Here we have yet another funny commercial for ESPN's NBA coverage, this time featuring Lamar Odom, James Worthy, and Magic Johnson riding in the RV. Odom is clutching the championship trophy and snacking on some tortilla chips, when Big Game James reveals to him the tasty secrets that lie inside.
Read on to see what Larry O'Brien has in store for those who have earned the right to carry his trophy, as well as the privilege to taste the spicy flavors of basketball immortality.
Greg Grant was a short player who overcame long odds: standing just 5-foot-7 and playing college ball in Division III, he was drafted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns in 1989, lasting seven years in the NBA.
Earlier today, FanHouse featured the first chapter of Greg's autobiography, 94 Feet and Rising, written with the help of Martin Sumners and released in July. In the following excerpts, Greg recalls what it was like to play against Magic Johnson and share a locker room with Charles Barkley, two of the brightest stars the NBA has ever seen.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
For the past nine years the Harold Pump Foundation, created by David and Dana Pump (known as the gurus of high school and college basketball) has raised over $3.5 million dollars to fight cancer. The foundation's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Major stars such as Magic Johnson, Paul Pierce, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pete Sampras and Denzel Washington have all joined the Pump brothers. In this report we also hear from young NBA stars like Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Blake Griffin.
That was the year most of us were introduced to the future of the NBA, although we didn't know it at the time. The 1979 NCAA championship game between Indiana State and Michigan State was only the Bird-Magic appetizer.
Bird and Magic would play in the NBA Finals against each other three times as pros. Together, they rejuvenated pro basketball and help bring back credibility, class and competition to a league that desperately needed it.
LOS ANGELES -- No doubt, LeBron James gets it. He already owned the brain and the brawn for solo greatness, but he now has the ability to spread his killer instinct to folks in his locker room. The same goes for Chauncey Billups, the primary reason why the Denver Nuggets have dribbled this far into an NBA postseason for the first time since the start of the second Reagan Administration.
Actually, it's been not at all, at least compared to James, Billups and others in league history. With every playoff game that the Kobe Lakers fail to display the passion of a champion, you have to question Bryant's ability to inspire. That's why nobody inside Staples Center Tuesday night had a clue about whether the Lakers would open the Western Conference Finals against Denver as that wimpy bunch that struggled against the inferior and injured Houston Rockets or as a replica of their lordly forefathers, ranging from Jerry West to Magic Johnson to Shaquille O'Neal.
If a rivalry between LeBron James' Cavaliers and Kobe Bryant's Lakers doesn't come to pass, it's not going to be because the two have formed an off-court relationship in recent years.
It will be because one of those teams -- and likely one of those players -- faltered on the way to the NBA Finals. And not just faltered this year, but next year and the year after that and so on.
There's no doubt the NBA fraternity of players has gotten more close-knit over the years, and nobody likes the excessive glad-handing and embracing before games. But so what if James and Bryant are friends?
The more you think about it, the more you start realizing the table is set.
We're on the verge of something really big here. Something a little different and a lot better than just your run-of-the-mill playoffs with a nice matchup for the NBA Finals.
What we have is the possibility of a classic NBA rivalry beginning: A rivalry not unlike the one between Larry Bird and the Celtics and Magic Johnson and the Lakers from 25 years ago.
Isiah Thomas once cornered me in a hallway and issued a warning, mob-boss-like. "If you squeeze me again, you'll be sorry," he said. I'm not certain what warranted the threat -- and it's nice to know I haven't awakened to a horse's head in my bed -- but it was a classic snapshot of what King Isiah was like when he ruled the world, when he was a two-time NBA champion, when he was the best little man who ever played the game.
Now, years later, he is humbled, deleting the mountains of scandalous cache in his personal hard drive and rebooting himself amid the smallest of templates. He is escaping New York, where his dreadful tenure as boss and coach of the Knicks was exacerbated by a sexual-harassment case against him, and attempting to salvage his career and life at Florida International University, where a basketball team that hasn't had a winning season in 10 years played to average crowds of 693 fans last season.
'HouseCast is FanHouse's audio podcast. Watch out. You might just get what you're after.
"Burning Down the 'House," the most popular podcast on FanHouse, storms the court in its return to the airwaves this week as Ryan Wilson and Will Brinson chat with special guest Seth Davis -- CBS analyst and SI.com writer, as well as author of the new book "When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed College Basketball" -- to talk about Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson, "bloggable stories" and the Cameron Crazies. Additionally, Brett Pollakoff swings by to discuss the state of the NBA, the MVP race, and Shaq on Twitter. We also talk to Michael David Smith for a quick take on whether or not Jay Cutler is "a little b*tch." So, ease your chair back, stop working and indulge.
Hit the jump to listen to the audio or download specific segments, or right-click here to download the full MP3.
Even the casual basketball fan knows about the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rivalry, and its beginnings in the 1979 NCAA National Championship Game. Seth Davis' book, "When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed College Basketball," chronicles the beginning of that rivalry in '79, and the long-lasting effect that the game has had on the way we all watch college basketball. The book drops Tuesday, just in time for the 30-year anniversary of the game (you can purchase it here). Read FanHouse's review of the book after the jump.
Here we have yet another funny commercial for ESPN's NBA coverage, this time featuring Lamar Odom, James Worthy, and Magic Johnson riding in the RV. Odom is clutching the championship trophy and snacking on some tortilla chips, when Big Game James reveals to him the tasty secrets that lie inside. 
Greg Grant was a short player who overcame long odds: standing just 5-foot-7 and playing college ball in Division III, he was drafted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns in 1989, lasting seven years in the NBA. 
For the past nine years the Harold Pump Foundation, created by David and Dana Pump (known as the gurus of high school and college basketball) has raised over $3.5 million dollars to fight cancer. The foundation's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Major stars such as Magic Johnson, Paul Pierce, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pete Sampras and Denzel Washington have all joined the Pump brothers. In this report we also hear from young NBA stars like Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Blake Griffin. 
Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Sunday, there are exactly 79 days remaining.
LOS ANGELES -- No doubt, LeBron James gets it. He already owned the brain and the brawn for solo greatness, but he now has the ability to spread his killer instinct to folks in his locker room. The same goes for Chauncey Billups, the primary reason why the Denver Nuggets have dribbled this far into an NBA postseason for the first time since the start of the second Reagan Administration.
If a rivalry between LeBron James' Cavaliers and Kobe Bryant's Lakers doesn't come to pass, it's not going to be because the two have formed an off-court relationship in recent years.
Isiah Thomas once cornered me in a hallway and issued a warning, mob-boss-like. "If you squeeze me again, you'll be sorry," he said. I'm not certain what warranted the threat -- and it's nice to know I haven't awakened to a horse's head in my bed -- but it was a classic snapshot of what King Isiah was like when he ruled the world, when he was a two-time NBA champion, when he was the best little man who ever played the game.
