Woods.

Unless I can’t, just like Tiger Woods. Unless it’s as impossible as sinking a 40-foot putt. Because if John Galt isn’t perfect, then true brilliance must be a myth. And if this ruler isn’t accurate, what does that say about everything I’ve measured with it?

But I promised you a silver lining, didn’t I? A bright side to what has shaken more lives than any athlete should be able.

The bright side here is that Tiger Woods was, and to some, is, a man among men. Someone who meant more than just golf. Maybe by tearing him down, people will learn to stop building guys like him up so high. The word I’m looking for here is skepticism. But a more deeply-rooted skepticism than before.

Those who never found room for sports in their lives will continue to scoff. Let ‘em. Nothing to be done about them. Those who looked to athletes and the games they played as something that could save them … well, they still can, they’re just going to have to be careful now. More aware. Less accepting. So next time, we’ll all pause before selecting our heroes. We’ll pause to decide if we even want to select a hero.

It’s not that the public will slay potential superstars from developing, it’s that we’ll be paying attention to their development. It’ll be a defensive tactic. A way to protect ourselves from more falsehoods. We won’t get fooled again. Greatness on the playing field will always be awarded with accolades. Bet on it.  It’s how we think about these men and women once the exit the playing field that needs to change, because that’s what hurts us.

Had we been told 15 years ago that Tiger Woods was a) going to be the most miraculous golfer of this or, perhaps, any other generation and b) he will demonstroubly cheat on his wife for years with multiple people, how would it have affected the way we look at Tiger Woods today?

Could it be much worse than how things have played out these last three weeks?

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

It’s Tuesday and in one week the 2009-10 NBA season will officially begin. Many of us are already gathering notes together for our basketball fantasy drafts. You can hardly control your excitement, right? Well, Sidelines can’t control its excitement. So in the five weeks leading up to the season tip-off, we’re thumbing through our old fantasy notebooks, cringing at our past selections and revisiting our top 10 fantasy picks from each of the seasons that introduced us to a new decade. This week: the new millennium. Karl Malone was the reigning MVP at the age of 35, still the oldest anyone has ever won the award. Tim Duncan was all David Robinson needed to finally capture his first championship title. Only 50 games were played in the lockout-shortened ’99 season. And it appeared as if the heir to Air Jordan could be found in a Toronto rookie named Vince. The year ahead would see future Hall of Famers Dominique Wilkins, Joe Dumars and Charles Barkley play their final seasons.

Enjoy and we’ll see you on October 27.

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Waasssuuuup, fantasy ballers. SportScape Sidelines back again to hook you up with this year’s basketball studs. If you followed our advice last year your team probably won. If you follow us this year, you’ll no doubt be as dangerous in your league as Y2K viruses are to our world. So stop humming “Oops … I Did It Again” and follow us as we review the 10 best the game has to offer.

And now: The best bets for your 1999-2000 fantasy all-stars!

10. Grant Hill, ORL
Hill, perhaps the most fully rounded player on this list will have his first shot at a full season in Motor City with Jerry Stackhouse, a power duo almost two seasons in the making. Assuming both these guys stay healthy (and there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t) they’ll help each other become one of the premiere powerhouses in the East once again.
09. Jason Kidd, PHO
It wouldn’t be insane to think Kidd might average a triple-double one of these years. He averages nearly 17 points and eight boards while leading the league in assists-per-game last season with 10.8, more than a full assist better than his previous high. He’s the best true point man in  game full of great ones.

08. Stephon Marbury, NJ
Marbury didn’t exactly enjoy sharing the spotlight in Minnesota spotlight with Kevin Garnett. But now that he’s with New Jersey and the shoot-first point guard can call the team his own, there won’t be anything to stop this guy from going gonzo all over the league. A happy Marbury is a quiet and productive Marbury. If he continues growing, he’ll be on his way to the Hall of Fame 15 years from now. He’s that good.

07. Chris Webber, SAC
Oh, the free throw percentage! Webber! Webber, practice your charity tosses, my man. He shoots .486 while standing three feet to the left with a defender in his face, but only .454 when everything stops. If he could just shoot .650, he’d be the best power forward in the game. Statistically, that free throw percentage wrecks your team.

06. Tim Duncan, SAS
We know the big goober in the middle can play. We also know he can win. What we don’t know is how high his ceiling is. Is he just as good without the Admiral taking heat off of him? Robinson isn’t long for this league and, as good as Duncan is now, I can see him tapering off when Robinson’s team becomes his team. Because I’m teetering, he gets the middle of the list.

