Phil Jackson joined twitter with a bang, when he Tweeted a bunch of jibberish about his 11 rings and most people were like, “This is going to be a joke about how it’s hard to type with 11 rings on” and sure enough, those people were right. But the joke was clever enough, and the Zen Master has gone on to Tweeting whatever he feels like, including this fun nugget from last night:

And everybody was all, “ZOMG Phil Jackson is calling out some dude named Mo! Is it Mo Cheeks? Moe Harkless? Mo Vaughn? Moe Howard?” and I was like, “Nah, it’s mo-mentum” and then I high-fived my dog. But let’s just say for sh*ts and giggles that Jackson was calling out someone named Mo for being a bitch. I’d have to side with Twitter user “WOO!” on this one:

11 championships you can say whatever the fuck you want huh bruh? My dawg.

And then Jackson was all, “What up, boo?” with Jeanie Buss, who may have my favorite profile pic on all of Twitter.

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I considered writing my normal wordy intro paragraph about how Taiwan Animation is the weirdest thing in the world, citing examples from the stories we’ve covered and wondering how two Taiwanese ladies with 3rd grade computer animation skills could get to the heart of a story better than a nation of aged sports reporters, but I’ll let this image do all that for me:

Additional highlights, if you aren’t already watching, include:

- Phil Jackson as the zen, levitating version of The Mandarin from ‘Iron Man’
- A swinging jazz soundtrack
- The Lakers having fruit thrown at them because they’re trying to play basketball with walkers (try to figure out which one’s supposed to be Steve Nash!)
- Slow motion fruit explosions
- Player-on-fan violence

They really got their money’s worth out of that “bus backing up” noise.

HONNNNNNNNNNK!

When news broke on Friday that the Los Angeles Lakers had fired Mike Brown just 5 games into the season, the majority of NBA writers and just fans in general said the same thing: “Hello, Mike D’Antoni.” But stating the obvious is only fun if you write for NPR, so a bunch of us felt like speculating. For example, I said that Indiana Pacers associate head coach Brian Shaw would be the top candidate because he was the hot name for four coaching vacancies in the offseason, but that made little sense because C) nobody hired him then, and 6) the Pacers aren’t just going to let an important part of the coaching staff walk to another team with the season underway.

But then the PJ bomb was dropped, and we spent the weekend just waiting for the announcement that Phil Jackson was returning to coaching. Obviously, it made sense, because the Lakers have a stacked roster and Jackson loves to conveniently coach stacked rosters. It was eventually reported that Jackson allegedly wanted specific things like a 2-year deal, Scottie Pippen on his coaching staff and travel exemptions, which is ridiculous, because no coach deserves to be able to miss games when he feels like it.

Thankfully, we don’t have to bother debating that, because Jackson is out of the picture and the Lakers have hired D’Antoni. Of course, some people aren’t happy about that choice. Namely Jackson.

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Welcome to my day-late weekly predictions that will astound and amaze you, because they’re so incredibly tuned into to a psychic frequency that nobody else on this planet could come up with them. Since I started making predictions a few weeks ago, I’ve been right about everything. Even the stuff that might have been wrong was technically right, because I say it was. It’s not really hard being a psychic.

This week, we take a look into the crystal ball to see if David Stern really will stick to his guns and stop the L.A. Clippers from flopping, Matt Leinart can turn Carson Palmer into the perfect QB and if anyone would ever believe that Phil Jackson would even remotely entertain the idea of coaching a team as dysfunctional and broken as the Orlando Magic. SIM SIM SALABIM!

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Former guy who played in the NBA Scott Pollard attended a rally in Sacramento this week to support the Kings and create a greater effort to keep them from leaving, and while he was there he chatted with radio host Grant Napear of KHTK about his fondness for Sacramento and his desire to move there, which must be difficult when you’re not doing anything and have a lot of time to do things like pack boxes and move. But invalid arguments aside, Pollard also weighed in on the recent woes of the Los Angeles Lakers and had some great insight on 11-time NBA champion coach Phil Jackson.

I just think he’s one of the most overrated coaches of our time. He’s only had the greatest players of our era on his teams. Put him in charge of the Sacramento Kings this year, and I don’t mean to offend Sacramento fans, but put him on a team with no Hall-Of-Famers on it at least no one that has established themselves as a Hall-Of-Famer already, put him as the Head Coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers right now and let’s see how he does next year with no Hall-Of-Famers on the team. That’s all I’m saying. (Via KHTK)

Does he make a valid point? Yes. Of course Phil has coached two of the greatest players of all-time in Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, as well as arguably the greatest big man in league history in Kwame Brown Shaquille O’Neal. But does that really make him overrated as a coach? Just the other night, I was watching Game 3 of the Lakers-Mavericks game and Derek Fisher committed an unnecessary foul with less than 18 seconds left, leading to Dallas free throws that sealed the win. All the while, Phil sat there and didn’t even argue the foul or try to set up a last-ditch play for his team. I was like, Whoa bro, that dude can coach.

(Banner image via)

"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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