As Eric Freeman of the excellent Ball Don’t Lie points out, there are positive and negative aspects to being 7-foot-6. On the negative side, even mundane, day-to-day activities like buying clothes, walking through doorways, sitting in cars and fitting into pre-19th century buildings become impossibilities. There are a few positives, though, like being able to make millions of dollars for a couple of years as a basketball player, and that when a Monstar steals your talent all he’s really stolen is your ability to be tall (and you’re still that, you didn’t shrink) so you’re more-or-less unharmed.

Being that tall also, as we’re learning today, makes stories about people stealing your special tall-people things super, super sad.

Last Friday, someone burglarized the barn on [former basketball star Shawn] Bradley’s property. The only item that was taken was a bicycle made specially for him in 2006.

“Whether you’re 7 feet 6 inches or normal height, stealing someone’s bike is low,” an upset Bradley said Wednesday. [...]

After Bradley retired from the NBA in 2006, the 7-foot-6 center said he needed to find a way to keep the weight off. Trek made a bicycle just for him.

A bicycle made just for him.

Ignoring the fact that Shawn Bradley has a barn to house his special bicycle like he’s Pee-wee Herman and ignoring the fact that somebody broke onto an NBA millionaire’s property and all he took was his special 8-feet-tall megacycle, how f**king sad is this. It gets even worse when you read his follow-up, which sounds exactly like a five-year old explaining why this particular stolen big wheel is the biggest deal ever — he namedrops his brother. His BROTHER.

“My brother is 6 feet 10 inches and he can’t ride it,” Bradley said.

The best part of the story is that when the sadness of having your monster trike stolen subsides, you get to blame it on the only person who would do such a thing.

Despite his dismay, Bradley was still able to joke Wednesday about who the possible suspects might be. He said the only other person in Utah who could have rode off on his bike was former Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton, whom he called to tell about the burglary.

Bradley also joked that maybe another former Jazzman, Greg Ostertag, might have stolen the bike as a prank. But he said even Ostertag wouldn’t have been able to reach the pedals.

I want the ending of this story to be that both Eaton AND Ostertag stole the back in some sort of elaborate heist scenario. You’re hanging out in Utah and all of a sudden this huge bike rolls by, being driven by a tall guy with another guy sitting on his shoulders.

NBA journeyman Armen Gilliam died on Wednesday at the age of 47. He had a heart attack while playing a pick-up game of basketball at his local LA Fitness in Collier Township, probably the least “LA” place in the United States. They rushed him to a hospital, where they declared him dead.

Stat recaps are never a fun thing to do when someone dies too young, but they’re a heart-in-the-right-place way of lining up a man’s public accomplishments and saying “hey, this is what he did, and you can remember him for it”. He was a former No. 2 overall pick of the Phoenix Suns in 1987 and played for nearly everyone at one point or another, the Charlotte Hornets, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, Milwaukee Bucks and Utah Jazz. His first name used to be “Armon”, but he changed it. He retired in 2000 after 13 seasons of being “The Hammer”, a nickname given to him for his powerful, physical style of play and because it was a great pun.

He was never a superstar, so we’re allowed to let the people who knew him best make their own eulogies.

“I’m all shook up,” former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian told the Las Vegas Sun today. “He was such a great person. He would take the shirt of his back for you.”

I think that’s the kind of legacy I’d like to leave.

Who's ready to f*ck up two lottery picks?

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the first pick in the 2011 NBA Draft last night, and Dan Gilbert and Co. are now on the clock to most likely select Duke point guard Kyrie Irving in what many are I’m calling one of the worst drafts in NBA history. But the Cavs have a great chance to rebuild in the post-LeBron era with the top pick and the No. 4 pick, with which they’ll probably select a big European player, because that’s what this draft looks like. However, it’s Dan Gilbert we’re talking about and he doesn’t need to rebuild, because his Cavs will win a championship before LeBron James and the Miami Heat, who you can watch tonight in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals, which is the last round before the NBA Finals, after which a team wins a championship, in case Dan is confused.

Playoff semantics aside, Dan sent his 14-year old son Nick, who suffers from neurofibromatosis, as the team’s ambassador to David Stern’s lip-craving butt, and Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn used Nick’s presence to air his thoughts on the Lottery selection process.