05. Kevin Garnett, MIN
Statistically, Garnett and Duncan are similarly ferocious stat-stuffers. Actually, Garnett’s just ferocious in general. With Marbury out of town, it’s totally his show and stat-wise he’s going to eviscerate most power forwards in this league. Heck, he’ll probably take a few SF with him.

04. Gary Payton, SEA
Payton’s 8.7 assists-per-game average was third behind only Marbury and Kidd. But what makes the Glove special is that he consists of the best of both those other two PGs. He scores nearly as many points and threes as Starbury (21.7, 1.7) and, like Kidd, rebounds, blocks and steals in higher numbers than someone as small as Payton is expected to (4.9, 0.2 and 2.3). When you choose Payton, it’s as if you’re choosing Marbury and Kidd.

03. Karl Malone, UTA
You know why Garnett and Duncan aren’t ranked higher? Because the Mailman hasn’t retired yet. I’m willing to concede that either one of those younger guys might be considered better than the quickly aging Charles Barkley. But Malone? Duncan and Garnett would have to have pretty remarkable careers. He’s 35 years old and he’s missed two games in the last seven seasons. Think about that. No clue how many seasons he’s got left in him, but I hope it’s enough to win a ring.

02. Allen Iverson, PHI
Iverson is a PG the way Superman is Clark Kent. Call it whatever you’d like, the Answer is a shooter. Three years in the league, this mighty mite has never averaged fewer than 22 points. Shoot, steal, repeat. His declining assists are a bit alarming. He’s be in the No. 1 spot if he dished the ball more than 4.6 times a game …

01. Shaquille O’Neal, LAL
… Well, and if the big fella wasn’t also in the league. Honestly, who can stop this guy? Not ‘Zo. Not Mutombo. Not Ewing. Not Robinson. He’s a scary, scary force. A force that scores nearly 30 points a game, grabbed 11 boards and blocked 1.5 shots per game last season … and he’s not really trying. God forbid Kobe Bryant continues to improve, not only will the Lakers be really good, but Shaq might feel the need to step up his game. I can’t imagine what that would be like.

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NOTE: Look for us next week as The Sidelines looks ahead at your 2010 Fantasy WNBA team.

… Just kidding. Those don’t exist.

Early Tuesday morning, former NBA pariah Stephon Marbury found himself too giddy from a rousing night of dance lessons and stargazing to fall asleep. So what does he do? He pushes out a few tweets disparaging former teammate and Celtics captain Paul Pierce.

Makes sense. 

His actions, anyway,  not the content of his remarks. Marbury was a player, an all-star alongside some of the men he – after a night of really nailing those Jitterbug spins – feels compelled to rail against from time to time. And because of his approximation to these people, many of us can’t help but listen.

Seemingly at random, Marbury’s tweet-taunt (twaunt?) was that L.A.’s Kobe Bryant is a better player than Pierce. He also supposed that Pierce wouldn’t agree to this sentiment and – still unprovoked – sent out a second tweet claiming Pierce’s “style is played out.” Perhaps he was referring to his choice of suits, but I doubt it.

Marbury has never shied from running off at the mouth (or the tweet), but that he leveled such an unprovoked and, dare I say, obvious observation made it an oddly compelling one.

Maybe Starbury knows something we don’t. What if every hoops analyst, fan and basketball theorist somehow totally dropped the ball on this. I mean, in the last two years, both Bryant and Pierce do have the same number of rings, after all. What if Paul Pierce was, at one time, better than Bryant?

Turns out, Pierce kinda sorta was. The following graph compares the two players’ Win Shares throughout the decade. A win share is a statistic that complicatedly calculates how many wins a team owes to the individual player. If the Celtics win 60 games in a season and Pierce has a 13 win share, he is responsible for 13 of the Celtics’ 60 wins. Another way to think of it is if you removed Pierce and his 13 win shares, the Celtics would have only won 47 games that season.

Pierce / Bryant Win Share Chart (click to embiggen)

If Win Shares illustrate the impact an individual has had on a team, you’ll notice that Pierce only helped his team more than Bryant in one season (2004-05). You’ll remember that as the season Gary Payton and Karl Malone left the Lakers and Bryant wallowed on one of the worst Lakers teams of the last 20 years. His Lakers went 34-48. Bryant was responsible for 21.5 percent of his team’s wins. Pierce’s Celtics that year were 45-37. Pierce was responsible for 25.6 percent of them.

