The Bobcats officially named Rod Higgins as their GM on Thursday.  In a press conference, Higgins thanked owners Michael Jordan and Bob Johnson for the opportunity, and then celebrated the moment with an impromptu rendition of his musical classic, “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman?”  No wait, I’m thinking of Harry Higgins.  Anyway, here’s my question: what will Higgins and coach Sam Vincent talk about when the topic of conversation turns to the 2007 playoffs?  After all, it was Higgins’ Warriors who shocked and embarrassed Vincent’s Mavericks.  Isn’t it still a little too early to put these guys in the same room together?  Is there a precedent for this?  I’m trying to think of one, but nothing comes to mind.  Rodman didn’t go straight from the Pistons to the Bulls, and even the soul-less Yankees waited a year before taking Johnny Damon after the ’04 ALCS.  
 
I’m not sure what to make of the hiring.  First, I thought Bernie Bickerstaff was going to stay in the role, so what’s BB going to do now?  He is still with us, right?  Maybe I’m spooked after having seen Away From Her.  Second, this entire time I thought the GM of the Warriors was Chris Mullin—this is the first I’ve ever heard that Higgins was actually Golden State’s GM.  I mean, it’s always Mullin who does those chat sessions with Chad Ford in which the guest GM answers every single question with, “Well, at the end of the year we’ll evaluate our options and go from there.”  Third, isn’t this almost like the GM-equivalent of signing Bonzi Wells or Jerome James?  Are we just signing a guy because he managed to put together one great playoff series, even though his entire regular season was borderline crappy?  Golden State hadn’t made the playoffs since Coolio was an up-and-coming MC, and they only snuck in this year on the last game of the season—not exactly Red Auerbach material.  Granted, it was a great move on the Warriors’ part to get rid of some wildly overpaid players in the Dunleavy/Murphy-Jackson/Harrington heist, but c’mon, Indiana had no leverage on that one.  The Pacers were trying to offload Jackson only because it was illegal to have him murdered; with every game, you’d see Larry Bird in the stands looking more and more like Phil Spector, so I'm not prepared to give Higgins that much credit.     
 
Other ruminations: I was really hoping the Jazz could extend their series at least one more game, because it’s going to be forever until the Finals and the draft at this pace.  With the Yankees rapidly devolving into the cast of Cocoon, I don’t know how I’m going to entertain myself until then (other than trying to keep control of my raging id of a dog, Lincoln).  Are there any good movies out now?  It seems like everything involves either pirates or penguins; they ought to just come out with The Pirates of Penguin Island and get it out of their system—maybe throw in Will Farrell and Steve Cassell while they’re peaking and it’d practically guarantee at least a hundred mil gross over the first weekend. 
 
And oh yeah, while I’m thinking about it: he was a pioneer, and he seems like a good guy and all, but PLEASE, no more rapping, Mr. KRS-One.  I just downloaded the new single, “Classic (Better Than I’ve Ever Been),” with Kanye West, Nas, and KRS, and I won’t even sugarcoat it: his verse is embarrassing.  It’s seriously just, like, 8 rhyming couplets (e.g., “Peace, love, unity, having fun/These are the lyrics of KRS-One!”)  Ugh.  I’ve heard more intricate rhyming out of Dr. Seuss.  It reminded me of every now and then when the WWE carts out one of their past 80s/early 90s wrestlers for nostalgia’s sake, and you realize that a) not only are they awkward and horrible, but b) they’re actually not much worse than how they were originally.  In fact, I would say that rap and wrestling are two art forms that have advanced the furthest in 25 years; you wouldn’t want to watch most wrestling from the 80s because it’s slow and simplistic, and for the exact same reasons, you wouldn’t want to hear most rap from that era either.  Discuss…          

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That scraping sound you hear is either a) Kris Jenkins polishing off his 10th straight bowl of Frankenberry, or b) Charlotte basketball fans collectively scratching their heads over the news that Sam Vincent is the Bobcats’ new head coach.  It’s absolutely impossible for me to analyze anything of his professional background, because he basically hasn’t a professional background.  However, I can confirm that he is NOT related to former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent (nor is he a fan, as he is on the record as being loyal to Ace Frehley*). 
 
I would make some joke about Michael Jordan hiring his former Bulls teammate as a head coach only because MJ once lost a bet to him, but with MJ’s history, I’m worried that could actually be what happened.  I’m also a little disappointed we weren’t able to get old Larry Brown to call the shots, but that’s not because I think LB is some sort of coaching savant.  It’s more because I was curious to see how a man who famously refuses to put in young, unproven players would coach a team that consists of nothing but young, unproven players.
 
