The Pacers finally rid themselves of Shawne Williams for Eddie Jones, two second-round picks and approximately $1.8 million in cash.

Not that we needed another one, but here’s the 1,000,000,000,000,000th reason why conservative talk radio would be better off without all the actual “talk.”

CALLER: What you run into is — you run into this idea, the same way that in education we want to make all the dumb people smart even though it’s impossible — their IQ limits them — and we’re going to spend all this money to try to do something that’s impossible. And you — it’s a waste of time, and you get frustrated employees, frustrated workers with all these demands to do something they can’t possibly do.

BAKER: There you go. All right, thanks.

PERRY: What about diseases that are eminently treatable and you can live with for a long, long time quite healthily if you just get some basic drugs?

BAKER: Like Magic Johnson.

PERRY: Like Magic with his faked AIDS. Magic faked AIDS.

BAKER: You think Magic faked AIDS for sympathy?

PERRY: I’m convinced that Magic faked AIDS.

BAKER: Yeah, me too.

PERRY: It falls apart –

BAKER: Which is horrible.

PERRY: — when you get into motivation. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure he faked AIDS.

BAKER: I’ve got a great email here from –

PERRY: ‘Cause he’s the only cured AIDS guy ever.

The idiocracy… gets closer… every single day.

Oh, and thanks to the commie f@ggots at MediaMatters.org for the reportage. Good to see your listeners out getting some exercise, fellas.

“Anyway, sneakers and jeans are now back in style. Zach Randolph wore a polo shirt, blue jeans and green sneakers following Wednesday’s game in Toronto. Stephon Marbury, the last to dress and leave the locker room (some things never change), wore black leather boots, jeans and a leather jacket. He looked very European in a Cristiano Ronaldo kind of way.”

“The Nets are hopeful that Yi connects with the nearly 650,000 Chinese-Americans in the New York area and beyond, reeling in a coveted new fan base.”

by Marcel Mutoni

So, you’re a superstar in this League, you put up a ton of points and assists, lead your team to the Playoffs time and again, and now it’s time to get p-a-i-d. Sounds simple enough. You and your agent go through the perfunctory negotiations with the employer, and you convince them to hand over a max contract.

Awesome. You think you’ve got it made. Not so fast, cowboy. Might wanna take a look at what your maxed-out peers are earning (and how they’re getting their money).

The reality is that not all max-contract players are created equal. From the Salt Lake Tribune:

It turns out, though, that [Chris] Paul’s contract has sweeteners that [Deron]Williams’ does not. As one person has described it, Williams signed a “max contract” but not a “max-plus contract.” This was the first time I’d ever heard that distinction in five years of covering the NBA.

There also are provisions that allow a player to receive up to 70 percent of his salary in one check every season. Kobe Bryant is the most famous example…He already has been paid nearly $15 million for this season, which had to be a hell of a check for Jerry Buss to write…LeBron James’ extension with Cleveland, incidentally, is said to be the ultimate max-plus deal, with every concession you could come up with.

I wonder if this means that LeBron gets a cut of every teammate’s check. Considering how much he’s had to carry them over the last few years, it wouldn’t be a wholly unreasonable request.

This columnist tells Kings fans that what they’re seeing from Hawes is what they should have been expecting all along.

The relatively quiet Pistons coach has a 16-point chart that he uses to evaluate his team.

The 29th overall pick has a benign growth in his jaw, and he’ll miss the next 4-6 months.

Paris hasn’t been very good to NBA players, it seems.

by Marcel Mutoni

Nets writers, bloggers, and PR personnel spent much of their summer defending Vince Carter’s durability, and pointing out that over the last few years, VC has been unjustifiably labeled as being injury-prone.

Well, let’s see them try and spin this one: In the Nets’ first preseason game, which took place in Paris, Carter went down with a hamstring injury and did not finish the contest.

From the Star-Ledger:

It took only 12 minutes for the Nets to encounter their first crisis of the season, and now it’s up to Vince Carter’s recuperative powers to determine the severity of it.

The shooting star strained his left hamstring while scoring on a runner in the second period of the team’s preseason opener at Bercy Arena in Paris yesterday, when the Nets scored a 100-98 overtime triumph over the Miami Heat.

Sorry Nets stakeholders, them’s the facts. It’s going to be one long season in the swamp.