The downside of Win Shares is that Bryant was on some very good teams during the last decade and Pierce mostly wasn’t. Therefore wins came more easily to Bryant than Pierce. So let’s look at a more individual-heavy stat: the Player Efficiency Rating (PER).

PER, simply put, adds together a player’s positive contributions, subtracts his negative contributions and rates a player on a per-minute basis in the form of a number. The league average is 15.

Pierce / Bryant Player Efficiency Rating (Click to embiggen)

Pierce only tops Bryant once in PER and it’s during Pierce’s lockout-shortened rookie year. After that however, Bryant clearly never looks back.

So what happens when we combine WS and PER? First, we call it something catchy like “Whisper.” Whispers take into account both a player’s worth to their respective team and their overall performance in a game. Does Pierce ever come close?

Pierce / Bryant Win Share + Player Efficiency Rating (click to embiggen)

Besides the tie in the 50-game 1998-99 season, Pierce’s WSPER was only higher than Bryant’s once and even then it was pretty close.

As for Marbury? The suggestion that Pierce’s “played out” game can’t stand up to Bryant’s implies that at one point it could. But unless Marbury was specifically discussing Pierce’s Win Share or WSPER stats from 2004-05, I’m not sure he’s got a leg to stand on. They’re not in the same tier. Except for 2004-05. Pierce was a better player in that one season. He shot more efficiently, rebounded more, stole more, shot five fewer shots a game and played 16 more games than Bryant.

But that’s it. Bryant’s been better ever since. Comparatively, Pierce’s style has been “played out” for five seasons.

To be honest, I regret exerting this much energy into disproving a tweet that no one really believed anyway.

Last week, Forbes Magazine, through E-Poll surveys, polled its readers and compiled a top 10 list of the most disliked people in sports. I was confused at first why it was Forbes and not, say, Sports Illustrated executing such a poll. I mean, these are sports figures we’re talking about, isn’t ESPN’s magazine better equipped? Forbes may not be the foremost expert on sports, but flip through any issue of their magazine or click on any page of their web site … dudes know a lot about hateable personalities.

But the list isn’t as much of a reflection of the Forbes company as it is about the company’s readers (ages 13 and up). And what’s reflected is a severe case of “lemmingism.” Everyone who made the list makes sense, but are they a true reflection of the most disliked sports figures?

I mean, hockey is one of the five largest sports in the country (and Canada, if you care) and no one from the NHL represented. Most of the names you’ll see here are hated because of overexposure more than their actions that caused the overexposure. Can they be blamed for that? And if they can, why isn’t Erin Andrews at the top of this list? (She’s not) Heck, one of these guys retired 17 years ago. Is that the best (worst) Forbes readers could come up with? Do they even follow sports?

In the words of the 10th most disliked athlete, “you cannot be serious.”

1. Michael Vick
Why he’s here? Yeah, okay. This isn’t surprising. He had dogs kill one another in his off time. Honestly, if Vick had murdered a human, his jail sentence would have been longer, but he’d be no more hated than he is now.
Does he belong? I’ll put it this way … yes. Yes, he does.
Possible replacement Brett Favre. Vick’s infamy was brutal and awful, but it was also original. You know what isn’t original? Brett Favre’s annual hijacking of the sports pages while he decides if he wants to be a professional suckwad or a retired suckwad. Most of the guys on this list are on here because people are tired of hearing about them. On that front, Favre is head, shoulders and suckwad ahead of everyone else.

2. Manny Ramirez
Why he’s here? Steroids. He used ‘em. He got caught for using ‘em and he missed almost a third of the season for using ‘em.
Does he belong? Dodger fans don’t think so. Manny gets L.A. fans giggly-er than girls at a sleepover.
Possible replacement Sean Avery. I wanted to put a woman on here, but I’m unconvinced that Serena Williams counts. I guess Avery is as close as we’re going to get. I mean, c’mon … these are women’s sunglasses, dude. New York’s self-proclaimed bad boy has literally lobbied to be marketed like a WWE villain, which is not only a tacit admittance that he’s a wanker on the ice, but he’s seemingly badmouthed every last one of his hot and famous ex-girlfriends. Anyone who badmouths Elisha Cuthbert: unlikable. That’s a rule.

