Carmelo Anthony agreed to walk through Zydrunas Ilgauskas’ $37,500-a-month townhouse at 24 Thompson St., after Ilgauskas, who plays for the Miami Heat, pitched it to Melo during a recent Knicks’ victory. The five-bedroom townhouse, represented by Josh Fields of Spire Group, is 5,000 square feet and has hoopster-friendly 15-foot ceilings

I really like this story for some reason. Maybe it’s the inside, behind the scenes conversation we’re privy to, or just the genuine helpful nature Ilgauskas, a player we don’t hear to much from these days, puts on display. (Yes, I realize he’s in a position to profit, but who cares. It’s a win win for everybody.) Maybe it’s the funny fact that a player who averages 17.2 minutes per game will collect rent from one of the league’s biggest superstars. And doesn’t the thought of a 7’3″ Zydrunas Ilgauskas strolling down 5th Avenue with a silk scarf hanging off his neck and an ashy cigarette dangling from his lip make you chuckle?

Don't let the open arms confuse you. If you say something David Stern doesn't like, he'll fine you. No, there's no truth to the rumor that The Beatles wrote "Back In The USSR" about him. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

First off, please, please, please don’t confuse me for a whiney Boston Celtics fan. I actually was excited for them two years ago when they got Kevin Garnett because I felt like KG and Paul Pierce were two guys who deserved a shot and I wanted to see what they could do. Then they both, particularly KG, turned into jerks. So now I’m staunchly anti-Celts. I hope they lose this series, and I’m psyched that the Magic won last night. But Orlando shouldn’t have been helped out so egregiously by the refs.

No, I’m not a conspiracy nut either who thinks the “League” told the refs to extend the series. I just think that the refs and the NBA honchos have let the power go to their heads. It’s insane how afraid the league is of dissention. For those who didn’t watch last night’s game, Kendrick Perkins, the one guy in the league who can do a decent job defending Dwight Howard solo, got two technicals and was tossed. The first happened when he was helping Paul Pierce up, but their grip slipped so his arm went back a bit into Orlando’s backup center Marcin Gortat. Gortat responded, slapping the ball away, and they got hit by double technicals. I understand that one. At the time, particularly from certain angles, it looked like Perk just maliciously elbowed Gortat on purpose. But upon video review, you can see it was more of an accident.

To read the rest of this, go to my original post on the main FanSided page.

It doesn't matter if you hate Chicago's Derrick Rose. As a Knicks' fan you should root for him to expose Cleveland's Mo Williams so that a certain King will get frustrated and wanna leave the Cavs. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

It’s Fan Appreciation 101 to root for your team to win, but as anyone who’s taken higher classes in Team Supportation knows, that’s just the tip o’ the iceberg.  Sometimes you gotta see the larger picture, which may require you to hope your team actually loses for say a better draft position.  The Indiana Pacers finished the season playing some of their best ball, but that annoyed many true-blooded Indy fans since it destroyed their lottery chances.  Other times, you may root for your team to lose so that the owner finally wises up and sees it has to fire that crappy coach or GM (or both — hello Isiah Thomas and Mike Dunleavy Sr.).

Frequently, as a member of the faithful, you may even have to root for outcomes in games featuring other teams.  Say you’re battling for the 8th seed in the playoffs, then you gotta watch the games involving the other teams in the battle so you can root against them.  Or maybe you’re assured of being in the playoffs, but you know you match up against one team better than another.  Now you gotta cheer for the right teams to win and the wrong ones to lose all so that everything falls perfectly for your one true team.

However, with the Knicks’ eliminated from the playoffs long-ago, what’s a Knick fan to root for?  Things that will help us out in free agency.  I spent the last month of the regular season caring less about the Knicks’ wins/loss total than about the outcome of the Raptors/Bulls’ battle for the final playoff spot.  I figured that if the Raptors don’t make the playoffs, then surely Chris Bosh’s chances of remaining in Toronto drop rapidly.  Does this mean he’s a sure-fire Knick, or even that he’s my top choice?  No, but I like to improve my odds as much as possible.  Had the Pacers finished with the fifth worst record instead of the tenth, they still might not have won the lottery, but it wouldn’t have hurt.

Thus, for a true Knick fan, here are the things for which we should be rooting in order to increase our chances during the free agency period:

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(source: Yardbarker.com) Like a little girl in puppy love, New York hopes we're the one LeBron's eyeing.

