The Sport Count

Zombie Wilt Chamberlain Leads USA Nightmare Team To Victory.

Credit to The Onion for that fantastic image. (And if, like me, you’d forgotten how funny The Onion is, you should probably read ‘Tim Duncan Staring At Wall Right Now‘).

Over at Odenized, watch Kobe Bryant deck notorious racist (and Laker teammate) Pau Gasol, only to leave him lying on the floor like a wounded caveman. I tell you, if someone released a bootleg DVD packed with footage of the Spanish team getting dunked on, pushed to the floor and, hopefully, viciously insulted, I’d pay good money for it. Really good money. Jason Feng, are you listening?

You’ve no doubt heard Shaquille O’Neal and his comically smaller wife are back together. Good news for them, sure, but terrible for those holding out hope that O’Neal’s new found status as a single man would lead to him challenging the late Wilt’s title as ‘The World’s Greatest Pantsman.’ (Sorry, all you Errol Flynn heads ain’t got nothin’ on The Stilt).

The always enjoyable Britt Robson lays some love on the Redeem Team, including a good three paragraphs justifiably lauding the incredible play of Dwyane Wade. There are a lot of fine words there, but I must admit all I really read was ‘you should definitely pick Wade in the first round of your fantasy draft. He’s totally got first round value.’ No, Robson didn’t exactly say that — indeed, he doesn’t exactly mention fantasy basketball at all — but I’m great at reading between the lines.

Marty Burns at Sports Illustrated previews the West and the East: let’s briefly ignore just how silly and premature these rankings are, and focus on the fact that the usually excellent Burns seems to phoning it in lately.

I mean, sure, the Western Conference is loaded with tough teams, but are the Clippers really that unlikely to make the playoffs? If you put Baron Davis, Marcus Camby, and Chris ‘The German’ Kaman on a team together, you’re going to get some reasonable results, right? Unless, of course, Ricky Davis starts biting journalists during post-game locker room interviews, and demanding his teammates stay up until four each morning playing games of War.

And seriously, the Pacers are the 8th best team in the East? You reckon? Sure, they did reasonably well last year despite Jermaine O’Neal breaking both legs, spraining his jaw, and contracting syphilis, but ranking them above the presumably improved Heat and Bulls seems ludicrous.

PS Stephon Marbury says he’s still keen on heading to Italy. In other news, the residents of New York support this plan.

PPS It’s dark, but apparently this is Chuck Barkley smashing through a bottle of Patron. To paraphrase Jigga Man: ’shots of Patron / now he in the zone / I ain’t talkin’ ’bout the 2-3 / Barkley in the zone’.

Posted By: Anton