MJ drops the double-nickel on Santa

While you spent your Christmas sitting at home, Michael Jordan spent his absolutely demoralizing Santa in a one-on-one game.

-WCK

Lighted Santa has mad game

I don't know about you, but I hate boring Christmas lights. I like my Christmas lights to be garish, and preferably moving. And if you can somehow manage to get an animated dunking Santa in the lights, even better.

Luckily, because we live in America, such a product exists. Yes, below is the 20-foot high Animated Dunking Santa light system. As you can tell, Santa has mad game, and a better vertical than Dwight Howard. Isiah just signed him to a 10-day contact.



If you think this thing is "some assembly required," you're damn right. As the site says - Requires 8 tracks to configure all positions of arms and balls. I don't know what the hell that means, but it sounds time-consuming and difficult. Two things I avoid like the plague.

And if you're wondering how much this light system costs, it's only $6,200. Hmmm, I guess I'll only get three then.

-WCK

The strange disappearances of three basketball players

I'm not sure strange disappearances in pro sports are unique to basketball. In fact, I'm sure they certainly aren't. But for whatever reason, pro basketball has had some truly bizarre disappearances of several athletes over time. And I'm not talking about players just leaving the game or losing their talent at the drop of a hat. I'm talking about guys literally disappearing.

The most recent bizarre disappearance involves former Washington State University player Tony Harris. In 1994, Harris, a guard, led a Cinderella Cougars team to the NCAA tournament. The team lost in the East Regional to Boston College, 67-64. Despite this, Harris never played in the NBA. After college, he played in Asia and South America. He starred in Brazil from 2000-05, earning Player of the Year honors and winning a championship for Uberlandia before retiring. But this year he decided to return to Brazil to get a "financial cushion" before the birth of his first child with his wife Lori.

Lori said her husband left Seattle for Brasilia in central Brazil on Oct. 31. She last heard from him early Nov. 4, when he spoke to her, fear in his voice, from a Brazilian taxi driver's cell phone. Two days earlier, he called and said "he didn't feel safe and that if he didn't come home now, he wasn't going to make it home," she said.

Harris said her husband had expressed concerns about people involved with the team, and was hearing upsetting rumors about himself. The basketball team's organization, she said, apparently held his passport, and her husband was trying to get to another city in Brazil where a friend could help.

And that's it. No one knows what's happened to Harris and so far no one is exactly going out of their way to help Harris' family find him.

But if you think think that's a strange tale, it's not even the strangest tale to come out of Seattle, which is where Harris hails from. By far the weirdest disappearance, maybe in sports history, is that of former Sonics player John Brisker. Brisker was a tough, bruising, and menacing player who spent time in the ABA before joining the Sonics in the early 70s. However, only a couple of years after he was cut during the 75-76 season, he pretty much inexplicably traveled to Uganda during the height of Idi Amin's reign of terror. Brisker told some of his family members he had plans to get into the import-export business. 1978 was the last time his family heard from him, which was one phone call from Kampala. After that he was never heard from again.

The legends about Brisker's disappearance are just as strange as his decision to go to Uganda.

Brisker's family said he had been invited to Uganda as a guest of Amin, a wild basketball enthusiast. One line of thinking is that Brisker was executed in Uganda. After Amin's government was overthrown in 1979, the theory goes, Brisker was shot by a firing squad of anti-Amin revolutionaries.

Another somewhat credible account is that Brisker didn't just want to go to Uganda as a guest, he actually wanted to fight for Amin. One night around 1978, former Pittsburgh Condors public relations director Fred Cranwell played back a message left on his home phone. It was a collect call from Brisker, who cryptically said he was going to Africa to fight in a war.

There's even a thought that Brisker simply became an anonymous individual in Uganda or somewhere else in Africa to begin a new life.

But perhaps the weirdest theory of all is that Brisker got on Amin's bad side, was killed, and eaten by the dictator.

Regardless of what happened, Brisker was declared legally dead in 1985 by the King County, Washington medical examiner.

The last bizarre disappearance should be somewhat familiar to those of you who grew up watching basketball in the 90s. In 2002, Bison Dele - who used to be known as Brian Williams - disappeared at sea in Tahiti along with his girlfriend and the ship's captain. Initially, no boat was recovered and the only person who made it back to land was Dele's brother, Miles Dabord (born Kevin Williams). However, after an extensive investigation that even involved the FBI, the boat was found 2 months later off the coast of Tahiti with its name plate removed and some possible bullet holes patched up. Since Dele's disappearance Dabord had also forged his brother's signature in order to buy $152,000 worth of gold under his brother's name. He had also used Dele's passport as identification. The FBI concluded that Dele, his girlfriend and the skipper were probably killed, and then thrown overboard, by Dabord.

Dabord, the only major source of information regarding the case, intentionally overdosed on insulin shortly thereafter and slipped into a coma. He died within a few weeks, effectively shutting the book on the case forever.

All three cases are truly bizarre, and while Brisker and Dele are in all likelihood dead, let's hope that Harris is found safe and sound.

-WCK

Kevin Pittsnogle is playing basketball in France with a fat ho

It seems to be international sports day here at 100%, and this story is no exception. Anyway, I'm sure you've spent many a night wondering what happened to Kevin Pittsnogle. Who? He was a former white trash center at West "F*cking" Virginia. I always thought he had a hilarious last name, but I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Pittsnogle is currently playing (I use that term loosely) in France's top basketball league - Ligue Nationale de Basketball - for Cholet Basket. But he's been totally outclassed in the last name department. He's got a teammate named Steeve Ho You Fat. And no, I'm not kidding, here's his player profile page. And just in case you were wondering, Ho You Fat is actually pretty thin and surprisingly not Asian.

