FanHouse DamonJones

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. NY Post: Alas, Stephon Marbury will not be allowed by the Knicks to practice with kids from his old High School. The NBA: Where inactive means inactive.

2. The Detroit News: Joe Dumars consoles Rip Hamilton after dealing Chauncey Billups out of town.

3. Marca.com: If you can read Spanish, then you can read about Sergio Rodriguez's agent requesting a trade for him. (via HoopsHype)

4. SLAM: Bulls' new coach Vinnie Del Negro, already clashing with a couple of his players.

5. OrlandoSentinel.com: Brian Cook: bad basketball player, worse teammate.

6. Daily News: Baron Davis, following in Damon Jones' footsteps.

I don't know about you all, but there's something that I find absolutely fascinating about the inner workings of the lives of players in the NBA. Like, I would think that a player's team, agent, or somebody they were close to would be the one that broke the news to said player that they had just been dealt out of town. But I would be wrong. It didn't go down like that for Ron Artest, and it didn't go down like that for Damon Jones. Observe:

Damon Jones made a guest appearance on ESPN's First Take on Wednesday morning, when he and host Skip Bayless debated about the lack of moves by the Cavaliers this off-season.

A few hours later, as he was getting into a limousine to take him to the airport, the driver told the veteran guard he'd been traded to Milwaukee.

[Jones remarked] "I appreciate the organization for moving me if they weren't going to have a significant role for me in the last year of my contract. At the same time, I'm upset they weren't able to find a role for me."

Going from television analyst discussing your team's off-season moves one minute, to becoming one of those moves and being informed of it by your freaking driver the next? That's cold. As for Damon thanking the Cavs and being upset with them in the very next sentence ... well, I don't know what else you'd expect from someone who lets the fans have a say in his hairstyle, or wears the same jacket to All-Star weekend two years in a row.

[via SbB]

As rumored, Cleveland plundered point guard Mo Williams from Milwaukee, losing only 33-year-old Joe Smith and 32-year-old Damon Jones in the process. Jones and OKC alum Luke Ridnour head to the Bucks; Smith and former Sonic Desmond Mason pack for Oklahoma. As I wrote a bit ago, it's a good pull for Cleveland -- Williams shores up a pitiful position and adds some offensive punch to a defensive-minded team.

There's another consideration, though: what's it do to Cleveland's pending cap space? Danny Ferry's public position on all prospective trades has been that the team didn't want to surrender its projected cap space for the summer of 2009. With Smith, Jones, Eric Snow and Wally Szczerbiak definitely off the payroll next offseason, the idea become such that the Cavs would be in good position to either trade for a disgruntled superstar at the deadline or reach out to a top-level free agent in July. (In actuality, once Daniel Gibson was extended, the team still needed to shred one more long contract to be serious players in free agency. The trade avenue would be alive regardless.)

Last week, FanHouse brought you a couple of great interviews with Dwyane Wade and Alonzo Mourning, who were doing the media circuit in order to promote their charity All-Star game that was going down in Miami over the weekend. Besides watching a bunch of sick dunks and alley-oops with zero defense, fans were treated to a dance off between D-Wade, LeBron James, Damon Jones, and Zo. Here's a little sample.



Looks like LeBron is the big dancer of the group, and if you ask me, D-Wade looked a little tentative out there. I guess a 15-win season will do that to you.

If you want to see more, including Damon Jones getting on the mic and encouraging the best looking ladies to come down and dance with him, there's a 10 minute version after the jump. (Hey, it's the off season. What else are you going to watch?)

The illustrious Dan Steinberg of D.C. Sports Bog offers up the following evidence of a late-regular season throat slash gesture from Cavalier Damon Jones. You'll find it at the one-minute mark.



Wizard DeShawn Stevenson, of course, just got fined $25,000 for the old throat slash (seen in a pretty perfect animated gif at Mr. Irrelevant), an act labeled a "menacing gesture" by the NBA. So do we have a double standard here? Is the league just looking to crack down on any extracurricular activity in the quite testy Wizards-Cavs series?