So what the heck, I’m throwing my support to Coach Vincent.  As far as I’m concerned, a coach’s significance is overrated anyway.  Take the Warriors just now: people keep saying that Don Nelson “out-coached” Avery Johnson, when in fact I think the exact OPPOSITE happened: Nelson didn’t coach AT ALL.  Seriously, did it look like the Warriors were operating under any type of “system” out there?  Hell no; every single game was total chaos.  Nelson’s coaching “strategy” was the equivalent of unleashing a pack of starving pit bulls, and it worked perfectly.  Stephen Jackson, Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, et al, were constantly a threat to either score 30 points or get ejected in the first 5 minutes.  Thoroughly spooked, the Mavericks had no answer.  
 
Coach Vincent is young enough to relate to the kids, yet old enough to keep ‘em in line.  He’s got Brevin Knight to act as on-court drill sergeant, and the underrated J.B. Bickerstaff and Jeff Capel as his cabinet members.  Roll the ball out there and let’s play…            
 
*I completely made all of that up

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No "Sideways" today, I'm just going to Billy Joel-like extremes…

Thumbs Up: Nightmare Scenarios
True story: In Autumn 2004, I was deployed to the beautiful country of Iraq, and the day after the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS, I was stuck on duty in my unit’s headquarters. As a deranged Bronx Bomber supporter, I was already deeply shaken over what I considered to be the ultimate nadir: seeing the Sox celebrate on Stadium grounds after the Yankees choked worse than Christopher Moltisanti. And yet it somehow got worse for me, as headquarters received a satellite feed that showed a continuous loop of the final out/celebration for the next 24-hours. So the images were burned permanently into my brain, and with 4 TVs posted–one on each wall–there was no turning away from it; it was a Clockwork Orange-style torture chamber. Despite all that went on during that yearlong deployment, it’s hard to imagine a more perfectly-tailored personal hell than that horrific day.

So I can sympathize with two recent “doomsday” victims: the Suns and Bulls. Who is Phoenix Public Enemy #1? Well, Robert Horry literally made a strong push for it, but I would think Bruce Bowen is still first on the Suns’ Most Hated List. And guess who drilled the tiebreaking 3-pointer with about 30 seconds left in Game 5? Double B. Then, in the decisive 3rd quarter of Game 6, Bruce had 8 points—including 2 dagger 3’s—and a steal on Nash to put the Suns on ice. Doesn’t Alice Cooper own a sports bar in the greater-Phoenix area? Maybe he can bust out one of his old guillotines and stage some Bowen beheadings.

Similarly, how could it have gone any worse for the Bulls? I suppose they could have been swept outright, or maybe Kirk Hinrich could have lost his eligibility by revealing he’s an android (have you seen his picture on ESPN.com? Dude looks like the Silver Surfer with a wig). But still, Chicago paid top dollar for the Pistons’ Ben Wallace—in what was perceived as a major coup—only to fall to Detroit in the playoffs in six flaccid games. Worse, Wallace was positively brutal in the last game: 6 points and 7 boards, plus he only played 29 minutes with a gimpy back. And this was supposed to be his best season, too; from now on he’ll be on the decline AND costing $15 mil per year. Have a nice summer, Chicago fans…

Thumbs Down: Miami Vice
I saw this monstrosity over the weekend, and it was just an abominable mess, a sprawling disaster. Where to begin…I mean, if there was a running theme to this movie, it was “incoherence.” Right from the start, you couldn’t read any of the credits, because they were smaller than the last line of an eye exam chart. Next, just about every last bit of dialogue was mumbled or snarled gibberish, and those were just Colin Farrell’s and Jaime Foxx’s parts; the rest of the cast’s garbling was even worse. When the most coherent character in the movie is a thick-accented Korean-Cuban, your cast has got enunciation problems. Not that it mattered much, because I think there was more motor revving (boats, cars, planes) than actual speaking in this movie. The plot had something to do with drugs and/or a double agent, although I don’t seem to recall either ever being located—perhaps they were stashed in Farrell’s atrocious Scott Stapp hairdo. And Farrell and Foxx had less chemistry together than Neo and Trinity. At one point they did a “fist-bump” (before revving up an engine), and that was about it; Turner and Hooch had more charisma than these two. And just once I’d like to see a cop movie without the FBI and the local police arguing over “whose jurisdiction” it is. Why is this always a problem? If it was me, and someone else wanted to do the extra work, I’d be like, “Hell, knock yourself out…”

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