LOL, bye guys.

Links

A Cruel End To A Surprising Season - Or as I like to call it, “the only good way for a season to end”. This is one of the few recaps of last night’s game coming out of New York to not feature the phrase “fill Yankee Stadium with the blood of our players and management”. [NY Times]

Adidas x Derrick Rose Behind The Scenes Of “The Bull” - This commercial would’ve been hilarious if it’d began with Rose being herded through the streets while people screamed and taunted him, then ended with him being stabbed to death by like four guys who aren’t even the bullfighter. [Smoking Section]

Football Guys: Arian Foster Analyzes Modern Traffic Infrastructure - If you aren’t reading Football Guys, Jon Bois’ football equiv to The Dugout, you are a dumb. I am geographically entitled to share every Football Guys about the Texans, btw. [SBN]

UFC 136 Cut List: 6 Fighters Who Need A Win Saturday Night - Don’t all of them need a win? I wish I knew how MMA worked. [Cage Potato]

The Path Of Mark Henry: An Inspirational Story of Splitting Wigs - From waste-of-time joke to the most hilariously awesome pro wrestler in the world, revisit the bizarre 15-year journey of The World’s Strongest Man, and try to forget about the whole “had sex with his sister” thing. [4th Letter]

CHIKARA Pro Wrestling In Tennessee - And speaking of wrestling, if you’re a wrestling fan who lives in NC or TN and you aren’t at this weekend’s CHIKARA shows, you need a lobotomy. KANA vs. Sara Del Rey, for crying out loud. If you’re there, be sure to find me and say hi. [CHIKARA]

10 Better Ways to Spend 4 ‘Kardashian Wedding’ Hours - 1. Stabbing self in crotch, 2. immolation, 3. marathon of “Scrubs” on Comedy Central (just kidding about that last one) [AOL TV]

‘The League’ Multipanes Are The Best - leeloo dallas multipane [UPROXX]

Top Ten Real People I’d Never Want to Be Stuck In a Cage With - Pretty sure I don’t want to be stuck in a cage with anybody. Except maybe the Smashing Pumpkins, for the jokes. [Brobible]

Anna Faris’ Husband Chris Pratt Gave Their Cat Away On Twitter - Scott Hatteberg counts as sports! I like that he’s “Anna Faris’ Husband Chris Pratt”, as if he isn’t in movies and on television shows. Yeah, The House Bunny is too big of a star for me to accept you on your own merits, Chris. [FARK]

25 Actors And Celebrities You Didn’t Know Appeared In ‘Star Trek’ - James Worthy should’ve worn his goggles over the make-up. Also, sadly I have dated enough uncool girls to know about all these people being on Star Trek. [Gamma Squad]

Frotcast 68: Real Steel, Burnsy’s Corner - Boxing robots! I can’t wait for this to be in theaters, I feel like I’ve been watching trailers and seeing commercials for it since I was born. [Film Drunk]

Aw, NBC Canceled ‘Free Agents’ :( - Just cancel everything and show “Home Improvement” re-runs. More power arf arf arf [Warming Glow]

As I’ve pointed out a few dozen times since July 1, whoever is running the public relations strategy for the NBA players union is doing a terrible job. But I’m also willing to bet that nobody is really in charge of the spin machine, as we’ve seen both the players and owners struggle to grasp reality during this entire lockout.

However, it’s worth pointing out that the players, despite coming off as greedy and arrogant at times (*cough, Dwyane Wade claiming he deserves $50 million per season, cough*), really do have their acts together for the most part. Sure, some of them are acting like they don’t give a crap about whether or not there is a season, but some of them are using their free time for the betterment of society and they’re not necessarily doing it so they can pose for the cameras.

Us basketball fans may be pissed, annoyed, frustrated, and flat out angry, but we’re also ignorant to the better efforts because a couple guys giving out Playstations to terminally ill kids doesn’t make a front page look as sexy as Wade telling off the league’s commish. Fortunately, I was doing some fall hard drive cleaning and came across a slew of images that proves that even the most robotic, soulless eventual billionaires like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have big hearts. They just don’t have good marketing teams.

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I suppose if half of your league’s teams are losing ridiculous amounts of money, and things are even so bad that the league had to assume control of one franchise, considerable power could be transferred to the people who are still giving you a ton of cash. To be less vague, Nike and LeBron James run the NBA, not David Stern. At least that’s what TNT commentator and NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley told the Miami Herald about why he has seemingly gone quiet on his concerns with the Miami Heat, as opposed to his earlier candidness.

