L.O.N.

As seen on SLAMOnline:

Line Of The Night:

Dwight Howard — 30 points, 19 boards, 10 blocks, 3 assists

That speaks for itself.  Beastaculous.  The real big man story in this Magic/Thunder game, though, was Robert Swift’s shocking makeover.  He went from the stringy, long-hair/slacker/skater/rocker look, to the product-induced, kinda short, metro mohawk look.   Odd.

Worst Of The Night:

There are probably a bunch of Lakers fans out there wondering why there is so little L.O.N. coverage of the only remaining undefeated team (the Ceatles made sure of that, taking down the Hawks in a thriller last night) thus far this year.  A team who, after all, features the Official Player of L.O.N., and Revolutionary Team Captain, Lamar Odom A.K.A. L-Eezy.  Well, first of all, L-Eezy isn’t exactly a featured member of that stacked team; he’s only cracked the 30 minute mark once.  Second of all, there is our well-chronicled history with the Kobster, A.K.A. Kobe Cryant.  But that is not even the deal-breaker.  Mr. Cryant is one of those “love to hate types”, and without our Mamba animosity, how could we love Kevin Garnet, J.R. Smith and Travis Outlaw so damn much?  Yin and Yang, ya’ll.  No, the straw that breaks the Lakers’ back is none other than Joel Meyers.  We literally cannot stand listening to the man talk for more than 23 seconds.  It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard meets a jackhammer to the abdomen.  A nuclear explosion of excruciating pain and irritance.  Give us national Lakers coverage, or our dawg Ralph Lawler calling an intra-city match, and we’ll be there for ya’ll.  Until then, though, it’s boxscores and boxscores only.

Near Ice Cube Of The Night:

Andre Iguodala — 18 points, 10 assists, 9 boards

This performance against the T-Dot marks three straight all-around games from the Other A.I. (Can we call him something else, though?  What?  An excruciating debate took place in the L.O.N. offices over this, and it remains unresolved), and with him rolling like this and Elton Brand having his best game of the season (25/8), the Sixers showed signs of living up to the hype last night.

T.J. Ford — 18 points, 9 assists, 8 boards, 3 steals

All you internet stat heads can rave all you want about Jose Calderon this, and assist-plus-minus-percentage-ratio that, but if the ball dropped on the court tomorrow, and L.O.N. had to pick somebody to run our squad?  T.J. Ford, all day, ereday.  A healthy (ok, that’s a big if, we admit) T.J. Ford can DOMINATE a game, and that is just what he did last night in Dirty Jerse.

Brad Miller — 16 points, 11 boards, 8 assists, 1 steal, 1 block

BRAD MIZZLE!  One country boy center dominates another (Chris Kaman).

Contraction Club Of The Night:

San Antonio Spurs, 78 points vs. the Milwaukee Bucks

This is a legit contraction scenario.  Off their current roster, you throw Tim Duncan and a couple other guys into a contraction draft and poof… it’s like they never existed.

The Mailroom Supervisor’s Honey Of The Night:

Amare Stoudemire — The MRSV says: “Nice scarf!  The wink, and he’s smiling and giving me googley eyes.”

About 4 years ago, the infamous Malice In The Palace went down.  Call it ugly, call it what you want, but we call it entertaining and have never pretended not to love any level of NBA skirmish, fight or brawl.  Last night’s Houston/Phoenix game gave us a little something something.

Matt Barnes set it off with an out-of-nowhere forearm shiver to Skip-To-My-Lou, who was about to set a standard high screen on Barnes.  From there an amorphous scrum broke out.  The whole thing was basically a lot of big guys pushing on little guys.  Barnes pushes Rafer Alston, then McGradles shoves lil’ Stevie Nash, then Big Shaq shoved every-damn-body.  While Barnes and Alston were initially separated, they almost managed to get back at each other right near the court side seats.  Suns coach Terry Porter managed to get in between them though, before it got really Bubba Sparxxx.  Other than those two guys, McGradles was the most heated, probably because he saw the initial cheap shot on his teammate.  He was ready to “ride together”, ala S-Jax back in ‘04, but he had Luis Scola to hold him back (word to big man peacemakers).  Ironically this whole thing was probably one idiot Pistons fan and a Ron Artest moment from getting extra out of hand, and guess who happened to be on the Rockets’ bench?

