Disney Deep-Freeze; Crisis Averted; McWho?

I hear the temperature dropped into the 40s and 30s for most of Florida today. Could that explain the Magic's brickish shooting? Season lows in pts/fg%/assists/buckets in the 1st half? (well, I suppose the last 3 naturally go hand in hand). Season low 54 thru 3 quarters, before “erupting” for 26 4th-quarter points. The Celts were doing a decent job on defense, yea, but the Disneys missed a helluvalotta chippies and open jumpers.

The way they've been torching the league lately, and the fact that they haven't played since Sunday, they were due for a bad one. Don’t think I’m not giving Boston their due by the way, especially the way they fought off the Magician’s run in the fourth quarter.

I sure hope, for their sakes, that the teams of the East see the writing on the wall and start looking for centers who can at least dream of competing with Superman 2.0. In the West you have Bynum, Oden, Gasol (uh, the younger one) etc, young guys who can body up with Howard, and keep him somewhat honest on offense too, for the foreseeable future. The East? Ummm. Mars to GMs: work some magic soon, or you are in for a long decade. A very long decade.

So the fan-vote polls closed with Yi Jianlian still within 200,000 votes of making the all-star game. I'll say it again; this is dangerously close to being a complete mockery of the system. It was bad enough in years past to have injured stars (T-Mac, Shaq) voted in, but at least those stars have a history of all-star caliber play. Is it so far-fetched to imagine that, with another year or two of exposure with the Nets, a few more minutes per game and a little improvement to his skills, Yi could pick up those middling 200k? Weighted voting humans, weighted voting. Please, before it's too late.

And now a quote from the estimable Mr. Shaquille O’Neal on Supe Version 2: "He's a good player, but everything he's done I've invented, so I'm not impressed," O'Neal said. "For me to get my eyes wide open about another big man, he'll have to do something that I haven't seen before or something that I haven't invented. Everything that he's done, I've invented it." Really? My memory must be a bit fuzzy; would you mind pointing me to the dunk contest you won? Or remind me when it was that you started to develop an actual face-up jump shot? Come now Shaq, you were just playing right? You didn’t mean to sound like such a past-your-prime curmudgeon hater here, right? Right?

Jay McGwire has come out to tell the world that he started his older brother Mark on steroids back in 1994. Umm, who? When? Did HGH even exist then? We've had 8 world champs, 3 inaugurations, 2 wars, and a partridge in a pear tree in the time since McGwire had any relevance. Do people purposely wait until they've been relegated to the scrap heap to dredge up old crap no one cares about anymore? Does anybody really still care? Hey Jay, does the phrase "Senate hearing" mean anything to you? Says the younger bro: “I want Mark to live in truth to see the light, to come to repentance so he can live in freedom — which is the only way to live.” I suppose the fact that the entire publishing world has to date collectively yawned on the book you’re hawking is just a random coincidence, eh. Ohh yea, there’s living in truth for ya.

With family like that……I’m gonna call my mom tomorrow and thank her for never giving me the sibling I always wanted.

I suppose this is the chickens coming home for the MLB's sweeping the issue under the rug for so long. I fully expect Sammy Sosa's as-yet-unborn son to level an accusation at his popa at his college graduation.

Memphis fired Coach Iavaroni today. I was inclined to say "why now?" until I remember they've been taking beat downs from everybody lately. E-vry-bo-dy.

Lakers vs. Wizards on national TV? There's a decision the off-season schedule-makers wish they could have for a do-over.