Shaquille O’Neal Goes Hollywood While Kobe Bryant Goes To Church

A man is considering suing Kobe Bryant after he says 24 injured his wrist when the star snatched away his phone because he thought the man was taking pictures of Bryant at church. Bryant, with his warrior/Russell Crowe in Gladiator image, probably can’t afford to have pictures of him in church leak out. Imagine what that would do to his toughness cred? OMG, Kobe goes to church?! He’s not a machine. He’s not a ruthless killer who doesn’t have a life, and thinks about murdering his enemies every second of every single day. … Not to mention, Kobe took the Drew League by storm last night, scoring 45 points and doing what KB does: hitting the game-winning jumper in James Harden‘s grill. Leave it up to Bean to go and do that in a summer league game … We ran a mock draft, and then simulated it on NBA 2K11. Did the best team win? … While Dennis Rodman is receiving the love and attention of everyone surrounding his Hall of Fame induction, there’s another member of his class that had nearly an equally interesting journey. Tex Winter. He was a relic, a fundamentals coach in a game of superstars and larger-than-life personalities. He helped to teach the greatest player of all-time, and the greatest coach of all-time. Without Tex Winter, Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson might not have ever happened as we know them. A former scout and front office executive in the league wrote a piece about his induction, and offered an interesting bit that Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan once discussed: that Clyde Drexler could’ve been on MJ’s level if he had Winter as a coach. An undisciplined player pitted with the most old school coach ever. Sounds like a great marriage. To us, Drexler always was slightly overrated. He was a good player, but could never win anything as the go-to guy because his game was always missing something. Without a jump shot for most of his prime, it always came back to bite him in the playoffs. He just wasn’t quite good enough to get to that next level. By the time he finally did start hitting some perimeter shots, he was No. 2 in Houston behind the Dream … Want to see the evolution of every NBA team’s logo? … Kendrick Perkins is maintaining his innocence over the club fight this weekend, and now is considering filing a police brutality suit as well … Known for some hot and no-so hot acting opportunities, Shaquille O’Neal wants back into Hollywood, this time as a director. He’s taken classes for it, and as TMZ says, he’s “about to complete the Filmmaking Conservatory at the New York Film Academys branch at Universal Studios Hollywood.” What do you think will be the synopsis of his first film? … You might remember a few weeks ago when Michael Beasley said something about the Drew League to the tune of: they aren’t hard. It’s real out here in the streets man. Beasley has been riding all summer for his Goodman League brothers, saying they will definitely win the huge matchup with the Drew League this weekend. Too bad now he’s not playing. Beasley is headed to Beijing on Friday to play on an all-star team in the Continental Club Basketball Championships, and can’t make it back for the game. No word yet on whether this was scheduled all along, but it’s just funny. This seems to be the exact type of thing Beasley would do. Run his mouth all summer, and then not even be there when the action takes place. Bummer, because the atmosphere is going to be insane this Saturday, and who knows what B-Easy would’ve done? … You know there will be some dribbling highlights in that game, and yesterday we wrote about trying to build that ballhandling ability, getting that ball on a string. What was the most effective drill you’ve ever done to get your handles? … In our daily “who’s rumored to go where?” segment, it’s Tony Parker to possibly France, Amar’e Stoudemire again to Israel, Justin Harper taking Antawn Jamison‘s spot overseas and the Nets to the Humphries/Kardashian wedding … And when we sent some of the Dime crew to Springfield for the Hall of Fame ceremonies, we didn’t anticipate stories like this … We’re out like Shaquille Scorsese.