Linkstuff, and the Lakers are killin’ it right now!

The ‘Chip is definitely within reach these days… If you have watched the Lakers play, and seen the other contenders out there, the Purple and Gold have a really good shot at winning it all this year! They are currently in first place, they have a seven game winning streak going, and their starting center is about three weeks away from coming back, and they have a relatively easy schedule to finish out the year. This is looking better and better.

Great story in SI about dunkers and their first dunks. Lebron, ‘Nique, Baron Davis, and Henry Bekkering. If you don’t know who HB is, you are slippin’, PeeP:

This is really good news for all of us The Wire fans, basically David Simon the creator of the Wire has been working on a show about New Orleans, he actually started before Katrina and has been working on the pilot for a few years. This show will be awesome, I can already see it, plus in this interview with the Times, Dominic West says they are talking about a Wire movie. I’m excited.

For all of us BMW fans, here is something special: At the Geneva ’08 Car show, they unveiled full unrestricted in car Internet access, I like it.

This could be bad for Vegas and all of us who like to shoot out there for the weekend. IRS agents raided Pure Management Groups offices, Uh Oh!

Tiger Woods crushes another opponent in match play. This could be a really bad year for the players on tour. Financially they are all going to be fine, but they wont be winning too many tournaments that he is playing in. 8 and , jeez, that is over 36 holes but he was 4-up after the first 18.

Raul officially takes over for Fidel in Cuba.

Oprah’s a Beast, but in the good way… part 2

One of Forbes annuals list is the valuation of the top earning black celebrities. O dot has the number one spot because between June 2006 and June 2007, Winfrey, 54, pocketed $260 million. That astonishing salary–it works out to some $712,000 a day–crowns her not just the nation’s top-earning African-American, but also the highest-paid entertainer in Tinseltown, black or white. Check out the top ten list right herre…

1. Oprah Winfrey $260 million
2. Tiger Woods $100 million
3. Jay-Z $83 million
4. 50 Cent $33 million
5. Kobe Bryant $33 million
6. Shaquille O’Neal $32 million
7. Michael Jordan $31 million
8. Will Smith $31 million
9. Beyonce $27 million
10. LeBron James $27 million

I don’t know if I necessarily can believe this list allt he way, because Magic Johnson should be somewhere in here. Plus, didn’t fiddy make like $100 off of that vitamin water deal. I think that came after the cut off date, so next year will probably look very different. One thing that will remain the same though, Oprah at number 1

More Inside Nike

More from Inside Nike, which airs tonight on CNBC and for the next few Tuesdays. Also a slide show from a factory making kicks, doesn’t look like a sweatshop to me…

Why Can’t We All Just Be Like Tiger?

Great article in this months Golf Digest on El Tigre called, The Year of Living Dangerously

…And on that title when I was at the Tiger Woods Invitational, aka The Target World Challenge, the other day and I was lucky enough to cross paths a few times with Mr. Woods, it got me to thinking: Why don’t we ever hear any crazy car jacking, shoot out type of stories with the Tiger Wood’s and Alex Rodriguez’s of the sportworld? I keep hearing how athletes are becoming targets because of their money and random guys envy, but the more i think about it, that doesn’t fly. Who has more money than Tiger, or A-Rod, or Bron-Bron? We all know how much they make, or can approximate from what we read in the paper. But we never hear about shoot outs and home invasion with them do we? You can bring up google earth right now and probably find their homes. I know that Alex Rodriguez made about $187.5m from his last deal and could make almost twice that in the next 10 years. I know that Bron is building a castle somewhere outside of Cleveland and that he has a condo close to the Quicken Loans Arena that he stays at the night of games because he doesn’t want to drive out to the country late at night. To make it even more broad, Will Smith makes about $25m when he attaches his name to a movie script, and his life has been drama free since he left Philly to hang out with Uncle Phil. I hate to say it, but there has to be something about the guys that are getting caught up in this. It’s not a stretch to probably say that they aren’t “bad guys” but I do think that maybe they aren’t making the best decisions. But even that assessment is difficult though because I am not talking about the guys who are getting their houses broken into, and I don’t think we can even fault the guys who are “out to dinner” and get jacked for their necklaces. But there has go to be something there right? It has to be more than just random crime. Unfortunately, I don’t know what it is. Why must this stuff even happen at all. Why does one man or woman believe that they deserve to steal what someone else has rightfully obtained? What happened to a hard days work and earning. The guys, these athletes, have talent which they are being rewarded for. Yes, I will give you that guys like Mark Blount or Tim Thomas some of them don’t deserve it, but I know that most of them work very hard at being really good at what they do. It’s not their fault that our society places their jobs in such a high regard, or high enough that we are willing to spend a weeks paycheck on tickets to a game and all that comes with game night. But it is our fault that society places a premium on getting and not earning. Look at this whole housing debacle, if the brokers, and appraisers, and agents, and underwriters, and hedge fund managers, and homeowners weren’t only worried about “getting more” we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Eric and Parish aint the only ones making dollars!

Wow!!! Sports Illustrated has calculated the top 50 earning sportsman for the year 2007… We knew these cats made a lof of paper, but this shit is getting ridiculous! 4 of the top 10 ball in th eleague, 10 of the top 25, and plenty of other hoopsta’s sprinkled into the top fiddy. “either you slingin’ crack rock, or you got a wicked jump shot!” I don’t know about you, but I will take the jumper… You know, your chances of getting shot are a lot lower playin’ ball right? A little bit at least …

Anyways, the top five goes like this :

Tiger Woods $111.9m

Oscar De La Hoya $55m

Phil Mickelson $51.2m

Shaq $35m

Kobe $33.7m

check out the full list here …

Quiet as is kept, swinging golf clubs might not be a bad look either…