If I heard that from a rapper, I’d be like, “Hey, I think this guy could be the next Chingy.” But for a guy in the NBA, the bar’s set a little lower. In fact, just to set that bar a little bit lower… take it away, Kobe.

Thanks to Yay! Sports for the Artest video.

From Portland TV guy Mike Barrett’s Blog (via TrueHoop) comes this update on a subject we don’t spend nearly enough time on here: Joel Przybilla’s balls. His balls are not well. He took a knee, evidently, in a game against Golden State. And the knee actually hit him right above the balls, which… well… I dunno. But this was not your average Bob-Saget-sound-effect-enhanced America’s Home Video nutshot.

It’s been a long, painful week for Joel. I’m not going to get into the injury again, but the swelling is going down, and he’s at least able to move around the house a bit now. He’s told me on several occasions, this was the worst pain he’s ever gone through, and was a very scary thing. Good thing he’s got Tiger Woods 07 on the XBox 360. I’d hate to think he’s just been wasting this time. He also has NBA 2K7, but gets frustrated because he thinks he looks like a skinhead in the video game.

First, I’d like to second the notion that Tiger Woods ’07 on the XBox 360 is a fantastic game. And secondly… well, hey man, I’m sorry about your balls. We’ve all taken a shot in the bag from time to time, and a for a few minutes, it’s catastrophic, but… something that causes massive swelling and puts you in bed for a week? Yeah, I don’t have any trouble believing that was the worst pain of his life. Just reading about it cracks my top ten.

When he gets well, I recommend that he indulges himself in this treatment.

Well, it wasn’t really hard to see this coming. Rasheed Wallace, in his first game under the NBA’s new ‘zero tolerance’ policy for talking back to officials, was ejected after picking up two technicals.

The first one, he didn’t actually say a word to the officials. He was whistled for a foul, turned into the other direction, and screamed. That’s it… and it was called a technical, and the call was perfectly justified. The rule makes it very clear that that’s a technical.

On the second one, he was complaining to officials about a no-call on Charlie Villanueva. Villanueva had the ball on the block, and swung and elbow that very nearly hit Rasheed in the crotchal region. Rasheed said something to the official who didn’t call it, and then started talking to Villanueva. I couldn’t understand it completely, but it went something like, “You better watch those elbows, (something). You throw another elbow at me, and I’mma (couldn’t understand), I’m lettin’ y’all know. Try me. You know me.”

Shortly after that came the whistle. And then, on his way out, I’m pretty sure he called a ref a “deaf bitch.” I’m not sure why.

So yeah, that didn’t take long. Rasheed’s on pace for 164 technicals in the regular season, and I’m not predicting he’ll get there… but 164 doesn’t sound as crazy as it should sound.

On a side note… the Pistons played terrible perimeter defense, the Bucks got any shot they wanted all night long, and Flip Saunders is still a terrible, terrible coach with an awesome turtle.

I have posted embarrassingly little about the NBA, given that the season’s starting tonight. And I’d like to rectify that with about a 4,000-word preview, but… I’m not going to. For those of you who enjoy the NBA coverage (and I’m aware that a great many of you hate it as well), I promise, I’m going to make it up to you.

For now, though… my half-ass, meandering, unedited thoughts on how things will go down this season that will seem completely ignorant about two weeks from now, if they don’t already.

1. Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks are going to be your NBA champion, and I’m sorry for ruining the suspense for you. This team made incredible strides last year, and I think learned a ton… about playoff basketball, about team defense, about leadership, about role definition, about sacrifice. And what I like best about them is that they’re still growing. Avery Johnson is still growing as a coach, Dirk Nowitzki is growing as a player, Josh Howard, Ghana Diop, Devin Harris, even Jerry Stackhouse, in some ways. All growing like a Yukon Gold plant in Stephen Belichick’s closet. They’ll be better this year than they were last year, and last year, they were as close as you can possibly get.

2. LA Clippers. Really, it’s all about what Sam Cassell feels like doing. He has a history of having one great year in a place, and the monkey-wrenching the fuck out of everything the next. Ask Minnesota. But if Cassell’s happy and motivated, I really like the way this team is put together. Best frountcourt in the league.

3. Phoenix Suns. I’m willing to grant that it’s possible for the Suns to win the championship this year, which is a step I’d been unwilling to take the previous two years. I don’t think you’re going to see crazy-explosive-Amare, but they can put themselves in the championship picture even with an Amare at less than 100% effectiveness. I still think the Mavs and Clippers will be better, deeper, more complete teams, though.

4. San Antonio Spurs. I love the way the Spurs play, I love Tim Duncan, I love Manu Ginobili, I love Tony Parker… but the Spurs have been too stagnant while everyone else is trying to get better. If they’re completely healthy come playoff time, I’ll like their chances. I just can’t imagine that being the case, though, and this team isn’t deep enough. Unless Matt Bonner and Jackie Butler are studs and I’m not aware of it… I don’t see it happening for the Spurs this year.