3. Alex Rodriguez
Why he’s here? Overexposure. Perhaps the overwhelming disgust for both Madonna and Kate Hudson has spilled over onto him as well.
Does he belong? If you take into account America’s tendency to convert jealousy into hatred along with the fact that he’s dating a movie starlet, makes $25 million a year to play a game in the most famous city in the world and cheated so as to help him achieve all these things, then yeah. I reckon he belongs.
Possible replacement Kyle Busch. This little pipsqueak. This picture best illustrates why he really ought to have made this list. And if you’re a NASCAR apologist, then what about when he snapped the Nashville Superspeedway Les Paul guitar trophy into shards ’cause he was just so gosh darned excited. A-Rod’s a tool that seems embarrassed by himself a lot of the time. Busch shares no such embarrassment.

4. Terrell Owens
Why he’s here? An inability to censor his narcissism.
Does he belong? He belongs for the amount of time various media outlets have spent talking about him over the years, but generally, Owens has done very little to warrant the ire of the American people. At worst, he’s been a bad teammate. Then again, his statistics suggest he’s made his teams better. It’s all about perception.
Possible replacement Tom Brady. Oh no! Not my sweet Tom. What’s he ever done to anyone except urinate awesomeness and use unicorn horns to pick Superbowl glory out of his teeth? Well go ask Bridget Moynahan. He knocked up Coyote Ugly, split while she was pregnant, ignored the birth while pretending not to ignore the birth, hooked up with a Brazilian supermodel (superfluous pic here) and impotently allowed her to treat Moynahan’s kid as if it were her own. Oh, then he had the gall to skip the 2008 season. So I ask you, what’s worse: being a bad teammate with good stats or being a bad husband, father and man with no stats?

5. Kobe Bryant
Why he’s here? Smugness and possibly rape. Mostly smugness.
Does he belong? For the smugness? Yes. For the possible rape? I’d have to visit Denver a few more times to say for certain.
Possible replacement Fedor Emelianenko. People just don’t like it when someone so obviously talented doesn’t need fans’ approval to stay talented. We don’t like when talented people clamor for it either (see: Rod, A) but when you’re good and you know it and no one can do a damn thing about it, it tends to alienate fans. Fans want to feel a part of it all and when they know they’re not a part of any of it, it pisses them off. Now you tell me, which one of these two was I just talking about?

6. Allen Iverson
Why he’s here? Because people like “gangsters,” not “gangstas.”
Does he belong? Iverson hasn’t been relevant in two years. Right now, only three teams have shown any interest in paying him to play basketball and one of those teams is in Greece. Hating an irrelevant Iverson is like hating the words to a song a toddler just wrote.
Possible replacement Mark Cuban. If the fine readers over at Forbes want to flippantly throw Iverson on here because he came into the NBA with cornrows and tattoos and everyone was depressed that Michael Jordan was gone, that’s fine. Now allow me to retort by submitting my own irrationally-justified basketball personality. Mark Cuban is loud, he picks fights with players, his hair is often mussed, he likes Jason Kidd too much, his cha-cha-cha is a 1/2-step too slow and he was accused of insider trading. But go ahead, convince me a neck tattoo is worse.

7. Isiah Thomas
Why he’s here? Sexual harassment … and because he hasn’t done anything well since 1993.
Does he belong? Oh yeah. He might have tried to kill himself and when it didn’t work, he might have tried convincing authorities that his daughter was the one who was ill. Also he sexual harassed a woman (not daughter related).
Possible replacement I had a whole case for either Al Davis or George Steinbrenner and although they both totally deserve to be on here, the readers polled by Forbes accidentally got this one right. Isiah Thomas is awful.

8. Stephon Marbury
Why he’s here? Sociopathology.
Does he belong? Absolutely not. Oh sure he’s been a locker room cancer on each of the last four teams he’s played before arriving in Boston, but few noticed until he got to New York and became Isiah Thomas’ cancer. But seeing as how Thomas is more disliked than Starbury, isn’t this a clear-cut case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Friends don’t put friends on disliked lists. Think of it this way: Stephon Marbury builds the character of every NBA player with whom he comes in contact. Good for the game.
Possible replacement Brock Lesnar. And since very often “bad” is good for the game, who better to illustrate this than the UFC’s Brock Lesnar? Look, you don’t get more white than Brock. He’s a 6-foot-3, 265-pound farm boy who lives and trains in the Minnesota woods, has a drooling problem, drinks Coors and signifies that “he’s No. 1″ with the wrong fingers. He’s thoroughly unlikeable, yet UFC has never been more popular. It’s far more fun to hate than to love.

