Today’s Office Tip will serve you well no matter what profession you choose: Never—under any circumstances—allow Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’” to be the last song you listen to before you leave the house. It implants itself like that bug did to Arnold in Total Recall and leaves its victims helplessly signing/humming it all day until co-workers become suicidal. Now that I think about it, that song is evil in two ways. Besides having a secret ingredient that makes you crave it, it’s also responsible for one of the more underrated “yuck” …

ESPN’s announcement that “Earl Boykins has joined the growing legion of veteran role players unable to resist the lure of European riches” raises a critically important question: how many people does it take to qualify for a “legion”? Depending on how you slice it, Boykins’ legion totals either 9 (anyone who played in the NBA last year who will play in Europe next year) or 3 (previously exclusive NBA players who will play in Europe next year). No wait—that …

I looked with great relief toward Saturday’s televised Summer League game with the Knicks, mostly because my ears were still ringing from the cacophonous mess or The Dark Knight, which I’d seen the night before.  By the way, anti-props go to the Charlotte Observer’s Lawrence Toppman for his review of the film.  I suppose it’s technically impossible to have a “wrong” opinion of something, but still, when Toppman writes that director Christopher Nolan “keeps the focus tight: All events take place in Gotham over a couple of months,” I can’t …

All right, just like Sean May and Adam Morrison, my car’s back to near-functionality, and I’m ready to talk Bobcats basketball! But one thing before I do: you want to know an interesting conversation to overhear? An insurance company rep haggling with an auto-mechanic. This is what happened after I took my broken-in car to the nearest shop for repairs. The insurance company miraculously agreed to pay for the damages, so I put them on the line …

Sorry it’s been so long since you’ve heard from me (or in some cases, you’re welcome!), but I’ve been in the process of moving. When the supposedly edgy, punk-y, and cheap East Village is renting studios at $1,800 a month that are smaller than my old Army barracks room, that’s when it’s time to move to…Brooklyn! And because I knew very little about the borough other than to avoid any neighborhoods shouted-out in a Jay-Z song, there’s been moderate-to-very-little sleep ’til Brooklyn while we’ve searched for a place, preferably with …

     One of the many tragic elements of prolific author David Halberstam’s death last year is that right now would have been the perfect time for him to write another basketball book. Halberstam’s first take on hoops, the vaunted The Breaks of the Game, profiled the nascent League in the throes of its 1970s growing pains. In 1998’s Playing For Keeps, Halberstam analyzed in deft detail the Jordan-era League that was cresting in popularity yet already wary of the void soon to come with 23’s retirement. This year—an even decade …

Gee, if only Bob Johnson was as loyal to his own basketball team as he seems to be to the Clinton Campaign. According to the Observer, Johnson’s pressuring Congressman Jim Clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus to back Hillary Clinton to be Barack Obama’s Veep. That’s pretty ballsy considering just a few months ago Johnson was openly lampooning Obama as a worthless drug addict. Now he honestly expects favors from Obama? This is like me asking Tim Duncan for a million bucks. Wait, sorry, Johnson’s …

Since we’re in the college acceptance season, let’s do a sentence completion exercise…for fun! Here goes: the Celtics are to the NBA what violence was to The Sopranos. Think about it: when the Celtics are up, everyone’s impression of the NBA is up. And when the Celtics are down, the NBA is seen as having a “down” year. Similarly, anytime there was a particularly bloody stretch on The Sopranos, it was universally regarded as a great show and generated water-cooler talk. But whenever the shooting …

Okay, today’s topic is, “Tim Duncan Is Stupid—Fact or Fiction?”  Ha!  Just kidding.  By the way, who says Tim Duncan isn’t engaging?  My musings last week incited a veritable cyber-riot of outrage.  Looking back, my biggest regret is that I didn’t up the level of accusations.  Instead of just insinuating he doesn’t care about NBA history, I should have accused him of trying to bomb a bus full of nuns.  Maybe I could have alleged he was in the KKK—I could have doctored up some footage to create a 7-foot …

Tim Duncan is not stupid! He’s not, he’s not, he’s not! I’m sorry I ever inferred such a thing. I haven’t been this wrong and ashamed since I mistakenly believed the lyrics in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” were “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy” rather than “the sky” back in middle school. Now even Henry Abbott’s angry at me! What have I done?!
This was an imperfect thought experiment. A highly imperfect experiment, actually—like the “second time they tried to make a Kelly LeBrock …

Before John McCain made it cool, Admiral James Stockdale sought office with a resume highlighted by his credentials as a POW hero. Stockdale was Ross Perot’s running mate in 1992, and he is mostly remembered—if he’s remembered at all—for looking discombobulated in televised debates. In fact, along with the growing suspicion that Perot was actually bat-shit crazy, Stockdale’s lack of televised appeal is often cited as one of the primary factors behind Perot’s eventual loss. Voters focused on this crucial aspect far more than on Stockdale’s astonishing …

Phew! I just got back from a week-long trip to one of my company’s call centers, where we got to sit with service representatives and listen-in on their calls with irate/disinterested customers. It was highly interesting yet disappointing in the sense that I never got one of my most burning questions answered: why is it when I call in to these centers and give all of my account numbers, passwords, mother’s maiden names, and streets I grew up on to the automated voice-response (VR) system—supposedly to save time—the first thing …

Rick Bonnell needs to step his game up.  And apparently I’m not alone in that conclusion: the second posting following Bonnell’s recent player-by-player review leads with the damning words “very soft analysis.”  Indeed, I’ve seen more in-depth sports analysis in TV Guide’s NFL Preview issue.  If you’re a paid commentator for the city’s largest newspaper, you’ve gotta deliver more than that, RB—especially in the off-season, unless you’re also the Observer’s horticultural expert or something else I don’t know about.  And this was on the heels of his spectacularly milquetoast assessment …

The Bobcats season ended with a whimper on Wednesday—a literal whimper, that is, as owner Bob Johnson complained about a lack of “support” (or in other words, “money”) from Charlotte businesses.  As always, Johnson’s timing was perfect…ly bizarre.  Just a few days earlier, Johnson had publicly praised the “commitment of the community.”  All of a sudden, however, Johnson was “absolutely concerned,” about the local corporations’ lack of “commitment to be a part of the Bobcats.”  Jeez, talk about a flip-flop!  We might be dealing with multiple personalities here—can somebody get …

(Note: This is what I get for posting this late: first, the Pacers go on to get eliminated from the playoffs, rendering the second paragraph moot; second, Bob Johnson publicly vents his frustrations over the taxing life of being a billionaire sports owner, making a bunch of claims that–though I haven’t read them thoroughly yet–are undoubtedly a) unintentionally funny, and b) intentionally hypocritical.  I promise more analysis later in the week.)
You know how I was making fun of Shawn Marion the other day?  Well, it’s worth mentioning that Marion’s antithesis is …