A Comparison of Birthday Parties Between Tony Allen and Dwyane Wade

Two NBA shooting guards celebrated their birthdays today, the Memphis Grizzlies's tough-nosed defensive pest, Tony Allen, and the Heat's unconventional first name speller, Dwyane Wade.

T.A. had a pretty chill party with family, friends and a layered cake topped with a basketball.  Very elementary school style of cake, but if it was also an ice cream cake (cookies and cream flavor, duh), then I'd have to say he pretty much  covered all the necessities for celebrating his day of birth.

Wade?  Oh...he had a little get together on a 3 story yacht that was named after his self-given nickname.  

the NBA, where diversely cool birthday parties sometimes happen.

Nickname Suggestions For Three Brooklyn Nets Players

If you haven't read about it already, the first of three "nickname jersey" games will be played this Friday between the Brooklyn Nets and the Miami Heat.  Players from both teams will wear nicknames on their uniforms rather than the names their mama's gave them.

If this sounds like a cheesy way to sell some extra jerseys and sound strangely similar to what Chad Johnson voluntarily did for himself when he was on the Cincinatti Bengals, then I completely agree. But it could be worse.  It could be more sleeved jerseys.

This afternoon the Sun-Sentinal reported what the 15 nicknames the Miami Heat players will wear.  I've copied over the list for your enjoyment:

Joel Anthony: "Doc"
Shane Battier: "Battle"
Michael Beasley: "B Easy"
Chris Bosh: "CB"
Mario Chalmers: "Rio"
Norris Cole: "Cole Train"
Udonis Haslem: "UD"
LeBron James: "King James"
James Jones: "JJ"
Rashard Lewis: "Sweet Lew"
Roger Mason Jr.: "MoneyMase"
Greg Oden: "G.O."
Dwyane Wade: "D.Wade"

Since the Nets haven't released a similar article of their own, I guess I will have to wait in suspense about what guys in the locker room call Tornike Shengelia or if Tyshawn Taylor goes by "Ty Ty" or "Tay Tay". I did come up with the three best nicknames I could make up for the Nets players that don't already have well-known nicknames of their own. They are...

1. Alan "Alan" Anderson

Cause thats his first name but also because thats what you get when you combine the first two letters of his first name with the first two letters of his last name.

2.  Mirza "Bear Hater" Teletovic  

Cause he once joked about tearing apart the huge mammal on his twitter account. Figuratively, of course.

3. Mason "Jar of" Plumlee

Cause Roger Mason already has "Money Mase" on his jersey and only a guy who went to Duke could pull off having a preposition as a nickname.

Chris Andersen and Greg Stiesma Face Swap

Sometimes two guys can be basically be the same height (6'10" and 6'11") and the same weight (245 lbs and 260 lbs) and have faces that totally look normal when applied to either players' bodies.

One, Chris Andersen Twins

Two, Greg Stiemsma Twins

Then with some help from my fiance, the below images were put together to help me conclude that the Birdman and Big Greg could totally be brothers or just guys with really interchangeable faces.

image originally accessed on nba.com
Credit: Issac Baldizon/NBAE/Getty Images

Video: Roy Hibbert Makes Jokes About Hairlines Before Game Versus Heat

At first, he was just video-bombing,
But then Roy tossed out a very decent Stephen A zing.

"Hows my hairline compared to..." asks Stephen A
Spoiler: Roy basically says "better than the King's"

Justin Timberlake and A Summary of His NBA Fanhood

It's pretty confusing to figure out Mr Timberlake's allegiances when it comes to nba teams, so I figure I'd do an outline for all of our education.

1) Being from Memphis and also a part owner, I was pretty sure he'd only beeen repping the Grizz. 

2) Then again, I remembered he was on team Sixers squad that made it to the finals of the NBA "Hoop-it-up" competition at the 2002 All-Star weekend.

