People have accused us of some anti-international crusade a few times this summer because of pieces of news we relayed about overseas ball. Let’s clear it up a bit: if you’re a basketball fan (like we all are) you WANT to see the players overseas. Obviously, you’d rather see the NBA down to get down, but if that won’t happen, give us the next best thing. Every player we’ve talked to this season has said the same things: they would play overseas. No questions asked. Some, like Will Bynum, even admitted the international game made them the players they are today. But when you get these odd stories, like goat heads being cut off and rubbing the blood around for good luck, how can you not read with your eyes wide open? So the latest story comes from the same game where it was reported Michael Beasley first injured his wrist. He went on to do a couple of dunks in a dunk contest, and then the wrist got progressively worse. But that wasn’t even the craziest thing from that game. Supposedly, both B-Easy and Paul Pierce had asthma attacks. Chinese fans are allowed to smoke in the arena, and it must’ve got so bad (or at least bad for the Americans who aren’t used to balling in a haze of second-hand smoke) they both nearly had to stop playing. Both players had terrible games, but when you can’t breathe, you get a pass. With 75 percent of the male population smoking, and with the ability to do it basically anywhere, this shouldn’t be all that surprising … Did you check out the latest DimeBag? Keep those great/weirdly interesting submissions coming … Chronic elbow bursitis was a popular term around these parts in NYC for most of the spring and then even into the summer. Carmelo Anthony and his bad elbow. It had the potential to ruin the sequel, next season, and the expectations. The longer it dragged on, the more it seemed like it would never go away. But as he showed and told in the crazy All-Star playground game on Tuesday, he’s back to 100 percent. Anthony said that was the first time all summer he had really just played and not had to worry about anything. Somewhere, Amar’e is smiling … In some real basketball action (finally), Dirk Nowitzki dropped 25 and Germany annihilated Israel by 27 in its first game of the European Championship while Pau Gasol went off for 29 in Spain’s 83-78 win over Poland. Along with that, Gasol said he has nothing to prove after his playoff debacle. Whatever you say Pau. Tony Parker took it back with 31 points in France’s 89-78 win over Latvia, and Serbia beat Italy by 12 despite 22 from Andrea Bargnani … We had a ton of arguments yesterday about a top 10 alley-oops video we posted. Almost all of them made sense. But what we were surprised at is we believe only one person (Chicagorilla) mentioned that insane (and very memorable) Isiah Thomas lob when he bounced it off the floor first … We dropped the cover of Dime #65 yesterday and the response was off the charts. Literally. It crashed the site. Aquille Carr not only stops crime in Baltimore, he crashes web sites now too … And Yao Ming asked that his Hall of Fame nomination be put on hold. He has too much respect for everyone involved to be thrown in right away … We’re out like ‘Melo’s injury.
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