"...Is Rashard Lewis Dead or in a Coma?"

And other reasons why Bill Simmons is the funniest sports columnist going. And the funniest thing in there isn't even sports related:

If you ever watch this game on ESPN Classic, or if you have it on your DVR, make sure you watch the part when the broadcast team is talking to the camera coming out of the timeout and two blondes are behind them making faces and trying to get on TV, and then, like an act of God, one of them leans back to sit down, tumbles backwards and falls right out of the picture. An all-time comedy classic! And a really bad omen for what would happen next.

Though I struggle to believe that game will be showing up on ESPN Classic anytime soon.

Embarrassing

It's been over since last Thursday though it only finally ended tonight. No proof of life at all in the second half and that's just embarrassing.

Will anyone notice that the Guru is 3-8 in his last two trips to the Finals?

Stick a fork in 'em

The series is over. Good teams don't lose games at home after leading by 24 points...

Commitment to Mediocrity

I'm not normally very big on sloganeering. But sometimes a good slogan just works.

I've reserved this in the past for the worst franchise in football. Today, however, I've been forced to conclude that the Minnesota Timberwolves have devised a new and exciting strategy to render themselves hopelessly mediocre for years to come.

Ha Ha

Warriors make history by ousting Mavs.

It's as funny now as it was when it happened to George Karl and the Sonics.

The Value of Bad Research

Is mostly comedic. Take this for example:

An academic study of NBA officiating found that white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players, The New York Times reported on its Web site Tuesday night.

The study by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and Cornell graduate student also found that black officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced.

It's the methodology though that really kills: The study, conducted over a 13-season span through 2004, found that the racial makeup of a three-man officiating crew affected calls by up to 4 1/2 percent.

The NBA strongly criticized the study, which was based on information from publicly available box scores, which show only the referees' names and contain no information about which official made a call.

Box scores. That was it. Box scores...

At the risk of being indelicate (putting it mildly), did the good academics stop to ponder the fact that NBA rosters are composed, overwhelmingly, of black players. One would think refs would tend to call more fouls on black players when in most games at any given time 8 of the 10 players on the floor are in fact black.

Kevin Hinch skewers this nonsense beautifully in a column here. On behalf of white-stiffs everywhere, I give you the key and closing quote:

One might question the motives of people who would set out in search of racism in a business where the vast majority of the highest-paid employees and 38 percent of the refs are black. I don't. I question their half-assed methodology, which doesn't even yield half-truths.
It says nothing. It proves nothing. It is nothing. Except, of course, a distraction from the real issue of race in America.

It is also incredibly lame.

And somewhere Joel Przybilla is pissed.

Like so many big white stiffs in the NBA, the 7-foot-1 space-eater spends much of his professional life in foul trouble. Now he's forced to ponder how much worse it would be if the white refs didn't have his back.

Obligatory Sports Post

Best known nowadays for his contribution to the success of the Boston Celtics in the mid- and late-80's, Dennis Johnson is dead at 52:

Dennis Johnson, the star NBA guard who was part of three championships and teamed with Larry Bird on one of the great postseason plays, died Thursday after collapsing at the end of his developmental team's practice. He was 52.

Johnson, coach of the Austin Toros, was unconscious and in cardiac arrest when paramedics arrived at Austin Convention Center, said Warren Hassinger, spokesman for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate him for 23 minutes before he was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, Hassinger added. Mayra Freeman, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, said there will be an autopsy.

The Toros postponed home games Friday and Saturday nights, the NBA Development League said.

"He was one of the most underrated players in the history of the game, in my opinion, and one of the greatest Celtic acquisitions of all time," said former Boston teammate Danny Ainge, now the Celtics' executive director of basketball operations.

I couldn't stand him as a Celtic but then again I was a Laker fan...so no surprise there. He was a helluva player though.