"Is That Spalding I See On Your Head?"

Kevin Garnett got ejected from a game Sunday at home for – get this – throwing a ball into the stands and hitting a fan in the face.

And the fan was taken off the court on a gurney. An f’ing GURNEY!

The ball couldn’t have been going more than 7 mph! I’m surprised that Jackie Chiles didn’t come running down from the loge section to hand the guy a business card.

“Look at that abrasion from the pebbled surface of that official basketball!”

”How hard was that ball inflated?”
”35 psi.”
”35 psi! 35psi? That’s not official size and weight! Gimme David Stern on the phone!”

Mark Coale writes in to ask the necessary next question: “How long until they insist on putting up nets around the court, like they now have in hockey?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Vince Young’s “Wonderlic” score has leaked out. It’s not good.

6.

That’s reportedly lower than the Redskins resident non-Phi-Beta-Kappa Sean Taylor who scored a 10. It’s even lower than the reportedly thick-witted score posted by ex-Skins bust Heath Shuler.

I have some problems with the whole Wonderlic thing, however. First of all, the test is notoriously secret. I’ve tried in vain to get a copy of one just for fun, and it’s not like they are sitting around on the internet. Furthermore, the company which runs it, is so tight lipped about methodology, that I’ve tried booking them for radio interviews before, and it’s almost impossible.

Also, do we have comprehensive and confirmable data on all players who took this test over the years, to at least find some guys who scored low, but went on to have good or even great careers?

I think it’s also pretty unfair for players to have these numbers leak out. Either you make the test numbers as open and transparent as height and weight. Or you keep them more tightly under wraps.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Of the many, many, truly INSPIRED rants and concepts Bill Simmons has written over the years, his latest “Awful GM Summitt” article is singularly spectacular in my opinion. Not just thoroughly researched, but mercilessly truthful, and hilariously scripted. It’s long, but worth the read. If not, then you can snack on these two nuggets for now….

Simmons: Jim Paxson, let's start with you. Last February, you traded a 2007 first-round pick to Boston for Jiri Welsch. Four months later, after you were fired by the Cavs, they traded Welsch to Milwaukee for a 2006 second round pick. To my knowledge, that's never happened before. Walk us through that.

Paxson: Jiri had bounced around the league and couldn't even crack Doc Rivers' regular rotation -- and Doc uses 11 guys a night. So that was in place. Third, and most important, are your fans going to be outraged when they hear about the trade and say things like, "What the hell?" and "How can we stop this guy, he's a menace?" That was there, too. And that's what made the trade so appealing. It's not often you can trade for someone who's worth half as much four months later.

Simmons: Mitch, when you took over the Lakers, you had the best two players in the league and could have won 10 straight titles with the right moves. Instead, you couldn't get it done. Then you traded Shaq for 30 cents on the dollar; you gave cap-killing contracts to run-of-the-mill guys like Chris Mihm and Devean George; you blew all of your draft picks; you wasted the next three to four years of Kobe's prime by drafting a high school center over someone like Danny Granger, who could have helped right away; and then, you outdid yourself by trading Caron Butler and Chucky Atkins' useful expiring contract for Kwame Brown. But the Shaq-Kobe saga overshadowed everything; you haven't gotten enough credit for being a complete debacle. Does that bother you?

Kupchak: I'd be lying if I said it didn't. When we made the Kwame trade, I was thinking to myself, "This is it, this is the one, now maybe people will start talking about me." Well, it didn't happen. Then the season starts, and Kwame's just a complete stiff … still, nothing. Then Phil [Jackson] goes on the record and calls Kwame a "p----." Nothing. People in Los Angeles just don't care. When you look at what I've done in L.A., it's amazing, really. I traded the best center in the history of basketball 19 months ago, and all we have to show for it is an unhappy Lamar Odom, Kwame and Brian Grant's eight-figure buyout. And yet, nobody mentions me.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Want a good laugh? Read the “Bode Manifesto” I pulled from the www.joinbode.com site. Good times, good times.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

PICTURE OF THE DAY!