“F**king shocked” would be a nice way to describe my reaction to the hire.

The Lakers are replacing Phil Jackson, maybe the greatest coach in team sports history, with Mike Brown, someone known more for his taste in eyewear than his basketball prowess.  This has to be a rebound hire, and not a long term solution.  This is the fat girl you bone after your dime-piece fiancé dumps you, to prove to yourself that “yeah, I can still get laid”.

Living in Ohio, I had the opportunity to watch Brown’s 5 year tenure as an NBA coach in Cleveland. Not only was it boring, it was f**k-all boring. Brown had the most unstoppable athlete in NBA history on his team, yet the Cavs offense seemed to mainly rely on James dribbling at the top of the key for 17 seconds, then deciding to shoot or kick.

Brown’s teams were known for their suffocating defense, but I would like to suggest that the Cavs defensive numbers might have been a result of the super-s**tty Eastern Conference they dominated. Once they played good teams in the playoffs, they were taken apart. Anyone remember the Magic series in 2009? Stan van Gundy worked that ass, and this is the first time anyone has ever uttered that sentiment.

James routinely disrespected Brown in Cleveland, so he should at least be prepared for the inevitable bashing coming his way from Kobe. My sincere hope, though, is that Brown can help mend Gasol’s broken heart and earn a title before that s**tbird in Miami.

When are these guys going to understand the concept of cameras? 5 years? Ever?

I get that Noah is not anywhere even close to being as important to the NBA as Kobe Bryant, but I think he should be held to the same standard if he did indeed say “F**k you, f****t” like it looks like he said.

Noah is so insignificant, it may not even get mentioned. Or maybe other people are thinking its just gay on gay crime.

Whatcha got, Stern? LeBron gets to double dribble. I seriously rewound that s**t like 10 times and laughed harder each and every time. (the double dribble, not the gay slur)

The NBA Western Conference playoffs are set.  Here is how I see it shaking out, along with the odds of each team winning the West. 

Admittedly, I do not follow the West nearly as close as I follow the East, so feel free to add your two cents in the comments section.

Memphis Grizzlies.  100-1.  Memphis is not a terrible team, and the 8 seed in the West is WORLD’S better than the 8 seed in the East… Unfortunately, Memphis runs into the second most efficient offense in the league, and the Spurs steamroll the Grizz in 5.

New Orleans Hornets.  75-1.  Chris Paul may be healthy, but David West is not… and that’s bad news for the Hornets.  Kobe may hate gay people, but he is still a killer.  Break out the brooms for this first round Laker sweep.

Portland Trail Blazers.  20-1.  I wouldn’t be shocked if Portland made some noise in the first round against Dirk and the Mavs.  Gerald Wallace makes this team exceptionally dangerous and I’m ready to call for the first round upset, resulting in a Mark Cuban melt down that would make Miss Teen South Carolina squirm. Blazers over Mavs in 7.  Therefore.  Such as.  The Iraq.

Denver Nuggets.  15-1.  The Nuggets did what nobody thought they could do… Thrive in the absense of Carmelo.  This season, Denver has dealt with more episodes than a Charlie Sheen coke-bender, and came out unscathed.  A first round matchup with Kevin Durant and the Thunder will test the resolve of the team, and ultimately prove to be their demise.  Thunder rolls in 6.

Dallas Mavericks.  8-1.  Dirk is getting on in years, and this may be his last shot at a ring.  Some see that as motivation.  I am not one of those people.  Too much of a talented Portland team.  One and done for Cubes.  Oklahoma City Thunder.  5-1.  Durant and Westbrook will carry this team as far as it will go.  Fast, young and hungry gets your to the second round in my book.  Then you get flattened by San Antonio. 

San Antonio Spurs.  2-1.  Experience is key, and the Spurs have it.  The team is also phenomenal at home, and with the top seed in the West they will be setting up shop at the Alamo Dome throughout.  I see the Spurs advancing to the conference finals.

