FanHouse ShareefAbdurRahim

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Basketball-Reference. What do the season-opening streaks by L.A., Atlanta and Washington mean? Less than you'd think.

2. Wages of Wins. Signing the song of Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Also, a reminder that Antoine Walker made three All-Star Games. (Shareef? One.)

3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not only is Atlanta surprising at 5-0, but they seem completely different from the Hawks of last year.

4. Basketball Prospectus. A tremendous analysis of the Lakers defense, which reminds Kevin Pelton of George Karl's SOS Pressure defense from mid-90s Seattle.

5. Ridiculous Upside. If you want in depth D-League draft analysis ... you are in need of therapy. Also, you belong to Ridiculous Upside.

6. Mr. Irrelevant. JaVale McGee is looooooooong.

And on a non-NBA note, FanHouse alum Howie The Hype Guy has a new comedy project you should definitely check out.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Bend It Like Bennett. The Thunder are selling "rivalry packs" of tickets focused on the old war with Portland: "The Portland Trailblazers and Oklahoma City Thunder will continue to duke it out for Northwest* supremacy, but perhaps we need to give this series a new name. We could call it the 'I-84 to I-80 to I-25 to I-70 to I-35' Rivalry."

2. Blog-a-Bull. On the chances Ben Gordon can get paid in '09.

3. The Bratwurst. Milwaukee has some saucy looking alternate jerserys this season.

4. True Hoop. Abbott doesn't understand why people think Stephon Marbury can help anyone.

5. Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Salim Stoudamire has the 'fro going, and is read to hit Texas.

6. Orange County Register. Good news Lakers fans: "Andrew Bynum lay on the floor, his feet having been knocked out from beneath him on an alley oop pass during a recent pick up game. He got up immediately. No hesitation. No second thoughts. More importantly, no pain."

And one bad story of the day: The Big Lead. TBL writes about the retirement of the "reliable yet oft-injured" Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Reliable. Oft-injured. Reliable. Oft-injured. Something. Doesn't. Add. Up. (It's the "oft-injured" part. And the part where he blames Reef for not getting enough wins, man. Damn you, Shareef! Why didn't you ever want to win?! Can't you for once help your team try to win?!?!) For the record, until last season, Abdur-Rahim played in 94% of all possible regular season games.

After Eddy Curry played admirably in San Antonio while Zach Randolph served a one-game suspension, the expected inference Z-Bo has been holding his XL teammate down got passed around. To me, there are bigger problems with Eddy Curry than anything Randolph could've done. Nonetheless, the chatter got loud enough for Randolph to address the assessment.

"Eddy can play like that every night; it ain't got nothing to do with me," Randolph said before Saturday's game. "It's not the first time I've played with a dominant big man. So it's kind of frustrating."

I assume Randolph's talking about Rasheed Wallace and Shareef Abdur-Rahim -- yes, Z-Bo and Sheed both played well in 2003 and prior to the Sheed trade in 2004; Randolph played a bench role in 2003, though, and Sheed's numbers fell off slightly in 2004 in Portland (never mind Sheed isn't close to your typical dominant big man). Clearly in 2005, Randolph's flavor hampered Shareef's game (to the point the All-Star ended up taking a midlevel deal that summer).

Z-Bo and Curry can co-exist and get their numbers. But that won't help the Knicks any, unless one of them learns how to pass out of a double-team, block a shot, or defend the post.