Hooped Up

The NBA has fined Dwight Howard $15,000 for writing a blog post that criticized referees. During an 85-80 loss in Detroit on November 3, Howard was fouled out in less than 17 minutes of floor time. The superstar center wrote a blog post on his web site the following day in which he described receiving six fouls in such a short span “crazy” and expressed frustration at some of the calls:”They called me for a charge on a flop, a push off when the defender was on me and two fouls on blocked shots…. What really bothers me is they are letting guys hammer me at one end of the floor, yet I’m being called for everything. All of those hits take a toll on my body after a while.”
Huffington Post

A.I. needs to play with a contender.He needs to be on a team with players he respects enough so that he can be relatively happy to come off the bench because the rewards are so great. Iverson, frankly, needs a team that needs him, and there aren’t so many of them. He needs a team where his ability to create his own shot will help a superstar, where he can also work the end of the game as a closer, a team where his reckless abandon and pedal-to-the-metal aggression in smaller doses will be an asset, not a liability.

I’m talking about the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Washington Post

Arenas committing seven turnovers that led to nine Miami points.The Heat closed the game on a 19-3 run and handed Washington its fifth blowout defeat of the season.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on around here. I don’t know if some old player put a curse on us back in the day. I have no idea,” Arenas said. “It’s frustrating because we feel we’re better than the teams we’ve been losing to. We’re just going through scoring teams, going through these things where we’re scoring 13 and 14 in the third and the fourth. It’s frustrating, you know.”
Washington Times