Los Angeles Lakes.  2-1.  The Lake-Show have been here before.  Kobe is focused, Bynum is healthy, and the rest of the crew is ready to go.  Unless Steve Blake gives the team Chicken Pox, these guys are my team to beat out West.  To be the man, you’ve gotta beat the man.  Lakers roll into the NBA Finals and we are all treated to Lebron vs Kobe after all. 

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But he still calls people “f****t.” Doesn’t he know that’s sooooo 1990s?

After technical foul Bryant was sent to the bench. During a temper tantrum he called referee Bennie Adams a “f**king f****t.”

The backlash will be sufficient. He won’t ever do it again.

David Stern just smacked him with a $100,000 fine. Again, when you are as filthy rich as he is, it doesn’t makes a difference.

Stern should donate the money to GayandEngaged.org. I hear their cause is having a hard time getting off the ground.

People will be pissed, but as long as he wins, it will die.

Remember, he once got accused of rape. Rape is worse.

The “f**king f****t” part is at about the 0:36 mark.

His play on the court can speak for itself, but luckily for us, he can speak for himself off the court as well. And when he does, so far, it has been glorious.

Not only does he want to play against all of the greats, he made it perfectly clear that he wants to “destroy” LeBron on the court.

On a particular possession, Kobe took a long shot and thought he was fouled. In the end, he missed the shot, and got some advice from the ROOKIE NBA referee.

In response to Kobe’s complaining, Eli Roe had three simple words, “Make the shot”.

First off, you’re probably wondering, who or what is Eli Roe? Well,  he is a young-buck referee with just over 50 games under his belt in his second NBA season. His claim to fame is officiating the WNBA Finals back in 04 and 05. His most prestigious award was getting voted “Referee most likely to choke to death on his own whistle.” But for a guy that likes to blow his whistle a lot, it seemed pretty quiet when it came to calling fouls for Kobe Bryant.

Sure, many players whine or argue every single time some guy touches him, or tries to play defense on him. I get that, and not every superstar should get a foul called on him just because of his name.

But with that being said, if you watched the game, you could clearly see the fouls that were made on Bryant. Some of them were easy calls to make; yet this douchebag didn’t call them. Eli Roe was either blind, or just plain dumbfounded. And for a guy that doesn’t have much if at all any experience in the NBA, he sure has a big mouth.

Just check out this video and tell me that isn’t a foul?!

Get outta here with that stupid cliché Roe. “No Blood, No foul” is just a figure of speech.

By looking at Iguodala’s face after the shot, there was no question he got flicked right in the nuts.

Fast forward to a year later, January 2011, and it looks like Kevin Garnett has taken another page from the dirty players’ handbook, this time tagging Channing Frye in the balls as he comes down from a jump shot.

Frye takes offense to Garnett’s bitch move and storms back with a pseudo-headbutt.  I think it would have been better if he clocked Garnett in the dome, but that’s just me.

And wouldn’t it figure that Garnett would further the bitch move by pretending he didn’t do anything.

If Garnett’s going to be a punk, albeit a very old punk, he should at least own up to it.  He’s running around acting like a f**king five-year-old with his hands in the air.

He was ejected — like it mattered.  The Celtics were getting stomped and there was four minutes left in the game. 

So not only is Garnett a punk-ass bitch, but he is also a childish sore loser.  This shouldn’t be news to anyone — he’s been doing this s**t for years.

These are just a few words or comments that are stated by the general public when asked about what they think about the great Kobe Bryant.

Not quite the response you are accustomed to hear when mentioning one of the greatest basketball players of all time possibly, and a definite future HOFer.

On the court Kobe is a 5-time NBA champion, 2-time NBA Finals MVP, 12-time NBA All-Star, 10-time All-Defensive selection, and the list just goes on and on as he is currently competing for his second 3-peat NBA Championship this year.

And now Kobe Bryant has made history off the court, as he will become the first athlete ever to have his hand and foot print ceremony at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Just to let you know how significant this is, not even the great Magic Johnson, Jerry West, James Worthy, or Shaquille O’Neal has ever been honored as Kobe Bryant is about to receive during the All-Star weekend.

