If Gilbert Had A 40, He'd Be Pouring Some Out

With Darius Songaila suspended for tonight's Game 6 and, thusly, not allowed in the Verizon Center, Gilbert Arenas repped his fallen comrade. (And did so while wearing a white suit, I might add.)

Jay-Z Has Too Much Time On His Hands

So, here's the story that's been floating around DC tonight : Last night at Love (the DC nightclub where Gilbert Arenas had his famous 25th birthday party), LeBron James was hosting a party where the DJ played a new Jay-Z diss track about Wizards G DeShawn Stevenson. DeShawn and LeBron have been talking shit to each other for the past few weeks; somehow Soulja Boy got involved - it's all very complicated. Anyway, the word is that after Jigga played the two verse DeShawn-rip, Cavs G Damon Jones (he of the 'always wearing sunglasses indoors' style) then got on the mic and started talking more trash about the Wizards. Caron Butler was in the club and stormed out, and now all the Wizards are boycotting Love and owner Marc Barnes's other spot, Park. Again, I don't know whether all this is true, it's just the good word as related to me from a reliable source. This series really needs to go seven games now, just on the off-chance that 2Pac might get in on all this.

Update: Michael Lee has the comprehensive rundown on his Wizards Insider blog at washingtonpost.com and makes a salient point: Jay-Z is part-owner of the Nets, meaning an NBA owner just recorded some rap verses dissing a player on another team. This would be like Jerry Jones battle rapping Eli Manning over the beat to 'Hit 'Em Up'. Unmentioned, but perhaps just as interesting, is that said diss track was written on behalf of an NBA player on another team; one that has been (and will be) rumored to be joining Jigga in Brooklyn when the Nets move there. This hasn't happened since Abe Pollin re-worked the lyrics to 'Moon River' in an effort to persuade Juwan Howard to stay in the District.
Also, Lee writes that after hearing the song, Caron Butler paged Stevenson (below) to tell him about it. Rap beefs, pagers; it's all so 1994. I love it.

Goodbye, Gilbert (?)

Is this the last time we'll ever see Gilbert Arenas in a Washington Bullets Wizards jersey? Ernie Grunfeld is no fool, and only a fool would give a balky-kneed Gil a max contract this offseason. If this is it: We'll miss you, Agent Zero, you crazy bastard. You were always fun to watch, but only relatively so because, hey, it's the NBA.


Update: Or not.

Chris Answers PTI's Questions

Whose side are you on: Tiki Barber or Eli Manning
The only thing men love more than football is a good ol' fashioned catfight. (Yeah, yeah, catfight...) It's rare that the two ever combine, but our good friends at the New York Giants have done just that with this snipe-fest between Tiki Barber and Eli Manning.
Let me explain... No, that'll take too long... Let me sum up: On his first night working on NBC's Football Night in America Tiki Barber took potshots at Eli Manning's play and said the young quarterback's leadership was "almost comical". In response to those words, Eli sarcastically praised Tiki's own leadership last season when he called out Tom Coughlin and announced his retirement in the midst of a Giants playoff run.
As anyone who had read this blog know, I can't stand Eli Manning. I predicted he'd be a bust when he came out of college, think he's done nothing to prove himself as an adequate NFL quarterback and believe him to be the most overrated player in the league (although that changed last year when Eli lost some of his luster in the media.) I have little doubt that Tiki Barber's description of Eli's leadership is spot-on. It's a mentality I've said Eli has had since college; namely, that he always looks like he'd rather be anywhere else but on a football field.
That being said, I hope Tiki is enjoying the glass house he's been living in. Eli was also exactly correctly when he characterized Tiki's attitude during last season as adrift and only focused on Tiki. (Eli even wins some points with me for the complete sarcasm that dripped from his statements. This will be the only time I'll ever praise Eli Manning, so read that sentence and now forget about it forever.)
On SI.com, Dr. Z blames television producers for this spat, and I agree. Remember, during his first apperance on NBC, Jerome Bettis "broke" the news that Bill Cowher was planning on retiring after the season. It was a mild controversy at the time that was forgotten about soon after, but it bears noting that Bettis was correct, just like Tiki.

