The best rapper alive?

I gave up on my myspace page about a year ago when I was informed by several younger, and supposedly cooler people I know, that myspace was no longer hot in the cyber streets.

It was all about facebook and whatever other new social networking sites were taking over the world (that week), I was told. But whatever I did, don't get caught hanging out on myspace.

Those foolish youngsters, they cost me a good year of searching for people like my new favorite rapper: the myspace superfan himself, Paul Brogan.

Brent Barry introduced me to Brogan's myspace page earlier today. And now I can't stop watching (and laughing) at this cat's ingenious work with the webcam.

For those of you already familiar with his work, forgive me for being a little late to the party. For those of you like me, who are viewing his handy work for the first time today, I hope you laugh as hard as I did.

-- Posted Nov. 24, 2009, 4:48 a.m. Question or comment? E-mail Sekou

Love him or hate him, sooner or later you have to come around to the fact that Kobe Bryant is the Alpha Dog of the NBA right now.

Jonathan Abrams of the New York Times illustrates why: "Bryant is only 31. In basketball years, though, he is an elder statesman, having played in the N.B.A. for nearly half his life.

On the court, he has logged nearly 42,000 N.B.A. minutes in the regular and postseason, fourth among active players. He still pogo jumps over players, but only on occasion.

He is no longer the gunslinger who scored 81 points in a January 2006 game against Toronto, thinking he had to do so "to keep us in the game." Bryant is now the player who can slow down the game, mentally and physically, while still maintaining his high level of play for a Lakers team that is again the N.B.A. champion.

"You're not going to be able to do the same thing all the time," Bryant said in an interview Sunday. "I still have a lot of gas, but I don't have as much as I had when I was 19, 20, 21 years old. So you've got to make adjustments. You can still be as effective. You're just effective in different ways."

***

Welcome to the NBA Mr. Casspi.

Kings rookie forward Omri Casspi was dejected after two T's got him ejected in a loss to the Grizzlies in Memphis, per Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee: "Casspi had gotten tangled up with Memphis guard Jamal Tinsley and the officials ruled Casspi used too much force to break free of Tinsley.

The call angered Casspi, who had to have his teammates escort him toward the bench and not toward an official for an explanation. "That's the first time in my life to get ejected from a game," Casspi said. "I hope it's not going to happen again. I'm just sorry it happened."

Kings coach Paul Westphal had the decision explained to him by the officials. "The official said they got tangled up," Westphal said, "and he thought (Casspi) did too much arm swinging."

***

Need the definition of young guns?

Just check the roster for the Thunder.

The Jazz, on a three-game win streak, know all too well that they're facing one of the league's hottest young teams, according to Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Oklahoma City can count four top-five picks from the last three drafts on its roster -- Durant (No. 2 overall), Green (No. 5), Westbrook (No. 4, 2008) and Harden (No. 3, 2009) -- and already has beaten Orlando, San Antonio and Miami this season.

"That's the advantages of losing games and getting better players," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "They've done a good job getting good players, making the right choice. I think they know their business very well and I think they've done an excellent job of picking players."

The Thunder's rise is of considerable importance to the Jazz, given that the two teams are Northwest Division rivals

"You saw it happen with Portland," Deron Williams said. "They were kind of in the same boat a couple years ago and then finished better than us last year. They're on their way to being a good team as well. ... In a couple years, they're going to be scary good."

***

My man Vince Thomas from SLAM Magazine, also a columnist for the home team here at NBA.com, has an interesting take on the dearth of post play presently in the league.

Vince talked with arguably the best post operator of all time, NBA TV analyst Kevin McHale, to get some expert opinion: "Me: "So, Kevin, I wanted to get at you about post play in today's NBA." McHale (chuckling): "Uh, you mean lack of post play?"

Forget about the '90s and '80s when skilled post players were ubiquitous. I'm thinking that, as recently as the first half of this decade, we still had Shaq, Tim Duncan, Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Rasheed Wallace (before he fell in love with the perimeter), a friskier Kevin Garnett, a younger Jermaine O'Neal and Yao Ming all mainly working out of the post.

Nowadays, age has dropped some of those guys off the list and the newer big men stay out of the trenches.

Chris Bosh works best facing his man up around the 15-foot range. Dirk Nowitzki is basically a perimeter player. Dwight Howard gets his share of PIP, but on a lot of putbacks, alley-oops and "catch-'n-dunks."

LaMarcus Aldridge rarely visits the post and Greg Oden is still too raw to be effective down there. Stoudemire is a face-up and pick-and-roll machine, not a post-up guy. KG and Sheed deserted their post games years ago.

Duncan and Shaq aren't averaging 25-30 ppg anymore, so their production in the post isn't at nearly their to mid-decade levels. Problem is, there's no one really coming up in the ranks."

***

Take heart Lawrence Frank.

Nuggets coach George Karl feels your pain.

He's been there, sort of, and done that, kind of.

Not that a little empathy will keep Karl's Nuggets from trying to lump up Frank's Nets tonight in Denver, so says Benjamin Hochman of the Denver Post: "The team had more L's than Lollapalooza. The coach would drive toward the parking lot for practice, but just couldn't muster the strength to turn in.

"I would drive straight by for a mile or two," said George Karl, whose 1984 Cavaliers started 0-9 in his first year as an NBA coach. "I'd turn around and say, 'OK  I can get this done.' "

Lawrence Frank is still driving. His New Jersey Nets are 0-13 heading into tonight's game in Denver against Coach Karl's Nuggets (9-4). Karl has seen both sides of games like these, and he knows what could happen if the Nuggets start playing like they're New Jersey.