A logical question might be, “Why did Matt Barnes lick that initial shot on Skip?  Was there some sort of pretext?”.  Good luck with that.  Watching him over the years, we’ve seen that he has a temper, pure and simple.  He has never been afraid to lick a shot, and only Pac knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Jermaine O’Neal two straight double-doubles, two straight losses.  Coincidence?… Nice to see Greg Oden make it through a game, and even have a few nice plays (a dunk and a couple blocks)… Wilson who?…

Line Of The Night AKA Beast Of The Night:

Brad Miller — 22 points, 20 boards, 4 assists, 4 steals, 2 blocks

We see a player of the week award in this man’s future.  He has been dominating the post for the Kings lately, perhaps playing the best basketball of his career.  It was no different in last night’s win over the Bulls.  B-MEEZY!!!  Can the Kings lock up that 10th seed out West?  Can they be the 11th Western Conference team with a .500+ record?

Yao/Yi II Of The Night:

Yao Ming — 12 points, 12 boards, 3 blocks, 2 assists

Yi Jianlian — 7 boards, 6 points on 1-10 shooting, 2 assists, 1 block

In a clunker of a game, watched by 100 million+ people, both of the main attractions struggled.  Houston won 91-83, largely due to that OTHER guy — Tracy McGradles.  T-Mac went for an All-Star-like 33/11/6/1/1, despite the fact he will miss All-Star weekend for the first time since 2000.  Interesting fact about this match-up, beyond it’s Chinese implications?  When these two teams get together, 6 continents are represented:  Africa — Dikembe Mutombo, Asia — Yao and Yi, Australia — Andrew Bogut, Europe — Dan Gadzuric, North America — Everyone else, and South America — Luis Scola.  Global game for reals, son.

Shut Up Of The Night:

Before the Yao/Yi II, the Houston coaching staff erroneously placed Mike James on the active list twice, accidentally leaving Milwaukee hometown hero, Steve Novak, off the active list.  The fact that this was the second time a visiting team to Brew City had committed such an error, coupled with Novak’s hometown status, this was a newsworthy item — worth mentioning once at the start of the contest, and maybe again later in the game.  3.89 billion mentions?  HELL NO.  SHUT UP, already!  The announcers kept harping on it, over and over and over and over again.  Dude averages 9.3 minutes in 7 games!  NON-FACTOR.  Give it a rest.

Contraction Club Of The Night:

Dallas Mavs 67 points on Super Bowl Sunday vs. Detroit

Wow.  What were the Mavs doing Saturday night in the D?  Partying and setting off fireworks at Jerry Stackhouse’s lake-side house?  Maybe a trip across the Ambassador Bridge to lovely Windsor?  Whatever it was, they were still hungover for this afternoon match-up.  Maybe they just REALLY want Jason Kidd as a teammate, so they decided to go into a teenager-like sulk.

Trade Of The Night:

Lakers get:

Pau Gasol
2010 2nd Round Draft Pick

Grizzlies get:

Kwame Brown and his expiring contract
Jarvaris Crittenton
Aaron McKie (soon to be released)
The rights to Marc Gasol
2008 1st Round Draft Pick
2010 1st Round Draft Pick
Cash consideration

Wow.  Where did this come from?  Gasol’s name hadn’t been at the top of the headlines lately, as far as stars getting moved, and then this happens?  The Lakers have officially declared themselves as top contenders now, by acquiring an All-Star-type player without giving up ANY current contributors (GOOD contributors, at least… Kwame is probably addition by subtraction).  When Andrew Bynum returns from injury, they can trot out a lineup that can match ANYONE in talent:  Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, and Andrew Bynum.  That is scary for the rest of the L.  It’s even scarier for fantasy owners, as Odom, Gasol and Bynum all probably take a hit, but we all know that no amount of surrounding talent in the world can hold Cryant down from getting his!

As for Grizz?  Straight business, homey.  This is all about clearing cap space and creating future flexibility.  The odd part is that Gasol is a REAL talent.  The Lakers’ 1st rounders are going to be late 1st-round picks, so the Grizz are unlikely to find another Gasol… unless you count his brother, Marc.  In our opinion the Grizz already had a nice foundation with Gasol, Miller and their young point guards.  We ain’t up on their accounting books, though.

Damon Stoudamire signs with the Spurs… Earl Boykins signs with the Bobcats… Physicals still not completed, Gasol yet to make debut.  Maybe Grizz GM Chris Wallace should be required to take a mental exam?… Although his stats haven’t been overly impressive, with Jameer Nelson out with an injury, Carlos Arroyo has led the Magic to a 7-1 record over the last 8…