Stephon Marbury thinks dogfighting is a sport. What do you think?
Watch this video of Starbury on a New York-area sports show. Do yourself a favor and watch all nine minutes of it.

Now, ask yourself, should anybody really care what Stephon Marbury thinks? (Unless you're looking for some really good weed, that is.)
For my money, my favorite part of the video is when his phone rings and he says "it's my better ho - I mean, my better half, um, my wife." Gilbert Arenas, on his blog, writes of his love for the clip too. I tried to paraphrase Gil's words, but that'd be like trying to sum up Shakespeare, so here's Gil's entire entry on the Marbury interview:

Usually I give out awards at the end of the year, but somebody won the “Best Interview of the Century” award this summer. If you guys haven’t seen it, you need to search “Marbury interview” on YouTube. If you don’t think this is the best interview in history, something is mentally wrong with you. It was so good, I watched it 12 times just to make sure that what I was watching was actually real and I wasn’t imagining it.
He’s like, “I’m going to average 10 points, 11-12 dimes, four assists …” And I’m like, “What? Last time I checked, dimes and assists were the same thing.” Then he answers his cell phone in the middle of the interview. And at the end he just starts screaming, “Do it with me now! Do it with me!” I had to rewind it just to make sure it was really Stephon Marbury on there. So, I present Steph with the "Interview of the Century" Hibachi Award!

It's because of blog entries like this that I might cry if Gilbert doesn't re-sign with the Bullets after this season... And I don't even like the NBA that much!

Is the NFL hypocritical in regards to alcohol?
A quick primer: Bengals LB Odell Thurman was suspended following multiple arrests, including one for DUI in which he blew twice the legal limit. During his ruling, Thurman's judge said that the NFL is hypocritical for suspending Thurman for the DUI while still taking in millions of dollars from beer companies in advertisements.
To answer the question, the NFL is quite hypocritical in many regards, but I don't follow how taking money from beer companies exonerates Odell Thurman from driving drunk. The last I checked, drinking beer was legal, as is getting drunk enough to have a blood-alcohol content of .16. But it's never legal to drive after doing so.
This judge is part of a growing segment of our population who always want to place blame on others and not hold individuals accountable for their actions. Gregg Easterbrook did this with Michael Vick in his increasingly-petulant "Tuesday Morning Quarterback", but he's far from the only one. (To counter, on the same site as Easterbrook's smarmy Vick-defense was published, Jemele Hill wrote an excellent open-letter to young, black men that essentially said; Michael Vick made his own bed, now learn from his stupidity.)
Odell Thurman shouldn't have driven drunk. Period. It's not Roger Goodell's fault or Budweiser's or Miller Lite's. The responsibility lies with Thurman. Know the law. Don't break it. And if you do, look in the mirror when placing blame.

Brandon Webb says his scoreless innings streak isn't a big deal. Do you believe him?
(Note: Webb's streak of 42 straight scoreless innings was snapped tonight.)
I believe Webb about as much as I believe golfers who say that playing with Tiger Woods on Sunday isn't a big deal. Because; what else are they going to say? They're not lying, per se, they're just giving the only answer they can give. How did you want Webb to answer? "This is really huge. If I break the record I'll get more endorsements and cash-in big-time when I'm a free agent. Plus, it'd be really cool to break one of the most hallowed pitching records." Those are thoughts that he's almost certainly thought about (pitchers have a loooonnnng time to think about things playing every five days), but thoughts that don't necessarily consume him either.
I'd say the same exact thing if I was Webb, by the way. I don't believe that the streak isn't a big deal to him, but he also seems laid back enough where it's not an all-consuming thing the way it would be with, say, Roger Clemens.
Webb is a great (and vastly underrated) pitcher who toils in relatively anonymity out in Arizona. He will likely win his second straight Cy Young this year, but gets about one-tenth of the press that the fifth-best pitcher on the Yankees (the aforementioned Clemens) does.