I think the explanation's more simple than that: No one is menaced by anything Damon Jones does. I think Damon Jones could stand in front of me with a bloody machete and I might shrug. (And machetes freak me out!) Jones would have to simulate human castration on Eddie Jordan to get fined for a "menacing gesture."

Let's just let the Washington Post 's Michael Lee lay this one in:

The most ridiculously entertaining and completely ridiculous subplot of this Washington Wizards-Cleveland Cavaliers playoff series has reached another stratosphere, after my moles informed me that hip hop legend Jay-Z made a diss record on Friday about DeShawn Stevenson.

You read that right. Jay-Z, the Jigga Man, H-to-the-Izzo, Mr. Beyonce Knowles, made diss record about DeShawn Stevenson that was played at the D.C. night spot Love on Friday night, according to several witnesses. I have not heard the song or the lyrics but I was told that Jay-Z freestyled over the beat for the track, "Blow The Whistle" by rapper Too Short.

Lee says Caron Butler walked out of the club when the DJ replayed the diss track a few times, while Gilbert Arenas considered it an honor that Jay-Z spent time thinking about DeShawn.

Of course, there was a mic involved ... so Damon Jones got involved. He apparently talked "foul stuff" about DeShawn in introducing the Jay-Z track. Stevenson isn't happy about that, nor LeBron James's pressing of the "feud" into personal attacks.

"He says he has a lot of swag, but I don't think that's something to do," Stevenson said about James. "This is basketball. I'm not worried about the song. I'm not worried about what he did. But for Damon Jones to get on the mic. And I heard he was saying foul stuff about me and stuff like that, they're taking it beyond basketball to me."

Ah, Mike Bibby. Have you learned nothing from DeShawn Stevenson? Don't get me wrong, I find it very refreshing to hear NBA players call out the opposing team's fans or star player. But if you don't perform after doing so, prepare to feel the wrath of those you taunted. In DeShawn's case it was Damon Jones of all people; in Bibby's case it was the Celtics' fans.

In case it wasn't abundantly clear, that was a chant of "Rondo's better" that rained down from the Celtics' faithful. I'm not sure how much of a burn this really is for Bibby, considering the fans are merely pointing out what has been -- at least in this series -- simply an irrefutable fact.

[video via Odenized]

Damon, I hate to break it to you like this, but as bad as things are for DeShawn Stevenson right now, I'm guessing he probably wakes up, looks in the mirror and says to himself, "well, at least I'm not Damon Jones." Those were your only three points of the entire series, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were your last three points. Please go away. Now.

(via BallHype, Odenized)

Damon Jones has played pretty well this season for the Cavs, averaging over 20 minutes per game since the beginning of January, while shooting over 45% from downtown during that period. But his numbers have dwindled recently, and now so has his playing time, as coach Mike Brown made it known that Damon won't be in his plans for the postseason.

Jones has been a bit of a defensive liability for the team at times, and with so much depth at the guard position, Damon's going to be the odd man out. Fortunately, he's keeping a positive attitude about the situation.

''It seems like the same trend, the only thing I can do is be ready when called upon,'' Jones said. ''I'm going to try to be a positive influence, if you try to go prove something you end up trying to do too much.''

This is a nice change from the way Damon handled things last season. He was much more disappointed with his demotion, and asked to be traded: first formally, then by singing passive-aggressive Christmas carols. Well, maybe there's a bright side to all of this. Now Damon can focus on the new trend that he's promised to start, in light of the fact that his mohawk-wearing days have come to an end.

I didn't know that preserving the hairstyle of Damon Jones was a crusade worth taking up, but apparently it is. And not only is there a blog devoted to saving the man's mohawk, but it appears that in the short time the thing has been up, they might have actually succeeded.

Damon Jones had announced plans to shave off his Mohawk after this two-game road trip. But the style has caught on among basketball players and, apparently, fans. A group of fans started a blog aimed at getting Jones to save the 'do, at http://savedjsmohawk.blogspot.com/. Jones has heard about the site.

''Maybe I'll have to reconsider,'' Jones said. ''If enough fans feel that way, I don't want to disappoint them.''

All hail the power of the internet! The creators of the site aren't celebrating just yet, but this definitely sounds promising. I just have one question: where were these guys when we really needed them? You know, to save Drew Gooden's neckstache?