Double Asterisk?

Poor Spurs. When did they become the Barry Bonds of the NBA?

First, Phil Jackson says their 1999 championship should have an asterisk because it happened during the lockout shortened season. Now, in light of Tim Donaghy's bumblings, Suns fans want yet another asterisk placed on a Spurs championship.

I feel for Suns fans, really I do, but I'm sort of over this whole Donaghy thing already. He's an addict who lost control. It happens. Look at Lindsay Lohan. I would hardly call him a "rogue criminal" as if he's some mastermind on par with Kim Jong-Il. Half-a-mind is a more accurate description. If anything, Donaghy is now forcing the NBA to really look at a problem that existed before him and needed to be addressed. Now it is. Let's move on and let the CIA, FBI, and whomever else David Stern has on staff deal with everything else. By the way, I love how Bill Simmons is being hailed as some sort of NBA Nostradamus. He listed the names of the officials of a game he felt was badly officiated - something he's done in the past - but because one of the names listed was Donaghy, he's apparently now a genius. He's about as prescient as Miss Cleo. Now if Bennett Salvatore is ever implicated for game fixing, I'll pay for Simmons's infomercial myself.

Anyway, we just have to accept the fact that the Spurs are a propitious team. (Chance favors the prepared mind. -Louis Pasteur) Suns fans have to get in line behind '02 Kings fans who are still waiting behind '00 Democrats. Really, this is all Bush's fault. :)

And the Winner Is...

...Not Mark Cuban.

In a move than can only be classified under the "Let's see who laughs last, bitch" category, Michael Finley decided to sign not only with another Western Conference team, but another team in Texas - the Spurs. In the end, Fin rejected the email advances of suns.com and resisted the lure of Shaq on South Beach and decided to go with the team that sent a one-man contingent -- Pop.

But really, who can say no to this face?

Fin will be reunited with another spurned Mav in Nick Van Exel. Ain't vengeance grand?


Speaking of vengeance, I just saw Oldboy and all I can say is Damn! I guess I didn't fully realize what to expect from a movie promising to be a revenge thriller with live octopi and a Korean Gary Oldman, but it was all that and then some. Definitely recommended.

Meanwhile, On the Other Side of the World...

Manu was doing some schmoozing of his own. Here he is presenting a basketball to Argentine President Néstor Carlos Kirchner.

Manu along with compatriots Carlos Delfino and Andres Nocioni and the omnipresent Dikembe Mutombo were down in Buenos Aires to promote Basketball Without Borders. Manu even got Pop to show up and yell at the kids.

But seriously, between hobnobbing with presidents and kissing babies and housewives, would you be surprised if Manu and/or Tony ended up being the mayor of San Antonio, Paris, or Bahia Blanca?

They both have an aptitude for gladhandling and diplomacy unheard of in Texas. And with Robert Horry signing a new 3-year deal with the Spurs, their team may have just gotten started. If they keep winning, who knows what else the future will hold for these two.

And if that's not enough for you, they've also managed to bring back the flag as national symbol and clothing accessory, all wrapped up in one sacrilegious package.

MJ, eat your heart out.

Actually, THIS is the Real Reason

Who gets more women than rappers or athletes? How about a French rapper/athlete. Move over, TI. TP9 showed off his skills at the Spurs' Championship Rally Saturday night, one of those things you have to see to believe. I don't know what was funnier - Tony rapping or Brent Barry dancing. Brent wasn't quite the ghost of Mark Madsen, but you get the idea. If you missed it, or like me you only caught the highlights because NBA TV decided to show a WNBA game instead of airing the rally live, you can check out the video here.

Seriously, how are they not going to show the Champion NBA rally live?? I'm mad, mad as hell because I set my VCR to tape it at its designated time, but they didn't show it until 3 hours later so I missed the whole thing. For real, how can they honestly expect people to be home on Saturday night AND wait through a WNBA game?? Bloody bastards. Anyway, back to the rap superstar.

He even had Beno dancing! If Rasho and Sean Marks got up, this video needs to be immediately immortalized in the White Boy Hall of Fame.

