Clutch Magazine: Vanessa Bryant and the Baller Wife's Lament

Vanessa Bryant in New York Magazine.Monday for Clutch Magazine Online, I touched on a recent article by New York Magazine regarding the lives of actual pro-basketball player wives (not the drink-throwing, Vh1 variety). Reading the article gives you insight on why those on the losing end of the baller wife game would turn to reality TV to mourn their loses and salvage their egos. Because if you get that glass slipper in the form of a wedding ring, there seems to be a lot of fashionable perks for a woman newly flush with basketball cash. Case in point, the tale of Vanessa Bryant who stood by her husband Kobe Bryant -- even through a rape charge -- and reconciled with her hubby after considering divorce last year. Maybe it's love. Maybe it's love of "the life."

You be the judge.

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President Obama Enjoys Hot Dog While GOP Delegate Deathmatch Rages On

Last night as results rolled in from GOP races in Alabama, Mississippi and Hawaii, current Commander-In-Chief Barack Obama was busy hot dogging his way through some March Madness, taking UK Prime Minister David Cameron to a basketball game. It was essentially the most high powered form of a play date you could ever have.

But while other heads of state were chowing down and discussing their sports of choice -- the GOP continued its quixotic and often demoralizing race to find out who gets to go up against Obama in the fall.

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Happy LeBron James Day!

Did you know that NBA star LeBron James is going to announce what he's going to do with his free agency today? That means he could pick a new team to play for or he could continue playing for his hometown of Cleveland! How exciting! And he gets a whole hour on ESPN to announce it! (He even got to decide how the advertising revenue would be handled and who would get to ask him questions!) But I won't be watching. I'll just wait until Twitter tells me what happened.

Good ol' Twitter.

Because of Twitter I got to read ALL ABOUT some guy who's suing LeBron AND his mother Gloria because when Gloria was 15 (and he was 29) he had unprotected sex with her (an underage minor!). But when he saw her pregnant months after their hook-up she didn't say if he was the father or not and he DID NOT PRESS THE ISSUE. Like many guys who had sex with a woman who later became pregnant, but DIDN'T take them to court for child support he never thought to ask her if LeBron was his child.

More after the jump.

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Bonus Obama Love: Dunking On McCain

First seen at the Democratic National Convention as worn by film director Spike Lee, found on Hello Negro and created by UNDRCRWN, I present to you ...

OBAMA DUNKS ON MCCAIN!

It seems people have an Obama/basketball fixation, no doubt because Obama played varsity B-ball in high school and still loves the occasional pick up game. He'll even drain a three-pointer every now and then. But because of Obama's love of basketball and black folks love of basketball in general there is room ripe for parody. There are a plethora of Obama dunking on his opponents imagery is floating around the web. This is probably the best one as it mimics a controversial Nike ad with a black baller basically dunking the ball with the white defender catching a face full of sweaty basketball crotch, as McCain is getting a good whiff of Obama's scrotum in this illustration.

For others who share this love of Obama Basketball, the following pictures are for you.

Celtics Gone Wild!

Out of all the Boston Celtics players I would want to see shirtless (Ray Allen) this was the one we got.

Congratulations, Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Now put your shirt back on. (To read the rest and see more pictures check out Ryan Barrett's Cheap Thrills.)

The Celtics Become the Champs

I expected the LA Lakers to lose, but damn ... that was embarrassing.

Even though I'm a Lakers fan, I felt the Celtics deserved some rings. Not because I'm huge Celtics fan, but Kobe has three rings and Los Angeles has not suffered such a drought as Boston. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen didn't have jack until last night. They wanted it more and they got it. But dude? To lose 131-92? Where's your pride, LA? Where's your freakin' pride?

Despite the loss I will not dump my fake Laker boyfriend, incognegro point guard Jordan Farmar. But I may start fake dating Paul Pierce on the side.

The Lakers Chose to Lose In Boston, Tiger Woods Is Awesome and Other News At La Casa de Snob

Hello Readers!

As I've stated before, I enjoy sports so yesterday was a pretty good sports day with Tiger Woods getting a birdy on the 18th hole to push the US Open at Torrey Pines to an 18 hole playoff today. I was loving the double fist pump and the look on golfer Rocco Mediate's face when he realized he would have to play the best who's ever played the game, again, on a golf course Tiger practically owns.

Then the Los Angeles Lakers, who have been out-played by the Boston Celtics this whole NBA Finals series managed to escape seeing the Celtics dance around and spill champagne on their home court.

It would have been really lame for them to get trounced and only win one measly game. But as you can tell from my headline I am not to optimistic about Los Angeles' chances in Boston. For one, they don't have an answer for Paul Pierce and two, Celtics Coach Doc Rivers figured out the key to stopping the Lakers early was to take out Rajon Rando at point. Kobe Bryant wasn't even guarding him. That's how big of a non-factor he was. And how can you have a point guard who's a shy shooter? That's mind-boggling. Take the shot, kiddo. You're open! Did he even get minutes in the second half?

So unless Pau Gasol and the rest of the Laker supporting cast figure out how to play defense the whole game, not just the first quarter, I expect this all to be over come Tuesday. What's funny is if the Celtics were playing any other west coast team I would be rooting for them.

I live for watching Utah get beat down. I'm indifferent towards San Antonio. The Phoenix Suns can just roll over and die. I don't care about the Mavericks. The only other west coast time I half-ass care for is Golden State and that's just because they're insane. I like an insane shooting team that only knows one speed, fast, and lives and dies by fast. And I want to like the SuperSonics, but that's only because of number two draft pick Kevin Durant.

I like the Celtics (for the first time ever), but I love the Lakers (even if Kobe can be an incredible jackass). But if they lose they Tuesday it's because they deserved to lose. The Celtics are the better team.

In other news: I got a great response from readers for my mothers and daughters piece regarding a recent story I did on the strain between author Alice Walker and her daughter Rebecca. I'll be running the story as a series of the next two weeks, featuring what each of the contributors wrote with some minor edits by myself. Most of the letters were written in such a beautiful and raw manner that I'd rather leave them unvarnished than muck it up with a lot of my prose.

Look for the series all this week and next!

Happy Birtday Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!

Picture from the New York Times

You rock. And it was awesome to see you and Bruce Lee go at it in "Game of Death." Not to mention your career with the Lakers. You and Magic are the reasons why I'm a diehard Laker fan to this day.

And yeah. I broke my own "not blogging rule" again. Pardon me if I wanted to let you know it was the Sky Hook King's birthday.

And since he's leaning towards Obama, I wonder if he'd be up for doing a PSA on how black Muslims, like the vast majority of Muslims, don't want to destroy us. The only people Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wanted to take out were the Celtics. And he took 'em out like the trash every time.

He's just the "gentleman's athlete" -- Smart, witty and humble. He should hold seminars because these kids today, I tell you. Just do what you can with LeBron. Please. For the sake of us all. Have a "come to Muhmmad meeting" with the brother.

Wish him well on his blog at the LA Times.

It's gotta be ... the shoes?

You know, I respect Michael Jordan's skills as a baller. I respect his role as a sports icon, trend-setter, underwear pitchman, all-around man about Chicago. I understand that people desire Nike Air Jordans'. Collect them. Hell, back in the 80s and 90s, in the STL you could get shot for some Jordans'. But dude, Jordans' are some ugly-ass shoes. They were ugly when they debuted. They're ugly now that they're on their 23rd edition. I'll admit, they're less ugly than others. To me, ugly still. But I know being a shoe snob will not stop the many Nike Air Jordan lovers who froze their asses off to get the very limited edition shoe.