Harry How - Getty Images

3) He also seems to be a Lakers fan.  Or at least a very enthusiastic Kobe hand-shaker.

4) Then last night, Rasual Butler showed off a picture  of Justin Timberlake chilling with some Pacers and their coaches before their game against the Miami Heat.

Sidenote, I cannot believe that Paul George is wearing socks and sandals like I do when I go to fresh-and-easy on the weekend to pick up a snack or that Rasual Butler still wears cargo pants.

4) Then found out via Dwyane Wade's Instagram that he, Mario Chalmers and Lebron James also took really chummy-lookin' photos with Timberlake.

Justin Timberlake must have made his way over to the Heat guys after the game, cause he was busy hanging out with the Pacers before the game (as you can see from the previous picture).

Really tight line that Timberlake is teetering on of being a big fat band wagoner.  No one likes a one-man bandwagon of random NBA teams; I won't mention names but I will offer up this link.

Overall, it looks like Mr. Timberlake is just a really big fan of the NBA and taking photos with his thumbs in his pocket.  Which, I suppose, you could say is something I could have surmised just by seeing that generic NBA logo cap he was wearing last night.

Really political cap choice by the way.  It's basically what used to happen to me when I was little and I would be wearing my 'in-n-out' shirt to get a burger with my moms.  Oftentimes, the nice server lady would come over and compliment me on my shirt and then give me a free pack of stickers after delivering my double-double.

Jay Timberlake and that hat must have the same effect as his cap basically says,"hey you guys I really appreciate the company you work for.  Would you mind posing with me for some instagram pictures."

Shane Battier is Doing Movember

Saw that Tom Haberstroh tweeted that Shane Battier is not shaving the hair on his upper lip for the all-November long event of raising awareness for prostate cancer known as Movember.

Battier is the perfect NBA player to be the unofficial player rep as he rocks as stellar of a mustache as they come (see photo above).  That's a photo from last May when Shane was just growing out a mustache for funsies, but I'm hoping he keeps his stache as lined up for this month as he did last year.

With the holidays coming up, I figure we all will have a little more time to go to the doctor's.  So since I can't grow any facial hair, this will serve as my awareness and reminder to get our prostates checked.

Video: James Jones singing Cee-Lo

Besides being a stellar three point shooter, you can also add in quick-with-the-wit in his kaorakee singing as part of the too-personal scouting report for James Jones. 

Watch till the end for the Pat Riley/Erik Spoelstra improvisation.


"Yo Pat, tell your boy to give me more minutes. I wanna play".
-the cry of miami heat bench players for the reason of the season.

Dwyane Wade is a tattle-tale

Mr. Wade got some front-row fashionista in Utah thrown out last night.

For proof see the video below.  A scary coincidence that the security guard doing the 'throwing' out looks like my 5th grade teacher. Whatever Mr. studs on his white pants did, it worked as Wade and the Heat were beat by 7 despite a ferocious 4th quarter comeback after Wade tattled and got the bro thrown out.

 Way worth it, jazzie brother.

Video: Lebron Will Shake Your Hand

It is well-documented that Lebron kind of has this thing where he tends to leave dudes hanging.  But before you label him as a big hand holding hatington, note that if he zips a lead pass which is not caught and hits you in the face, you will indeed get a hand hug.

Highlight: Bledsoe Stuffs Wade

Eric bledsoe with the most dwyane wade-y type block against the heat.


poor dwyane wade who has made highlight reels of him blocking older taller guys got it did to him here.

A classic role reversal of old and young which is actually an underlining theme in the new Boy Meets World remake.

Me and My Baby Boy Contest: Rose vs Battier

Congrats to Derrick Rose and his newborn, PJ.

When Rose hopefully returns in March (3/27) or April (4/14) to play the Heat, I really hope Battier scolds him for opting for skins when he could have wore matching tuxedo shirts like Shane and baby Zeke.  

First, the standard-bearer for nba daddy & infant picture, and then DRose and his son.