Saturday Sporties

-Earlier in the week Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy (who strikes me as the type of person who isn't happy unless he has something to complain about) started chastising the media for what he perceives as the pre-ordaining of Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose as MVP instead of his player, center Dwight Howard. Van Gundy thinks the media has made their choice and it doesn't matter what anyone else does for the remained of the season. Now, normally I would agree with Van Gundy because I feel a lot of media members make their choice for MVP around the All-Star game and stick to that decision no matter what. However, I think Stan waited too long to make this an issue. I mean, the season is 70 games in. Most teams only have 10 games left. When did he want voters to decide? If you haven't made a decision by now, then what the hell are you waiting for? It's a regular season award and the season is done.

-Thursday night the Dallas Mavericks won their 50th game this season, marking the eleventh straight year the Mavericks have won 50 games in a season. This is tied with the Lakers of the 80s for the second-longest such winning streak behind the San Antonio Spurs, who streak is alive and well at twelve straight 50-win seasons. That is an incredible mark of consistency, especially when you consider how bad the Mavericks were for most of their existence. The difference is that the Lakers won five titles in that span and the Spurs won three. At some point we all expected the Mavericks to take that next step, but they never did. Also, there are no indications that this year is going to be their year either. I'm not saying it's not impressive, I'm just saying it's like holding the record for most silver medals. At some point, someone is going to point out you never took home the gold.

-Just a couple of days after agreeing to an extension to stay as the head basketball coach at the University of Missouri, Mike Anderson announced he was changing his mind and going to take the head job at Arkansas. Now, I can't really get mad at Anderson because he was an assistant at Arkansas when they won the National Title and has long said it was his dream job. But to agree to an extension at Missouri and then leave is very shady. Then again, Arkansas currently employs Bobby Petrino who famously quit the Falcons in the middle of the season, so what should you expect?

-Even though they are in a lockout, the NFL owners met this week to discuss several rules changes for the upcoming season (if there is one). There wasn't much in the way of excitement, save for one thing: the owners passed a rule stating that a team couldn't change the color of their turf unless it was approved by the league. Basically, this was to prevent someone from installing a Boise State-like blue field to try and make them stick out from the rest of the league. I guess the league figures they are above gimmicks, but best to put it in writing. The thing is, I can only imagine this rule was put into place because someone raised it as an actual issue. I'll give you 3-1 odds it was Al Davis who wanted to make his field black.

-On Thursday news broke that Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was banned from a Dallas mall following an altercation with a mall cop. Apparently, Bryant and a group of friends were hanging out at the mall and their pants were saggy, so the security guard told them they had to pull up their pants. Bryant allegedly curse the guy out and was kicked out of the mall. Now, going into last year's draft there were all sorts of stories about Bryant's past, so some people are using this story as a way to prove Bryant is a bad kid. Personally, as a guy who can't stand bouncers and rent-a-cops who think they are the law, I am on Dez's side. Who the hell told this mall cop he was suddenly the fashion police? Dude, your job is to keep teens out of the fountain and help locate missing kids. Don't mistake your fake badge for actual authority.