FanHouse Michaeljordan

Take it from the pioneer who started this idea of cozy, contractual relationships between the shoe giants and the NCAA schools: adidas has screwed up this time.

Sonny Vaccaro speaks from experience.

"What a PR nightmare for adidas. This should have been a no-brainer,'' Vaccaro said. "It's nothing but a personal thing against Michael Jordan.''

At issue is the recent decision by adidas to severe its relationship with the University of Central Florida, which has a contract that requires all of its athletes and coaches to wear adidas products.

With the start of the 2009-10 season looming, NBA FanHouse walks through the Valley of the Most Likely; we shall fear no topic.

Madison Square Garden is the crown jewel of NBA arenas. It's the oldest building in the league, and has hosted a ton of special moments throughout its history. Many of those moments likely helped shaped the hoop dreams of many of the league's current stars.

Of course, no one had a greater influence on making MSG a special place to play than Michael Jordan (sorry, Knicks fans). Since Jordan, every NBA player has wanted to come to the Garden and put on a show.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Thursday, there are 5 days remaining.

It takes five years of retirement for a player to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Make it 10 for Dennis Rodman, who always did things differently. He did win five NBA titles.

If you think that Michael Jordan caused a commotion with an unconventional acceptance speech last month when he headlined the Class of 2009, just wait until Rodman shows up in 2010 wearing a dress and lipstick.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Friday, there are 11 days remaining.

The NBA All-Star Game every year is filled with players who never score 2,000 points in a single season.

Karl Malone did it a record 11 consecutive seasons, the most significant statistic he recorded during one of the greatest careers in NBA history.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

Actor and comedian Cedric the Entertainer is a huge sports fan who tells us that he use to be a boxer and these days he enjoys golf. In this FanHouse exclusive we talk to Cedric at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California (not to be confused with the Sherwood Forest -- home of Robin Hood). Cedric who hangs out with lots of top athletes tells us about the time he was doing Vegas with Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Charles Barkley.

Check out the video after the jump.

Tamir Goodman is retiring. This might not mean much to you because Goodman is better known as "The Jewish Jordan". (This always struck me as weird, although I've since taken to calling Michael Jordan "The Gentile Goodman".)

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech has made waves in the NBA community -- everyone seems to think, for some ridiculous reason, that Jordan shouldn't have smack-talked his opponents in what was supposed to be his moment of glory.

I'm of the other opinion; trash-talking was Jordan's legacy and he used people who challenged him as motivation to get better. Bryon Russell was one of those people: Jordan cited Russell's claim that he could guard Jordan (um, whoops, guy) after MJ retired the first time, only to get absolutely torched by His Airness several years later in the very famous "non-push-off" from the 1998 NBA Finals. Naturally, Russell took exception to that part of the speech.

Who doesn't like a list, especially on a Monday morning when that's about all you can handle?

Here is each Hall of Fame Inductees' best line from Friday night's ceremony in Springfield, Mass.:

Jerry Sloan: "Tom Boerwinkle ... 6-foot-11, built my backyard. When he bought the house behind me, I said: 'Tom, we were roommates one day and next day you're in my backyard looking out the window. He said 'I've got that figured out; I'll build a fence 6-feet-10, I can see over it and you can't.'

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Monday, there are 64 days remaining.

The second highest scoring performance of Michael Jordan's career took place in January of 1993, against a young Shaquille O'Neal and the Orlando Magic. Jordan's Bulls lost the game in overtime, but it wasn't for lack of effort on MJ's part: his 27 made field goals and 49 field goal attempts that night were both career highs.

As you'll see in the following video, almost all of Jordan's points came on jump shots, and only nine of the 64 were made from the free throw line. I would argue that Orlando should have been doubling Jordan after the first quarter, but honestly, it's hard to criticize a team that ended up with the victory.

UPDATE, 2:30 PM: The reporter who broke this story now hears the Bobcats may not be sold at all.

One of a few NBA teams for sale -- the Charlotte Bobcats -- could change hands within two weeks, according to Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer.

Bonnell reports founding owner Robert Johnson is in serious talks with George Postolos. Earlier this decade, Postolos worked as the president/CEO of the Houston Rockets, and was integral in getting the Toyota Center built. He also worked on the negotiations to bring Yao Ming to the NBA, and once that happened spearheaded Asian marketing campaigns for Yao and the Rockets. Prior to his work with Houston, Postolos was a special assistant to commissioner David Stern, working on legal matters.