- SPORTSbyBROOKS gives us one more reason to hate Sasha Vujacic. (Hint: He’s dating the girl in the picture.) They also have a strange story about Dwight Howard, as told by porn star Mary Carey.

- RED’S ARMY says that people should forget about LeBron James joining Kobe in Los Angeles. Are there actually those who think this might happen?

- PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that the 7-1 Minnesota Vikings face potential blackouts after this week’s bye. Seriously. That’s pathetic.

- LARRY BROWN SPORTS wonders if the sign that the Chiefs posted is aimed at a certain running back with the initials “LJ.”

- SPORTSbyBROOKS has photos of Reggie Bush’s girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, playing football on the beach. (One question — how in the world did the photographer fail to get a shot of her infamous derrier?)

- DEADSPIN informs us that Ricky Rubio’s camp is trying to keep him out of Memphis and Oklahoma City, but Sacramento would be okay. Wait, what? How is Sac-Town any better than OKC? He’d rather play with Kevin Martin than Kevin Durant (and Russell Westbrook)?

- Regular readers know I have no love for Laker fans, but Ryan Kane of LAKE SHOW LIFE does a tremendous job of calling out Sasha “The (Self-Proclaimed) Machine” Vujacic about his poor play this season.

- ZONER SPORTS has video of Brian Kenny’s entertaining interview with Floyd Mayweather. The two go at it pretty good.

- DEADSPIN has the story of Warriors PR Director Raymond Ridder, who spends his free (or is it on-the-clock) time posting positive comments about management (under an assumed name, mind you) in the Warriorsworld forums.

Like most NBA fans (outside the greater Houston area), once the news broke that Yao Ming was going to miss the rest of the playoffs with a foot injury, I wrote off the Rockets. How could they possibly keep pace with one of the top two teams in the league without their best player?

Since the injury, the Rockets have taken two of three from the Lakers, and if Kobe and Co. were truly championship worthy, they would have gone on the road and won Game 4 or Game 6. Laker apologists will probably just say that their team will still win in Game 7 and they’ll go on to win the championship, but really, they shouldn’t be in this position in the first place. Anything can happen in a single game, and sometimes, no matter what you do, it’s just not your night. What if the Rockets collectively catch fire like they did in Game 4? What if Kobe has one of his 5-for-20 days? Or what if Pau Gasol goes down with an injury that knocks him out of the game?

By letting the Rockets get back into the series, the Lakers have no margin for error. That’s the whole point of a seven-game series — it’s designed so that poor luck and bad nights don’t send a true champion home early.

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The economy is really starting to take its toll on professional sports, and the NBA is no different. Bad contracts are bad even when the economy is pumping, but they really stand out in tough times like these. So I decided to look through the payrolls team-by-team to try to identify the worst contracts in the NBA. I expected to list 15-20 names, but I ended up scribbling down 68. That’s right, there are no fewer than 68 bad contracts in the NBA.

I didn’t include any of the players that are in the final year of their contracts because…well, what’s the point? They’ll be off the books in a few months anyway. Instead, I wanted to focus on those contracts that are going to haunt teams for years to come, so to be eligible, players have to have at least a year left on their current deals.

It’s tough to compare someone making superstar money to an average, everyday role player, so I split these 68 contracts up into three groups: the Overpaid Role Players, the Not-So-Super Stars and the Injury-Prones. I will rank them from least-worst to most-worst with the thinking that I wouldn’t trade the player for anyone further down the list but I would trade him for anyone previously mentioned. So, for example, if a guy is listed #7 within a particular group, I’m not trading him for anyone ranked #6-#1, but I would think seriously about moving him for a guy that is ranked #8+.

So let’s start with the role players and go from there…

(Note: In most cases, I don’t blame the player himself for his outrageous contract. The fault lies with the general manager that inked the guy to the deal. However, this rule goes out the window if the player has a history of only producing in his contract year – I’m looking at you, Tim Thomas.)

The Lakers went into Boston and snapped the Celtics’ 12-game winning streak, 110-109, in overtime. This is the second time this season that the Lakers ended one of Boston’s long winning streaks. The Celtics had won 19 straight before losing in L.A. on Christmas Day.

Anyway, here are six observations about the game.

1. My TiVo stopped recording with three minutes remaining in OT.
This is due in no small part to my forgetfulness in canceling my season pass for “My Name Is Earl,” which just isn’t very funny anymore. I recorded “Smallville” on the other tuner, so I was only able to extend the recording for the game by a half hour. This would have worked had TNT not spent the first 15 minutes of the broadcast jibber-jabbering about this and that. If you are saying that the game starts at 8:00 PM ET, tip-off should be no later than 8:05 PM. Grrr.

