Brook Lopez

Feel bad for Brook Lopez. The ONE time dude goes into a game this season thinking he’s got a victory in the bag — seeing as the Sophomores traditionally treat the Rookies like frat pledges in the Rookie Challenge — he still ends up taking a loss. Not only that, but the guy Brook was guarding most of the night, DeJuan Blair, he of the 6-4 stature and orange peels holding his knees together, posted a 22-point, 23-rebound effort that should have won him MVP … You could tell Brook was frustrated at the end, too. Late in the second half Tyreke Evans (the official MVP with 26 points and five steals) tried to dribble between Brook’s legs and slip around him on the baseline, but Brook just pushed him out of bounds instead. Then in the final seconds, Blair was about to score when Brook literally tackled him, but still gave up the and-one … Russell Westbrook dropped 40 points in the Rookie Challenge loss, Mike Beasley
scored 28, Brandon Jennings had 22 and eight dimes for the rooks, and James Harden scored 22 … One-word review of the Dunk-In? Forgettable. First off, it’s not a good sign when Blair had the best dunk of the night (going off-glass to himself during the rookie game). Second, this thing was flawed from the beginning when they chose Eric Gordon. We love EJ at Dime — he’s been down with us since high school — but it was tough for people to get excited because he’s not known as a dunker. And if you’re TNT, why even show the graphic that said DeRozan has 33 in-game dunks, while Gordon only has seven? They would’ve been better off with Westbrook or Rudy Fernandez … DeRozan won easily. Even though he rocked the lefty reverse between-the-legs (think Jason Richardson in ’03) and the full-extension windmill at about half-speed, most important was that DeRozan made his dunks on the first try, while Gordon kept missing. And
we could’ve sworn we saw EJ come down limping after one of his attempts … After Dime tweeted that “37-year-old” J-Rich was MVP the last time the Rookies won, J-Rich hit us back: “Damn Dime u added 8yrs, I’m 29.” To which Charlie Bell replied, “J-Rich u do look old as hell. LOL.” … Dwight Howard did a solid job on color commentary, plus he may have permanently saddled Marc Gasol with the “Baby Jesus” nickname and Brandon Jennings with “Gumby.” We could envision a scenario where Dwight is the next Charles Barkley-type TV personality after his playing days, except for two things: (1) Dwight will have like $450 million in the bank by the time he’s retired, and (2) We might not even be watching TV by then. It’ll be something with a chip in your brain that takes you right into the arena … Or at least Dwight was doing OK until Barkley and Kenny Smith showed up for the Dunk-In acting like somebody’s drunk uncles at Thanksgiving, bent on instigating a fight and making everybody uncomfortable. Barkley kept egging Dwight to talk trash about Shaq, even after Dwight told him he didn’t wanna get into it … Our guys on the ground in Dallas reported from the post-game media session that Omri Casspi showed up “with more than a minyon of folks following him. He’s like Moses.” We also heard JYD Jerome Williams was wandering around with a microphone that may or may not have been plugged in … Did you catch the debut of the new “We Are the World” video during the Olympics opening ceremonies? Not trying to hate on something done for a good cause, but it was just a strange brew of artists to have in the same place: Jennifer Hudson, Nicole from the Pussycat Dolls, Janet Jackson (split-screen with an old clip of Michael), Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, Lionel Ritchie, Kelly Clarkson, Toni Braxton, Gladys Knight, Lil Wayne (really), Randy Jackson, Will.i.am, LL Cool J, Faith Evans, Wyclef, Trey Songz, Kanye (wearing shades indoors) and Busta Rhymes, to name a few. And somehow they forgot to invite Gen. Larry Platt … We’re out like JYD …