Is the U.S. Basketball team the best in the hemisphere?
Considering that Argentina has finished ahead of the U.S. in the past two major world competitions, I'd say no. As always, the U.S. team should win, but collections of talent have a tough time beating cohesive units in these basketball competitions.
I'll be rooting vigorously for everyone but the Americans because I root for good stories and the U.S. Basketball team missing out on the Olympics is a great one. (They need to get to the Finals of this tournament in order to qualify for Beijing. I'm not positive, but I think they can still get in somehow if they don't make the Finals, but don't quote me on that. Wilbon and Kornheiser stated the opposite as fact today, when I'm not so sure.)

Role Play
Not that I don't like dressing up, except, yeah, I don't like dressing up. When I was young I had three different Halloween costumes that I cycled through: Redskins player, construction worker (I had a hardhat because my dad works for a construction company) and skeleton. That was it. Other kids were showing up as M&Ms, Rubiks cubes and Joe the Policeman from the 'What's Going Down' episode of That's My Momma, but not me. My disdain for costumes, clearly acquired from my mom, sticks with me today, as every time I'm forced to dress in one (whether it be for Halloween or a costume party), I go as an old man who dispenses unwanted advice to everyone.
In light of that, I won't be diving into the roles as Tony and Mike do. Instead, I'll be providing third-party analysis of said questions through subtle changes in pronoun usages and plural possessives.

Orange Bowl: The U is ditching it for Dolphins Stadium. How does that make you feel?
True story: When I went down to Miami for the 2002 Orange Bowl, we got in a taxi outside our hotel in Miami Beach and I told the cabbie we wanted to go to the Orange Bowl. He said, "you mean the game?" and I said, "yeah, The Orange Bowl," figuring The Orange Bowl was played in the stadium called The Orange Bowl. Apparently, I was wrong and The Orange Bowl, as well as some big University of Miami games are played in what was formerly called Joe Robbie Stadium (home to the Dolphins and Marlins). It turns out that the Orange Bowl was, in fact, held at the Orange Bowl up until 1996, when it was moved to the larger stadium across town.
I guess The Orange Bowl (the stadium) is pretty run-down and the move was a long-time coming, but it's not like Dolphins Stadium is the Shangri-La either. That place made The Meadowlands look like, um, Shangri-La.
At least this is fodder for me to rip on Donna Shalala, the disingenuous Miami president who lied through her teeth during the ACC's courting of her school. Apparently, Shalala (whose name, despite drawing ire from me every time I hear it, is quite fun to type - try it sometime, you won't regret it) had been saying that the school would make every effort to stay at The Orange Bowl but then bolted to Dolphins Stadium at the drop of a checkbook.

Lovie Smith: Admit it, he secretly want to pull Rex, doesn't he?
I think Lovie would rather Rex stop looking like a complete spaz every time he steps under center. Last year, Rex made it easy for Lovie. A coach can't get criticized too much for sticking with the quarterback of a winning team. But with an opening slate of @SD, KC and DAL, Lovie might not have much of a choice if Rex plays poorly and the Bears open with a 1-2 record.

JaMarcus Russell: Peter King reports that he doesn't want to play in Oakland. Is that true?
The Michael Vick saga isn't about race, as much as people would like it to be. The lack of media attention towards JaMarcus Russell, on the other hand, is about race... And some other stuff too.
When Brady Quinn was holding out at the start of training camp, you couldn't go to a sports website or put on ESPN without hearing about it. While on vacation (pretty much the only time I'll sit through a full late-night Sportscenter,) they talked about it every night. I might have heard Russell's name once or twice during those blatherings, and he was the #1 pick, taken 21 spots ahead of The Mighty Quinn.
Part of the lack of attention is due to the fact that Russell was never on the national radar until late in the college season, while Quinn has been on national TV every week for four years. It also has to do with the fact that Russell probably isn't all that good and in a few years we'll be wondering why he was ever taken so highly (a la Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Ryan Leaf, etc.). And you can't ignore the fact that Russell is all the way out in Oakland, trying to sign with a team that nobody really cares about. But maybe just a little of the lack of attention is due to the fact that Russell is black and Quinn is white.

Urban Meyer: His university if offering up dinner with him for $1 million. Is he worth it?
Only if Meyer uses that $1 million to lure Demi Moore into a late-night tryst with Billy Donovan, only to have Donovan agree and subsequently back-out at the last second because of concerns about his family.

