Earlier this week, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban – “The Cube” to us bros – announced on his blog that the Mavs were going to get a makeover. But because Cubes is a new man for a new era, always thinking and scheming, there’s a catch – he’ll only re-do the uniforms if someone presents him with a good enough design.

So he’s putting it on Mavs and NBA fans to present the franchise with creative, edgy ideas by posting them to the team’s site. The Mavs could select one or they might select none. It all depends on how great your designs are. And the greatest design will be rewarded with riches beyond the common man’s wildest expectations…

Who will own your design ? The minute you post it, the Mavs will. If you think its horrible that the Mavs own your design. Do not post. If you think its cool that the Mavs could possibly use your design and you will have eternal bragging rights , then post away. If we really like your design and you , I may even throw in some tickets. If we don’t use your design, it will still be here on this site for now and ever more for you to glance longingly at. If your design is close , if not identical to other designs and we pick one of the other designs, for whatever reason, then thats just the way it goes.

If we don’t choose any of the designs,including yours.then we don’t choose any of the designs. That is life in the big city. Move on.

Oh, sorry. I meant that you don’t win anything at all. Not even a free jersey with your name on it, not even a Dwight Howard or Chris Paul jersey when the Mavs eventually sign them both in free agency. Just bragging rights. But that’s still pretty cool, I guess.

Anyway, just like our friends at The Basketball Jones, who created an amazing denim uniform design, I wanted to offer my own design. Fingers crossed!

Read the rest of this entry »

During last night’s Game 4 of the NBA Finals I noticed a Tweet from someone about Skip Bayless making fun of Chris Bosh, and without thinking I clicked over to Bayless’ Twitter profile. “Damn it, moron,” was all I could say to myself, because, once again, there is the definition of the attraction to ESPN’s inexplicably popular shouting blowhard “analyst”. The philosophy is simple: Say something outrageous, people will react.

Then I saw a Tweet even more outrageous and obnoxious than I could have ever expected…

Bayless was told this because he doesn’t follow anyone on Twitter. Not his best friend Stephen A. Smith, not his colleagues at ESPN, and not even Tim Tebow or LeBron James. Twitter is a one-man realm of theories and hyperbole, friends. You’re just lucky to be following Bayless.

That Tweet, though, came after an unprovoked jab by Cuban that his two-year old son is a better analyst than Bayless, which is laughable because Bayless was a huge basketball star in his day. Right?

Read the rest of this entry »

New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban are living out their own WWE storyline.

For those of you who don’t follow professional wrestling, here’s how a modern WWE storyline works. Remember when the guys you watched as a kid would punch each other and lay snakes on each other and rip off one another’s crucifixes? Now they just talk. They badmouth each other on Twitter, that turns into them badmouthing each other in person (for several weeks, usually) until the final, underwhelming conclusion that would’ve been great if they’d been guys who actually hated each other, and not just rich folks pretending on the Internet.

On Tuesday, Mikhail said the following awesome underwater-training thing about Cuban, should he try to sign Nets point guard Deron Williams in free agency:

“May the best man win,” Prokhorov quipped. “If he wins, I will crush him with the kickboxing throwdown.”

I had no idea the NBA settled their contract disputes with kickboxing, but it’d go a long way toward explaining why the owners are always getting kicked in the face. Cuban can’t respond with an IF I CAN CHANGE, WE ALL CAN CHANGE speech until the fight’s over, so (because the greatest talking point of a WWE speech is always “I’ve done well in WWE”) he evoked his time as a special guest host for World Wrestling Entertainment as evidence of his ability to resist kickboxing damage by … I don’t know, shoving?

From ESPN:

“He obviously didn’t see me be the first in WWE history to put Sheamus on the mat,” Cuban replied Wednesday night via email, referring to his guest host appearance on “Monday Night Raw” in 2009. “He knows not what he gets himself into.”

As funny as that is, Cuban failed to mention that his WWE appearances always end badly. Proof:

Read the rest of this entry »

With a 1.5 game lead over the Milwaukee Bucks for the 8th playoff spot in the East, it seems like the New York Knicks are in good position to at least make the playoffs. They’re still sitting at .500 (27-27) as they have been for most of the season, and even the energy of a new coach and system isn’t helping them get over the hump and back into serious contention, despite some analysts who have the Knicks pegged as a title contender hiding in the best spot possible. Because any team, regardless of talent level, really wants to play the No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs.

But over in China, an old Knick is proving that he had some gas left in the tank to get himself a championship. Stephon Marbury and the Beijing Ducks – mmmmmmmm, Beijing duck – are the new Chinese Basketball Association champions, after Starbury scored 41 points in Game 5 to oust the defending champions, Guangdong Hongyuan. Marbury also scored 52 points in Game 2 and 53 points in Game 3, so if you were wondering how the New York sports media would pass the time with Jeremy Lin out for the season… stop.

Read the rest of this entry »

File this one under “Duhhhhhhhhhhh” and cross-reference it with “Seriously, no sh*t, guys.” Earlier this month, we brought you the rumor that NBA commissioner and future Del Boca Vista resident David Stern could possibly be considering selling ad space on NBA jerseys the same way that he already does with the WNBA. And by “possibly be considering” I mean he is definitely already planning on it. When you openly admit that 22 of the teams in your league lost money last year, you’re probably going to do anything short of giving handies at a truck stop to make ends meet.

Thankfully, for anyone who didn’t think this was an inevitability, John Q. Businessman, AKA Mark Cuban, is here to draw it out for us in gigantic letters.

“I’ve been trying to tell [the NBA],” Cuban said. “If someone wants to give us $10 million, I’ll make it happen.”

“If the amount’s enough, David will jump up and down,” Cuban said. “He’s not going to do it for $200,000 from Power Balance, but if somebody offers us $25 million, it’s done.

“We just have to work out the split with all the teams so everybody gets the benefits.” (Via the Star-Telegram, H/T to Hardball Talk)

Um, I never actually took any business classes in college, but what is there to work out? There are 30 teams, so the revenue would be split 30 ways. Well, it will be split once Stern takes the NBA’s 90% cut, or something to that effect, but after that it would just be a 30-way split.

That is, unless they’re going to start fighting over finder’s fees, which is partially absurd, but I also kind of understand where they’d be coming from. After all, Donald Sterling can only turn down FUBU’s money so many times before the rest of the owners voice their displeasure.

The USA Today is now the clear frontrunner for the 2012 Happiest Story of the Year award, with today’s report that Skechers has dropped Kim Kardashian from its Super Bowl ad in favor of a French bulldog. The ad will also feature Mark Cuban, but the main point is that we’re finally taking a step in the right direction, not only by realizing that all Super Bowl ads should feature adorable dogs, but by kicking Kardashian’s well-insured butt to the curb.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a social statement. It’s just business.

“Kim got us more attention than we ever dreamed,” says Leonard Armato, president of Skechers Fitness, who notes that Skechers is launching a high-tech running shoe business. “We have to establish Skechers as more than a lifestyle company.”

Also, Kardashian’s contract with Skechers expired at the end of 2011, so the company is probably trying to save some cash as it drops $3 million on the Super Bowl spot. In case you’re unfamiliar, Kardashian was one of the spokespersons for Skechers’ Shape-Ups, the shoes that are supposed to help women get in shape just by walking around, but have since become the focus of a class action lawsuit alleging that the shoes cause hip injuries.

Geez, at least Reebok got Kelly Brook to shill for its fake workout shoes.

Read the rest of this entry »