Those are some of the great basketball players to have ever played the game, and Kobe Bryant is the first ever athlete to get an opportunity of a lifetime as this is mostly reserved for the best actors and actresses.

This Theatre includes the hand and foot prints of more than 200 Hollywood superstars including Brad Pitt, John Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe.

Still, people hate.

No matter how hard he tries, how diligent he works to fix his mistakes, it always seems like the public holds a higher standard that is almost impossible to reach.

Yes, he made mistakes, one that nearly broke him when he was accused of sexual assault which later turned out to be untrue, but admitted that he cheated on his wife.

Doesn’t everybody deserve a second chance?

Most recently Michael Vick has gotten better forgiveness than Kobe Bryant and Vick didn’t even win a championship.

Kobe on the other hand has won 2 more titles since the incident.

Guess the saying, “Everybody loves a winner” isn’t true for everybody, most specifically the Black Mamba.

Admire him, or find him intolerable. Honor him, or hate him, the bottom line is you have to respect him for his basketball abilities — that is, if you respect basketball abilities.

This is very exciting news because Blake Griffin may be the best slam dunk artist in the NBA.  For once, a player with the ability to garner countless ooh’s and ahh’s is not snubbing the event.  In the eighties and nineties, players couldn’t wait to enter the competition.  The Slam Dunk Contests of yore featured the best players in the game: Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Kobe Bryant and Julius Erving to name a few.

But as of late the contest has been basically relegated to a fancy game of HORSE — dunks only.  Lately the winners have been basically the shortest dude on the court, blowing everybody away with their hops.  That’s fine, but it’s getting a little stale.  Spud Webb set the table, Nate Robinson bussed it.

Blake Griffin jumps so high he has to be careful not to hit his head on the rim.  Check out this awesome video below of Griffin’s thunderous dunks this year.  The guy is a beast.  I can’t wait to see what he does with no defenders in his way.

That’s right.  It’s OK.  You can feel good about looking forward to the Slam Dunk Contest again.  February 19th.

-John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, the participants in the longest tennis match of all time – To sit down together and play a nice SHORT game.  May I suggest the board game “The Longest Day”.  Average game lasts just 5400 minutes!

-NASCAR phenom Jimmy Johnson who has won fifth straight title – To get a clue.  C’mon man, you’re making driving around in a circle for three hours even less exciting.

-Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers – Perform a three-peat.  I don’t particularly care for you, but anyone but the Heat.

-Roy Halladay -  To get some recognition.  He is the best pitcher in baseball.  Hands down.

-Armando Gallarage – To pitch another a perfect game.  Without Jim Joyce in the stadium.

-The Vuvuzela -  To die.  And never come back.

-Michael Vick -  To adopt a Golden Doodle.  And love it. 

-Floyd Mayweather -  To stop ducking Manny Pacquiao.  Sissy.

-Tiger Woods -  To move past his transgressions and reclaim his place as the most dominant athlete in his sport.  And to meet Jen Sterger.  I bet they’d get along great.

-Justin Blackmon -  To get drafted by the Cleveland Browns and immediately be the most dominant wide receiver in the AFC  North.

-Chuck Liddell -  To enjoy retirement.  Though judging by his last 6 fights, it looks like “The Iceman” has been retired since Quinton “Rampage” Jackson punched his face in 2 minutes into UFC 71 back in 2007.

-Jim Tressell -  To continue to shield the blame for his athletes, when clearly he was not at fault.  The Sweater Vest is far and away the classiest coach in college football and if he loses his job because a handful of ungrateful athletes think they are bigger than the game, Ohio State isn’t the only one who will lose.  All of college football will.

-North Carolina Tarheels Basketball -  To start winning games.  Four losses and it isn’t even January?  You’re NORTH FREAKING CAROLINA.  THE premier college basketball school.  Stop losing.  It’s embarrassing.

