It’s too bad that the league lost another one of its premiere stars to prison.

Plaxico Burress, the former Super Bowl star of the New York Giants, was sentenced to two years in prison for possessing a weapon at a Manhattan nightclub. He will be supervised for two years after his release.

Burress pleaded guilty before the start of the 2009 NFL football season to attempted criminal possession of a weapon. He expects to begin serving time immediately and says he hopes to return to football.

The gun, which Plaxico Burress was carrying, was not licensed in New York or in New Jersey, where he lived. He had been charged on two counts of weapons possession and one count of reckless endangerment.

No charges were filed against Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was with Burress the night of the incident, drove him to the hospital and took the gun to his home in New Jersey before arranging to have it returned to Burress.With time off for good behavior, Burress likely will serve 20 months. He could be released from prison as early as the spring of 2011 and will be monitored an additional two years after he is freed.Burress hired a consultant to teach him how to use his time in prison productively and is already planning for a comeback in the NFL just like Michael Vick, who was given the second opportunity after committing a crime.

”When I get out, I’ll be 33, not 43,” Burress said in an interview…

Former New York Giant and Super Bowl hero Plaxico Burress is on the hot seat.

While NFL athletes are getting ready for the 2009 NFL football season, Plaxico Burress is walking into a Manhattan courthouse just a few days ago to give a grand jury his version of events the night he put a bullet through his leg.

The 31-year-old Plaxico Burress said nothing to a horde of reporters as he walked into court with his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman. The NFL star arrived in a black Lexus sedan, riding in the back seat. He wore a light grey suit with white stripes for his appointment before the panel which will determine the charges against him.

Brafman made no comment as the pair disappeared inside the courthouse.

The decision to put the now former New York Giants wide receiver on the stand came as a surprise, and it came as NFL teams were opening training camps. The star receiver’s status for the upcoming season remained uncertain due to his legal woes.

Burress, who caught the winning touchdown in the final minute for the Giants in their 2008 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots, also could face disciplinary action by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell under the league’s personal conduct policy.

The disgruntled NFC receiver has yet to…

Madre de Dios, this offseason just keeps getting better and better.

Everybody should be hyped up for the coming 2009 NBA basketball season now as early as July with the number of blockbuster deals we’ve seen.

Get this; Richard Jefferson is now in San Antonio, Shaquille O’Neal will now play with LeBron James in Cleveland, Vince Carter returns to his home state in Florida to play for the Orlando Magic and Ron Artest just joined the defending NBA champions Los Angeles Lakers. And just when you thought it won’t get any better, another deal comes out.

And the latest is Rasheed Wallace agreeing to play for the Boston Celtics for at least two seasons. Although nothing is final yet since free agents can’t officially sign with new teams until July 8 this Wednesday, ‘Sheed has committed his 34-year-old ass to Boston, grabbing this opportunity to play for a legitimate title contender now than waste the remaining few years of his career with the inept management skills of Joe Dumars in Detroit.

The Boston Celtics wanted him bad too. A contingent from the Celtics organization, including owner Wyc Grousbeck, president Danny Ainge, head coach Doc Rivers and Boston’s ”Big Three” of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen all descended on Wallace’s suburban Michigan home for a three-hour meeting with the free-agent forward.

During the course of the meeting, the Boston Celtics…

Uh oh.

Yep, UH OH is probably the only remark sports fans from Boston can muster these days with the 2009 NBA Playoffs kicking off this weekend without the guy that led the Celtics to the title last year, Kevin Garnett.

You read it, the Boston Celtics won’t be having their emotional leader at least for Game 1 of their best of seven first round series with the Chicago Bulls. That however, isn’t the real problem. The real one would have to be the fact that KG could be out for the rest of the playoffs as well.

It turns out that Kevin Garnett continues to have problems with his right knee. In preparation for the postseason hoping to come back to the Celtics roster in time, Garnett was put back on the shelf after a 20-minute workout that left the swollen tendon in his right knee in worse shape than it was a week earlier.

Of course, the rest of the Boston Celtics remain optimistic about the entire thing, probably thinking that; one, KG can still come back at some point of the playoffs and two, they think they can still win without him.

Celtics head coach Doc Rivers on the other hand claims that he has, UNOFFICIALLY, ruled out his star forward for the playoffs. Apparently, he’s confident that his…

Just when you thought the Pistons have become irrelevant.

Detroit ended up with probably their biggest win of the 2009 NBA basketball season, beating the defending NBA champions Boston Celtics 105-95 at the Garden. Yeah, and the Pistons did that without their All-Star, Allen Iverson too.

How about that huh? I guess the Detroit Pistons can still turn this season around after all. THAT is if head coach Michael Curry will start Rip Hamilton and put either Stuckey or Iverson on the bench.

After all, with Richard Hamilton in the starting lineup in place for the injured Iverson, Rip torched the Celtics with a team-high 25 points as Detroit is now 2-0 since reinserting Hamilton back in the starting lineup.

The Pistons, after the win over the Boston Celtics, improved to 19-15 overall with Hamilton starting.

”You can tell they’re playing the system they played before Iverson got there,” Celtics forward Paul Pierce said. ”When Iverson is out there they’re still trying to figure out how to use each other, how to all be successful. But that group that’s out there is definitely comfortable because they’ve played together for years.”

It looks like even Paul Pierce can see that the Pistons are…

The representatives for both the Eastern and Western Conference were finally determined.

