Rucker and Ruckus*

This is what happens when you slash the summer league, David Stern. Kevin Durant drifts far from his Midwestern home onto the hallowed ground of Harlem's Rucker Park in search of a place to play the game he loves. The two-time reigning scoring champion poured in 66 points there on Monday, proving he's comfortable on a court whether it's indoors or outside. For an encore, he posted 41 the next night at a college gym in Manhattan (that contest featured another 60+ point-performance, so we're guessing these games took the All-Star Weekend approach to defense). Still, the lockout needs to end before superstars start signing up for Slamball squads (yes, it's still around; in fact, 20,000 people on Facebook "like" it^).

Meanwhile, LeBron is so bored he takes to tweeting about Tim Tebow (and the media is so starved for stories they cover LeBron's comments as if they're noteworthy news -- for the record, journalists, Twitter is a medium dedicated to sharing your unvarnished opinion, and LeBron's, especially by athletes' standards, was tame and tasteful), sticking up for maybe the only true golden boy (in the fans' eyes) left in professional sports, after criticism from the oft-concussed and seldom-sensible ESPN analyst Merril Hoge, who thought being a scrub running back qualified him to be an expert on evaluating what it takes to be a successful quarterback in the NFL. We don't have a religious reason for backing Tebow, like a legion of his backers, but after three starts on a terrible team in which he fared fine for a rookie QB, the jury is out on Tebow, so for Hoge to conclusively state that Tebow isn't equipped play now or possibly ever, is both incorrect (the stats don't support his argument) and idiotic.

If David Stern, who haughtily didn't even bother returning to the negotiating table until the start of August (and them arrogantly accused the players of not being serious about engaging in talks), would concentrate less on playing hardball, maybe the league he runs could get back to playing basketball, so we wouldn't have to discuss playing football (although Nate Robinson is relieved that at least one lockout is over).

* Sorry to all you Hootie and the Blowfish fans who thought this post was about Darius Rucker.
^That might be more people than "like" the WNBA -- by several thousand.