-Stephen Strasburg – To get healthy.  Very rarely have I seen a major league prospect live up to the kind of hype Strasburg had coming into the 2010 baseball season.  Even more rare is the fact that he absolutely blew the expectations out of the water.  This kid is special.

-Cam Newton – To give back your Heisman Trophy.  We all know it’s going to be stripped in a few years anyway. 

-The Kansas City Chiefs coordinators – To lose a collective 400 pounds.  We were able to obtain this picture of Romeo Crennell and Charlie Weiss heading to practice yesterday. 

-Peyton Hillis -  To get some help on the offensive side of the ball.  We all enjoyed watching The Great White Buffalo run over opposing defenses this year, but imagine how amazing he would be if the Browns added a few playmakers around him.

-The New York Yankees -  To finish third in the AL East.  Nobody likes watching a team buy its way to the playoffs year after year.

-College Fantasy Football on CBSsports.com – To get some run.  With a looming NFL lockout, this could tide over fantasy fanatics in the absence of the real thing.  Plus, it’s awesome.

-Mike Singletary – To get a hug.  That was hard to watch.

-TCU Football -  To stick it to the BCS and blow Wisconsin out of the water, proving once again that the BCS is terrible and show a need for a playoff system.  (Unfortunately, I feel this will be one of those resolutions that may not come true!  Sorry Horned Frogs!)

-Oregon Ducks Football -  To get new uniforms.  Sweet steel feathers, Chip Kelly.

-Vince Young – To get a new team and a fresh start.  In college, you were THE man.  In the pros?  Continuous hissy fits and bailing on your coach and team make you barely A man.

-The NFC West – To have a team with a winning record.  Terrible.

-Lebron James – To hire a new agent, a new publicist, a new manager, a new PR firm, and try and fix the seemingly irreparable damage that you did to your image over the past 9 months.  Just kidding, Lebron.  Don’t change a thing.  You’re the worst.

When asked who would win in a one-on-one game between him and LeBron James, Kobe stated without hesitation, “I would,” and he shook his head vigorously to illustrate how absurd the question really is.

“That’s what I do.”

He goes on to say that LeBron is more a Magic Johnson-type of player, with more focus on the all-around team game.  I couldn’t agree with him more.  Kobe can score on anybody.  And he’s a sick lock-down defender.  I’m putting my money on Kobe every time.

His “in my sleep” comment may have been a bit much, but do you really expect anything less from Colorado Face?

For what it’s worth, I’d still love to see Kevin Durant flush both of these turds.

A-Rod hits home run number 599.  Given his past confession to using PED’s, does anyone even care about the numbers anymore?

I guess the feud between Matt Barnes and Kobe Bryant will have to cease.  Kobe already made Barnes look like a punk during the season by doing absolutely nothing – now he’ll have to share the ball with him.

The second pick of the 2008 NBA Draft, Michael Beasley, has been called a pothead by the GM that just traded for him.  That can’t be a good way to break the ice.  Beasley claims he doesn’t smoke anymore.  Yeaaahhh riiiight.

Minor League Baseball players are going to be giving a lot more blood.  And it’s not for charity.

Stephen Jackson’s home was robbed while his wife was held at gunpoint.

He answered, smugly, with a simple word: Kobe.

At this point it’s not really a debate anymore. This past season was all we needed to see to put this argument to rest. By winning the championship the last two years, Kobe has shown that he is not only capable of winning a title without Shaq, but he is a leader and a clutch player with the skills to win when it mattered most.

LeBron’s performance in the playoffs over the last two years have been a joke. He clearly quit in the playoffs more than once this year, while pouting like a little baby.

Even though Jordan has shown that he is a terrible talent evaluator in the past, I have to agree with him on this one.

It really is a no-brainer.  Five rings > No rings.

He was accompanied by fellow funnyman David Spade and, boy they got their laughs in last night. 

First, Rock was shown heckling Kobe, with Spade in the background, covering his mouth and laughing.  But Kobe is unfazed, completely ignoring him.  The video is below, that is actually the best part.

