In extremely important sports news to me, Cleveland.com is reporting that Cavaliers mascot “Moondog” was taken to the hospital after a good natured game of pre-game man-to-dog roughhousing got out of control and nearly cost him an eye. The injury came courtesy of Indiana Pacers forward David West, so of course when I read “Cavs mascot sent to hospital by West” my first thought was that Delonte West had rolled back into the 216 on his tri-ped superbike, tore open whatever flower box he’s using to conceal his machine guns and shot the poor dog to death.

Anyway:

The club did not update his status for Sunday’s game against Orlando. It’s unclear whether the Cavs, already without Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao among others, will need to promote a mascot from the NBA Development League.

“He jumped at me so I thought we were playing around and then the next thing I know he went down,” West told reporters after the game. “It was definitely an accident.”

Moondog was spotted running through the hall, his dog head removed, clutching a towel to his eye. The mascot occasionally has fun sparring with opposing players before the game or during a timeout. Moondog and West exchanged some playful punches and apparently one caught him hard enough to do damage.

Also of note is the adorable follow-up, with West feeling increasingly guilty as he’s asked about it and asking people to “make sure he knows [he's] sorry”. I wouldn’t know how to feel if I encountered an anthropomorphic basketball playing dogman and accidentally blinded him. Pretty sure Dave just violated the Prime Directive.

In a related story, Jeff Pendergraph took a wrong turn in his van and manslaughtered Lake County Captains mascot Skipper.

Well it’s official. As of 12:01 AM ET, the NBA is locked out. We knew it was coming so there was no shocking revelation, but it’s still a pretty empty feeling for fans when they realize that their favorite athletes aren’t going to be suiting up anytime soon. Especially NBA players since this lockout just looks so damn bad. Take the above image, for example. That was NBA.com at 12:02 last night, a clear sign to fans and players that the league means only business. Of course the site is almost back to a normal template, as opposed to “Baby’s First Blog”, but at the very least it was a brief message to everybody to get comfortable, because this thing isn’t going anywhere.

I woke up to an email from the Orlando Magic this morning, thanking me for being a season ticket holder and assuring me that they’re doing everything within their power to end this lockout soon. As I read it, all I could picture was Gilbert Arenas planking on a gigantic pile of money and Dwight Howard doing backflips off of jet skis. And, of course, the Magic charged me for my tickets today, so that was a good feeling. But as a fan of the game, this just sucks. For some reason I’m bothered by this lockout considerably more than the NFL lockout, and I think that it’s because I know that the NFL will get its sh*t together very soon and start operating business as usual. The NBA, though, is in some deep, deep crap. Like I wrote yesterday, the players and owners are $7 billion apart on a new CBA. Does anyone really think that Players Association President Derek Fisher and the NBAPA are going to roll over and give up the anchor-esque mid-level and max contracts that got us to where we are today? Hell no. So buckle up, friends. This thing is gonna get nasty.

In the meantime, as I love to do, I perused the Twitterverse to check up on some of the NBA’s bigger names and… well, there wasn’t as much chatter as I expected. But I pulled some of the better responses to the lockout from last night and this morning in case you missed it.

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