Marion Jones has a job playing basketball for the Tulsa Shock now. How good a basketball player she’ll be isn’t exactly “clear,” especially since she pretty much disappeared after being stripped of her gold medals from the Sydney Olympics and doing time in a federal penitentiary, and therefore my dirty dirty fantasies.

“We’re thrilled to have her,” Shock head coach Nolan Richardson said of Jones, who was stripped of five medals from the 2000 Olympics after admitting steroid use. “In the workouts last week I saw how hard she works. She has things you can’t teach, like speed and great hand and eye coordination. She looks chiseled. Her age (34) might be saying one thing but everything about her is saying she’s young.” –Sporting News.

So your number of reasons to watch the WNBA is holding steady at zero. Call me when Caster Semenya signs with the Sparks. Whoever they are…

Former American sprinter and third-tier piece of Olympic ass Marion Jones was released from federal custody this morning, which is fortunate, because the Prison Olympics just ended. From Y! Sports:

Jones left a halfway house in San Antonio around 8 a.m., said LaTanya Robinson, a community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Jones, who has a house in Austin, will remain on probation.

…The sprinter admitted last October that she used a designer steroid known as “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. The drug was linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab that became the center of a steroids scandal that touched numerous professional athletes, including baseball star Barry Bonds.

I don’t have a problem with steroids in any sport. These are world-class athletes that are sacrificing more of their time and livelihood than any weekend warrior ever would. What I do have a problem with is that wayward snaggletooth Marion has. Damn, girl! Get some braces on that grill!

Former Olympic heroine Marion Jones was sentenced today to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Jones had hoped to avoid prison, but U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he was giving her six months – the maximum called for under her plea deal – "because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law."

As she pleaded for mercy, Jones talked at length about her children, including the infant son she is still nursing. "My passion in life has always been my family," she said. "I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright … and guide them into not making the same mistakes."

As sexy as women's prison is, this kinda pisses me off.  Marion Jones was genuinely distraught and apologetic for using steroids, and the justice system works nice and fast to send her to the pussy farm.  But certain steroid-using baseball players stonewall investigators in the face of overwhelming evidence, and they get to break cherished records.  Yep, sounds fair.