Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here... highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump
We love our readers. Obviously, we don't have a site without people reading it. But a lot of you guys go above and beyond.
Let's start with our new banner. You'll notice it's got all the new guys on it now... and we can thank Scott for that. Scott emailed us the other day with that and we immediately said "Yes!" I did, especially... because that means I can park my lazy ass on the couch another day and play NBA 2K10 some more.
Secondly... that video... which will get your juices flowing for the upcoming season. Our buddy Drucci emailed that to us this weekend. You may remember a killer Rondo mix from back in April. That was our first taste of Drucci's work. This is right there with it. Thanks Drucci for another great video.
We've been sent other things too... and we'll use a lot of it during the upcoming season. If we don't, please don't take it personally. We love that you think enough of us to send us stuff. You can emails us at [email protected] if you have something you want to send us.
On Page 2, Carmelo Anthony may or may not have put a bounty on some woman
Apparently there's a woman, and I use that term loosely, by the name of Kat Stacks who is some sort of celebrity rap groupie. She has a blog (NSFW or children or really anyone) and she documents her escapades or whatever you'd call them. Anyway, she started sending tweets that were provocative in nature regarding Carmelo Anthony and his new wife La La Vasquez. Apparently she got under his skin pretty bad
ProBasketballTalk: Anthony put a bounty out on slapping a celebrity groupie
It goes on... you should follow the link for the whole post. But to summarize, Melo now claims his twitter was hacked.. even though there are multiple tweets from him... one showing the money.
I'd like to congratulate Carmelo for completing the LeBron James "how to completely decimate your reputation in one short summer" correspondence program. I think it's like a University of Phoenix thing.
David Stern has got to be going nuts. His NBA went through a pretty harsh time, reputation-wise, in the Allen Iverson era as the hip-hop culture took over the sport... and the shock value of it turned some fans off. People saw the tattoos, the clothes, the entourages... and a lot of fans thought "this isn't geared towards me."
But the NBA has gotten past that now. Guys like LeBron were leading the new charge into the new NBA with likable superstars the NBA could trot out there and say "see... look at these guys... you can buy into these guys."
Then LeBron pulls his whole shtick, which in turn taints Dwyane Wade...and Melo starts demanding trades and putting twitter bounties out on people. Stern's got to be sitting there watching his league's image start to swirl again.
He's probably already running to turn on the Durant signal. Go all-in on Durant, Stern. Pull a Princess Leia with R2-D2... "help me Kevin Durant... you're my only hope."
The rest of the links:
ESPN Boston: Snapshots: Shaq, Baby at UFC | Erden Watch: Ivory Coast, Russia | Herald: Americans grind out victory | Orlando Sentinel: Austin Rivers to have right wrist injury x-rayed | Celtics Hub: Do you believe the Baby? | SLAM: Brandon Jennings is against "Super Teams"