The Ship Be Sinking

Gilbert Arenas has gotten a little too big for his britches while the Dukies are having trouble simply putting on theirs without falling flat on their wimpy, pockmarked faces. Both the Bullets and Blue Devils are in freefalls, as demonstrated by their losses yesterday. A look at each:

Duke
OK, I'll call Pete Gaudet if you find someone to cover the 12-6 a.m. shift for Dickie V's suicide watch. Because, at this rate, the only way the Dukies will be able to underperform in the postseason, as usual, will be by losing to Canisius in the NIT. (No, I don't really believe that Duke is going to miss the Tournament; Billy Packer might actually murder Tournament chairman Gary Walters if Wright State made it over all-powerful Duke. But if they continue to lose, the committee might have no choice. But they won't.
And since I've started down this path, I might as well keep going. Duke is rated #3 in non-conference RPI. An upcoming game with St. John's might lower that a little, but not by much. Coupled with five wins against the RPI top 50 (bubble teams like Texas, Oklahoma and West Virginia all have just two), no real "bad" losses and wins over Air Force, Indiana, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Clemson and Boston College, it's really tough to see how Duke will miss-out on the Tournament, barring a historic collapse.
They're good for wins against St. John's and Georgia Tech, which would get them to six in the ACC and 20 overall. Do you honestly think a 20-win Duke team is going to miss the Tournament? And that's worst-case scenario (for them, not society). Count on, at the very least, one more win against either BC, Clemson, Maryland or UNC too. Clemson's wheels haven't just come off, they've blown up and Maryland is the most inconsistent team in the conference. Like it or not, Duke isn't going to miss the Tournament. All that buzzing you'll hear between now and March 11 about that very topic is inane. And now that I've tried to ruin this parade, let's get back to ripping Duke.)
When the buzzer sounded in College Park last night, Coach K had a strange, bemused look on his face. I think it was a look of resignation. It was almost as if he knows he doesn't have the horses this year and was willing himself into getting some more back pain so he can hand the reins over to Johnny Dawkins so the impending losses won't cloud his coaching record.
All of Duke's problems were on display yesterday. Greg Paulus isn't a competent point guard and probably would be better served by making a switch to the two. DeMarcus Nelson peaked in high school and every freshman on the roster is as inconsistent as... um... something that is really inconsistent. Josh McRoberts has improved since last year, but he still isn't taking over a game like somebody of his stature should. McRoberts often had two or three inches on the guy's defending him last night (Bambale Osby, James Gist), yet he failed to dominate the interior with Bowers and Ibekwe in foul trouble. It's sort of strange to see a Duke team struggle like this, particularly because it's been so out of the blue.

Can somebody explain to me how Duke is ranked #11 in the country right now? They lost their two best - nay, only - players and... I guess that's it. But it's enough. Duke lost their two best players. Now they're forced to rely on a soft presence in the middle who couldn't even contribute when he was getting defended by scrubs and the most overrated point guard in the land.
Sure, Greg Paulus led the ACC in assists last season, the first freshman to do so since Ed Cota, but he did so feeding the best shooter in the conference and a proficient big man. Assists won't come as easy dishing to David McClure.
Krzyzewski had another great recruiting class, but who else can step-in to fill the void left by the aforementiond tools and the about-to-be-mentioned one, Lee Melchionni? David McClure? You mean Ridgefield, CT's finest? Sorry, Ridgefield, you had your college superstar already and his name was Justin Redemer. Martynas Pocius? The best thing anybody can say about him is that some European teams offered him contrats this off-season. I suppose Trajan Langdon is lonely. DeMarcus Nelson? Please, I'm eating here.
- November 16, 2006

I'd pat myself on the back, but I know I'm not the only one who saw this coming. Bill Simmons definitely did too.

