Courtesy of the upstanding citizens at TMZ: Given the resounding success of “Khloe and Lamar” and Kris Humphries’ recent engagement to Kim Kardashian, it’s shaping up to be a big year for synergy between NBA players and reality television stars.
The Chicago Bulls finished with a better regular-season record than the star-studded Miami Heat for two reasons: superior depth and better play in close games.
After Joakim Noah was fined $50,000 by the league for responding to a heckling Miami Heat fan with a gay slur, Heat President of Business Operations Eric Woolworth cleared up Miami’s policy on ejecting fans for unacceptable behavior during games.
Before Game 4 of the Heat/Bulls series, Heat forward LeBron James was asked about Oklahoma City’s Game 4 collapse against the Dallas Mavericks last night, and he responded thusly: It’s not a huge stretch to say that a team could have done a lot of things better while giving up a 15 point lead in five minutes of play, but LeBron will probably take some heat (no pun intended) for talking about another team’s struggles shortly before one of the biggest games of his season and possibly his career.
According to the Los Angeles Times’ Mark Medina, Lakers owner Jerry Buss said in a recent radio interview that the team is “very close” to hiring legendary coach Phil Jackson’s replacement: If the hire does happen in the very near future, that would seem to favor longtime Laker assistant Brian Shaw, who Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher have publicly vouched for.
Game 1 of the Bulls-Heat series was the kind of game the Bulls wanted to play -- a physical slugfest that saw Chicago dominate the Heat by destroying them on the boards and keeping LeBron James and Dwyane Wade from being able to do too much damage.
UPDATE 12:57 am: After the game Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah admitted to using a gay slur against a fan and apologized for it, as reported by the Associated Press.
“The Decision,” the now-infamous telecast that featured LeBron telling the world he was “taking his talents to South Beach,” made LeBron one of the most hated athletes in America.
As blasphemous as it may sound, a fellow over at Silver Screen and Roll known only as “Actuarially Sound” thinks it’s time for the Lakers to ditch Tex Winter’s fabled offensive system after they hire their next coach.
Here’s the story, courtesy of CBS.com’s Ken Berger: Brown, a former San Antonio assistant, has always been known for putting an emphasis on good defense and rebounding, and transformed the Cavaliers from one of the worst defensive teams in the league to one of the best during his tenure as head coach.
Alan Hahn of Newsday.com thinks they might: Sessions, a slashing, score-first guard with a shaky jump shot, had an up-and-down year for the Cavaliers, but he showed some flashes of serious productivity throughout the year.
