The Age of Entitlement

Shaquille O’Neal joshes with the best of them, suggesting that he must know when he’s even bullshitting himself. Witness, for example, his assessment of the Heat’s chances of landing a top playoff seed. “We’re not going to get in one of those four spots,” O’Neal said after the likes of…

Frank the Tank

Plenty of musical acts owe their careers, in whole or in part, to a name that rides the success of a predecessor. No less than the Rolling Stones were named for the Muddy Waters song “Rollin’ Stone”; the Hank Williams sequels benefit from their Roman numerals, even as Jr. sings…

Rock’s Role

Standing up to jingoism – that’s Chris Rock territory. So it’s not too far fetched to see his little brother Tony Rock take it on as well. “Everyone in this country is here illegally,” Tony joked on Def Comedy Jam. “Even the white people. They just killed off all the…

Bottling Boozer

Since the NBA’s then-New Orleans team moved to Salt Lake City in 1979, the Utah Jazz has been the most oxymoronic team name in American sports, surpassing even the Seattle Sunlight, the Omaha Mountaineers and the Los Angeles Decent Human Beings. The identity crisis intensified after John Stockton went the…

Hungry Like T-Wolves

While the Heat contends for the Worst Record in the Eastern Conference title, Miami can take solace in the knowledge that the Minnesota Timberwolves have comfortably settled into the position of Worst Team in the Entire NBA. The big difference is that the Wolves have an excuse: They were built…

Garnett in Green

It was fun there for about 15 years, wondering when the Celtics were going to come out of their tailspin. They tried everything, from grossly overpaying Rick Pitino to grossly overfeeding Vin Baker, and yet they still couldn’t put together a team with more than a few players – OK,…

Calling All Wenches

Are you pale, malnourished, and gap-toothed? Can you mimic a generic English accent, or hike your ham-sized mammies up in a corset? Do you strum a mean lute? Do you carry plague? If you answered “aye” to any of these questions, you may be just the sort the Florida Renaissance…

Riled

Shortly after the point at which the Miami Heat honed losing into a true art – that would be with a second loss in the young season to the Charlotte Bobcats on Nov. 13 – Heat president and coach Pat Riley was ready to school Shaq, Jason Williams, and whatever…

Good at Being Bad

Not that anyone is counting, but after the Heat’s third loss to open this season – a jumbled, too-little-too-late two-point loss to the Charlotte Bobcats – some wisenheimer on the Sun-Sentinel’s Heat blog reminded beat writer Ira Winderman that, counting back to last season, the four-game playoff sweep to Chicago,…

K-Dur?

Kevin Durant is built like the answer to some Sphinx’s riddle: What has the offensive skills of a Michael Jordan, the rip-out-your-lungs-and-eat-them drive of a Michael Jordan, but is taller and rebounds better than a Michael Jordan? Or maybe a “Jeopardy!” square: “Basketball maven John Hollinger scored this rookie prospect…

Preseasoning

Heat fans, beware: The loser talk has already begun. After Miami closed out its seven-game preseason slate with a seventh loss, this by 17 points to the defending champion Spurs, a reporter apparently asked Udonis Haslem his thoughts on the worst preseason in the Heat’s 20-year history. “Even though we’re…

Reading Miranda

A boxer without a story may as well be a horse. A man’s history inspires empathy in others; with empathy, we taste the bitterness of the sweet science. A 168-pounder from Colombia, Edison “Pantera” Miranda (28-2, 24 KOs) knows this fact well enough to pump his piteous bio in his…

It’s Tony Parker’s World

The NBA announced recently that Dwyane Wade’s jersey is its top-seller in Europe, which, considering how many European players are spotting up and shooting on American courts these days could be considered a minor coup. Also among the top 10 were a Spaniard (Pau Gasol), an Italian (Andrea Bargnani) and…

Penny for Your Backcourt?

Looking at the past three months for the Heat, it’s hard to tell whether the team took the off-season off or merely had an off off-season. In one of the deepest drafts in memory, the Heat came away with all of Daequan Cook, who played fewer than 20 minutes per…

What Is in a Name

Just when you want to break up with the Panthers altogether, the team goes out and picks a player with a Dickensian name like Keaton Ellerby, who, with such a moniker, could be partner at a London law firm or Prime Minister of New Zealand or a hip-hop producer. (To…

Indie in Name Only

They’re still calling their music “indie” rock, even though the four former New York University retro-hipsters who together form Interpol are now touring on Our Love to Admire, their third record and first since signing with a plucky startup label called Capitol Records. Not to begrudge some brothers for trading…

Mixed and Matched

Time was, this stuff was known generically as ultimate fighting, and it looked like a cross between boxing and a bar brawl. The main difference being that if this wiry Brazilian guy were to pin a barfly and issue a series of uppercuts to the poor bastard’s groin, it would…

Phalling Phast

At this point in the season, fans of bad teams cite tiny gifts as solace for a year gone to spore. For instance, when the Marlins recently lost their sixth straight, they did so to the last-place Giants, in front of a crowd that would fit comfortably in your average…

Surly You Jest

That frisson of terror you feel when you see clowns has a fancy name: coulrophobia. Perhaps it stems from meeting a drunken clown as a child, or reading It, or attending a circus where clowns cavorted creepily amid fresh elephant dung. Perhaps Emmet Kelly once sucker-punched your grandpa, or John…

Braves’ New World

It was kind of cute when the Braves went all-in to bring hard-swinging righty Mark Teixeira to Atlanta before the trading deadline, only to go 6-5 over their next 11 games with their new first baseman. At the end of that stretch, though, to be fair, the Braves were in…

Snakebitten

The Arizona Diamondbacks specialize in winning close games and losing blowouts. Near the bottom of the National League in most batting categories and among the best in pitching, they give up many more runs than they score, an oddity for a team contending in baseball’s strongest division. What’s more, their…

One for the Team

For 20 years, Craig Biggio has manned second base for the Houston Astros — the longest such stint in the majors. So the club was seen as justified in letting Biggio fight through injuries (and their concomitant impediments to Biggio’s skills) to try to reach a Cooperstown-ready 3,000 career hits…