I'm not a basketball fan, but I hope Shaq kicks some ass. He was one of the top athletes asked in the latest Sports Illustrated which other athlete they admire the most and would pay to see. Shaq's choice: Randy Couture, the Ultimate Fighting light heavyweight champion. He says it's "because he's old and when all the young guys come down, he still kicks their asses. I've been to his last four fights. He's the Shaq of Ultimate Fighting." So look out Kobe!

Cool weekend for sports, isn't it also first game for Pacers/Pistons since brawl?

Yep, Detroit at Indiana is the undercard, at 12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

But I don't think those teams really hate each other. Remember, the fight was really the Pacers vs. Half of Detroit.

I would bet that Larry Brown gives some kind of pre-game speech to his team about families watching and how proud he is to be be part of the NBA, and we won't see any problem. Heat/Lakers, on the other hand? Forget it. I expect Kobe and Shaq to take about 90% of the shots in the game.

But ya know what might make Shaq even happier than 40 points and 20 rebounds? Working with Dwayne Wade and showing off his new running mate.

I heard part of Pennington's remarks and, despite that journalism was my first job (and love), I think he had a point. It's not that dealing with the media isn't part of his job; but even and unbiased reporting is part of a journalist's job and that rarely happens these days. I see a lot of what I was taught was the province of editorial writers and columnists in "news" stories these days, and I think many writers have forgotten how to report the news without giving their interpretation of the facts along with the 5 W's.

...and although I'm not terribly fond of basketball, I have seen Shaq play and I understand his great appeal. He's fun to watch and (at least when I saw him) seems to have great fun playing the game. Bryant, based on the interviews I've seen him do, needs to find his happy place. I don't think it's going to be on the basketball court this Christmas Day.

I'm convinced there IS an anti-Cubs factor in Hall of Fame voting. Ryne Sandberg should have gone in on his first vote. He deserves to be there, without question, and if the Hall is as Jim Caple says, "about more than the elite of the elite", than Ron Santo- who played for years with diabetes- should have been in long ago. Andre Dawson was a GREAT player, and although he spent most of career in Montreal, he spent a few memorable years here in Chicago and is much-beloved.

And while I'm bitching, there's still no NHL hockey, damnit...

Happy Holidays- enjoy the season!

I agree with you about Kobe...he is 2 dead white people, one car chase and a coke problem away from being OJ. I hope Shaq shuts him down.

I think that PK.com needs to produce shirts like Sports by Brooks for the ladies. Then your harem of female followers could send you pics like he has on his site. I bet the ladies of PK.com are just hot.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

1. i agree with the point you made about regular season nba games being less than memorable. off the top of my head, i can only think of a handful of exceptions:

mj's 55 at msg, mj's first comeback game vs. indiana, the detroit-indiana game earlier this year (not so much the game, obviously), lebron's first nba game vs. the kings, watching lebron's first game in seattle last year from the 20th row, watching grant hill's first game in seattle from the cheap seats back in his rookie year, and a game when c-webb was in his prime with the bullets and dropped a mindblowing 50 points AND notched a triple with tim legler hitting a deep three off a webber handoff with seconds left for his tenth assist.

but like you said, i can't recall more than two details from most of those memorable non-playoff games.

2. i hope shaq fucking eats kobe. i honestly don't think i've ever hated anyone i've never known personally until kobe bryant. he's just a creep - a cheating, lying scumbag. i doubt this game can live up to the crazy expectations, but i hope it's not because they leave any bullets in their respective chambers. all i know is, if i were kobe, i wouldn't let my ego get in the way and try to take it at the big fella. but i hope he does, no matter how it turns out.

3. i think cass may be on to something with the shirt idea......... they more boobies the better.

4. happy holidays! my first holiday season away from home has been awesome thus far - i ate xmas eve dinner with the hooters girls and santa left me a big fat hangover under the tree.

Happy holidays, RP.

Yeah, the NBA thing was a joke. I mean, Bill Simmons could run down at least 30 moments from last week's Portland-Atlanta game.

Did you know I was at MJ's double-nickel game? I'll have to do a Things I Own post with that ticket stub I hope to sell someday for a lot of beer.