Now, let me get this straight: I love Baron Davis' game. As the starting point guard of the Golden State Warriors he continues to lead one of the most exciting teams in the NBA. It's a crying shame he wasn't dubbed an All-Star this year...

But what the hell is he smoking!? The second video is an attempt to justify the madness.

I guess this is the strange stuff you find when wandering the internet at 3AM...

Jerry and I just finished getting interviewed by Nellie Sciutto for a video segment called "Trendspotting". It was fun to share some insight on the inner workings of Muttpop. We'll let you know when some form of the video is viewable online.

Since it was pretty early in the day (8:30am) I was nearly comatose and Jerry was super animated. I'm looking forward to seeing how the final version of the interview turns out.

Man, Jamario Moon and Rudy Gay really let me down! Gay's dunks were good by forgettable. Moon's "Beyond The Freethrow Line" dunk became a "Lob the Ball in the Air and I'll dunk from a Foot inside the Free Throw Line". Super, super disappointing!

Former champ Gerald Green and Dwight Howard more than made up for it with an entertaining plethora of creativity. Neither brought the showmanship of Vince Carter's Matrix-Breaking 2000 Slam Dunk run. But they brought plenty of athleticism, artistry, and (the King of this year's contest) props.

The most memorable dunks were the "Birthday Cake" and "Superman". I still don't think the "Superman" should be considered a dunk (he's not even close to the rim!). But their both wonderful spectacles.

Gerald Green's other dunks were good but had a sense of "I've seen something like it before" (please, let's just retire the under the leg thing... I know it's hard, but every variation of it looks like J.R. Rider's dunk from the 1990s!).

Everything that Dwight Howard felt new. He established momentum with the first dunk (my favorite: a bounce the ball off of the BACK of the backboard windmill). and wisely built on it with every round.

I'm still BOTHERED that the Superman was not a dunk! What do you think?
SEE THE "SUPERMAN" AND "BIRTHDAY CAKE" DUNKS BELOW:

Now with the recent trade for Pau Gasol, it's safe to say that the Lakers have all the pieces to become one of the NBA's elite teams. It's exciting to see that we have so many excellent players whose skills and talents are both complimentary to each other and fit the triangle system Phil Jackson's offense is built around.

If Andrew Bynum comes back healthy this year, I expect no less than a trip to the Western Conference Finals (and a decent shot at making the Finals). I have a feeling that Kobe Bryant's goal is to get 4 more Championships (1 more than Jordan). We still need to win the first one...but if the Lakers can keep these guys together and healthy I think now's as good of a time as ever to make this insurmountable task a reality.

With a young team, a powerhouse of a starting lineup, and a deep talented bench...we're good to compete. I just hope we can find a way to have less injuries!

4-peat baby (yeah, that's crazy talk right now, but a fan can dream!).

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm all about basketball. Love playing the game. I even coached a team back in high school with Mista Hippo...and I love watching the Lakers.I know it's easy to hate the Lakers and Kobe Bryant...but, man, for a while there (while Center Andrew Bynum was healthy) the Lakers were playing some deadly basketball. I was shocked and saddened to see Bynum get injured in the Grizzlies game this past Sunday. But, fortunately, he's supposed to be back in 2 months.The Lakers have a LOT to work on while Bynum recovers from his knee injury. Even if they won against the Sonics this past Monday, they did not look good. Defense was super weak without the presence of the shot blocking Bynum...and you could tell that Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher felt awkward adapting to their new responsibilities without Bynum.I'm a bit worried about the next few weeks. Lakers have a nasty schedule with games against the Suns, Spurs, and Cavs all coming up. Call me crazy, but I strongly feel that if the Lakers are able to be #1 in their Division (which is tough because of the Suns), they're guaranteed to make it to the Western Conference Finals (assuming Bynum will be at 90-100% by Playoff time).My dream? Lakers Vs. Celtics Finals. I know it's a bit ridiculous to dream of...but it's not as far off as everyone thinks!Here's an old but classic clip from last year. Bynum Vs. Shaq. Bynum's grown significantly as a center since then but, to me, this is when Bynum really became a MAN! :-)

I'm going to change things up a bit and do a few posts today. Lots of fun news discovered and I figured instead of holding off on it and make the blog irrelevant to the latest news, I'll do small bits about each of them.These next few days should be pretty exciting on the Video Game front since CES is happening in Las Vegas. The PS3 is getting a nice resurgence due to the appararent Blu Ray/HD DVD coup by Paramount. It looks like the next generation of Video Media will be Blu Ray.This is a huge breakthrough for Sony. A lot of companies don't like to support Sony media because they are such a huge multi-media corporation. Beta, Mini-Disc, UMD, Memory Cards...Sony's lost practically all media format wars for the last 30 years. Forcing the Blu Ray format on the PS3 can attribute to it's initial high cost and slow start as a next gen system...but it's looking like its all finally paying off.This shouldn't affect the XBox 360...but it validates PS3 as a long term contender. Even with all this talk of the Wii console sales and the crazy amounts of software the 360 manages to sell...Sony stays competitive by being an affordable next gen HD video player.I STILL need an HD TV...so it doesn't have any affect on me...but it's fun to see how it all unravels. In fact, my buddies make fun of my 19" Magnavox Tube! Hey, it's better than the 13" VHS/TV combo we were using for a couple years. The Magnavox EVEN has an S-Video input! :-)