The Links: 24, Kwame’s Stolen Birthday Cake, Borat to the Nets?

by Lang Whitaker

Really early Tuesday morning, I was battling sleep in my hotel bed in Paris, when I heard my Sidekick make the little alert noise it makes when it’s telling me I have a text message. It was from Sam, and the message read:

“Welcome back. Hope u watched new 24. Cause it is friggin insane!”

I had not watched the new 24 yet, but I woke up early this morning and watched four consecutive episodes, and I was left with some burning questions.

If you haven’t watched season 6 of 24 just yet, skip ahead to the next section. I’m being extra vigilant about this because my man Sekou Smith had a spoiler in his AJC.com Hawks blog yesterday that ruined a part of the show for me. But what can you expect from a Michigan fan?)

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Back to 24…a few questions:
1) When Jack was finally released from the Chinese prison and basically handed over to the terrorists, why did they dress him up like Rain Man?

2) How did David Palmer’s brother Wayne get elected President? His only previous political experience was as David’s replacement chief-of-staff, right?

3) Anyone else realize the new girl at CTU is Audrey from Vegas Vacation?

4) When they turned Jack over to the terrorists, Buchanon and Curtis sure seemed sure that they’d never see him again. Which is completely ridiculous, because they surely know that Jack Bauer is the baddest man to ever live.

5) Regina King?

6) Kumar?

7) Is the goal of the show’s writers to make every Arab-American seem to be a possible terrorist? Because it sure seems like it so far.

8) Why did Jack have to kill Curtis? We all know that Jack could’ve shot the gun out of his hand or shot him in the shoulder or something. And why did Curtis all of a sudden become so unreliable?

9) So Assad was apparently a world-famous terrorist who just switches sides one day and immediately isn’t recognized by any of the younger terrorists working for Fayed? He even gives one dude a ride for almost an entire hour.

10) Could President Palmer be any worse at his job? It’s been four hours and he’s already made about six major decisions, all of which have backfired.

I could go on all day with this, but I’ll take it to basketball.

*** SPOILERS OVER ***

Speaking of Sidekicks, as I did earlier, and since we know our T-Mobile people are reading on here, can someone over there please buy some simple spam filtering software and install it on the servers? I’m getting dozens of spam emails each day on my Sidekick. I’ve called T-Mobile and was told that all they can do is change my username, which would change my email address, which I do not want to do because way too many NBA players and random other people have that address already saved. But if they don’t do something about the spam before this summer, that iPhone is going to be calling my name.

Anyway, to The Links…

QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Hey, Bassie, why don’t you try playing with your teammates a little bit? Just a little.” — Doc Rivers, to Sebastian Telfair during the Celtics/Hawks game.

“That’s the way the schedule bounces.” — Rafer Alston.

“He’s a funny guy. He’ll be saying stuff from Talladega Nights like, ‘Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.’ Or he’ll say the line, ‘Here’s the deal: I’m the best there is.'” — Dorrell Wright, on Jason Kapono.

THE LINKS…
Cultural learnings of Mile Ilic for make benefit basketball team of glorious state New Jersey.

• Did Kwame Brown steal someone’s birthday cake?

• A big trade went down earlier today, which I posted here (and which we beat almost everybody on as far as breaking the news): Indiana traded Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Josh Powell to Golden State for Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu and Keith McLeod.

Best thing about this is that nobody knew it was coming. Can’t believe Donny Walsh didn’t leak this to someone (i.e.: Vecsey) over the last few days or mention it on Chad Ford’s podcast or something.

For Golden State, it’s a heckuva move. They need bodies and firepower, and they just got four guys who can run and put up points. And Sam predicts that Jasikevicius will become the next Marciulionis. (I say it’s unfair, that he’s the first Jasikevicius to me.)

For Indy, they’ve made no secret that they weren’t happy with the culture of their team, so they went out and got a couple of guys who haven’t shot up strip club parking lots. Basically, they got three guys who can play power forward and give them some stability in the post. But they also lost a ton of offense, so unless they’re going to to play grind-it-out the rest of the season, it’s a strange move. Maybe this helps their chemistry?

• All that big talk about how Brian Davis was going to come in and buy the Grizzlies and make them a contender and revitalize downtown Memphis with a $1 billion deal? Well, Davis’s deadline came and went yesterday. Davis? Well, he couldn’t be reached for comment.

• Darrell Armstrong has nothing but love for Adam Vinatieri. Great story.

• Look who came out of retirement to rain on Chris Webber’s press conference in Detroit: Mitch Albom. Sam loves Mitch Albom.

• Also, Joe Dumars? You forgot your neck.

• Perhaps his suspension won’t affect Melo’s All-Star chances?

• Speedy Claxton’s mysterious knee problems continue. Really glad the Hawks knew all about this before signing him to that big four-year deal last summer.

• Ben Wallace’s strained lower back? Actually a pinched nerve in his neck. But Big Ben says he’ll kick that nerve’s butt if it doesn’t stop hurting.

• The lesson here is if you don’t double-team Gilbert Arenas he’ll probably make a big shot. Duh.

• I love Mark Cuban.

• Kind of lost among all the talk about how much fun the Grizz are having scoring points is the fact that they’re also playing monumentally bad defense.

• Bob Hill and his flowing hair used a flu-inspired defense to beat the Cavs.

• Surprising news from L.A.: Shaun Livingston is out with an injury.

• Yahoo Sports bravely decides they’re rolling with Jason instead of Joumana.

• Are the BETcats turning into a “shabby” organization?

• Jeff McInnis squares off with Larry Frank tonight.

• 550 consecutive free throws! Why doesn’t an NBA team sign this guy and run inbounds plays for him at the end of games?