9. Nick Saban
Why he’s here? Bullying. Lying. Willfully living in Alabama.
Does he belong? Nah. For $32 million, I’d probably live in Alabama too. But I wouldn’t talk to anybody.
Possible replacement Brett Favre (again). Yes, but what better way to emphasize how disliked he is than by having him wear out his welcome on this list, just as he’s worn out his welcome in the NFL. Remember in “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” when you beat Bald Bull and then later in the game a meaner, tougher Bald Bull returned? Such is Favre. Just when his awfulness seems to subside, another offseason arrives and it takes three star punches to get him to go away.

10. John McEnroe
Why he’s here? Because he was really outspoken three decades ago.
Does he belong? About as much as a polar bear at the Pyramids.
Possible replacement O.J. Simpson. McEnroe was a loudmouth infamous for throwing hissyfits (and rackets) and complaining about almost every call that didn’t go his way. Essentially he was an NBA player. But all of this happened in the past. He’s retired from the pro tour now. So if inactive players are suddenly eligible for this list, why not pick an athlete who, you know, probably murdered two people? Bonus: How great would it be to have two Buffalo Bills in the top 10?

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Vick, Ramirez, Rodriguez, McEnroe photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
All other photos courtesy of Flickr

On Sunday, Laker coach Phil Jackson was interviewed on KLAC radio in Los Angeles about the ongoing development with his team, including the somewhat surprising acquisition of forward Ron Artest. For most members of the media, the arrival of Ron-Ron in LaLa Land was an unforeseeable development. For Phil Jackson, it was something that was foreseeable 13 months ago.

Jackson was asked if Kobe Bryant – similar to Michael Jordan – ever had input on the acquisitions of player personnel from year to year. Jackson never really answered the question, but dropped the following nugget instead.

After the Lakers lost by 539 points (actually just 39) in the sixth and final game of the 2008 Finals, Ron Artest, who was in the audience and still under contract with the Sacramento Kings inexplicably got into L.A.’s locker room and inexplicably found his way in front of Phil Jackson to offer up his services to the Lakers in the near future. All of this inexplicably happened without any of the STAPLES Center security categorically getting fired … inexplicably.

Are NBA players just allowed in all league locker rooms? Were the guards scared of Tru Warrier? Did bribery happen? Perhaps we’ll never know?

According to the Zen Master:

Ron said, “Coach, I can help your team, I can get that championship for the Lakers.’” I said, “Well, thanks Ron, that’s very nice, I appreciate your sympathies.  We’ll see what happens as you go through this year.’”

Phil Jackson is like a ninja. I have no problem believing that he sat there all Dracula-shouldered and calm listening to one of the most unpredictable athletes of the last 20 years stand in his locker room and audition like he was a Laker Girl. I also have no problem believing Jackson thought about the strangeness of such a disruption for less than two minutes after it happened. On to next season. New business.

Perhaps unfortunately for Kobe Bryant, Jackson didn’t feel the need to escort Ron-Ron out because instead of saying his peace and leaving, Artest went further.

He walked out of that coaches’ area, and in to the shower and told Kobe the same thing.  Kobe’s been knowing Ron’s intentions for the last two years … He didn’t soap down Kobe and he didn’t towel him off, I’m not saying that.

I won’t lie, if I was alone in a shower and saw Ron Artest standing there, I’d assume I had only seconds left to live. Why don’t Jackson and Bryant seem more confused or creeped out by Artest roaming the bowels of a stadium he doesn’t play for? The most entertaining thing about this story is not Ron Artest’s disregard for a) tact b) privacy and c) normalcy, it’s imagining how uncomfortable Bryant must have been shooting the breeze a) minutes after losing the NBA Finals b) with a player who is neither a teammate nor a friend and c) wet and naked, but not in sexy way.

Do you think they hugged at the end of Artest’s query? Did Bryant awkwardly grip a towel around his waste while shaking hands? Now that they are teammates, will Artest assume that the shower pop-in is an acceptable form of negotiation?

UPDATE: Bryant’s got his side of the story. Remarkably, it’s not much different from Jackson’s. “[Artest] came in there and he said, ‘This is not going to happen to you [again]. I’m going to come in here and help you out.’ He wound up being in Houston, and [then] took us to Game 7. But he’s here now. It’s something we’ve both been trying to make happen for a while and here it is.”

The only other question is how much Bryant spent on the diamond he gave his wife after she found out he and Artest showered together.

Listen to the full radio interview HERE

Halfway through this year’s Wimbledon tournament, stories popped up after a spokesman from the All England Club said that the people who schedule the matches to the courts tend to give the prime spots to the more attractive female athletes. Not surprisingly, the media and the blogosphere (unless bloggers are counted as members of the media, which my lack of a press pass suggests they are not) cried foul and sexism and sexism fouls and foul sexism.

