2:00 PM Tampa Bay Lightning center Dominic Moore was fined $2,500 but not suspended for a hit on the New York Rangers' Ruslan Fedotenko during Thursday night's game.
Last night I reported that Grant Hill would be publishing an editorial in the NEW YORK TIMES this week that responded to ESPN’s recent documentary about the Michigan basketball team of the early ’90s.
I also noted that in that piece Hill retold an anecdote about trying to help former Wolverine Jimmy King at Pistons training camp in 1999. (You can read about it here.)
Because of that NBA episode between the two former collegiate rivals, I reported last night that in Hill’s NYT piece, he mentioned his disappointment at King calling him a “bitch” in the ESPN documentary - which King himself helped produce. Read more…
An ESPN documentary on the 1991-93 Michigan basketball team premiered last Sunday.
Contained in the retrospective was former Wolverine Jimmy King offering this analysis of former Duke Blue Devil Grant Hill:
“I thought Grant Hill was a bitch.”
Hill, whose two NCAA basketball championships at Duke included a 71-51 tournament final win over King’s Michigan in 1992, is currently enjoying the 16th season of what has been a remarkable NBA career.
Meanwhile King, after leaving Michigan, played one season in the NBA before being released in 1996 by Denver. Though in ‘99, King was invited to training camp by the Detroit Pistons - a squad led at the time by perennial all-star Hill.
A source at the NEW YORK TIMES told me late Tuesday that Hill has submitted an editorial to the newspaper to be published this week that will detail his feelings about the aforementioned Michigan team. Included in Hill’s piece is an anecdote about King attending Pistons training camp in 1999. Read more…
Early Wednesday Detroit Piston Charlie Villanueva made the claim in a Tweet from his Twitter.com account that Boston Celtic Kevin Garnett called him “cancer patient” during Tuesday’s Pistons-Celtics game in Detroit.
After Villanueva’s claim, Garnett responded via this statement to the media:
“I am aware there was a major miscommunication regarding something I said on the court last night.
“My comment to Charlie Villanueva was in fact ‘You are cancerous to your team and our league.’
“I would never be insensitive to the brave struggle that cancer patients endure. I have lost loved ones to this deadly disease and have a family member currently undergoing treatment.
“I would never say anything that distasteful. The game of life is far bigger than the game of basketball.”
One thing Garnett is indisputably correct about: There was a major miscommunication between him and Villanueva last night.
Also interesting to note that Garnett claims that he not only insulted Villanueva in the context of the Pistons, but also to the league.
How on earth is Villanueva “cancerous” to the league?
The fact that Garnett would allegedly say such an absurd thing - and mention it in his response to Villanueva’s allegation - makes it hard for me to completely buy into his version of events.
Not to mention Garnett’s notorious reputation for saying plenty of distasteful things.
Villanueva isn’t backing down from his earlier statement about what Garnett said, either.
From watching, listening and reading fan and media reaction to Garnett’s statement, it’s clear that most folks - at least outside of Boston - are on Villanueva’s side on this issue.
Recognizing that, along with Garnett’s well-known, irascible on-court personality, I’m guessing the NBA will sanction Garnett in some capacity.
At the very least, expect the league to step into the fray to eliminate the back-and-forth in short order.
Last night during the Boston Celtics 109-86 rout of the Detroit Pistons in Michigan, Kevin Garnett of the Celtics and Charlie Villanueva of the Pistons were each issued technical fouls at the same time late in the third quarter.
That may have been a tipoff to what Villanueva later Tweeted about Garnett after the Pistons landed in Atlanta following an overnight flight from Detroit. Read more…
Johnson has owned shares of the team for over 10 years, so why is he formally breaking from the only NBA team he’s ever been associated with?
Three months ago Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com reported that Johnson had been part of a group that had recently attempted to buy the Golden State Warriors. That opportunity fell through, but had Johnson’s partners been able to secure ownership of the team, Howard-Cooper reported, “Johnson would have sold what is believed to be a five-percent stake in the Lakers for a larger, but unknown portion, in Golden State.”
Johnson also made it known on the record at that time that he was very interested in joining the Detroit Pistons organization if it meant a significant front office position combined with a possible ownership stake. (The Pistons are up for sale by Karen Davidson, wife of the late Bill Davidson.)
Here’s Johnson back in August on the opportunity to return to his home state to help oversee the Pistons: Read more…
With his one-year, $3.1 million deal with Memphis tucked in his shirt pocket, Allen Iverson celebrated his fresh beginning in the traditional way: By blasting his former team. And his vitriolic quotes come to us courtesy of … wait for it … Scoop Jackson. This makes us very happy here at SbB, because a day including Scoop and AI is always a good day.
In short, Iverson is peeved that he had to come off the bench for the Pistons, says that the coaching staff lied to him about his potential role with the team, and most amazingly of all, said that if he didn’t accept that role, he was warned that the team would “lie down” on him. You know, when most people leave a place of employment, there’s a party in the lunch room with some cake. That was too much to hope for? Read more…
2009 is already assured to go down in the annals of pop culture/tech history as The Year of Twitter. No doubt it’s a powerful tool; not only did it allow one-named celebrities like Shaq and Oprah to connect with their millions of fans, it somehow managed the herculean feat of getting people to actually pay attention to Ashton Kutcher. It’s a tool that, despite its many limitations, has brought people from different worlds together as friends, 140 characters at a time.
Detroit Pistons rookie DaJuan Summers (@dsummers35) might not have the celebrity status of Shaq yet, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have fun with Twitter too. While Shaq is busy flirting with David Beckham on Twitter, Summers is off having a Twitter bet with porn star Valerie Luxe, the “baddest, realest, funniest bitch on Twitter” (@ValerieLuxe). Guess what the winner gets…
