Monday Bullets

• Magic fans should fear Dwight Howard's leading comments in Esquire about ditching Orlando, where -- he points out -- there is a burger named after him. But the other 29 markets should fear his new brainiac robo-free-throw coach: "The only way my game is going to free up is if I start shooting 80 per-cent or better from the line. That's going to be my main area of concern this year, getting my free throws better. I met the best shooting coach I could ever find -- I've seen him make 200 free throws in a row with his eyes closed, all net, no rim, nothing. He's all science, man -- he's one of the smartest people I've ever met."
• When the tornadoes hit Joplin, C.I. Shelton moved in with his mother. This Paris Review account of events includes a glancing mention of Scottie Pippen: "One man told me about how his apartment complex pancaked. He smushed one hand on top of the other and rubbed them together to simulate. He claimed he wasn’t scared at all the whole time. 'We live right smack dab on the buckle of the Bible Belt, son,' he explained. 'I mean, maybe,' he scratched at his ear. 'Maybe it was the Big Man’s way of telling people to get their minds right.' I moved back in with my mother. She asked me if I was scared, if I cried, if I had insurance, why not, if I’d gotten any sympathy sex, why not. She was going through menopause and kept her place unfathomably cold. But she’d left my room just as I’ve always kept it: a disintegrating poster of Scottie Pippen looming on the wall over my desk; stacks of magazines, credit-card offers, and bank statements. I began wading in, separating the trash from the skim-worthy, the skim-worthy from the essential, wondering how so many credit-card offers can accumulate in such a short time."
• Magic Johnson takes one shot after another at LeBron James, says there is no way he is better than Kobe Bryant.
• Ethan Sherwood Strauss thinks David Stern might be going a little strong in blaming the players. On HoopSpeak he writes: "Like a horror movie protagonist who stumbles into a smoky room of funhouse mirrors, I’m surrounded by David Stern distortions. Feinting this way and that, he’s toying with me from angles oblique, smugly cackling while smudging my brain folds. Before I know it, I’m mumbling 'You can’t revenue share your way to profitability,' in a lobotomized drone, to a highly-offended homeless man."
• It costs money to be a nice guy, apparently. Lockout is proving it can also be expensive to be a jerk.
• Maybe the two sides should text each other more? (Via Ted Leonsis.)
• If you work at Conseco Fieldhouse, you're invited to dinner with Danny Granger.
• Rudy Fernandez looks pretty happy in Spain.
• Amare Stoudemire says Ronny Turiaf and Boris Diaw smell the worst of any NBA players.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/32589/monday-bullets-223

Richard Lee Rudd Hernandez Yeley Chris Bosh Kevin Conway Minnesota Timberwolves Chauncey Billups