"I mean, yesterday my (hometown) Steelers lost to Kansas City," Karl said Monday. "Every team in pro sports is not very far from the best team."

-- Posted Nov. 24, 2009, 3:23 a.m. Question or comment? E-mail Sekou

Fans in Portland have been waiting two years to see Greg Oden do what he did to the Bulls Monday night.

Forget that play when Joakim Noah posterized him. And that other play when Derrick Rose went over him for poster No. 2.

Shake all those highlights for the other team off and concentrate on the 24 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks Oden collected in in the Trail Blazers' 122-98 win, dissected down to the last detail here by the Oregonian's Jason Quick.

That's the stuff that was expected of the No. 1 pick when the Blazers selected him over Kevin Durant in the 2007 draft.

With the injuries Oden has dealt with, time was his only ally. And while he's yet to regain the quick-twitch explosiveness we all saw from him during his one season at Ohio State, the big fella is proving that he's got plenty of pop left in his game.

"I thought he was great," Blazers coach Nate McMillan told reporters after watching Oden make all but one of his eight field goals. "I thought he was really patient in the post, did a nice job of taking his time, reading the defense and if the defense played him with single coverage, he was able to score. (He) had deep post position to start with. And then when they tried to double team, he did a nice job of making good decisions out of the post."

Those comparisons to Bill Russell still have to wait until Oden produces like this on a regular basis (stunningly, this was only Oden's third career game of at least 20 and 10).

But just the hint that this is the type of action that could be expected of him is enough to warrant a nightly monitoring of his progress.

On to some morning links:

Most any discussion of the Spurs this season centers around either their All-Star mainstays or the seven new faces that coach Gregg Popovich is trying to incorporate into the fabric of the organization.

The first person I think of when the Spurs come up is Matt Bonner. Outings like his 23-point blowup against the Bucks Monday night always help the cause.

But I have other, far more ridiculous reasons for being a fan of the "Sandwich Hunter" these days.

Bonner's "Quest for the Hoagie Grail" this season has endeared him to amateur foodies like myself that split their dreams between basketballs and baked bread.

Six 3-pointers in a win over the Bucks is fine. Really, it's cute stuff that's really good for the Spurs as they try and get on the right path to their usual perch among the league's elite.

Bonner's work at sandwich shops around the league this season, however, is a positive move for all man and womankind.

***

The Clippers aren't bothering with aesthetics on their current mini-surge. They're just concentrating on winning games, however it has to happen.

As Lisa Dillman of the Los Angeles Times points out, they're doing much of this work without huge contributions from their main man: "But the Clippers are inching toward respectability, and .500, in a most novel way. In the span of four days, they beat a Western Conference powerhouse (Denver) and survived a genuine fright against weak-link Minnesota, which has lost 13 consecutive games. The latter, a 91-87 victory against the Timberwolves on Monday night at Staples Center, came with a certain point guard sitting on the bench for most of the third quarter and a decent portion of the fourth.

That would be a point guard named Baron Davis. The very same Baron Davis who is in the second year of a five-year, $65-million deal. Davis was one for 10 from the field and didn't score until the final seconds. Davis landed on the bench less than four minutes into the third quarter and stayed there while backup Sebastian Telfair ran the offense and scored a season-high 17 points. Small forward Al Thornton, who has flourished in the last six games, had a game-high 31 points, his season best. Thornton and Marcus Camby, who had 18 rebounds, combined for 43 points."

***

There is life after Allen Iverson in Memphis.

No really. The Grizzlies have moved on in every sense of the phrase. Ron Tillery of the Commercial Appeal makes that clear in his missive on the Grizzlies T-shirt giveaway that was to include Iverson: "Marc Gasol jersey T-shirts will be distributed to the first 3,000 fans attending the Grizzlies' Dec. 4 game against the Dallas Mavericks. The night was supposed to belong to Allen Iverson whose name is on 3,000 promotional jerseys that will not be given away as originally planned. Grizzly officials immediately ordered the Gasol T-shirts as a replacement after Iverson agreed to terminate his contract Nov. 16.

So what will happen to all of those unused Iverson jerseys? The Grizzlies plan to ship the jerseys to impoverished children in Tanzania -- the birthplace of rookie center Hasheem Thabeet. An NBA program -- Basketball Without Borders -- will facilitate the shipment to the African country.

"We are thrilled to partner with Hasheem Thabeet and the NBA's international program Basketball Without Borders," Griz president of business operations Greg Campbell said before adding, "This also gives us the opportunity to recognize Marc Gasol for his inspiring start to the season."

Iverson was the Grizzlies' most popular player. Gasol's arguably been the most consistent and productive so far. The second-year center entered Monday as the only NBA player to rank in the top five in rebounds (11.1 rpg) and field goal percentage (.611)."

What's the Spanish translation for taking lemons and making lemonade?

***

Oklahoma City is a long way from Hollywood.

But that didn't stop Thunder forward Kevin Durant from taking a stab at (mini)movie making. Since the Thunder's Fan Night match up against Utah is just a few hours away, Durant has left this little video gem with us all so we can stay warm in the meantime.

Fear not Will Smith, your top spot status is safe.

-- Posted Nov. 24, 2009, 8:56 a.m. Question or comment? E-mail Sekou

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