Eva Longoria and Tony Parker: Trophy Love

She won her man.


He won his trophy...

Both of them.

Valvoline Guy Came Through!

Proving once and for all, you don't mess with a good thing when your team is on a streak. Look who else came through in Game 7:

The 3-time Finals MVP.

He may not have been the coolest person before the game, but he was the one clutching the trophy at the end. (There's something gratifying in knowing that for all the differences between men and women, both still want hardware from Tiffany's at the end of the day.) Tim Duncan may not be the most dynamic person in the league, but he is a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. I love that for all his alleged superstar shortcomings off the court - no bling-bling, no fancy clothes, no entourage - he's got the most bling of any player currently on the court: 2 regular season MVPs, 3 Finals MVPs, and 3 rings. (Remember Shaq only has one regular season MVP.) Maybe that's why certain players ice themselves from head to toe off the court - to compensate for all the bling they don't get on the court. Timmy doesn't need to though; he's got all the bling he wants or needs.

Game 6: Two Reasons for Spurs' Loss

Hubie Brown actually referred to Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili as "cats." This can also be filed under "signs of the apocalypse."

The Indian guy sitting between Hubie and Al Michaels didn't wear his Valvoline/Spurs t-shirt. That guy is getting more play than the entire Pistons' bench. The Spurs weren't having any problems when he was rocking the shirt and blowing kisses at the camera during Games 1 and 2. And then he goes and changes his shirt for Game 6! Doesn't he know you have to respect routine and superstition? Seven years later and Timmy's still wearing his Wake Forest practice shorts backwards. C'mon random Valvoline man, what kind of fan are you!

No Girls Allowed

After Game 4's embarrassing 31-point blowout, Pop issued an edict declaring "No Girls Allowed." That's right. All wives, girlfriends, and Longorias were banned from the Spurs' hotel for the 3 days leading up to Game 5. The Air Force Academy graduate decided to employ a bunker mentality to get his once focused team back on track.

Erin Barry, Brent's wife, huffed and puffed to no avail and ended up just going back to San Antonio.

I don't know who Ms. Thang thought she was dealing with, but I doubt Pop is the type of man who's likely to be swayed by either bitching or moaning.

I guess the message here is when you can't appeal to a man through his stomach, look lower. What other coach would have the balls to do this?? Mo Cheeks could barely ban popcorn from his locker room. At what point do we just bow down and call him "Master?"

Robert Horry: Clutch...Literally

The real reason he's known as "Clutch." They didn't show that shot on ABC.

Spurs' Appoggiatura

Oh Pop.

When the Spurs arrived in San Antone early this morning - to a throng of screaming Texans no less - they were each wearing black shirts with the word "appoggiatura" printed on them.

Appoggiatura was the winning word of this year's Spelling Bee and it is "an embellishing note, usually one step above or below the note it precedes and indicated by a small note or special sign."

Gregg Popovich, in a move of either sheer clairvoyance or humor, had had the shirts printed up for his team. How he could have known that Game 5 with the thrilling overtime victory capped by another Robert Horry game winner would be an appoggiatura to Game 6 and possibly the championship is beyond me. Of course, the simpler explanation is that he had the shirts made to lighten the mood. Before Game 1, he asked his team if anyone knew what the winning word of the Spelling Bee was and, according to the New York Times, Manu's response was, "Spelling bees? Where are the bees?" And there you have your potential Finals MVP.

Either way, clairvoyant or not, Pop is indisputably sports' reigning mad genius.

Random Game 5 Celebrities

1. Michael Moore

What is Michael Moore doing there? Is there a more unlikely fan, aside from Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams, and whoever that girl was before Game 4. I never thought I'd say this, but where's Mariah's crazy ass?

2. Dwight Howard

He's HOT!

3. Eva Longoria

Wouldn't it have been great if after Rip missed the last shot and it was dead silent in the Palace, all of a sudden you heard this lone crazy cheer and it was Eva?

Game 5: The Series Begins and Ends

Heartbreak Horry

In case you missed the Robert Horry show, also known as the playoffs, you can get the picture-by-picture playback here, here, or here. (By the way, I just figured out how to do hyperlinks after like 6 months so you'll have to forgive me if every other word is a hyperlink.)

