David Stern knew better than to seriously compete with the NFL conference championships on Sunday, putting only three games on the NBA schedule. And good thing the Vikings lost, because if Brett Favre had made the Super Bowl, the media hype over the next two weeks might lead the NBA to suspend their operation altogether until after the entire world hopped off Favre’s jock. Peyton Manning/Drew Brees — plus some Kim Kardashian sprinkled in — we can deal with; a 24-hour, 14-day Favre love fest would be too much to handle … The Mavs faced the Knicks at MSG, and, well, Dime reader JHUSTLE can explain it best: “Aight Dime the next post has gotta be how my Mavs just destroyed the Knicks by 50. FIFTY POINTS???!!! Woooooooow just burn the Garden to the ground after that one. That team should be ashamed of themselves. That’s a 2K10 score, not a real life NBA game score. SMFH.” … Read More »

During the Phoenix broadcast of last night’s Suns/Cavs game, one of the announcers compared Steve Nash and LeBron as such: “One does it with the brain, the other does it with the brawn. ‘Le-Brawn,’ I guess you could say.” Nevermind that dude almost wandered into Jimmy the Greek territory with that one (it’s strange how people act like Nash isn’t a great athlete, or LBJ only dominates because of his athleticism), but LeBron made the comment look silly anyway when he did his Magic Johnson impersonation and dropped seven assists in the first quarter. Read More »

When the Spurs smacked the sting out of the Hornets in their season opener the other night, everybody but Tim Duncan looked like world-beaters. Last night in Chicago, Duncan proved he’s still dominant when he needs to be, but his teammates didn’t show up and San Antone took an L … The Bulls just had too many weapons to counter the Spurs’ one-man show. Derrick Rose put up 13 points and seven dimes and Luol Deng had 17 and nine boards, as the whole starting five and sixth man Kirk Hinrich scored in double figures. Read More »

You want to cause a splinter within the ranks of the Solar Temple of Michael Jordan followers? Ask them whether they think MJ’s second comeback with the Wizards was a good idea. It’s like if Lauryn Hill dropped an album this year: Half her fans would be thrilled to snatch up anything by L-Boogie, while the other half would be terrified of the potential damage to her legacy when she’s clearly not at the top of her game right now.

But really, the concept of “going out on top” is one that has become strangely unique to sports. Read More »

Welcome to the (so far) most Twitter-infected edition of Smack ever written. We begin with Nate Robinson, who was arrested yesterday in NYC for driving on a suspended license, and broke the news himself — on Twitter. Nate actually tweeted while he was being pulled over (if only this kind of technology existed when Rodney King got popped in ‘91), and what started with his windows being too tinted turned into a revelation that his license had been suspended for an unpaid ticket he says he didn’t know about. Granted, this is a very minor legal matter, but it’s also horrible timing for Nate when he’s still technically unemployed … One of the League’s other high-profile jobless guys, Allen Iverson, took his free agency news to the Twitter crowd. Read More »

Just yesterday, I was watching an old Suns/Rockets game on ESPN Classic when I was reminded of the time Robert Horry threw a towel in Danny Ainge’s face when Ainge was coaching Horry in Phoenix. (The only team with which Rob didn’t win a championship.) Like a lot of older controversial sports stories, I always wonder how things would’ve played out differently had it happened in 2009 with today’s media climate.

I thought that same thing just now when I heard about Al Harrington’s interview with Bay Area radio station KNBR. Read More »

Late last night, after hearing yet another TV analyst talk about Kobe Bryant’s “drive” and “competitiveness” and “will to win” the same way you’d talk about a woman’s features, I wondered when we started defining our greatest athletes with intangible terms we can’t even define.

Nevermind the ring count: This is how Kobe has truly set himself apart from Shaq. Read More »