Contained in this video:

1. The Dallas Mavericks on the “Late Show with David Letterman” reading a top-10 list about the best parts of winning an NBA Championship.

2. David Letterman with his head down, solemnly reading his script like he’d rather somewhere cleaning the chin grease out of Jay Leno’s 1922 LaFayette. (Also, Dave trying to remember names of basketball teams)

3. Dallas Mavericks players who speak English as a second language trying to deliver wordy punchlines from the writers of “Late Show with David Letterman”.

4. A funny appearance from Caron Butler, who is still my favorite Dallas Maverick because of how good I am with him in NBA Jam.

5. Mark Cuban’s impossibly straight upper row of teeth

Not contained in this video:

1. Any discussion about Jason Terry getting traded to Which Wich? for a large Pepperoni Pizzawich© and a bag of Lay’s potato chips. They could’ve at least included that pimply-faced kid who hands me a water cup and stands forlornly behind his tip jar. Since when did Nike make Which Wich basketball jerseys, and where can I order one?

2. Randy Orton running in at any point and RKO’ing Mark Cuban, which is the only time I’ve ever notably enjoyed Mark Cuban.

3. Conan O’Brien (just saying)

4. DeShawn Stevenson. “Wandering around drunk in an apartment complex while pondering funny new dick t-shirts” would’ve been a great number eleven.

At this point, even Lance Armstrong thinks he did drugs. It’s like the cop who scared Chris Rock into thinking he’d stolen his own car. Lance just sort of sits there in his tightest yellow shirt, sipping a cup of hot water, wondering whether or not that cough drop he sucked on back in 1995 was a performance enhancing drug (by definition, yes, it was).

Armstrong’s lawyers are still pretty mad about the whole thing, and sent a letter of protest to CBS News Chairman and 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager in regard to the latest 60 Minutes investigation. This is following last week’s quotes from the head of Switzerland’s anti-doping laboratory, who denied that Armstrong had failed a doping test (as opposed to a “dope” test, which would be open-book) during the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

“In the cold light of morning your story was either extraordinarily shoddy, to the point of being reckless and unprofessional, or a vicious hit-and-run job,” lawyer Elliot Peters wrote. “In either case, a categorical on-air apology is required.”

Peters added that the show ignored evidence from Armstrong’s camp prior to the broadcast that the Swiss-related claims were false.

“What is particularly disturbing is that ’60 Minutes’ had access to the true facts, could easily have verified them, and apparently chose instead to broadcast untruths and then layer innuendo on top of the falsehoods,” Peters said.

CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco said Wednesday he was unable comment on the letter, but added about the “60 Minutes” report: “We consider this the most thorough investigation into doping in the sport of cycling ever done.”

Demanding an apology from CBS? Good luck. I’ve been waiting like 17 years for an apology for “The Golden Palace”.

I hate the word “doping.” It makes it sound like they rounded up a bunch of bean bag chairs and listened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while they got lit with my uncle. But yeah, Lance is getting dangerously close to Roger Clemens territory, where he’s either going to stand on top of the Empire State Building and make shame fingers at us for the rest of our lives or jump his bike off the side of a cliff. There needs to be a definitive conclusion to this. A big “yes” box and a big “no” box, and if “no” is checked, every cyclist worse than Armstrong should legally have to shut the f**k up for eternity.

And if they check yes, we should get a new famous cyclist.

[via LA Times]

Gus Johnson will no longer be climbing the mountain at CBS. The eccentric play-by-play man is expected to finalize a deal that will take his talents to Fox. CBS reportedly had an opportunity to match the offer, but declined to do so.

While Johnson will continue to call NFL games, in addition to college football, it seems clear that Gus’s days of calling March Madness–unquestionably his signature event–are over.

A CBS source who wanted Johnson – a former Knick radio voice – back said that not only money, but politics was an issue. The source said some of CBS Sports’ college hoops voices were not thrilled with Johnson’s rise to March Madness’ most popular voice.

–NY Daily News.

Johnson’s emphatic, Sam Kinision School Of Broadcasting style has won over a lot of fans, and one could have made a case that Gus should have been calling the Final Four last month. Surely that ruffled the feathers of a certain lily-white announcer who might consider calling championship games his birthright.

Even sadder than the March Madness situation is that now Gus will never have a chance to call the Masters. Really, Gus Johnson and Augusta National just seem like a natural fit to me.

This falls under the category of News To Me, but it’s still interesting as we’ve almost now completely forgotten about the NCAA tournament. I can still hear the clang of the rim from Butler’s end of the floor, but I digress. Gus Johnson, who has voiced everything from college basketball to Madden to a Buffalo Wild Wings ad, actually trademarked one of his signature phrases. Why? So he could sell stuff, dummy.

Last fall, he trademarked his famous line “Rise And Fire” for use on athletic apparel and plans to launch a Web site some time before the NCAA men’s basketball tournament ends so that fans can buy can by hats, licensed by New Era, and T-shirts.

“The reason to trademark the phrase was to create a brand and a movement out of his signature call that can be instantly recognizable by his fans to inspire passion,” said Johnson’s marketing agent Christian Gesue. “Rise and Fire celebrates the moments of excitement and raw emotion that embodies athletic merit and achievement, in all forms, from all over the world.”

CNBC, via MMA Mania.

Gus Johnson is like the Santa Claus of good sports vibes, except that he doesn’t crawl down your chimney in the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure that Santa only gets away with that because he’s white.

Not everyone enjoys the luxury of having a college basketball analyst at his disposal when filling out a bracket for March Madness, yet that’s exactly what I and three others had when Powerade hooked us up with CBS analyst Greg Anthony. Greg, having played for UNLV during their heyday and 1990 championship run, had plenty of opinions and advice on the field of 68. We met Greg in the very swank Bracket Lounge in the Time Warner building in New York earlier this week.

Greg mentioned Powerade ION 4′s Point Performance Rankings, which is a neat online app that ranks teams in the tournament with four different statistics–total points scored, win margin, turnover margin, and assist-to-turnover ratio. But Greg also mentioned the importance of a team’s senior leadership, success in road games, shooting ability and rebound ability.

We picked Greg’s brain on certain teams: he doesn’t think BYU is in the tank without Davies; they have a favorable draw and the team has played well without him. He doesn’t think Colorado was snubbed; their out of conference schedule was too weak (losing to Harvard probably didn’t help). Greg also cautioned about expecting too much from traditional tournament favorites Kentucky (“They finished third in their division this year! Not their league! Their division!”) and Michigan State (“They’re a jump shooting team that can’t shoot.”)

Thanks to Powerade and to Greg Anthony for the bracket help. I’m now even more excited to lose my bracket pool to some 16-year-old girl that picked her teams based on jersey colors.

CBS Football loud yeller Shannon Sharpe is taking some time off after being accused of forcing a woman to have sex with him, making death threats against her, and stalking her. Sharpe released a very brief statement to the media declaring his voluntary time off until the matter is solved. Dan Marino also announced that he’ll take time off from CBS so he can continue to argue with Sharpe.

The accusations against Sharpe come as he’s expected to be voted into the NFL Hall of Fame’s 2011 class, and this could really hurt him because everyone knows that you have to wait until you’re in the HOF before you attack women.

Why do you make me hurt you like this, Denver Post:

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