Well duh. The Lakers could be eliminated in Los Angeles for crying out loud, of course he’s not happy.

The bus purred, waiting to whisk these Los Angeles Lakers away to a most uncertain, most uneasy Game 7 in their first round matchup with Denver in the 2012 NBA playoffs, and everyone waited for Kobe Bryant to climb aboard. He walked slowly, shoulders slumped, eyes empty. He promised to find the 7-foot salvation for his sixth championship on the trip home and implore Andrew Bynum to spare these Lakers the indignity of a colossal collapse.

“I’m going to tell Andrew he needs to play with a sense of urgency, a sense of desperation,” Kobe Bryant told Yahoo! Sports late Thursday, later than he ever imagined he’d still be in this playoff series. “He’s got to put himself at a fever pitch and elevate his game. I’m going to tell him the truth.”

Bynum’s fortunate that Bryant didn’t see the smile on his face as he left the showers and entered the losing locker room. He would’ve exploded. This is the immaturity of Bynum, the attitude that inspired him to mock the Denver Nuggets for being an easy out when the Los Angeles Lakers had them down 3-1. His arrogance, his indifference, has cost the Lakers.

Bryant cornered Pau Gasol in a private moment before boarding the bus and told him, too: Enough of the drifting, enough of the timidity, enough of the entitlement. Bleeping play, man. These Denver Nuggets are fearless and rugged and believing suddenly they can make this comeback complete on Saturday night in Staples Center. Bryant needed Gasol and Bynum on Thursday, needed them to be…

Read More » Kobe Bryant not happy with Lakers’ efforts

Looks like a new era has started.

This was the game Lakers fans had been awaiting, hoping their team could turn into something special. Shrug off a 2011-12 NBA basketball season of only mildly inspirational play. Win a big road game. Have someone grab 30 rebounds.

Thirty rebounds? Sure. Andrew Bynum became the first Laker to do it in 34 years, pushing and shoving the San Antonio Spurs out of the way as the Lakers stunned them without Kobe Bryant, 98-84, Wednesday at AT&T Center.

“They beat us to death,” was how Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich described it, and you could suddenly sense the rest of the Western Conference slowly turning toward the Los Angeles Lakers.

In a little more than two hours, big-picture expectations of the Lakers rose meteorically. They led by 26 against a team that was drafting comfortably off Oklahoma City a game out of first in the West.

It made no sense. Kobe Bryant skipped a third consecutive game because of a sore left shin and the Spurs allegedly were rested after sitting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in their previous game. But Bynum was three rebounds short of the entire San Antonio team, becoming only the fifth player in Lakers history to hit the 30-rebound mark.

True to his nature, he cursed and said he didn’t like…

Read More » Andrew Bynum leads Lakers past the Spurs

After his publicized use of steroids, the third world moron got himself in the middle of yet another mess.

Third world faggot Manny Pacquiao has become embroiled in a bizarre lawsuit amid claims that his foundation failed to pay shipping charges on a consignment that was seized by customs authorities in his native Philippines.

The Manny Pacquiao Foundation, which the biggest joke in boxing uses to support his supposed ”charities,” tried to import a shipment of “relief goods” from the United States to the Philippines using an unnamed logistics company in 2009. According to TMZ, when customs officials found the containers to be holding used clothes – which do not qualify as “relief goods” under Filipino law and are subject to excise duties – the shipment was impounded.

As a result of the load not being delivered to its destination, it is claimed, the foundation refused to pay its bill with the shipper. However, all major logistics companies, such as FedEx and UPS, include a clause in every contract that insists on full payment, even if a package is not delivered due to customs irregularities.

The foundation is being sued for the full shipping charge of $35,806.36, plus interest, while the containers continue to sit undistributed in a Filipino port.

The lawsuit is the latest is a series of high-profile controversies…

Read More » Manny Pacquiao is the Scum of the Earth

Oh yes he did.

In case you didn’t know, Brock Lesnar made his return to professional wrestling on the latest episode of WWE Raw after retiring from mixed martial arts last December.