2. The “Garden” was rockin’.
Aside from a grumpy Bill Belichick sitting under one of the baskets with his arms crossed, refusing to applaud, the crowd was into the game from the get-go. NBA crowds are notorious for sitting on their hands, especially during the regular season, but last night’s crowd in Boston was pumped and ready to go. They were nowhere near the bar set by the Golden State fan base a few years ago, but it’s good to hear substantial chants of “DE-FENSE” early in the ball game.

3. The game was chippy.
Kobe and Rajon Rondo got into it. KG and Lamar Odom got into it. Kendrick Perkins got into it with just about everybody. I couldn’t tell what happened with Kobe and Rondo, but it looked like Rajon was a little pissed that Kobe came in at the end of a play and knocked his hand down, so he pushed him. That garnered the finger from Kobe that you see in the picture above. The KG/Odom bit started when the ref called an offensive foul on Garnett and Odom slapped him on the butt. KG took offense and the two talked sh*t for a few moments until teammates came and broke it up.

4. Garnett’s sixth foul changed the game.
It was a ticky-tack foul and the official should have known better. This is the NBA — when a superstar has five fouls, you better make sure that if you’re going to foul him out, he better damn well deserve it. There was barely any contact, Derek Fisher flopped and the ref fell for it. And it probably changed the outcome of the game.

5. Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar are probably the two most annoying players in the NBA.
If I sat down and thought about it, I could probably come up with a few others, but there is no player more annoying than Sasha “The Machine” Vujacic. He has the greasy hair held back by some sort of girly hair net and he complains about every call. There was a great sequence in the first half when the Celtics made a run where Vujacic had back-to-back turnovers that led to five points for Boston. I love watching him get pissed off as he get benched. As for Farmar, as soon as he gets into the game he starts bitching to the refs. I wish some of these younger guys would just play ball.

6. Kobe was the difference in the end.
Say what you will about the Laker supporting cast. Lamar Odom was slightly less soft than usual and Pau Gasol did his crazy homeless look every time he made a good play, but it was Kobe’s three straight bombs over Paul Pierce late in the fourth quarter that really got the Lakers back into the game. He had an opening for the first shot, but Pierce was right in his face for the last two and Kobe still managed to knock them down.

This rivalry is very much alive. All due respect to the Cavs and the Spurs, but even though I generally root against the Lakers throughout the playoffs, I’d love to see another Boston/L.A. Finals this year.

Offseason Movement: The Lakers re-signed Sasha Vujacic and signed Chinese guard Sun Yue. They probably overspent on Vujacic (three years, $15 million) but had to compete with European teams for his services. Vujacic had a great year shooting the ball, but didn’t play particularly well in the Finals, especially on defense.
Keep Your Eye On: Lamar Odom
It’s not clear how Odom is going to fit in with Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum on the Laker front line. It’s going to be tough for Kobe Bryant to find any room to drive when the three big men are on the court at the same time, so the most likely scenario has Odom or Bynum coming off the bench. It’s going to take some time Bynum and Gasol to get used to playing with each other, and if Odom is the one coming off the bench, he’ll have to adjust to a sixth man role. The good news is that if things aren’t working by the trade deadline, they can probably unload Odom for a good player that is a better fit.
The Big Question: Is Bynum’s return enough to get the Lakers over the hump?
Conventional wisdom states that if you take a team that lost in the Finals the previous season and add an up-and-coming seven-foot center to the rotation, then the team will inevitably be better. While that’s certainly a distinct possibility, there’s no guarantee that Bynum will jive with the rest of the rotation. Just because the Lakers are better on paper, it doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to once again run the gauntlet that is the Western Conference playoffs. A lot of things had to go right for the Lakers to make the Finals last year, and a lot of things have to go right for them to make a second straight trip.
Outlook: Despite some training camp kinks that need to be worked out, there is no team in the league with more talent top to bottom. They also have one of the best coaches in the league, so the Lakers are the odds-on favorite to with the title, and rightfully so. Still, there are a number of roadblocks they’ll have to overcome. First, Phil Jackson must find a way to use Gasol, Bynum and Odom to the best of their abilities without limiting what Kobe can do on the drive. Second, Kobe must stay healthy, which means the problem he has with his shooting hand can’t bother him too much and those knees have to stay relatively pain-free. And lastly, they must show better toughness if they meet the Celtics again in the Finals. Bynum brings a lot to the table, but he’s not going to make this team tough by himself. The Celtics were hungrier than the Lakers last season, but now the roles are reversed. If Jackson can get Odom, Bynum and Gasol to play together well, or if the Lakers can trade Odom for a better fit, they should make it to the Finals again. There is just too much talent here; they should be able to figure it out.