(I totally misunderstood the title of Dr. Wolfenstein's recent fanshot, "In two years Rambis..." It turns out that it was about Rambis's two-year track record as head coach of the Timberwolves. Having learned nothing about the future for our friend Kyriakos Rambidis, I decided to consult my crystal ball. The following are a few tentative conclusions, but there's a lot more to learn so I encourage you all to gaze into your own balls as well.)

In two years Kurt Rambis will be...

...lobbying to become coach of Greece's Olympic basketball team because he's got a foolproof plan to win gold in 2032 and it takes a long time to implement the dodecahedron offense.

...undergoing LASIK-reversal surgery so that he can get some use out of the 33 boxes of prescription "Kurt Rambis" safety glasses that he has left over from his playing days.

...storming out of the room every time new Inside the NBA co-host Derrick Fisher begins to banter with Kenny Smith. There is no such thing as a legitimate two-PG lineup.

...stopping by the Emergency Room on the way to his LASIK-reversal appointment so that he can get his left arm reattached. It was a bad idea to use those old prescription safety glasses for this one quick chainsaw job.

...lecturing to corporate audiences on strategies for last-minute success under the title "Best-Case Scenario: A Luke Ridnour Fallaway Three"

...making his adult film debut as lead actor in the menage-a-trois drama "Triangle Offense: The Third Leg."

Britt Robson's NBA Power Rankings

I just want to draw attention to Britt's outstanding work this season writing the weekly NBA power rankings column for SI.com.  I'm sure I'm not the only one here who first learned about the original Canis Hoopus through reading Britt's old blog.

Britt was a master of the detailed post-game breakdown, but I'm really starting to appreciate his reinvention of the weekly ranking format as well.  Whereas most columns of this sort offer little more than a factoid or a pithy quip to accompany each team's place in the ranking (e.g., ESPN, CBSsports, NBA.com, Hoopsworld), Britt offers a meaty paragraph that sometimes matches the best of his old T-Wolves analysis.

I know that Britt is also writing some great feature articles (cf. his column about Al Jefferson last week, in which he teased out a comment from Jefferson about his relative defensive efforts in Minnesota and Utah that can be read as a less sensational version of Sid Hartman's famous quotation from Randy Moss).

However, I am starting to think that Britt's great legacy in NBA writing might prove to be these weekly columns.  Calling them "Power Rankings" is selling them short.  Like a great biographer who uses her protagonist as a lens through which to examine an entire culture or era, Britt is using the ranking as the framework for an incredible 4,000-word state-of-the-NBA column every week.  The list itself is almost incidental.

We first heard that Britt would be doing these columns from an old On the Ball regular, A.K. Agikamik, back in October.  It's great to see what they've developed into.

After Kevin Love checked into the Angola game today and immediately made a tricky and-1 layup, Fran Fraschilla began to rave about Love's contributions off the bench during the FIBA championships.  He continued by saying something to this effect:  "We used to call Vinnie Johnson "The Microwave" because of the way he heated things up with points off the bench for the Pistons.  With Kevin Love it's so much more than just points off the bench, he's bringing the whole kitchen cabinet."

This seems like an important omen for Canis Hoopus.  Either or both of the following ought to happen:

1.  We start calling Kevin Love "The Kitchen Cabinet."

2.  Stop-n-Pop starts calling his new kitchen cabinets "Kevin Love."

Clippers' Assistant GM Neil Olshey: 

"It was important to give clarity to our fans to understand that we've spent the last month licking our wounds, finding out what we did wrong for the last 82 games and now it's about the future. Today is the first step towards making sure we're not back in the lottery for any other reason other than picking up Minnesota's (future) pick that we're still owed."

What a day.