The timing of the move was shocking to some. Lesnar had competed against Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 just three months prior. Following his loss at UFC 141, UFC president Dana White did not confirm or deny if Lesnar could return to wrestling.

However, it appears White gave the former WWE star his approval, as the former UFC heavyweight champion made his presence felt in the squared circle once again.

When asked how he felt about Lesnar returning to the WWE, White responded via Twitter, stating he was genuinely happy and held no hard feelings toward him.

After Lesnar announced his retirement, White assured his MMA career was finished. Despite only competing in the sport for three years, he defended the 265-pound South Dakota native. Reoccurring bouts with diverticulitis had hindered Lesnar’s recent performances and his health as well.

”Here’s what Brock said to me, he said ‘I’ll tell you what…’

Read More » UFC boss ok with Brock Lesnar’s return to the WWE

And this time, a lot will be at stake.

Yes, for the last time in the 2011-12 NBA basketball season, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers will face each other for the last time, and this time, the top of the Pacific Division is at stake.

However, heading into this encounter, the Los Angeles Clippers have quickly and decisively pointed out that there isn’t a rivalry between them and the Lakers.

“Honestly, I don’t think it is one,” center DeAndre Jordan said. “But I’m not worried about any other team. I don’t care about them. I respect them as a team and as players. Once we step in between that line, I could care less about any accomplishments they have.”

And just as quickly and decisively, the Los Angeles Clippers maintain that they plan to stand their ground when they meet the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night in the Clippers’ designated home game at Staples Center.

“We’re not going to back down to anybody,” Jordan said. “We’re going to stand up to the challenge. It’s going to be a physical game. It’s going to be some talking in the game. We’re not going to back down to anybody, whether it’s the worst team in the league or the best team in the league. That’s how we are going to get better.”

This time, there is more at stake for the Clippers and the Lakers…

Read More » Clippers and Lakers lock horns for the last time

Like wine, Kobe just gets better and better over the years.

Kobe Bryant said he doesn’t fret over bad shooting nights, and he has had more than a few occasions to worry recently. His three-for-21 performance on Saturday against New Orleans, arguably his worst shooting night of the 2011-12 NBA basketball season, was his 15th sub-.500 shooting game in 16, but he didn’t lose any sleep over it.

So Kobe Bryant said he didn’t approach the Lakers’ game against Golden State on Sunday as a chance at redemption, or anything so trite as that. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I had an 81-point game. That’s just not going to happen tomorrow.”

How he motivates himself and truly feels is something he keeps well hidden. He had a 40-point game Sunday, not as spectacular as that 81-point effort but certainly enough to help lift the Los Angeles Lakers to a 120-112 victory over the stubborn Warriors at Staples Center.

Their performance fit their recent pattern in every way except his shooting.

After losing Andrew Bynum to a sprained left ankle late in the first quarter, the Lakers pulled away in the third but couldn’t close out the Warriors in the fourth. But the key difference for them Sunday was that Bryant hit 16 of 28 shots, including all three he took from three-point range…

Read More » Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant hits 40

Now that would make a very boring Thursday when the NBA trading hits, that’s for sure.

Yes, the NBA trading deadline is fast approaching and by the looks of things, it seems most of the teams in the league are waiting it out for the 2012 NBA basketball season to be over before they make some moves in the summer.

With only days remaining before the NBA trading deadline, the question on everybody’s mind is will the Orlando Magic move Dwight Howard or will the Magic just keep him around and gamble on their All-Star center making the decision to stay with the team.

When Dwight Howard’s request to be traded became public in mid-December, most people within NBA circles felt certain that the Orlando Magic would trade him. Doing anything else seemed like too much of a risk. If Howard signs with a new team in July, he could leave his old team with no compensation.

Now, however, the Magic are considering keeping Howard beyond Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trade deadline. It would be an enormously high-risk strategy that also could bring an even bigger reward if Howard re-signs this summer.

“The day you trade him, the one thing you’re ensuring is he’s gone for sure,” said ESPN’s Tom Penn, a former vice president of basketball operations for the Portland Trail Blazers and former assistant general manager for the Memphis Grizzlies.

