The Fundamentals

Tim MacMahon of The Dallas Morning News:  “You might consider Cuban a hypocrite for wanting these types of tournaments while shooting down the Olympics. However, Cuban’s anti-Olympics stance is based on his belief that the basketball part of the Games are about money, not patriotism. And he wants Mavs coaches to be able to work with the team’s players over the summer.  So some extra wear and tear on the players’ bodies is OK as long as it’s under the watch of the coaches Cuban pays — and it makes his bank account bigger.”

Reuters:  “He is a world champion sprinter and among the favorites to strike gold at the Beijing Olympics yet Tyson Gay was awestruck during a brief chat with American basketball player Kobe Bryant.  “I was very surprised. We were in the gym I asked him if I could I take a picture with him,” Gay told reporters Monday. “He said ‘How’s your leg, you are in my heart. I hope everything’s coming on.’  “I texted my mother and told her. She was shocked.”"

D. C. Sports Blog:  “Meeting Team USA with Bush 43 before the game, Bush 41 gave a warm hug to Lakers star Kobe Bryant and received an affectionate greeting from Cavaliers hero LeBron James: “What’s up, pops?” the massive James asked.  One way for a 23-year old pro basketball player to greet a former President might be “Hello, Mr. President.” Another might be “What’s up, pops.” I’m done making fun of LeBron for the crying and the scowling and the wide-eyed disbelief. Anyone who breaks out the “What’s up pops?” line is ok by me.”

Brett Edwards of FanHouse:  An ode to NBC’s “Roundball Rock”

Tom Ziller of FanHouse:  “Humorous team photos are nothing new to the basketball world: one striking pose (self-link) by the 2002 Sacramento Kings has been passed around like a virus the past year. But there’s a space between humorous and offensive, the Valley of the Blatantly Stupid. The Spanish men’s national basketball team visited it last month.  The Guardian reports (via Deadspin) the Spanish team recently took out a full-page ad in Marca featuring the above photo — the 15-man squad all mocking the eyes of their Olympic hosts. It’s a shock upon our camraderian sensibilities, for sure, but hardly the worst thing Spanish athletes have done.”

Ewen Callaway of NewScientist:  “The difference seems to be that the pros play out the shot in their brains, allowing them to make a call just from looking at the player’s body, says Salvatore Aglioti, of the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.  When his team repeated the experiment with subjects wired to a device that measured activity in the brain regions controlling two arm muscles, they found that the pros relied on a circuit that harnesses the abductor digiti minimi – the pinkie’s main muscle.  Early in the video, pros activated this region during missed balls, but not during shots that swished in. The other groups’ brain activities remained the same, no matter the time point or whether the shot was a brick or a basket.  Aglioti speculates that professionals can read the spin imparted on the ball by focusing on the flick of the pinkie.” [Via Lakers Blog]

D. C. Sports Blog:  Everything you wanted (or didn’t want) to know about Craig Sager

Basketbawful:  The Untold Story of LeBron vs. Jalen Rose

Tim Kawakami of The Contra Costa Times:  “I can’t come up with a better word than “cool,” which is a fatally dated and simplistic term to describe the savvy, big-hearted and passionate way that Yao is handling the attention and responsibilities of his role in these Beijing Olympics.  That’s all I’ve got, however: COOL. Graceful would be another word. Charismatic. Diplomatic. Elevated. But I keep going back to cool.  Yao leading China aganist the USA yesterday was cool; Yao hitting that three-pointer to open the game was cool; Yao exhorting his teamates on the sidelines was cool; Yao barking at Yi Jianlian for some dumb play was cool; Yao mixing it up with Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony was cool.”

Charles Elmore of The Palm Beach Post:  “The NBA’s Heat is in a similar situation. Suffering the league’s worst record last year, the team hopes fans are curious and excited about reconstruction efforts. The season-ticket renewal campaign has taken direct aim at the financial pinch many fans are feeling.  There’s even a sweepstakes to cover items ranging from a fan’s FPL bill to property taxes.  “As a sports and entertainment business, we are very sensitive to the reality that discretionary dollars have been reduced and people have difficult decisions to make,” said Lorrie-Ann Diaz, the Heat’s marketing communications director.”

Patrick McManamon of The Akron Beacon Journal:  “Dan Gilbert’s kids returned from camp Friday and immediately asked their father: Is LeBron James going to Europe?  The Cavs’ owner took a step back, said LeBron wasn’t going anywhere and asked where they heard that. Everyone, they told him, was talking about it.  This did not exactly thrill Gilbert. He has more or less shrugged off as offseason gossip the rumors of a Greek team paying James $50 million a year in 2010.  ”The reason this thing is where it’s at,” Gilbert said, ”is that we’ve got a bunch of bored, East Coast sports writers who have nothing to do because the offseason is a few months away and the Olympics [hadn’t] started yet.”” [Via TrueHoop]

Ken Berger of Newsday:  “OK, let’s clear a few things up, Mr. Gilbert. First, LeBron is dominating the chatter about the free-agent bonanza of 2010 (or 2011 if LBJ doesn’t opt out) because — duh! — he’s LeBron. He’s better than Wade and Bosh and everybody else, so naturally, the focus is on him.  Second, if I were Gilbert, I’d be more concerned with why my star player continues to fuel the rumor mill every time he opens his mouth on the subject. If LeBron really liked Cleveland as much as Gilbert does, he would have come to New York with Team USA a few weeks ago and shot down the rumors, instead of furthering the frenzy by saying New York was his favorite city and Brooklyn his favorite borough.”