“I don’t know if Dwyane’s upset with me, but I don’t sit around and worry about it.” He said LeBron James hasn’t said anything to him. “These athletes today are all wussified,” Barkley said. “I’ve been saying LeBron’s been the best player in the league for three years. And I say one thing criticizing The Decision, and I get a phone call from Nike saying why don’t I like LeBron? It’s interesting how this [expletive] works. These groups today, if you don’t say 100 percent positive about their guy or their team, they overreact.”

True or not, this is why people hate LeBron James, in case Dan LeBatard wants to stop complaining about the haters for a second and be realistic. Most people are over the Decision for the most part (with the exception of Barkley if you read the rest of that interview) but it’s crap like this and confiscating video of Jordan Crawford dunking over James that make people think he’s a spoiled brat diva. Nike has every right to protect its iconic global brand, so long as the brand, his handlers, his leeches, his teammates, and his media ass-kissers understand that this protection revokes their right to care that we think James is a little girl. Well, a little girl who is amazing at basketball.

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As bored as most people are with the NBA Playoffs by now, what with Oprah Winfrey dictating when games can be played, we should embrace as much NBA action as we possibly can in the remaining months of these playoffs, because the future of the 2011-12 season isn’t looking very bright.

The NBA Players’ Association is hoping to block a looming lockout by filing unfair labor charges against the league with the National Labor Relations Board last night. The players believe that the owners are making unfair demands regarding money and revenue while not offering anything back to the players in return. Basically, the owners won’t admit that they flooded the league with terrible mid-level and horrible max contracts over the past 5 years and now they would just like to call a do-over, what with that whole half-the-league’s-teams-are-hemorrhaging-money thing. You can guess the response of the guys who are on the other end of those terrible contracts. Here comes the Gilbert Arenas Amnesty Clause!

Also, the Los Angeles Lakers have hired Mike Brown as their new head coach in case the league ever has another season.

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Before we get to last night’s showcase of shooting percentage disaster, it’s worth noting that someone asked LeBron James prior to Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals how he felt about the Cleveland Cavaliers winning the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft Lottery Tuesday night. Of course someone was going to ask this. You know, I’m as guilty as the next dick-joke-making sports blogger for milking the poisoned teats of The Decision, but the teats are shooting dust now. It’s time to let sleeping dogs die. Stop asking these stupid questions already.

What did he say? He said he’s happy for Cleveland. Because what else would he say? Honestly, I’d be more impressed if he whipped out his cell phone and called Kyrie Irving to convince him to withdraw from the draft and go play in Europe. Actually, that would be kind of funny.

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"I hear Orlando has a lot of homeless people..."

As always, I’ll only catch us up on Sunday’s action, since nobody needs to know that the Memphis Grizzlies are still the hottest non-Miami team in the NBA Playoffs, and we certainly don’t need to point out that Chris Bosh was more like Chris BOOSH against the Boston Celtics in Game 3. And Rondo’s elbow… hoo boy, did you see that? Like Willis McGahee’s knee in slow motion all over again.

Dallas Mavericks 122, LA Lakers 86 (Series: 4-0 DAL)

Kobe Bryant told reporters after the Lakers’ Game 3 loss to the Mavs that he wasn’t worried and his team would come back and win the series. Of course the pundits went on a parade of hypothetical questions and what ifs, as we all knew that it wouldn’t happen unless David Stern delivered the Fountain of Youth, which I never ruled out because he’s evil and could send his legions of dark spirits to retrieve it. And thus, the two-time defending NBA Champions were eliminated in humiliating fashion, with Pau Gasol out Hedo Turkoglu-ing Hedo Turkoglu and Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom having late-game hissy fits to embarrass Phil Jackson even more in what is probably his Lakers swan song.

So we’re left with the question – what happens now for the Lake show? Of course the fellas on TNT and pretty much everyone else with an IQ below 12 think that Dwight Howard is already packed for LA, and I would spend a few thousand words simply arguing the Lakers as his next team, but Otis Smith is the Magic GM so I would never act shocked if I read, “… for Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, and the Lakers’ next 10 late first round draft picks.” As for Phil, that New York Knicks team sure looks intriguing in another year…

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