King,

Although I agree with your general criticism of coaches who bench players rotely when they pick up their second or fourth fouls in the first or second halves, respectively, I think you misapply it to Ben Howland's decision to bench Jordan Farmar with about four minutes left in Saturday's game. At the time that Farmar picked up his fourth, he was (a) not playing well, having recently committed a couple sloppy turnovers, (b) visibly unhinged over what he perceived to be poor officiating, especially on his phantom-charge third foul, and (c) hurt, having bruised both of his wrists on the drive to the basket that resulted in the charge. Fourth foul or not, at the time that Howland benched Farmer, Darren Collison was simply the steadier, better option to run the point.

Congratulations to the Florida Gators on their mid-tournament promotion.

Nope. It has never happened.

But it could have used a football hitting someone in the groin.

The subject matter of this column... I am unfamiliar with it.

It'll bother us all for a few days, then we'll get used to it and forget we ever minded.

(Until then, however: King, what's up with the new format, man? Seems like a solution to a problem that didn't exist.)

Hoc-... key??

Sideline reporters could talk to them from now until the Rapture, and NBA coaches still wouldn't say anything interesting.

"Coach, what does your team have to do in the second half to get back in this one?"

"Well, we gotta take better care of the ball... stay aggressive, just play our game... if we do those things and execute on offense, we'll be fine."

King, I take issue with your calling this game a "classic." Yeah, it was a close Game Seven, and yeah, Pierce and LeBron were awesome, but for long stretches the quality of play was low. The Cavs in particular are brutal to watch: their offensive sets are a joke, they commit a ridiculous number of stupid defensive fouls when the ball's nowhere near the basket, and they give serious minutes to three or four guys about whom you wonder how they're even in the league.

I loathe the Celtics but found myself rooting for them yesterday, after concluding that allowing the Cavs to continue their season would be an unforgivable crime against basketball fans everywhere.

It must be awful, right? Being set up for dunks and open threes while the opposing D is collapsing on the league MVP? Winning 57 games in the Western Conference? Laying waste to Denver, Utah and San Antonio en route to the NBA Finals? Enjoying the adulation of the L.A. fans and media that comes with wearing a Laker uniform deep into June?

What a grim existence. No doubt Gasol wishes he were still in Memphis, where he didn't have to put up with such indignities. The others, no doubt, are preparing to demand trades to Charlotte and Milwaukee, where behavior counterproductive to winning simply isn't tolerated.

doesn't see what the big deal is.

The Fonzie statue can work, but only if it depicts him jumping a shark on water skis. It would then be both a literal tribute to his coolness and a subtextual critique of the ballpark-statue trend.

...is that they couldn't sing and they weren't cute enough. (My God, those biker shorts!) It also didn't help that they couldn't dance.

King, today's column was very Favre-like. The readers in Green Bay are ecstatic!

King, what's your source in claiming that the Browns have benched Anderson? Everything I've seen states that he's still the starting quarterback.

Soon to be renamed Chinese Democracy.

(I kid, I kid!)

In my view, the three biggest sports stories of 2008 were as follows.

1. The New York Giants beating the New England Patriots in an epic Super Bowl upset that denied the Patriots the first perfect, 19-0 season in history.

2. The Tampa Bay Rays, the Platonic ideal of low-rent MLB franchises, jumping from 66 wins in 2007 to the AL pennant in 2008.

3. The return to power of the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA's two flagship brands.

And in my view, the most under-reported story of 2008 was referee Wilbur Hackett's tackle of South Carolina QB Stephen Garcia in the Gamecocks' battle with LSU on October 18th. Let's review: a freaking referee tackled the quarterback during live play in an SEC game. That this story became nothing more than a SportsCenter/YouTube curio baffles me to no end.