But then, afterward, while giving a sideline interview to Chris Rock, he gets an earful from Phil Jackson.  Just watch the video below.

I really love Kobe’s face in this video.  Priceless.

Many of us are not at all interested  in the Celtics-Lakers Finals — but many of us are.  Dylan Murphy from Pardon The Opinion has provided us with his take on the whole thing, and I have a feeling many of you feel the same way.

Pissed about the finals matchup? I am too. David Stern’s eyes may light up with dollar signs, but I for one have had enough of Kobe’s lower jaw and Paul Pierce’s remarkable ability to collapse always onto the floor after contact.

Under normal circumstances, Lakers vs. Celtics is an inevitably polarizing matchup. You’re either pro-Kobe and smack your lips as you praise his work ethic and skill, or you’re pro-Boston and, as Alan from The Hangover so eloquently put it, you love Allen, Pierce and Garnett as “the three best friends that anybody could have.”

In 2008, I fell into camp #2. I loved “ubuntu.” I loved the rejuvenation of Kevin Garnett. I loved Paul Pierce’s Willis Reed-like return from the wheelchair in game 1.

I hated Kobe Bryant’s inability to choose between his team’s or his own glory. I hated Phil Jackson’s reputation as the greatest coach ever while Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Pau Gasol were treated like byproducts as opposed to the products themselves. I hated Sasha Vujacic.

Yet my loyalties continue to dangle somewhere in the nebulous world of the in-between. First off, I cannot withstand any more of the Rondo fad. We get it.

He’s fast. He’s flashy. He’s a top five point guard. But frankly, he has done nothing remarkable. For anyone who watched basketball at any point during the season, the regular season was Rondo’s coming out party. And in a shocking turn of events, Rondo’s speed has proven to be too much for his playoff counterparts to handle. However, his success has somewhat depended on exactly that: his opponent’s speed. Just take a look at the stats (Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think my order of speed is unreasonable.)

Rondo vs. Jameer Nelson (fastest defender) 14.3 PPG, 8.0 APG

Rondo vs. Mario Chalmers (still relatively fast) 14.8 PPG, 10.2 APG

Rondo vs. Mo Williams (slowest defender) 20.7 PPG, 11.8 APG

If you don’t like numbers, think of it in another way. When Rondo had varying success against Chalmers and Nelson, it was like Denzel Washington’s initial tough and well-earned buckets at the beginning of the final showdown of He Got Game. But when Denzel’s age showed its colors and Ray’s athleticism and youth turned the game into a beating, it was like Rondo’s complete and utter annihilation of Mo Williams.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I’m tired of the Celtics, ESPN and every other major sports media outlet trying to recapture the allure of the Celtics run in ’08. Yes, it’s remarkable because they shouldn’t be here, but nothing has changed. It’s still Kobe Bryant vs. the Celtics defense.

They say that this is the renewal of the NBA’s greatest rivalry, but this time there’s no one to root for. Kobe got his revenge last year. The entire Boston squad does not need a title to validate their careers. There’s no feel-good storyline. In fact, there are absolutely no new storylines. We just have the same song on repeat.

KCAL definitely got both out of this guy.

He says things like, “I wanna be your sunshieeene” and “Let’s buy some antiques!”  He shares his inability to trust people with the camera, and even displays an orchid he bought for the Black Mamba.

The dude standing to his left is also classic.  Right around the 0:35 mark, his face says it all.

And in the end — at the very end — he let’s us know that of all these things that he’d love to do for Kobe, he doesn’t mean it in “a gay way.”

OK, let’s cut the s**t – this is obviously not real.  But f**k it I laughed and you should too.

Barnes pulled a bitch-move from the playground trying to make Kobe flinch, acting like he was gonna throw it in his face.  Instead Kobe stood there like a man, not budging one single bit.

I can’t wait until later when someone does this to Barnes and he hits the deck like a little p***y.  I won’t even talk about the other childish bulls**t he pulled all game because I don’t care.

What a punk.

Doesn’t this deserve an ‘And 2′  if you’re Iguodala?