Full of surprises, the second set of matches saw the underdogs take the spotlight while perennial Champions League teams fail to live up to their pedigrees. This week had two late equalizers – one from CSKA Moscow against Madrid and the other from Basel against Bayern Munich, while Inter Milan and Chelsea played poorly. With the second leg up to come in a few weeks, we’ll see if the powerhouse clubs bounce back. Read the rest of this entry »

Salon:

“…In the wake of Whitney Houston’s tragic death, (Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris) Christie’s done it again. By ordering his state government’s flags to half-staff to mourn the singer’s tragic death, he has ignited a heated national debate about who should — and who should not — be posthumously honored by the public. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyrie Irving is making it pretty damn hard for Cleveland fans to complain about anything. The number one overall pick continues to add chapters to a memorable rookie season, this time terrorizing the Detroit Pistons with 17 fourth quarter points that would prove the difference in a 101-100 Cavaliers victory. Read the rest of this entry »

Basketball as a whole won on Sunday. Don’t believe me? Let’s run through the chain of events, shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

The NBA’s TV schedule today was fantastic from start to finish* and caused me to ignore any of the stirrings in rap until tonight, where I found Twitter ablaze regarding MTV’s “Hottest MCs” finale. In case you missed it, the former all music channel tapped Ricky Ross as the boss of this rap sh*t. Read the rest of this entry »

February 2012 may go down as the worst Black History Month on record. The race – and more specifically, the musical side of our culture – has lost several notable figures in a month set for celebration. Yesterday, Nashville lost one of its key members with the death of 101.1 The Beat radio personality Curtis “Scooby” Senior Read the rest of this entry »

With it being Friday night, let’s keep this short, sweet and to the point. Mike, even with your current franchise the poster child for all things laughable in the NBA, your wardrobe often times allowing USPA to come off as Armani 2.0 and you “allegedly” were a large part of the reason the lockout almost never ended, here’s to you on your 49th birthday. Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama. Adolf Hitler. Mark Zuckerberg. Lil Kim. One of these doesn’t fit. Read the rest of this entry »

Watching Kevin Durant and co. dominate the NBA with such youthful exuberance hints at two things: the Thunder are going to be here for a while, and Seattle will forever be a prominent member of the “cities screwed by relocation” club. While they will never get their original, iconic club back, steps are being taken to bring a new NBA franchise to the Emerald City, specifically an investor putting money in place for the construction of a new arena.

Should these plans come to fruition, Christopher Hanson deserves a lot of credit. A Seattle-born San Fransisco-based hedge-fund manager, Hanson is putting his money where his mouth is and personally financing about three-fifths of what the total cost would be. The hope seems to be that Seattle can attract both an NBA and NHL franchise. Considering that one of the main reasons that the Supersonics bolted for Oklahoma was a lack of financial support from Seattle to build a new arena, a private investor like Hanson seems to be the best way to convince David Stern to re-establish the city as an NBA location. It’s obviously much more complicated than that (don’t look for the NBA to expand past 30 teams any time soon), but these are first steps that had to be made. Considering Seattle’s long-standing relationship with professional basketball, the next move can’t come soon enough.

Rolling Stone:

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration’s high-profile raids on providers of medical pot Read the rest of this entry »

The NBA’s All-Star weekend has always boasted some of professional sports’s most iconic extracurricular events, highlighted by the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest. The participants in the contest were announced today and, as has been an issue in past years, the lack of star-power is alarming. Read the rest of this entry »

Shaquille O’Neal will be taking up space in the Staples Center again next season. However, the Big Aristotle won’t be on the floor but instead in the rafters Read the rest of this entry »

The first week of matches in the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League didn’t provide too many surprise results but with top clubs like AC Milan and defending champions FC Barcelona listed on the fixture schedule, great soccer was sure to be seen. It’s still strange to have the knockout round missing Manchester United but after Arsenal’s large deficit, Chelsea may be only one team left from the English Premier League with any hope to advance. With the first four games finally finished, let’s break down the winners and losers. Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe it’s the fact Dwight Howard is the star player at center for the Orlando Magic. Maybe it’s the fact D12 dons the same “Superman” nickname Shaquille O’Neal did during his glory days. Or maybe it’s the fact Shaq sees a small part of himself in Howard. Whatever the case may be, the former Magic big man has been on a personal jihad against the current Magic big man all season Read the rest of this entry »

Tesla can do no wrong right now. Following the success of their Roadster, the all electric automobile company quickly sold out of pre-orders for their Model S sedan and now is continuing strong with their crossover Model X vehicle. To date, Tesla has secured over 650 buyers for the latest car that will be officially released sometime next year and they’ve netted over $40 million Read the rest of this entry »