Bawful After Dark: November 3, 2010

Robert Parish is not afraid to sweep the leg

(Via Andy Gray's SI Vault)
Here's your odd headline of the day, per JE Skeets: "Derrick Rose fails to show up to film cameo for 'The Good Wife'." According to the article:

The Bulls point guard refused to come out of his house in Chicago when the crew sent a car to pick him up on Tuesday morning, sources tell us.

Rose -- who helped the Bulls to victory over the Portland Trail Blazers at Chicago's United Center on Monday night -- also refused to give the show's producers an explanation for his no-show, even though they had him booked on a flight to New York, the source added.

Yes, Rose punking out at the last minute is crap, and I am dismayed that he couldn't show the decency to give them any advance warning or even just give them some kind of explanation. That being said, I'm pretty sure he just realized "I'm going to be on 'The Good Wife'? The Good Wife? Fuck that noise! I'm playing Xbox today."

Here's something Trey Kirby shared on his Twitter feed: ESPN's Josh Elliott and Amar''''e Stoudemire go head-to-head in a three point shootout using wads of paper and a trash can. I think you can predict who will win this one.

Amar''''e can't even create his own shot with friggin' wads of paper

Worst of the Night in Pictures:

The actual ESPN.com caption for this pic: "Tracy McGrady #1 and Rodney Stuckey #3 of the Detroit Pistons stalking during a game..." Quick! Someone call the cops!

Darko Milicic does not understand the finer points of "hand-in-the-face," such as, you know, getting your hand in his face...

Marcus Camby fights to avoid being sucked into the black hole that is Corey Maggette

A rare Wizards Generals win? This calls for some celebratory man love

"Just one little twist and I could be rid of Luke Walton forever..."

Crowd surfing -- you're doing it wrong, Boobie Gibson

Nationally Televised Games:
Bucks at Celtics, ESPN, 8pm: For the record, I really, really do not care about this whole Charlie V/KG spat. Wake me up when they actually throw down in a boxing ring. (If they do, I'm sure that the WBO will make it an interim title fight for a diamond belt, for a small sanctioning fee of course.)

Lakers at Kings, ESPN, 10:30pm: Well, the good news for the Purple Paupers is that they'll still be over .500 even after tonight's loss. Yay!

All The Other Games:
Pistons at Hawks, 7pm: Great. We get to have another day of the media getting overly excited about the Hawks after they beat a bottom-feeder. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Bobcats at Nyets, 7pm: The Bobcats are 0-3, but according to Stephen Jackson, "It's not panic time." Bobcats fans, however, beg to differ. Any time Stephen Jackson is one of your best players is, indeed, panic time.

Timberwolves at Magic, 7pm: Darko Milicic has a 1.9 PER through 84 minutes this season. As you watch Dwight Howard play opposite Darko, think of the things that David Kahn could have done with that $20 million: burn it; piss on it; acquire 44.4% of Mike Conley. It's a fun game. Certainly more fun than watching the Timberpups play.

Pacers at 76ers, 7pm: So the question must be asked... at what point do we have to keep an eye on the 76ers to be one of the worst teams of all time?

Hornets at Rockets, 8:30pm: Good news: the Rockets offense is averaging 110PPG. Bad news: the Rockets defense is allowing 117 PPG. In related news, the Rockets are 0-3.

Mavericks at Nuggets, 9pm: With injuries and all the Carmelo drama, it's almost been overlooked that Chauncey Billups is shooting a whopping 27.6% from the field right now. At what point do we just take him out back and put him out of his misery like Ol' Yeller?

Craptors at Jazz, 9pm: Deron Williams has never lost to the Dinos. This does not surprise me.

Spurs at Suns, 10pm: I don't know about you, but I still remember those epic Spurs/Suns playoff games from a few years ago whenever these two teams meet. However, considering all the roster turnover since then (especially in Phoenix), do the actual teams really care that much?

Also, Tim Duncan can potentially become the second-leading scorer in Spurs history after this game. Honestly, who on the Suns is going to stop him? Hedo? (Ball.)

Grizzlies at Warriors, 10:30pm: Stephen Curry is likely to miss this game with a bum ankle. Get ready for Monta Ellis to get a stupidly high usage rate in this game.

Thunder at Clippers, 10:30pm: OKC has struggled with their defense a little this season. Nice to know that won't be an issue tonight.

I Predict That There Will Be Bawful

I keep glancing over at the calendar on my cubicle wall while at work, and I keep looking at the date on my phone the rest of the time. We're getting so close to the start of the NBA season, even if it feels like a million years from now (which is, coincidentally, the same timeframe as when we can expect the Clippers to return to the playoffs).

Kevin Durant just picked up Team USA on his back and carried them to a FIBA world championship (America, fuck yeah!). Aside from further ripping the hearts out of Seattle basketball fans and leaving Portland fans cursing Greg Oden's name, that means we're left without any actual basketball activity for a few weeks. So what is there to do with that downtime??? The same thing we do every year -- make horrible predictions!

Nearly every sportswriter in the country will dish out their mindless prognostications about the upcoming season in the next few weeks, so why don't we beat them to the punch? Besides, who cares about making simple predictions like who will win the championship? I know you guys can do better than that. There are more bawful things to consider, like who will be the first player to get busted for possession this season? How many crab dribbles will LeBron get away with in the first month of the season? Post your thoughts in the comments. I'm sure it will be fun to look back at them after the season's done!

Sorry if you were going to predict that the Minnesota Timberwolves will take out a full page ad in the back of the newspaper to inform their fans that the team will suck again this year -- you're too late. This already happened. (And since I got the link to that article from a Simmons tweet, I feel I must include this: KAAAHHHNNN!!!)

Also, another potential prediction of "When Shaq will do something so crazy that it seems Artestian" has been ruined. Shaq got a nice little head-start on us by bringing the crazy even before I could finish writing this post. According to a lawsuit, The Big Defendent misunderstood the phrase Hack-a-Shaq, and is therefore being accused of computer hacking, destroying evidence and attempting to frame an employee by planting child pornography on his computer.

You'll need to read the article to get a full appreciation for how amazing this is, but I'll give you a brief rundown: Shawn Darling, who worked as Shaq's personal IT guy a few years ago, basically accuses Shaq of doing lots of illegal activities trying to cover up a myriad of affairs. These activities include hacking into voicemails, changing phone passwords, throwing a PC with evidence on it into a lake, illegally obtaining restricted info on mistresses through people he knows in law enforcement, and finally this gem: "At that point, Darling claims Shaq sent him threatening messages, tried to break into his voicemail and enlisted the help of an active Arizona detective to master a computer program that would allegedly allow him to frame Darling for possession of child pornography so that Shaq could confiscate the computer holding evidence of his affair with Lopez."

So getting back to my previous point before being interrupted by so much bawful... we'd love to hear your predictions for this season. Head to the comments section and have fun!