The weirdest thing about the sudden hubbub over hot tennis players is that really, the Wimbledon play committee is far less guilty of it than even they’ve suggested.

Quick! Name five current female tennis players. I’ll give you a second to think of it. Either you can rattle off 25 of them, in which case, congratulations, you’re a tennis fan or you’re like most Americans and can only come up with four: 1) Venus and 2) Serena Williams, 3) Maria Sharapova and 4) Anna … Kour … Korny … Kournicopia … Korcoran … well, whateverhernameis. Hot chick.

Admit it. I’m right aren’t I? Don’t shake your head. I can read your thoughts. That’s how I knew you meant Anna Kournikova (who hasn’t played a professional tennis match since 2003, by the way).

I’m not a shill for Wimbledon, nor am I claiming that various forms of sexism do not permeate the sport. They do, they exist at Wimbledon, but not in such an open-and-shut manner as has been tossed around the Internet lately. The gist is that someone like Maria Kirilenko is hotter than someone like No. 1-ranked Dinara Safina and therefore – Safina’s rank be damned – Kirilenko gets Centre Court.

Eight days have passed in Wimbledon with nine women’s matches on Centre Court in that time. It is important to note that in that same span, 15 men’s matches have been played at Centre Court. More on that in a bit.

The conspiracy theorists jumping all over this story lean on the philosophy that the best competitors (the top-ranked females, presumably) should yield the brightest spotlight. Of the nine ladies matches on Centre Court in the first eight days of competition, six of them showcased a top-ranked women. So let us be clear: We’re only talking about three matches that can possibly offend anyone…

Look at the list of Centre Court ladies matches:

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

DAY 1: (2) Serena Williams def. Neuza Silva
DAY 2: (3) Venus Williams def. Stefanie Voegel
DAY 3: Gisela Dulko def. (24) Maria Sharapova
DAY 4: (9) Caroline Wozniacki def. Maria Kirilenko
DAY 5: (8) Victoria Azarenko def. (28) Sorana Cristea
DAY 6: (3) Venus Williams def. C.S. Navarro
DAY 7: (1) Dinara Safina def. (17) A. Mauresmo
DAY 8: (1) Dinara Safina def. Sabine Lisicki
(2) Serena Williams def. (8) Victoria Azarenka

Besides a shocking amount of vowels, what do you see in this list? Days 3-5 (listed in red) are clearly the matches that compelled the Daily News article to say, “While a succession of easy-on-the-eye unknowns have appeared in Wimbledon’s prime arena, the top women’s seeds have been relegated to lesser courts.”

Here’s what I’m willing to concede about those three days: Higher ranked players were playing somewhere other than Centre Court. I’ll also concede that while the top-ranked were elsewhere, attractive tennis players were at Centre Court. Six of ‘em.

Here’s what I’m unwilling to concede:  That they are unknowns.

First off, don’t call Maria Sharapova an unknown. She’s known. She’s very known. She’s more known than you and me combined. Stop it. On Day 4, when Venus Williams was on Court 1 and Safina took Court 2, up-and-comer Caroline Wozniacki defeated Maria Kirilenko at Centre Court. Wozniacki had just made a splash at the French Open a few weeks before and, oh yeah … she’s the ninth-ranked woman in the world. Let’s say that despite being one of the 10 best female tennis players in the world, Wozniacki is still unknown, isn’t that all the more reason to get her onto a prominent platform to promote the sport? You’ll be hard-pressed to find people knowledgeable about tennis who aren’t bored with the Williams sisters’ absolute domination for the past decade. It makes more sense to showcase players outside the top three early in the tournament because the likelihood that they’ll be around later dwindles with each round. The next day Victoria Azarenka (ranked one spot above Wozniacki) defeated No. 28 Sorana Cristea. Safina and Venus Williams had the day off, which only left Serena. Where was Serena? On Court 2 battling it out with unseeded Roberta Vinci.

Sophisticated tennis fans would more likely prefer to watch two ranked players, right? Isn’t there a better chance for close competition between any two seeds than a  No. 2 and a non-seed? Unsophisticated fans probably just want to watch hot chicks grunt. Either way, Wimbledon made the right call.

From The Daily Mail:

The fact that many seats remained empty for the Cristea-Azarenka clash implies that the knowledgeable SW19 crowd were underwhelmed by the tennis on offer. Which would suggest that attractive players are placed on Centre to amuse the BBC television audience, some of whom care more for a pretty face than a powerful forehand.