Bullets
Four weeks ago, Gilbert Arenas was the toast of D.C. Everything he touched turned to gold-plated swag, he was voted to the All-Star team and his coach would be there with him, on the strength of Gil's late-game heroics. Everything was copasetic.
Yesterday, in a game in which Gil said he'd drop 50, Arenas scored nine on 3-15 shooting (including 0-8 from three). The Bullets scored their lowest point total of the season against the lowly Blazers (at home, no less) and afterwards, utter mayhem ensued (to steal a line from Dan Steinberg).
Gil called out coach Eddie Jordan who, in turn, called out Gil. Antwan Jamison's absence clearly is to blame, but it doesn't much matter; strife is strife. The Bullets are falling apart at the seams mere weeks after being the hottest non-helio-named team in the NBA. In the immortal words of Micheal Ray Richardson, "the ship be sinking" and there's only one way to fix it: Bench Gilbert Arenas. (A fine would work too, but "Bench Gilbert Arenas" has a certain je ne sais pas.)
This theory is not my own (it belongs to a Bucknell grad who still can't believe the Bison lost to Wake Forest this year), but I am stealing it and passing it off as my own. There's really no explination needed either, which is good. If a player publicly calls out his coach, there should be repurcussions. Just because the player doing the calling out is a superstar doesn't make it any different. Gil needs to shut his mouth, learn to play some defense and take his ass-whuppings like a man. Ernie Grunfeld should announce that Gil has been fined and reprimanded and will sit out the first quarter of the next game. The Bullets need to show Agent Zero who's running the show and they need to do it in public so Gilbert knows that this type of nonsense won't fly.

* (re: Sean Taylor's hit: A reader named Jerry apparently has translated what those Japanese announcers were saying while describing SeanTay's hit in the Pro Bowl and he has transcribed it in the comments section. I don't know whether Jerry knows Japanese or simply stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I'm going to take his word for it. It's sort of awesome:

The Japanese guys was pretty funny. What they said amounts to the following:
(something hard to make out without the first half of the sentence. He's either talking about strong winds or big numbers. Or maybe both.)
Analyst: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
Play-by-Play: Oh, whoa! What's this?
Analyst: *something VERY incoherent in the background*
Play-by-Play: It's a keeper! He's not punting it!
Analyst: *continues to make noises*
Play-by-Play: (as the hit occurs) AHH! THERE'S SOMEONE THERE!
The last line really cracked me up.

When I watch Iron Chef I often wish I could just hear the original Japanese audio because they always seem a lot more giggly and excited than the American translaters. I don't know why I just wrote that.

* This is probably a few weeks old, but SNL's "Weekend Update" comments on the utter stupidity of Michael Vick. It's actually pretty funny.

Friday Links

* Gilbert Arenas says he could score "84 or 85" points against Duke, in retribution for Coach K leaving him off Team USA's roster for last year's World Basketball Championships. Clearly, Gilbert doesn't watch too many Duke games because, if he did, he'd know that once he got to 45 the refs would immediately foul him out. Or he'd hit the game-winning shot and then have the refs arbitrarily add two more seconds to the game, plenty of time for Duke to steal one. All last night's Duke/Clemson game needed was Cold War overtones, '70s hairstyles and an Olympic banner overhead.
Also, Ivan Carter reports Gilbert was watching Bambi II on DVD when he got the call telling him he was voted an All-Star starter.

* According to FoxSports.com's Jay Glazer, the Cowboys have received permission to discuss their head coaching vacancy with 49ers offensive coordinator Norv Turner, news that makes me want to say, "that would be a very sensible hire, Jerry Jones," before running behind a bush and giggling maniacally.

* In Esquire, Chuck Klosterman looks into whether sports analysts were better at their original careers (playing professional sports) or their second-acts (talking about professional sports). Read the whole thing.
It's one of those ideas that you wish you had thought of yourself, and yet another reason why I consider Klosterman one of the best writers out there doing his thing. George Clooney.
Klosterman thinks Troy Aikman is a better analyst than he was a quarterback (high praise for his TV work, since Aikman is a Hall of Famer), rips on Sean Salisbury's NFL career so much that he thinks he is actually a better analyst, despite calling his TV work "an atrocity" and dishes this great line about Phil Simms: "He seems like a fictional announcer from a football movie I wouldn't pay to see," which is pretty much the perfect summary of Simms' broadcasting abilities.
Klosterman is one of those guys that a lot of people hate because he's successful, so he gets unfairly knocked around by people who are jealous of his talent and book deals. Someone once left a comment on my site suggesting that my dislike of Bill Simmons was for the very same reason, to which I responded, "some people hate Bill Simmons because they're not Bill Simmons. I just hate him because he's a d-bag."