What a crazy-ass game. Timmy almost went from G.O.A.T. to goat. Sheed gave everyone in Michigan Chris Webber in ‘93 flashbacks, which is ironic since C-Webb was actually at Game 5 with his Fab 5 buddy Jalen Rose.

I don't think anyone in Michigan would have survived another timeout debacle...seriously. Mention the words "Chris Webber" and "timeout" to anyone from Michigan. You don't even have to say "timeout;" just say "Webber" and see what kind of reaction you get. If Game 5 of the Finals had ended on free throws because of an illegal timeout...Malice at the Palace Part II x 100. Did you see the way Chauncey jumped on Sheed when he saw him call for time? Chauncey knows his state history.

I wonder what Chris was thinking when Sheed did that. Do you ever get the feeling that Chris is like 5 hobbled steps away from being Ray Finkle/Lois Einhorn in Ace Ventura? But instead of "Laces out!" it would be "No timeout!" Okay, enough picking on Chris because I really do like him, as evidenced here, here, and here.

Aight, aight, I'm done. Game was bomb. Can't wait for Game 6.

Game 4: Eva but No Tony

Eva: "Look, Frenchie, I said I wanted three rings!"

Major props to Eva Longoria for showing up in Detroit like she's Jack Nicholson. However, if she could only get her boyfriend to do the same.

Meanwhile, I love how the so-called "absolute nastiest fans" in the league (according to Stan Van Gundy) had nothing but love for Eva...


...while their hometown boy, Kid Rock, faced some hecklers.

Ain't That a Kick in the...

Even Iron Mike felt Timmy's pain after Steven Hunter nailed him where the sun don't shine. Well, now we know how to get a reaction from the shiest 7 footer around.

Thank you, Spurs, for wrapping up the series because I have a bachelorette party to go to tonight and I really didn't want to be the asshole saying, "Can we wait until the game is over" and then once the game was over, "Can we wait until Pop gives his post-game interview?" Now I can celebrate the way Pop and Red-Bull-and-vodka intended.

Sports' True Mad Genius (And It Ain't Bill Belichick)

The only modern coaches I can think of given the label of "genius" are Bill Belichick and Phil Jackson. And of those two, one of them was left mumbling "serenity now, serenity now" in the Indian Ocean, thereby leaving Bill Belichick standing alone in the pantheon of coaching genius. However, Belichick has been just been dethroned by a man who gives new meaning to the word "unflappable."

It's not always what you do that defines your legacy but what you cause other people to do (case in point, the anti-mastermind John Chaney). Belichick may have caused some long faces - insert Peyton Manning joke here - but it takes a true genius, an unparalleled master of gamesmanship to reduce a man worth an estimated half a billion dollars to flapping his arms like a chicken and screaming "Varsity! Varsity!" like some crazy homeless man who pees on himself.

Enter the one, the only Gregg Popovich.

And the man who you'll next see trying to wash your windshield as you get on the freeway, Mr. Robert Sarver .

For those who don't know what happened or didn't get to read my post before Blogger erased it (argh!) , Sarver (the poor man's Jerry Colangelo and the Suns' new San Diego-based owner) was so agitated that Pop decided not to play Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili in the last Spurs-Suns meeting of the season that he stood courtside flapping like a chicken and yelling "Varsity! Varsity! Varsity!" It was even funnier considering the Suns barely beat an apparently J.V. starting lineup of Tony Parker, Bruce Bowen, Rasho Nesterovic, Robert Horry, and Brent Barry.

Pop's response: "In life, a lot of questions don't get answered for us. I still don't know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. I don't know who `Deep Throat' was in Watergate. But now I know who was under the `San Diego Chicken' outfit all of those years."

Genius. Pure genius.

PS. If the San Antonio fans are anything like their Dallas counterparts, they'll have shirts made up the next time the Suns come to town saying "Thanks for the practice" or "Suns: Not yet ready for Varsity." I'd love to see the Coyote hand Sarver a chicken suit and flap his arms until he put it on. I love this game.