Seems ESPN has launched ESPN NewYork.com today and decided to promote it by rehashing the ol’ Will LeBron James Go To New York story.  There’s a surprisingly large amount of Nothing New, mixed in with Shameless Sensationalizing, Idiotic Conclusions Based On Personal Feelings, and just Awful Math.  That said, there were maybe a couple of Intriguing Bits to me, but it might all feel redundant to y’all.  Without further ado:

Idiotic Conclusions:

The worst part was where the sportswriters speculated the percent chance of LeBron going to one team or another.  Let’s start with Mark Stein saying there’s a 10% chance that LeBron will go to Dallas.  10%???  10% means 1 in 10!  You’re going out tonight and your choosing between your ten favorite restaurants — that gives each one a really good shot at being chosen.  Thankfully, of the four other Dallas writers, they all only gave it a 1-3% chance.  I like Stein’s writing a bunch, but his thesis his based on this you-can-substitute-LeBron’s-name-with-anyone statement:

I firmly believe LeBron likes the thought of playing with Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, trusts Mark Cuban to be an owner who will always spend whatever it takes to contend and loves the city of Dallas and Cowboys football

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Bosh revealed that he’s not necessarily interested in playing anywhere that he’s not the clear-cut franchise player.

“That’s a good question,” Bosh said when asked by ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher if he’s bothered by the widespread perception that he’s determined to follow either LeBron James or Dwyane Wade by signing on with one of the teams they choose starting July 1.

“It’s funny you say that, because I was thinking about it. I was just looking at what people say and it’s like, ‘Chris is going to go here and play with him or this, this and that.’ I’m like, ‘Wait a minute.’ I feel like I should be built around. And maybe that’s just my ego talking, but I feel that I’m a very good player in this league and I’m only going to get better. So … maybe we should be getting somebody [in Toronto].”

Bosh would probably be outta Toronto in a sec if one of the three teams in home state Texas were in the running

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For those who don’t know, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ center, a large man by the name of Shaquille O’Neal, had surgery on his finger which is causing him to miss the next month or so.  In addition they traded away their back-up 7+ footer, Zydrunas Ilgauskas (although due to an odd loophole he’ll be able to return to the team in 30 days).  That’s not to say we should’ve expected the Cavs to be anything less than awesome, but it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to hope that we wouldn’t get quite as hammered on the boards since they also wouldn’t have a single seven-footer in their line-up.  No such luck.  They nearly doubled our rebounds, 60-to-31.

That is, if this game actually existed, that might’ve been what happened.  But as we all know it was just a bad dream.

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–To Be Filed Under “And You Thought Jordan Hill Was A Bad Draft Pick”

When Brandon Jennings, the #10 pick in this last year’s draft, started showing he’s fo’ real, everyone bitched about the Knicks not snagging him with their #8 pick.  ‘Course that means 9 other teams passed on him too, so it’s not like NYC was the only one who misjudged him.  And with #1 pick Blake Griffin injured and unable to play a single minute this season, really the only two higher picks who’ve been clearly better are Tyreke Evans and Stephen Curry.  Others like James Harden and Jonny Flynn have been solid, and word is that Minnesota Timberwolves’ pick Ricky Rubio has been phenomenal  …playing over in Europe.  Everyone thought the draft would only produce one stud (Griffin) and the other players would be mediocre.  Instead, they’ve done wildly better than anyone would’ve guessed.  Which only makes it sting more for the Memphis Grizzlies who just sent their #2 pick, Hasheem Thabeet, to the D-League.  While his name is pretty darn fun to say (or even to sing, particularly when you replace the chorus of the Go-Go Girls’ “We Got The Beat” with his name), he will be the highest draft pick EVER sent to the D-League.  The dude is so bad that the Grizz decided to replace him at backup center with Iranian, Hamed Haddadi, who thinks he’s playing something called “net ball.”

–The Last Straw

Newly acquired Dallas Maverick, Caron Butler, has been banned by the NBA league office.  Banned from chewing on straws during games.  Really?  We’ve become so overly concerned about appearances that we’re cracking down on straw chewing?  And for those of you who think “straw chewing” is a euphemism or slang for something, no, it’s literally what it sounds like: Caron likes to sit on the bench and chew on McDonald’s straws.  Since Butler used to play for the Wizards, the Washington Post once did a hard-hitting news piece on this insidious habit:

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