You know, after the initial shock and depression has worn off, the thought occurred to me that we hung with the Lakers last year without a healthy Manu. I don't know that I'd say we should have beaten them, but we certainly could have: we should have held on in Game 1, and possibly Game 5, even without Manu. Manu's random threes were a big factor in the Game 3 win, but it's not hard to imagine RMJ or Bon-Bon having an unusually hot shooting night (ok, it is hard to imagine Bonner doing that, but he did do that against the Celtics in Boston).

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After last night's horrendous loss, I thought it appropriate to reflect on happier times... when you could leave your front door unlocked, not worry about drugs and gangs in school, and especially not worry about the Spurs losing to the : : Thunder : : .

I'm talking about a time two weeks ago, when a fellowship of a few brave, hardy souls took their mojo on the road to the AT&T Center, to watch the Spurs confront the gathering storm... of Wizards!

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There I was, minding my own business not working at work, browsing ESPN's site, when I came across this article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=tradetalk-090205

Basically, it says that Rasheed Wallace is interested in becoming a Spur as a free agent in the offseason. I don't know what to think of this. It reminds me of when there was some talk that Karl Malone might come out of retirement to join the Spurs. On one hand, he's one of my least favorite players in the league. On the other hand, Rasheed is EXACTLY what the Spurs need on the court:

1. He can stretch the floor and shoot threes to open it up inside for Timmy, Manu, and Tony;

2. He could score in the post himself when Timmy sits;

3. He could guard bigs like Bynum or Boozer AND athletic fours like Pau, West, Stoudemire, Dirk, etc.

4. He wouldn't care if the big three took all the shots; in fact, the knock on him (as a player) has always been that he's too willing to defer. That wouldn't be an issue on the Spurs.

Could Pop and the San Antonio environment control his on-court outbursts? Would this be a Randy Moss in New England type of situation? Discuss...

I searched high and low through the archives of Googledom. One time, I even clicked the strange and mysterious "view source" option in my browser. Only after much seeking did I find the proof I was looking for...

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I'm not happy. My wife is sick, and I'm coming down with the same illness. Is there anything worse than knowing you'll be incapacitated within 48 hours? The answer is, of course, yes, there are worse things, but it still is pretty sucky. One thing that is worse would be to have wasted several hours of one's life watching the Spurs' dreadful performance Tuesday night.

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I don't think anyone signed up for this one, and for once I actually saw the game, so I thought I'd write it up. Any objections? I didn't hear any, sitting alone in my underwear in front of my computer at 6 a.m., though honestly it would be pretty creepy if someone did manage to object. Besides, I WILL PUT YOU IN THE GROUND if you object.

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No, this is not a joke of the "Keith Van Horn for Jason Kidd" variety. Mark Cuban was actually charged with insider trading by the SEC. The last celebrity I can recall getting an insider trading charge was Martha Stewart, and that didn't work out so well for her. Imagine how AWESOME it would be if Cubes went to jail. If Dirk Nowitzki were here, he might describe my reaction to this development as "schadenfreude" (a German word meaning "satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune"). Man, I really loathe this guy.

If you were a billionaire facing jail time, would you try to skip the country? I sure would.

Here's the link, so you guys don't think I'm making this up:

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=529822&catid=2

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http://www.nbcolympics.com/basketball/index.html

I was going to put this in a fanshot, but nobody reads those, and this is just too important to risk everyone not seeing it. I just found that out today.

In fact, you can watch pretty much any Olympic event you want live or in its entirety after its conclusion. I watched about 10 minutes of rousing Egypt-Netherlands (I think) team handball out of sheer stupefaction that it was available. Then I came to my senses and watched some beach volleyball highlights. Yup, I'm a shoo-in for employee of the month. 

The first time I tried to watch it, it asked me for my zip code and cable provider; it said something like "NBC has a special deal with certain providers." I tried a couple of different ones before I got one it liked. If you get that question and your own address or provider doesn't work for you, try putting in 78704 and Time Warner Cable.