* ESPN.com printed an appalling tale of injustice today, detailing the travails of a former high school football star in Georgia serving 10 years in prison for having consensual sex with a 15 year old girl while he was 18. Everyone involved in the case agrees Genarlow Wilson shouldn't be in jail for a decade, but nobody who can do anything about it seems eager to do so. In other news, Mike Nifong probably would have tried to get Wilson sentenced to life.

* A New York Times "Escapes" feature on the Triangle's basketball teams should have been a lot better than it was. Don't read it. I don't even know why I'm linking to it.

* Michael Wilbon thinks we could be witnessing something special in Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. And he doesn't have to compare their amazing run to the first 12 episodes of The White Shadow either.

* A few weeks back I started interrupting people's sentences with "George Clooney" and kept trying to get everyone over there and try to solve that thing and it made me hanker for a repeat viewing of Rick Sutcliffe's hilarious drunken appearance on a Padres telecast last May. After looking for it on the Internet for a few minutes, I determined that said video had been fully eradicated from the information superhighway and that this was, perhaps, the most amazing thing I had ever seen. How could a video just disappear? Does Rick Sutcliffe have connections?
Luckily, I'm always wrong and tonight I managed to find video documentation of this historic moment in baseball history. History, you fickle mistress whore, you've been defeated again in your attempts to hold down the brilliance of The Red Baron and for years onward schoolchildren will study Rick Sutcliffe's plan for thing-solving on foreign soil. Me? I'll be dropping off the clip tomorrow at the Smithsonian.

* And since we're on awesome guest appearances in baseball booths, here's the classic Dennis Leary/Lenny Clarke clip from NESN when Leary and Clarke found out about the heritage of Kevin Youkilis and turned it into a Mel Gibson roast. The best part about this clip (besides Jerry Remy practically keeling over from laughing so hard) is that Youkilis makes three huge plays in the half-inning, which gives Leary and Clarke even more fodder for their hysterical antics. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get outta here and call Jeffrey Katzenberg and ask him for a job.

What, He Couldn't Get Jay-Z?

When my cousin Peter turned 25, we drank for seven hours at various D.C. watering holes and eventually ended up getting turned away at a 24-hour Denny's in College Park. On Antzo's 25th, he made everyone take a disgusting shot at midnight and then proceeded to hit on every Greek girl in a three-zip code vicinity. This past August, when I turned 25, my parents took me out to a nice dinner and then I met up with a small group of friends and got hammered off Crowne and car bombs and ended up paying a bouncer to keep out uninvited guests.
Gilbert Arenas turns 25 tomorrow and will have a similar get-together, except his friends will include Busta Rhymes, The Game, T.I., Lil' Wayne and a bevy of hoochies that would make a rap video blush. Oh, and he's also sent out "Arenas Express" cards as invitations (what, Evite wasn't cool enough?). And Puffy's hosting. And the dress-code is "super duper fly." (At mine, I only required duper fly; hence the difference between me and a millionaire.) And Caron Butler says it'll be the second-best D.C. social event of the year behind, of course, Howard Homecoming. And the party has it's own website.
As Bullets play-by-play man Dave Johnson told Dan Steinberg, "my last party didn't even have a site." (It was Steinberg's awesome DC Sports Bog that alerted me to this monumental event.)
There's a chance Gil might be the coolest cat around these parts these days; from his vocab-lesson-jumpshots to his argyle sweaters (watch the video, it's great) to his hyperbaric sleeping bag to his perfect 32-foot game-winners (see below), Arenas has turned from underrated eccentric to MVP-like eccentric in a matter of months. Seriously, watch the shot. How bad-ass does he look, turning away after shooting and not even watching the ball go in. There have only been two people who ever could pull that off; Michael Jordan and Will Smith in that episode of Fresh Prince where he racked up about 70 points on an eight-foot hoop, which makes Carlton get all jealous.
Anyway, watch the shot.

Happy Birthday, Gilbert. Here's hoping T.I. doesn't shoot you.