Rajon Rondo is back to his old triple double antics

There hasn't been a triple double guy like Rondo in a long time.

Last spring Rajon Rondo was a triple double machine.  I'm honestly kind of surprised it took him 19 games to get one this season.  His 16 points, 13 rebounds, 14 assists, 3 steals, and 3 blocks last night has only been matched in each category twice in NBA history (since the league started keeping track of blocks and steals in 1973).  Larry Bird did it in 1982, and Magic Johnson in 1983.  That's it; nobody else has put up those numbers in almost thirty years.  It's also the second occasion in the past 9 months that Rondo has posted a stat line which ranks among the all-time 3 best of it's kind.

Yesterday was Rondo's 10th regular season triple double of the last three seasons, more than the next two players on the list combined (Lebron 5, Andre Iguodala 4).  Including the playoffs, Rondo now has 24 triple doubles in his career.  His averages in those 24 games are pretty ridiculous: 17.4 PTS, 11.8 REB, and 15.1 AST.  He's also recorded at least 20 assists as part of a triple double five times.

On a related note, take a look at my article "Can you name the C's last triple double before Rondo?" for CelticsLife.com.

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Reebok Pumps still exist?

When I walked into the locker room at my work yesterday, these shoes were sitting there on the floor:

Apparently Reebok is making Pumps again.  Or maybe they never stopped.  I just know that I hadn't seen them in a long, long time.  Twenty-some years ago they were the coolest shoe on the planet, and my adolescent years were mildly traumatized by being unable to afford them.  The second I saw this pair I instantly though of Dee Brown.  In 1990 the Celtics rookie was my favorite basketball player, and he wore Pumps just like these.  Dee gained national fame and stardom (while also becoming Reebok's #1 salesman in the process) later that season by winning the 1991 All Star Game Slam Dunk Contest.

He pumps his shoes at the :42 second mark of this clip, and does the famous "no-look dunk" at 4:28.  If you have time, I highly recommend watching the whole thing.  Rex Chapman got robbed, he had no business not making the finals (despite his spandex):

This led to Dee being featured in a major Reebok commercial shortly thereafter:

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What's going on in Brazil?

I've had a solid little bump in my traffic for the past week or so to lucidsportsfan.com.  I can't pinpoint it to a link from any one site, or a particular post that I've written.  But what I can see is that a large portion of it is coming from Brazil.  It's weird, like back when I first started writing and a bunch of people from Hungary visited.  Except this is a lot more, roughly 50 a day.  Do they hate Bob Costas down there?  Big fans of Billy Madison maybe?  Or are they just jealous of our smoking laws?  I haven't even mentioned Leandro Barbosa.  I just don't get it.  If you're reading this from Brazil, please leave a comment or tweet or facebook post and let me know why.


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Awesome Old Song of the Week: "What's My Name" by Snoop Doggy Dogg

In my junior year of high school there were two rap albums that probably accounted for about half the music I listen to at the time.  The first was The Chronic by Dr. Dre.  It featured a young protege of Dre's who went by the name Snoop Doggy Dogg.  Shortly after the release of The Chronic Snoop debuted his own album (produced by Dre) called Doggystyle; the first single entitled "What's My Name."

Having just watched this video (which got regular airplay on MTV) for the first time in probably 15 years, one though jumps into my head: It's pretty amazing Snoop was able to put together a clean version of the song that still sounded good.

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The Patriots greatness that nobody is talking about

Back when it all started...

By now everybody knows that New England officially wrapped up another AFC East division title on Sunday.  Many news and media outlets have mentioned that the Patriots have had 12 consecutive winning seasons.  But what no one seems to be discussing is the fact that the Pats have also had the most wins in the division every single year during that span.  That's right, since the day Tom Brady first took over as the starting quarterback in 2001, no team in the AFC East has ever ended the regular season with more wins than New England.

The Patriots have 10 division championships during that 12 year stretch, and the other two seasons they finished tied atop the standings but lost due to tiebreakers.  In 2002-'03 there was a three-way tie of 9-7 teams along with Miami and the Jets (oddly Buffalo went 8-8 that year).  Then in 2008-'09 when Brady was hurt the Matt Cassel led Pats went 11-5 (the only team in NFL history to go 11-5 and not get in the playoffs), but lost a tiebreaker to the Dolphins.

The Patriots have also averaged slightly better than a 12-4 record over that twelve year span.  They are currently 143-45 since the begging of the 2001 season; winning 76% of the time they take the field.  I wrote a piece detailing all of this a little over a year ago, and since then the numbers have only gotten better.

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Who does Bob Costas think he is?

In the wake of the Jovan Belcher murder/suicide tragedy in Kansas City, last night Bob Costas decided to use NBC's Sunday Night Football halftime show as a medium to tell the world about his beliefs on gun control:

Now here's the thing; I couldn't agree more with what Costas said, I think he is 100% correct.  But his method bothers me.  I don't think this was the appropriate time, place, or manner for him to express his views.  He sounds preachy and condescending, and as if he feels his opinion is more valuable than everyone's who's watching and it's his job to educate all of us.  I guess it wouldn't bother me so much if he hadn't done something similar during halftime of a broadcast a year ago (ironically in Kansas City):

This Stevie Johnson inspired rant got me all fired up when Costas decided it was his duty to scold players for celebrating touchdowns (and coaches for not benching them), as well as insult a large portion of the population with his introduction.  Get off your high horse Bob.

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What's wrong with this picture?

There's something going on in this photograph that just isn't right:

It's not the fact that I was watching TV (and even decided to take a picture of the screen) at 2:29 in the morning.  It's not the ridiculous movie premise of "a spoiled heir who must repeat grades one through 12 in six months to inherit his family's hotel business."  It's not even the image of a first grade teacher making out with a circus clown.  No, the crazy thing about this picture is the fact that whoever is in charge of ratings at comcast decided to give Billy Madison one star.  One star???  This is Billy freaking Madison we're talking about here!  It may well be the number #1 rewatched comedy from my late high school/early college days.  Even if you think the acting is terrible and the plot is stupid, just it's quotability alone has got to earn it at least two stars.

I could have spent roughly 6 hours picking out about 45 different clips.  I'm limiting myself to two.

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