BREAKING NEWS! LEBRON JAMES IS RIDICULOUSLY GOOD AT BASKETBALL!

You can return to your normally scheduled lives AFTER you see this video of LeBron taking a no-look pass into a reverse alley-oop.

Fucking RIDICULOUS! Alas, the basket didn't count because Delonte was fouled as he was passing, but still! The people of Chicago are going to love watching LeBron.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, not content with pissing off his fellow owners with his outrageous spending sprees on players and dissatisfied with the bleeding heart liberals who (rightfully) find his team's name to be a racist term, realized that he was missing a key demographic whose ire he could raise, animal lovers.

Wanting to fix that problem right away, Snyder did the only thing he can do -- unless of course the Eagles release Michael Vick -- by purchasing 2 alligator skin desks for a mere pittance of $600,000. Of course, that price is deceiving, after all, the desks do come with matching alligator skin chairs too.

I didn't know they made furniture out of Jerry Jones' old faces.

[NY Post]

Jason Richardson has won two Slam Dunk competitions in his NBA career, so you'd think streaking to the basket, with no defenders around him that he'd have little issue putting the ball in the hoop. You'd be wrong. On Sunday, taking on the Spurs in an important contest for both teams, the Suns were down 107-105 with 40 seconds remaining, after a steal and a quick pass, Richardson was alone, headed to the rim. 

This doesn't end well if you're a Suns fan.

The Spurs ended up winning 113-110.

Thankfully, barely anyone was watching when the Celtics got blown out and embarrassed by one of the worst teams in NBA history on Saturday. Coming into the game, the Nets had 5(!!!!!!) wins on the season and a mere 53(!) losses, but facing off against the #2 team in the East, the Nets outplayed the pathetic-looking Celtics. 

Thankfully, Tommy Heinsohn didn't allow the game to get him TOO much, throwing a little game at Massachusetts native and all-around hottie Maria Menuous and you know what, it worked! It's not often a 75-year-old gets to kiss a super-hottie, so, at least SOMEONE won at the game.

[Boston Barstool Sports]

The ratings are in the the USA/Canada game was a BONANZA! Last year the Stanley Cup finals went to 7 games, along the way, NBC didn't air games 3 and 4 because they wanted to give Conan O'Brien's debut in the Tonight Show full focus. That worked well. Despite being a very enjoyable series, game 7 earned a mere 7.51 Nielsen's rating, where each point represents 1 million viewers. 

Sunday's gold medal game between the US and Canada earned a 17.6 rating. On a Sunday AFTERNOON, up 46% from the 2002 gold medal game which also had the US taking on Canada. That makes it the most watched hockey game in the US since 1980's Miracle on Ice. 

To put the numbers in perspective, Sunday's game drew a higher overnight rating than every World Series game since 2004 (including every game of Yankees/Phillies last year), every NBA Finals telecast since 1998, and every NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four game since at least '98.

Excluding the NFL, the 17.6 overnight for the game is the second-highest of the year for any sporting event, behind only the Texas/Alabama BCS National Championship Game in January (18.2).

Meanwhile, the NHL, one of the worst-run sports enterprises in the world will return to their 1.2 ratings starting Tuesday. 

[Sports Media Watch]

Did you not have tickets to the final runs for the men's bobsled event? Did you think that standing in the cold to watch a sled go 90 mph past you seemed like a waste of time? Good news! Now you can experience the same sensation the fans had, nice and warm and at your computer. Win-win. 

Lance Mackey is a legend in the dog-sledding world, the winner of the last three Iditarods, trainer of a Jamaican sledder, recent inductee into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame and medical marijuana user was arrested in Anchorage Airport in January for possession of 8 grams of weed. Mackey, who has throat cancer, has a medical card but it had expired and so was charged with a 6th-degree misconduct misdeameanor.

Scheduled to have a court date on February 12, Mackey missed it because he was participating in the Yukon Quest, (which he's won 4 times) and preparing for the beginning of the Iditarod, March 6th.

Mackey, who has admitted to smoking pot regularly throughout his Iditarod races doesn't see any issue with his usage. "It's a dog race, not a human race," he says. "It isn't the reason I've won three years in a row."

Iditarod organizers have already announced that this will be the first year they'll drug-test the sledders.

Then again, that may not be an issue because Mackey and plenty of other dog sledders have experienced wild hallucinations during the 1,100 mile Iditarod. He may not be able to blaze it down, but at least he can trip balls!

[Celeb Stoner]

Japan's only professional basketball league, the BJ league, doesn't get enough publicity in the US, which is amazing to me because I thought the BJ was universally loved. Are there people who don't like the BJ? Are they unable to watch because too much hair is in the way?

52 BJs seems like a lot for one day by the way.

[Japan Times]

As the NFL's scouting combine goes on in lovely downtown Indianapolis, the Saints coaching staff assembled on Friday at a steak house, the same one whose shrimp cocktail was a major piece of Indy's mayor's bet for the Super Bowl, for a celebratory dinner.

Looking at the wine list, oenophile Sean Payton ordered a magnum of Caymus Special Selection cabernet sauvignon. The only problem is that the restaurant only had one bottle remaining in their cellar and a group coming in Saturday had actually called ahead to ensure that this vintage would be available for them. That party? The Dallas Cowboys and the patron who had ordered the wine, Jerry Jones.

Stuck in a difficult position, the wait staff ended up serving the bottle to Payton and the Saints coaches. Never one to pass up an opportunity, Payton arranged for the empty bottle to be placed on the table for the group the next night. When the Cowboys came in on Saturday they saw the empty magnum in the middle of the table and written in Sharpie on the wine label:

WHO DAT!
World Champions XLIV
Sean Payton

Jerry Jones must have LOVED that. Watch your back Payton!

[SI]

Born in Ontario and growing up in Quebec, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin is a Canadian through and through and so was watching the gold medal game in the Dodgers clubhouse yesterday after spring training practice. Amazingly, he's the only one there. I am ASTONISHED that Manny wasn't sitting there side-by-side with Russell, draped head-to-toe in America regalia.

Also surprising, Montreal native Eric Gagne not sticking around for the game. You'd think having pitched in the Can-Am league last year he'd be even more patriotically Canadian...

[Dodgertown USA via Big League Stew]