Empty the Bench

- Without the Sports Hernia, I bet you’d never know that TNT broadcaster Steve Kerr is known as “The Ass Machine” in some circles. Read up on more juicy tidbits by visiting their NBA Announcers Reviews. Mike Breen should thank them for their generous “C-” grade.

- Ryan McNeill over at Hoops Addict recently led a podcast discussion about Round Two. The man knows his basketball, so click here to give it a listen.

- Bulls fans sound like they’re ready to jump off a cliff. This series is far from over (well, it’ll be over if Detroit wins tomorrow night), but I’m surprised that a sweep of Miami made so many people immediately jump on the Bulls bandwagon. The Pistons still get very little respect after all this time.

- Speaking of the Bulls/Pistons, MLive’s A. Sherrod Blakely now thinks that seeing Big Ben walk last summer was the best thing that could have happened for Detroit. Blakely’s column doesn’t pile on Ben, but some are going overboard with the Ben bashing. Enough already.

- Stephen Jackson, the Pacman Jones of the NBA. In entertainment value only, of course.

- Jason at the fantastic new sports community and news site Ballhype found a 10-year-old chat with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. One Aaron Himmel asks Kareem if he still kept in touch with old Lakers teammates, to which he eloquently answers “Not really.” Read more historical Kareem quotes here.

- With Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood recently requesting a trade, the DC Sports Blog thinks the Wiz should get a good player and maybe a late first-round pick in exchange. Raja Bell is mentioned as a possibility. I’m not sure who’d give up that much for a malcontent who averaged less than 7 points and 7 boards a game last season.

- Quick: name the highest-paid NBA player under 25 years old. Wrong. It’s the Atlanta Hawks’ Joe Johnson, who pocketed a cool $12.7 million in salary this season. I know, I know, Lebron is worth something like a gajillion dollars, but this survey doesn’t include endorsement deals.

- Oh, Timmy Duncan and those San Antonio Spurs. Such jokers. Tony P probably doesn’t think this is too funny though.

- And finally, some old-school Transformers awesomeness, via The FanHouse. He talks a big game, but there’s no way Optimus Prime could handle me in the post. Two dribbles, a pivot, fake to the left, spin to the right, *owned.*

Optimus Prime: “Alright Spike, hehehe, am I drooling correctly?”
Spike: “The word is ‘dribbling,’ Optimus!”