With the 2009 NBA All-Star Game only a few more days away, we finally learned who among the league’s top players will be representing the two conferences for the mid-season classic.

And since this year’s All-Star game will be in Phoenix, let’s start with the two guys who’ll be representing the host city on February 15, Suns forward Amare Stoudemire, who was voted in as a starter, and Suns center Shaquille O’Neal, voted in as a reserve by NBA coaches.

You read it, Shaquille O’Neal is back in the All-Star game, moving past NBA greats such as Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Jerry West to land in second place in the all-time All-Star appearances made by an NBA player. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was selected 19 times, still leads everybody.

The 2009 NBA Western Conference All-Stars will be led by reigning NBA MVP Kobe Bryant. He will be joined by New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul in the West’s starting backcourt.

Rounding up the Western starters are Tim Duncan and Yao Ming, joining Stoudemire in the frontcourt.

Joining Shaq as a reserve for the 2009 NBA Western Conference All-Stars include…

Since J.J. Jack is busy pissing off Pacquiao’s fans for this Saturday’s fight, I’ll be doing our weekly NFL thing today.

Week 14 of the 2008-09 NFL football season begins slowly on a Thursday night when the league features two teams struggling at this point of the year. The Chargers, losers of their last three games, will play hosts to the Raiders, losers of the last three years, when the NFL kicks-off the brand new week exclusively for people who subscribed to the NFL Network.

The San Diego Chargers haven’t had a losing season in five years. It’s been just as long since their last loss to the Oakland Raiders. The Chargers, possibly the most disappointing team of the season, want to make sure neither of those streaks end Thursday night, as they host the Raiders, looking to avoid putting their slim playoff hopes at risk this weekend.

That’s why the San Diego Chargers can’t afford to lose to the Raiders on Thursday. We’re picking them by seven.

With a one-game lead in the NFC North, the Minnesota Vikings need every victory they can get to remain atop the division. Having a pair of Pro Bowl defensive linemen on the field certainly can’t hurt their cause. After a Minnesota judge issued a temporary restraining order this week blocking their league suspensions, Kevin and Pat Williams will likely be available for the Vikings this Sunday against the winless Detroit Lions. The Vikings have won 12 of their past 13 meetings with the…

Finally, the brand new NBA season is here.

And while most of us are still probably engrossed with all the football action we’ve been having in what is turning out to be one weird season in the NFL, the brand new 2008-09 NBA basketball season debuts this Tuesday with a three-game schedule you probably can’t afford to miss. (Unless you’re a Colts fan still reeling from a loss to Tennessee last Monday night…)

NBA basketball is back and it will jumpstart the brand new season with a bang on Tuesday night with a three game schedule at hand. First game of hoops action will feature the ring ceremony of the 2008 NBA champions, Boston Celtics, before playing LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers. Yep, the celebratory mood in Boston just might fade in a heartbeat with King James in town.

‘The Big Three,’ that’s Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, should be pumped up to follow up on a championship season and open the new one with a huge win over a legitimate Eastern Conference contender.

And while the Celtics probably have a re-peat planned for this year, the Cleveland Cavaliers will have other things in mind now that they managed to get LeBron James a new sidekick looking to…

They should because if these few weeks of NFL football were to tell us anything, it would have to be the fact that anybody can beat anybody.

And although I’m not quite sure if the 1-3 Cleveland Browns can beat the undefeated New York Giants on Monday night, the G-Men should still take the struggling Browns seriously because one small slip could ultimately take them out of their momentum this 2008-09 NFL football season.

Sure, at 4-0, the New York Giants are already deemed unstoppable. With Eli Manning finally matured and Plaxico Burress already becoming one of the better wide receivers in the game, the Giants look like they’re on their way to another run at the Super Bowl after five weeks into the season.

However, this was the same team that shocked the world last season by stopping a team on the road for perfection. These Giants definitely don’t want that to happen to them. Especially this Monday night to a Cleveland Browns team whose only win came against a struggling Bengals franchise two weeks ago.

For what it’s worth, the Giants are not taking the Browns for granted heading to their huge Monday Night Football game. They know that at 4-0, there is still a long way to go between them and Tampa where, if they get there, give them the opportunity to defend the Super Bowl title they won a season ago.

”We feel like we are building a solid foundation, and that’s what the…”

It’s official, there will be nothing else on TV worth your while.

With the 2008 NBA Finals over and still a few more weeks away from football, it’s that time of the year when you’ll probably have to reintroduce yourself with the sun and brush up on your forgotten social skills.

For all ya’ll who still refuses to take your girlfriend to the mall, you can still watch baseball. Of course, just like last year and the year before that, it’s still boring as hell. Then again, we can always reflect on how the Boston Celtics pulled of a miracle season after such a disastrous campaign the year before. Hold on to your hats folks because, with nothing else on TV, this should give you an escape, if you will, from the boring days ahead until the new NFL season begin.

The signing of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen is where it all started. Following one of the worst seasons in Boston Celtics history, (and after losing out on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant in the draft…) the Celtics became instant title contenders with two future hall-of-famers joining Paul Pierce in Boston.

With Paul Pierce STILL leading the way, the Celtics were able to have the best record in the NBA to secure homecourt advantage throughout the NBA playoffs. And mind you, that advantage sure came in handy for the Celtics in the postseason.

In the playoffs, they faced off with the no.8 seed Atlanta Hawks, and after…