That didn’t take long. Blake Griffin didn’t even make it to Opening Night before he was struck down … by the Clippers Curse. (Cue creepy music, imagine the late Vincent Price reading this to you aloud.) Turns out the Clippers’ blue-chip rookie forward, the top pick in the NBA draft … has a broken knee […]

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Jiminy Christmas. It wasn’t enough for the Lakers to be about Kobe and Vanessa Bryant, Phil Jackson and Jeanie Buss, and Ron Artest and whomever/whatever … Now they have Lamar Odom and Mrs.  Lamar Odom — reality show “star” Khloe Kardashian. Odom and Kardashian got married today, apparently one month after they met. And a […]

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Weird moment this week in the first episode of a new ABC series, entitled “Flash Forward.” It’s a semi-opaque, high-production-values “Lost”-like show with apparent layers of mystery, etc., revolving around everyone on the planet losing consciousness at the same time, and being out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. And during that blackout period … […]

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A curious wire story out of San Diego pertaining to Ron Artest. Which probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, because “curious” and “Ron Artest” are terms that generate 17,200 hits when paired in a google search. It’s almost “dog bites man” in terms of routine. Artest was in San Diego to help promote the Lakers’ exhibition game […]

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OK, here is the sports/journalism connection in this post: A bistro on the place just up the street from here was showing a basketball game on a television, inside. We moved out of the Marais yesterday and over to the 17th arrondisement.

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Well, this is good news for the Lakers, as well as Lakers fan. The on-again/off-again negotiations with Lamar Odom, the team’s free-agent forward, apparently are over, and he will stay with the club in a four-year deal potentially worth $33 million — if the Lakers pick up the fourth year, worth $6 million. This means […]

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I suppose this is Part 2 of the “prominent athletes I’ve dealt with semi-recently who are in some serious trouble” part of the blog. First Jeremy Mayfield, below. Now Diana Taurasi. Perhaps the greatest female basketball player in history. I first saw Taurasi play when she was a senior in high school at Don Lugo […]

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Lamar Odom’s timing is bad. And not for the first time in his career. It now seems likely that a guy who was a vital cog in the Lakers’ championship run this spring not only will not get a raise … not only will not get some five- or six-year contract … he may be […]

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It works out as a sort of trade. The Lakers sign Ron Artest as a free agent, for three seasons and about $18 million, away from Houston. The Rockets sign Trevor Ariza as a free agent, for five seasons and about $30 million, away from the Lakers. And I like what the Lakers have done, […]

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I have confessed to my weakness for bobblehead dolls. I will drive distances, see games I don’t care about and pay for tickets I can’t afford if there is a bobblehead involved. I plan to go to the Manny Ramirez bobblehead game on July 22, even though Manny is a fraud and a cheat. So, […]

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