5. Detroit Pistons. I really don’t have any idea what to expect here. They might win 65 games, they might win 45. I hate Flip Saunders. That much, I can tell you… fuck Flip Saunders in the earhole. It’s not even that he took Detroit away from their defensive, physical style of basketball… that, I could live with. But the effort he got from his players wasn’t the same. He doesn’t seem to ever coach anyone, he doesn’t seem to insist on any accountability. The fact that they aren’t a defensive team doesn’t bother me (that would’ve probably had to change eventually, at least to some degree anyway), the fact that they aren’t a disciplined team bothers the hell out of me.

6. Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron James is probably your MVP, but for the Cavs… I just don’t see it. Ilgauskus, Gooden, Larry Hughes, Eric Snow… all back, all still starting. Those four just aren’t good enough. I don’t know how to say it any other way.

7. Miami Heat. I’m seeing a drop-off here. A group that old, with resumes like theirs… isn’t going to be particularly motivated this season. They didn’t get much better in the off-season (with the exception of the continued development of Dwyane Wade), they just got older. I just don’t know that they’ll be hungry enough… and you don’t have to play balls-out for 82 games, of course, but that sort of thing snowballs. Be it injury, or attitude problems… I dunno. I feel like something’s going to go wrong with this team.

I don’t know that anyone else is particularly relevant to a discussion of championship contenders.

Reaction to the NBA’s new basketball has been almost universally negative… it’s slippery, it doesn’t bounce as high, it’s too tacky when dry, too slippery when wet (Bon Jovi fans, holla), it’s too easy to palm… NBA commissioner David Stern has heard the complaints, and he’d like to you to jot them down, write a formal letter of complaint, and then take that letter, and jam it in your ass.

“We’ve been testing it and retesting it,” Stern said. “And I think that some of the dramatics around it were a little overstated in terms of the downside and not enough recognition of the upside.”

“Within certain parameters of the way you want a ball to perform again and again and again, it is performing extraordinarily well,” Stern said. “It doesn’t mean it feels the same; it may not even bounce exactly the same. It may do all the things that everyone says it may or may not do, but it’s a very good ball and the tests continue to demonstrate that it’s an improvement.”

So there you go. Stern likes it, people who have done the official scientific testing like it… so it stays. The opinion of the players is evidently not relevant to the discussion.

If you’re an ESPN Insider, Chris Sheridan talks to the commissioner about the new ball, and sort of grills him on the subject. Stern ends up getting a little bit agitated with the questioning and says, “Take this man away.”

Stern’s biggest defense of the ball is that they’re all the same. Every basketball will behave exactly the same, unlike the old leather balls, where there was some pretty substantial variance. NBA refs went through like 20 balls before every game before they found one they could use. That will no longer be an issue.

So yeah, the ball might be terrible… but at least it’s consistently terrible. That’s sound reasoning. Poking myself in the eye with a steak knife hurts more than poking myself in the eye with a broken twig, but the twig is different every time. At least with the steak knife, I can count on the brutal piercing of my retina, so that’s a plus.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I ultimately think this is not a big deal, and a couple weeks into the season, no one’s going to remember any talk about a new basketball. Players will adjust, they’ll get used to whatever they have to, and it’ll be fine. It’s Stern’s arrogance and refusal to consider anyone else’s viewpoint on anything that I find noteworthy. It’s kind of like…

NBA Player: Commissioner, we don’t like the new basketball.
David Stern: Oh, is that so?
NBA Player: Yes, sir.
David Stern: Well, is your name David Stern?
NBA Player: No, sir.
David Stern: Well, then I guess you should shut the fuck up then, huh?

Once in little league, my uncle came out of the dugout, held up his hands, stopped the entire game, and yelled at me from across the field to tuck my shirt in. I was embarrassed, everyone in the stands found it pretty amusing, and somewhere nearby, David Stern witnessed the scene, gritted his teeth and said, “YEAH. Tuck in that shirt. Bitch.”

I somehow missed this, and it’s evidently not something new, but they were talking about it on PTI yesterday… two of the NBA’s new rules this year include potential delay of game technical fouls for players who don’t have their jerseys tucked in, and also potential technical fouls for players who strip off their warmups on the way to the scorer’s table.

Stern will also be personally conducting inspections of all players pubic hair, and a technical foul will be awarded to the other team for every hair that is untrimmed, improperly conditioned, and pointing in the wrong direction. This fucker’s out of control.

And I know what he’s doing… he’s copying the NFL. And sadly, it works. The NFL has sought, over the years, to completely homogenize everything about their game. Socks must all look the same, only a certain length of towel may be hanging out of the pants, helmets must stay on at all times, endzone celebrations have been pretty much banned… and people like say they like individualism, they might call it the No Fun League, but… as the NFL has become more standardized, cookie-cutter, and personality-less, NFL TV ratings and popularity has steadily gone up.

It works. And despite the long list of criminals in the NFL, it’s the NBA that has the image problem. Your average Joe Whitey out there probably watches the NFL, probably doesn’t watch the NBA, and if you ask him why, he’ll probably give you a reason about thugs, and attitude, and players who don’t care, etc. True or not, it’s the perception.

And David Stern seeks to change that with an NFL-like homogenizing whitewash of the individualism from the league. I think it’s dumb, and I don’t know what could possibly be affected by an armband worn two inches out of position, or a guy taking off his warm-ups on the way to the scorer’s table, but… these meticulous little rules have worked for the NFL. It’s probably good business sense for the NBA to copy it.