This brings me to my next non-concession: That the SW19 crowd is so sophisticated that they only follow “good tennis.” UPDATE: They don’t. From a Day 10 recap: “The [No.1 Dinara Safina v. No. 3 Venus Williams match opened before a half-full Centre Court as the crowd sought shade and refreshment after Serena’s almost three-hour victory over Russia’s Elena Dementieva in the day’s first semi-final."

Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

Look at the picture on the left. This was taken at the conclusion of Wednesday’s Day 3 match between No. 24 Maria Sharapova and unseeded Gisela Dulko. Not too many empty seats, right? Surely all those sophisticated strawberries ‘n’ cream-eaters showed up for more than the grunting. No. They’re there for the same reason people watch Venus and Serena: because the Sharapova Supernova is known and marketed like any other marquee athlete. There’s nothing wrong with this, but there’s a difference between marketing and sexism. C’mon people, this is sports here. Stop acting like this circus hasn’t rolled into town countless times before. Most fans – even rabid basketball fans – don’t go to a Lakers game to see solid execution of Phil Jackson‘s triangle offense. They go to see Kobe Bryant drop some awesomeness on the other team.

The final concession that I’m unwilling to make is that the female players whom are most deserving of the Centre Court spot are being denied the honor. It’s not true. At least not insofar as some other female players are getting more of a shot.

Both Roger Federer and Andy Murray (ranked No. 2 and 3 in the world respectively) were easily the favorites coming into this year’s Wimbledon. In the first eight days, they’ve each played on Centre Court four times. The top three females have each made it to Centre Court twice in that same span.

On the surface, this just proves that the cream of the female crop isn’t getting the same play that the cream of the male crop is. This is true, but not because prettier ladies are taking up valuable spots. It’s because of the men. There’s a bigger problem than favoring beauty at Wimbledon, it’s favoring men. They spend twice as much time on Centre Court as the ladies. Why? Well because the ATP has heftier competition (and bigger draws because of it).

It would be naive to pretend physical beauty plays no part in player popularity and exposure. It does. But one player’s beauty would not get her on Centre Court alone; that part of this entire storyline has been blown way out of proportion. The Daily News, BBC and dozens of blogs this week started blaming the leaves, when the roots are the problem. Until the WTA, Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments begin making as many of its players as exciting and varied as the men, they’ll be stuck in the same rut they are in now: no one knows half of the top 10 seeds and Anna Kournikova remains one of the few female players anyone can name.

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Sun forcing an excited Trevor Ariza to back off during Kobe's 'me time.'

SIDELINES: Monkey King – I hope you don’t mind if I call you Monkey King – what was the first thing you did when you got back to the locker room after Game 5 in Orlando?
MONKEY KING: I helped some of the traveling assistants prepare all the champagne bottles and made sure the tarps were secured around the players’ stuff.
S: Really? You weren’t on the court giving interviews to the Chinese media or anything?
MK: (Laughs) Oh, no. Heavens, no. No one over there remembers I’m on this team. They patiently waited for a chance to talk to Mr. Bryant.
S: Kobe?
MK: I call him Mr. Bryant. He asks that I call him that.
S: Why?
MK: Anything less would confuse our professional relationship. It’s part of the deal we’ve worked out.
S: What deal?
MK: I sit with him on the team plane and stop other teammates from talking to him when he’s tired or listening to Matchbox 20 and in return he…well, he lets me do that.
S: Kobe Bryant listens to Matchbox 20?

Exhibit A: Kobe Bryant is only happy when Sun makes him Salt 'n' Pepa mixes.

MK: Not just Matchbox 20, but that is his favorite. I burn him mixed cds from all the illegal songs he makes me download. He said he’d download them, but he doesn’t want to risk getting caught. Which makes sense. It’s for the good of our team that he not get caught. I’m happy to risk it. That’s one of the reasons I deserve the ring. We would never win a championship if Mr. Bryant was upset all season, right? My job on this team is to make sure Mr. Bryant and sometimes Lamar are happy.
S: Some would say your job is to learn how to run Phil Jackson’s offense; probably by watching Derek Fisher.
MK: Interesting, but ultimately, false. Also, please don’t tell Mr. Bryant that I ever help Lamar.
S: Do you have any other duties on this team?
MK: Coach Jackson told me to stay out of his way once in December. So I started doing that.
S: You couldn’t totally have avoided him. After all you played 28 minutes spread out over 10 games this season.
MK: Yes, that’s true. But most of the time I just sat next to [D.J.] Mbenga. Coach would point for him to enter the game and I’d get up thinking he was pointing at me. Most of the time Coach Jackson would tell me to sit down. But every so often he’d stop paying attention long enough for me to slip onto the court.
S: To hear you tell it, you played a very limited role on this Laker team. Why do you feel you earned a ring just as much as anyone else?
MK: Everyone has a role on this team. For example, Trevor’s is to be a relentless help defender as well as premiere yo-yo artist. Pau does an excellent impression of James Brown and me? I make Mr. Bryant happy. I rub his feet, pre-sip his Gatorade to make sure it hasn’t been poisoned and I am his alibi when he’s lying to his wife. Can we not all agree that making Mr. Bryant happy is of the utmost importance in winning a championship?
S: If that were true, Monkey King, how did Kobe Bryant manage to win three championships with Shaquille O’Neal?
MK: (Blank stare) This interview is over …

