FanHouse Nba

Years ago, this would have constituted franchise suicide. Years ago, when Ron Artest was attacking fans and and facing spousal-abuse charges and firing obscene gestures and qualifying as the NBA's scariest menace to society, you wouldn't wish him upon your most despised team. But even the unhinged grow up eventually, which is why I
dare say the Los Angeles Lakers have made a monumental statement in signing the sort-of-reformed problem child.

Not much in sports makes me cringe these days, but describing Ricky Rubio as the next Pistol Pete Maravich -- legend and cult hero forevermore -- certainly is hard on the frown lines. So the Mane from Spain has flowing locks and a flair for the flashy, sexy pass. Does that make him remotely equipped to wage battle in a league loaded with elite point guards, from Chris Paul to Deron Williams to Jason Kidd to Derrick Rose to Rajon Rondo?

Pistol Pete was a one-and-only, never to be replicated in any era, a prolific scorer and exquisite passer whose showmanship would have thrived in a time when entertainment and SportsCenter hits seem to trump winning championships. Rubio? He's 18. I have no idea how much he'll improve his shaky jumper and adapt to the raw physicality of NBA ball. He very easily could be a Eurobust who has brainwashed us with YouTube reels that conveniently ignore his turnovers and no-look flips with no-chance recipients.

---

---

NEW YORK -- One point guard wandered around the WaMu Theater halls, looking lost. He easily could have been mistaken for a tourist who had made the wrong turn at Penn Station. "Where's the loo?" Ricky Rubio asked an usher. The usher gave Rubio a blank stare. "I mean toilet. Where's toilet?"

Another point guard strolled through the Madison Square Garden interior like he owned the place. Jonny Flynn slapped hands with security guards, and when a janitor stopped Flynn to talk about a certain memorable game Flynn played in here back in March, Flynn flashed his Farrah-like smile and said, "Yeah, the 15 overtime one?"

This was hours before the Minnesota Timberwolves made a head-scratching, scene-stealing move by selecting both playmakers -- Rubio, the Spanish phenom, was the fifth pick, and Flynn, the irrepressible spark plug from Syracuse, went sixth. One might be traded, or the two best point guards of this draft could both end up in a Minnesota backcourt helping reshape a team that has not made the playoffs since 2004. Whatever transpires, the Timberwolves haven't made this much noise since Kevin Garnett clawed the backboards at the Target Center.

Editor's Note: This column has been updated from Thursday's original version.

He's accustomed to the NBA's sunniest and most extravagant addresses, from Disney World to Hollywood to South Beach to the Arizona desert. Ontario Street in downtown Cleveland? Put it this way: Shaquille O'Neal will have to buy a thick winter coat, assume a less gaudy nickname (The Big Smokestack?) and watch courtside celebrities such as Jack Nicholson and Ludacris suddenly morph into Drew Carey.

But there's nothing ludicrous about this new development in his fascinating journey through basketball and life. Shaq is intelligent enough to realize, at 37, that even one season with the Cavaliers could have a profound impact on his legacy -- and that of LeBron James. If Shaq wins his fifth NBA championship in a town that hasn't won a title in a major sport since 1964, and he succeeds in keeping an ambitious native son in his native northeast Ohio, his work will be done.

---

---

NEW YORK -- The numbers lie. They belittle his game, put question marks next to his future. They are scrawny numbers, single digits that can't begin to explain the trials and tribulations that rode shotgun in Brandon Jennings' season abroad.

Some blips were minor, the kind every expatriate learns to abide. The rich food, the exotic chants shouted in the gym with an adjoining trailer concession stand. The lack of dryers. Jennings still laughs at how the Italians, such a civilized society, live blissfully without machines that hasten one's ability to wear fresh undershirts every day. And don't even get him started on the crazy drivers who turn the streets of Rome into death traps.

"Oh, everything was different," says Jennings, in a quiet moment after the horde of cameras and notebooks have departed. The afternoon went by in a whirl, beginning with a TV crew trailing him from his midtown hotel to Wednesday's NBA media meet-and-greets, where Jennings was peppered with questions about his season playing pro ball in Italy, his harsh (and now retracted) comments concerning Spanish guard Ricky Rubio, and the one subject that turns Jennings' perpetual smile into a sneer:

---

---

"LeBron James, with no regard for human life!" – Kevin Harlan, NBA on TNT broadcaster, during the 2008 Eastern Conference semifinals

It wasn't just the most ridiculous hyperbolic description of a LeBron James dunk; it was also a gross mischaracterization of the Crown Prince of the NBA. (We'll call him by his preferred moniker of King when he has a ring.) For if there is one thing James possesses, which ought to make Cavaliers' fans sleep easier, it is consideration for others.

That is the overwhelming message from the premiering documentary More Than a Game about LeBron's basketball upbringing and that of his high school teammates. I caught the movie on Monday at opening night for the 2009 Silverdocs film festival in Silver Spring, Md., organized by The Discovery Channel and the American Film Institute and attended by the film's subjects, LeBron and his four best friends -- and ballahs -- from childhood. After all these years, after all those tens of millions of dollars, after all the awards and accolades, LeBron is still tightest with four guys with whom he grew up, not Jay-Z or Ice Cube or some other hip-hop-star-come-lately. How neat is that?

ORLANDO -- There is much to dislike about Kobe Bean Bryant, from the bursts of conceit that verge on megalomania to the 57-page transcript detailing the sex, lies and disgrace of his one-night stand with a 19-year-old in Colorado. But never, ever deny him this: He is a basketball savant who, in one definitive swoop Sunday evening, quieted those who said: a) he'd never win an NBA title without Shaquille O'Neal, and b) he has been trumped by LeBron James as the sport's most dominant force.

ORLANDO -- They're as different as Yoda and Danny DeVito, the Grateful Dead and Weird Al Yankovic, a complete mismatch in wisdom and savvy and diamonds on their fingers. Just because Phil Jackson evokes the appearance of a half-asleep grandfather waiting for his Metamucil doesn't mean he isn't in complete control of his scene. And just because Stan Van Gundy is running around and howling like a crazed banshee doesn't mean he has a clue.

If the Lakers win another championship Sunday night, Game 5 of the NBA Finals might signify the end of Jackson's spiritual, never-boring adventure through coaching. Yet even as he stares down his 10th crown -- which would push him past one of his biggest critics, the late Red Auerbach, as the most decorated of all pro basketball coaches -- he keeps absorbing potshots from snipers who think he's cruising through a career as an opportunistic fraud.

ORLANDO -- It was a night when a veteran dismissed as old and inept proudly turned back time, a night when a man-child with 21 rebounds and nine blocked shots was the goat, a night when the well-coached team won and the team that executed horribly in critical moments lost. Sometimes, the slim difference between a champion and a wannabe funnels down to savvy, character, IQ, experience, all the traits that never seem cliche when it's past midnight in overtime and the studs are separating from the frauds.

ORLANDO -- Dwight Howard entered his home arena here Tuesday evening, and departed it in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, sporting a pink v-neck sweater. In between, however, he donned the cape that he's adopted for his basketball persona as Superman.

The reason the Magic eked out a four-point win against the Lakers in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday night, to cut the Lakers' lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1, was because its Superman, Howard, saved the day.

Much will be said in the aftermath of the Magic's 108-104 victory about their torrid record championship series' shooting in the first half that was recorded at 75 percent. But it staked them to just a five-point lead at the break.