Hooped Up

It’s not even 11 a.m. but Kobe Bryant apparently is “furious” with a story in the Dallas Morning News claiming that he called Texas star Kevin Durant on behalf on Nike. A team spokesman said Bryant “vehemently denies” the story and will be addressing the subject after practice Wednesday.

InsideSoCal

Paul Silas had a prime seat to see the team he most recently coached — the Cavs — play the team he’d love to coach next season — the Bobcats. Silas hopes for an interview to succeed Bickerstaff. But he doesn’t expect any contact with the Bobcats before the end of the season, if at all.”

Charlotte Observer

Paul Pierce said he plans to talk with the Celtics medical staff before chatting with Doc Rivers about shutting himself down before the end of the season. (The coach, aware of Pierce’s pronouncement that he was thinking about bowing out, said he favors him playing through any pains he’s able to.) Pierce does have some legitimate hurts (so the league won’t step in), and it wouldn’t hurt the team and its future if it cemented its position in the draft lottery. He noted that perhaps the worst thing that could happen now is for him to suffer a larger injury in his imperfect state that would hinder his offseason work. “I’ll just see what the doctors think and then go from there,” he said.”

Boston Herald

Andrea Bargnani will miss a substantial part of the rest of the NBA regular season after having an emergency appendectomy early this morning. According to various Italian media reports, including the website of La Gazetta dello Sport, the 21-year-old rookie became ill after practice yesterday and had the surgery overnight at a Toronto hospital. The Raptors confirmed later Wednesday morning those reports and that the surgery, performed at Mount Sinai Hospital, was a success.”

Toronto Star

Kobe Bryant’s Lakers jersey is the cream of the NBA jersey crop in the United States … and now China. Sales of Kobe’s No. 24 displaced Tracy McGrady as China’s most popular seller. Rankings are based on sales from the start of the season through the All-Star break.

The Lakers’ star has the top-selling jersey there, while sales of Yao Ming’s jersey in his home country continue to fall, according to results released by the NBA on Tuesday.

Bryant moved up three spots to replace Tracy McGrady, Yao’s teammate with the Rockets, atop the list. McGrady slipped to third, while Yao dropped three spots to sixth.

ESPN

Word is Kobe Bryant has already called Kevin Durant on behalf of Nike and that a shoe deal ranging between $30 million and $50 million simply needs to be presented.

Taras Brown, the man who sculpted Durant’s game back in Seat Pleasant, Md., and the man Durant calls his godfather, said a potential shoe deal - not Durant’s draft placement - would be what shoves Durant to the NBA.

“Kevin will go two or three years at Texas, if he could,” Brown said before the season. “It won’t be because Kevin Durant or (Ohio State’s) Greg Oden want to go. The shoe companies will make them an offer where it’s impossible not to go.”

The Olympian

The mad rush to anoint Steve Nash the MVP a third time in the immediate wake of the Suns’ double overtime victory last week in Dallas now looks to be … well, exactly that. Madness. Almost as soon as Dirk Nowitzki clanked that fourth-quarter free throw and missed the possible tying jumper at the end of the second overtime, the word came from NBA media types, fans, bloggers and just about anyone connected to this game: Nowitzki’s MVP hopes? Done.”

Dallas Morning News

Knicks center Eddy Curry woke up with a stiff back this morning and did not participate in the morning shootaround. The Knicks still say he should play but who knows. They also said Quentin Richardson would play many times and he did not. Curry’s sore back goes along with the sense he’s hitting the wall. He’s also missing Jamal Crawford too much.”

New York Post

Okay, so I watched that stupid show.

AND AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE FOREVER, Mr. Clyde Drexler , the pride of the Portland Trail Blazers when they actually mattered, came out on the dance floor of DANCING WITH THE STARS and, well, basically, it was an awful lot like watching a closeted homo come out of the closet.

First off Clyde is way too tall for his dancing partner, some foreign chick named Elena Grinenko (btw do you have to be foreign to qualify as a dance champion?) so he hunched over….a lot..as if he was ashamed of some deep dark secret.

Then there was that orange shirt. I’m pretty sure I saw that shiny number on page 36 of my International Male catalog. It was right next to the underwear that makes your junk look bigger.

Willamette Week Online