_____________________________

Photos courtesy of Yahoo! via Getty Images

Whoops. First chink in the armor, ‘Bron.

It’s old news that LeBron James skulked (Ditched? Eluded? Nah, we’ll stick with skulked) away from the Orlando Magic, his teammates, the media and his duties as a franchise leader after the final game of his 2008-09 season on May 30.

It happened. It’s over. And the first time next season he barrels past some poor sucker unsuccessfully trying to foul him, all will be forgiven, right?

But what if it won’t?

When a child cries on the train, it’s the parent that gets all the dirty looks. ‘Bron-Bron’s exeunt stage left played in the media like a big crying baby on a very crowded train. So for now, all bets are off with the fans. James’ refusal to acknowledge anybody after Cleveland’s loss was a miscalculation. But James is a calculating person (he has to be) and when someone like that makes a mistake, it carries more weight. How much weight? Enough that I’m compelled to  conjure up parallels between LeBron’s hypothetical future and the turning point in the career of professional wrestler Hulk Hogan when he became “Hollywood Hogan.”

James is as much businessman as he is athlete and for six years, the fans have allowed that dichotomy on the grounds that he keep tossin’ that chalk (figuratively speaking. Why? Does he actually toss chalk? Weird.) James the athlete has rarely failed. James the athlete has never failed. On Saturday, both failed. This isn’t difficult. The average fan loathes athletes increasing energy placed toward marketing themselves. Most athletes know that if they’re going to do that, they better bring it on the playing ground. If they don’t, when the athlete fails, fans turn on the businessman first.

In 1996, for reasons both fabricated for wrestling fans and born from Terry Bollea’s personal life, the iconic red and gold hero went to the dark side. Instead of talking to kids about vitamins, prayers and muscle pythons, Hollywood became greedy, selfish and turned on his friends with seemingly no hesitation. In ’96′s Bash at the Beach, Hulk went Hollywood by surprising longtime friend Randy Savage by attacking him. Sound familiar?

LeBron James, who also dons a red and gold uniform, was teammates with Magic center Dwight Howard on the 2008 Gold medal-winning Olympic team. Unlike Denver’s Carmelo Anthony and L.A.’s Kobe Bryant who were also on that team and shared a brief embrace at the end of the Western Conference Finals, James lost Game 6 and failed to acknowledge Howard on his way toward the tunnel.

Hogan ran with the Hollywood persona in part because his Hulk persona was wrapped up in a legal battle with Marvel Comics and its ownership of the Incredible Hulk. Just as Hogan’s identity was ensnared between corporate branding, so too is James’ identity. James may have won over Cleveland fans by throwing talcum high into the air (an act stolen from Boston’s Kevin Garnett, who stole it from Michael Jordan), but it was Nike that branded the act and made it iconic. A funny thing happens to celebrities trying to become the richest man in the world: he becomes indebted to those who made him that way. And therefore James literally cannot afford to be himself, because he’s a 24-year old kid who might do something boneheaded to lose endorsements (see: Phelps, Michael).

Hollywood ran with the bad guy persona. Unforeseeably to Hogan, it left a bitter taste in the mouths of fans who made him an icon. Even after Hogan put the red and gold undies back on, relations with the fans had been irreparably damaged. For some, the thin illusion of goodness Hogan had established in his career was broken.

James’ mistake was hardly the three-year betrayal Hogan created, but because sports are a culmination of snap decisions and irretrievable moments, it wouldn’t be shocking if the fans turn on James in a similar fashion.

It’s too early to say that James tarnished his career by this one act, but if his career veers more toward Hollywood than Hulk, this will be the snub they’ll say started it all.