Neither Pittsnogle nor Steeve are getting much playing right now, actually none, but I could care less about Pittsnogle. I want Steeve to get some minutes and start improving. He's only 19 by the way. That way he'll eventually suit up for an NBA team some day. The thought of 18,000 fans yelling "Ho you fat!" in unison is almost too awesome to comprehend. Plus it would give me an excuse to yell at fat chicks during games without getting slapped.

HT: Tim's Take for discovering Mr. Ho You Fat. And me for discovering Pittsnogle was his teammate.

-WCK

The 11 fools you always find at pickup games

This video comes courtesy of Basketbawful, and it just killed me. It's the 11 guys you always find at pickup basketball games. They're definitely missing a few, like Ball Hog, The Requisite Chick, Mr. Uncoordinated, and Perpetual Cherry Picker (that would be me), but it's still good.

-WCK

My letter to Agent Zero

Agent Zero continues not to disappoint in the least. On his legendary blog he's now asking mere mortals such as you and me to compete in an essay contest for the chance to win a basketball court. I guess he's jealous that R-Jefferson gave U of A $3.5 mil or something.

I’m giving three lucky fans the chance to win a Spalding court. They get the rim, the backboard, Spalding balls, and all the rest of the accessories. All you have to do is submit an essay on GilsArena.com on why you are the one that needs or deserves the court. I’ll have the contest running now until October 1st. That gives you a month to submit your essay.

I'm already planning my essay as we speak.

Dear Agent Zero,

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to have great basketball courts because, uh, some, uh… people out there in our nation don’t have basketball courts, and, uh, I believe that our basketball courts like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and… I believe that they should, our basketball courts over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future basketball courts for our....

Sincerely,

WCK

This Is Why The NHL Playoffs Are Better

You ever see something like that happen before an NBA playoff game? I didn't think so.

The actions of Minnesota's Derek Boogaard and Anaheim's George Parros before game 5 of their playoff series, is a fitting example of why the NHL playoffs are much more exciting than the NBA playoffs (or that hockey players are just psycho). Either way, with the NBA playoffs set to begin tonight and the NHL postseason already in full swing, it's time to explain why the hockey playoffs are better than their basketball counterparts.

1. The Intensity Level Is So Much Higher In The NHL: I'll give you that NBA players pick up the level of their play once they hit the playoffs, but it still doesn't come close to hockey. If you sat down and watched a full NHL playoff game - only if you can find Versus or TSN on your cable lineup - you would be entertained for the entire 60 minutes (or more, depending on how many overtimes are needed). Players go to another place in the hockey playoffs as exhibited by the Rangers' sweep of Thrashers and now Calgary's attempt at an upset over top-seeded Detroit in the Western Conference. And where else would you see a fight break out in the warm-up skate. Every game feels like the movie Slapshot - if you haven't seen it, go rent it.
2. The NBA Playoffs Take Way Too Long To Play: The Toronto/New Jersey series is one of four playoff series that start tonight. If it goes the entire seven-game series, do you know how long it will take to finish? 15 days. 15 DAYS!!! Are you kidding me. Do teams really need three days off in between games? Come on. Some of these teams play four games a week. Now they want to make them play only seven over a two-week span? The Rangers/Thrashers series, if it made it past four games, would have had two sets of back-to-back games. The Senators and Penguins played a back-to-back set, too. If hockey can do it, why can't basketball? It just makes it drag on and on for what seems like forever.
3. The First Round Actually Matters: Last year in the NHL playoffs, all four lower seeds in the Western Conference advanced to the second round. The Edmonton Oilers, as an No. 8 seed, made it all the way to the stanley cup finals. They lost to Carolina, but still, the fact that an eight seed made it that far, shows that in the NHL, anyone can really beat anyone. In the NBA, is there really any doubt that Phoenix, Dallas and San Antonio will advance to the second round in the west? Or that Cleveland and Detroit will make minced meat out of Washington and Orlando, respectively? The chance of the upset is so much greater in the NHL.
4. Refs Actually Physically Get Involved In Hockey: When a fight breaks out in any NHL game, it is the refs, or really the linesmens' jobs, to break it up after the two battlers have settled down. They actually get in there and physically pull them apart and then escort them to the penalty box. In the NBA, the likes of Joey Crawford throw out T's like it's yesterday's trash and challenge such dangerous guys as Tim Duncan to fights (Had to take my cheap shot at him).
5. Is There Really Another Trophy Cooler Than The Stanley Cup? You can't sit there and tell me that the NBA championship trophy, or the Vince Lombardi trophy, or the World Series trophy is better than the Stanley Cup. You don't even refer to it as a tropy ... it's just the cup. And is there a more honorable sports moment than watching the winning team skate around the ice with Lord Stanley's cup, each passing it off to another teammate. Tell me you didn't get chills when Ray Bourque finally hoisted the cup when he won it with Colorado in 2001 (or for us Philly fans, when Rod Brind'amour got to do it with Carolina last year). Then each player gets to take the cup with them for a day, wherever they want. If I had my chance, I'm taking it to Atlantic City and using it as my chip holder at the blackjack table.
6. Is There Really Anything Cooler Than The Playoff Hockey Beard? What other sport encourages obscene facial hair? Some of these guys start to look like Tom Hanks from Castaway more than actual hockey players. It may not be around as much as it used to, but the superstition of not shaving until you've won a playoff round is still one of the best things about the NHL playoffs. Let's see Kobe Bryant, Shaq or LeBron go an entire round without shaving. Or better yet, Steve Nash. He'll look like Cousin It from The Adams Family before all was said and done.

-PB