“This league has a habit, and I am just going to say habit, of producing some pretty incredible storylines,” Kahn said. “Last year it was Abe Pollin’s widow and this year it was a 14-year-old boy and the only thing we have in common is we have both been bar mitzvahed. We were done. I told Kevin: ‘We’re toast.’ This is not happening for us and I was right.” (CBS Sports)

Some media outlets are reporting Kahn’s comment as a (bad) joke, while others are calling it mean-spirited and a shining example of why Kahn’s presence in the NBA is a (bad) joke. I see it as a bitter executive, who notably drafted three point guards in the first round of the 2009 NBA Draft, simply upset because he can’t draft this year’s top PG. Now he’s stuck with stupid big man Derrick Williams.

Aside from an ill 14-year old being the face of the Cavs, what other evidence is there that this Lottery could have been fixed? Sure, the NBA Draft Lottery is a terrible process, when a team like the Utah Jazz can finish 4 games under .500 and still receive the No. 3 pick, while the Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors couldn’t even break the 25-win mark if they combined rosters. But Kahn needs to stick to what he’s best at, and that’s investing in NBA Developmental League teams so that Stern will favor him and make a team hire him as an executive. Wait, what?

In one of those stories that has to be seen for about twenty minutes to be believed, Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko got a new tattoo: his World of Warcraft character riding a dragon, covering his ENTIRE BACK. The tattoo artist confirmed both Kirilenko and the terrifying thing they created via Twitter.

Feel free to take a closer look by clicking the image. It’s on the computer, so it should be safe.

I don’t know what level you have to be to go out in public with that on your back, so here’s to hoping next year’s NBA season isn’t just a bunch of grinding.

[H/T SLC Dunk]

Jerry Sloan resigned his position as head coach of the Utah Jazz after 23 seasons and 1,221 wins, Thursday. The resignation comes amidst rumors that Sloan’s relationship with star point guard, Deron Williams, was in shambles. And while it’s upsetting to see such a loving relationship end so close to Valentine’s Day, I can see why Deron was growing impatient with his coach. Have you seen Sloan’s thighs lately? They look like curdled cottage cheese.

“I had a feeling this time was the time to move on,” an emotional Sloan said during a Thursday afternoon news conference. “[That's] a long time to be in one organization. Again, I’ve been blessed. Today is a new day. When I get this over with, I’ll feel better. My time is up and it’s time to move on.”

Two sources close to the situation told ESPN.com’s Marc Stein that Sloan reacted angrily during the home loss when guard Deron Williams called a play on the floor that was different from the one Sloan called from the sideline.

But one source stressed that the play-calling flap was just one incident among a number of flare-ups in recent weeks, indicating Sloan’s relationship with Williams has been deteriorating. –ESPN.com

Sloan, who became the Jazz’s head coach before the Berlin Wall came down, was the NBA’s longest tenured coach before his resignation. With 1,221 wins, Sloan will retire as the third winningest coach in NBA history, trailing Don Nelson and Lenny Wilkens. Between them, the three coaches have 3,888 wins and one NBA Title, which goes to show just how important the NBA regular season really is.

Dallas Mavericks big man Dirk Nowitzki is a rampaging beast! No, really, look at that ugly dude. He looks like a sasquatch after a body wax and Atkins. But the Abominable Dirkman found his groove in the fourth quarter against the Jazz, dropping 29 in the last period to pull off a 96-85 win against the mighty Mormans.

Nowitzki broke the franchise record of 24 points in any quarter set by Mark Aguirre against Denver on March 24, 1984.

“It was an ugly game,” Nowitzki said. “We couldn’t get anything going for three quarters. We were slow. We were looking for a spark offensively and I was able to do that tonight.”

Yes, Dirk, it was an ugly game. That’s your kind of game. Though you may not have the natural looks to lure a woman into a Colorado hotel room, your presence in the paint last night was a penetrating force all its own. You made it look so easy that a caveman could do it.

Other NBA news: Boston is still undefeated and Allen Iverson is pissed about playing time. Also, water is wet and the sky is blue.