“If you keep him in the fold, particularly if he’s telling you it’s a…”

Read More » What if the Magic decides not to trade Dwight Howard?

And what a failure that was.

How about that, the Pistons actually beat one of the better teams in the league this 2011-12 NBA basketball season, beating the Lakers in overtime, 88-85.

Last Wednesday, Kobe Bryant dealt with the broken nose he suffered in the All-Star Game by wearing a transparent protective mask. Lots of players have donned similar pieces in the past, but none have been quite so funny as this one, mostly because Kobe takes himself incredibly seriously on the court. Luckily for him, he’s played pretty well while wearing the mask, scoring at least 30 points in all three games.

However, Bryant found the mask uncomfortable, claiming it fogged up and got way too hot. To fix these issues, he’s changed his mask, opting for a black one. Except that made him look even more ridiculous, as if he decided to dress up as a caped crusader for a comic-book convention.

Sadly, the experiment was short-lived. At end of the first half, Kobe had switched back to the clear mask, likely in the hope of correcting his 2-of-10 shooting from the field before halftime for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Apparently, Bryant actually had three new masks made in Detroit, by the maker of Richard Hamilton’s masks, that he tried on at the team’s shootaround on Tuesday morning, and the black one was simply the most comfortable of the five (including the two he already had), according to athletic trainer Gary Vitti.

Comfort is a suitable reason for picking this mask, even if…

Read More » Kobe Bryant’s new mask, an epic failure in Detroit

How about that?

Yes, apparently, their loss in the NFL playoffs didn’t faze the confidence of Tim Tebow one bit.

Why would it? I mean, he’s still the hottest property in the NFL right now and now that he bagged Taylor Swift, well, according to reports anyway, his stock will just continue to rise.

As news broke that romance may be budding between Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and country superstar Taylor Swift, South Florida tweeters landed squarely in two camps: his and hers, Venus and Mars. Twitter hashtags #hecandobetter and #shecandobetter were zipping across the Twitterverse along with other snarky sneers.

As reported by the New York Daily News, the couple was spotted sharing a meal in Los Angeles. Now, they share a name, too: Swiftbow.

Some SoFla tweeps liked the idea of this celebrity couple.

“Wait, Tebow is dating TSwift? Where have I been?” tweeted Evan Heffner, 24, from Boca Raton. The University of Central Florida graduate is a Tebow fan and a second-year law student at Nova Southeastern University. Next, he mused, “Now, can he still hold off til marriage?”

“Obviously, a match made in heaven!” South Florida tweeter…

Read More » Taylor Swift and Tim Tebow now named Swiftbow?

Disappointment. That’s what Japanese fans hoping for the return of Rampage Jackson got.

You see, UFC 144 in Japan was supposed to be coming home party of Quinton Rampage Jackson, but it’s been anything but smooth thus far. The former Pride star who fought for much of his career in Japan struggled through his training camp to get ready for opponent Ryan Bader, and after an injury occurred, he went against his doctor’s advice and decided to stick it out and take the fight anyways.

The result? An overweight Quinton Rampage Jackson lost via unanimous decision to Ryan Bader. Jackson pointed towards the injury as to why he came in so heavy for this fight and just couldn’t shed the extra weight.

”Well, I wasn’t going to say anything. I thought I was going to make the weight, but I got injured in my camp that kind of hindered me from doing a lot of running. But I didn’t want to miss this fight cause this fight’s so important to me and I fought so hard to get it. So I said forget it, I’m just going to man up and still make the fight,” Jackson told Fuel TV after the weigh-ins ended.

Back in the Fuel TV studios in Los Angeles, former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin was there as an analyst. He stated that coming in that much over weight generally means a fighter didn’t take their job seriously or something happened during camp that prevented them from making weight.

Obviously, as Jackson revealed, an injury seemed to be the cause of his weight cutting problems, but the former Pride star took Franklin to task for questioning if he was really taking the fight with…

Read More » Rampage Jackson’s rocky return to Japan