Miller told a great story about Larry Bird, in his prime, at Boston Garden, on Christmas Day. As if the cards weren't totally stacked in No. 33's favor, add to the equation that Miller was a rookie on the Indiana Pacers' bench late in a blowout. Bird caught a pass in the corner in front of the Pacers' bench, launched a three without hesitation, then, with his crooked fingers still in the air, turned to Miller, looked him in the eye and politely wished, "Merry Christmas, bitch." The ball swished through the net a second or two later.
Many years later, we have a far different brand of smack being run in Boston. It's not a jab at someone's mother or groupie girlfriend or, God forbid, about someone's basketball skills. Instead, Celtics star Kevin Garnett is alleged to have called Charlie Villanueva "a cancer patient." Villanueva suffers from alopecia universalis, a medical condition that causes hair loss. His current look is the only one I know of him, even going back to his NCAA days dominating the paint for Connecticut.
Garnett has shot back with a claim that he called Villanueva, during the heat of the moment in a recent game in Detroit, a cancer to his team. It's not clear if he followed it up with a dagger like, "The team for which I compete is better than the team for which you compete."
Plenty of writers spent Wednesday night calling out Garnett, as they should have. Though known as a heavy trash-talker, Garnett is generally pretty popular around the league and has maintained for the most part a fairly positive reputation.
Surely the story will be Thursday's hot topic on the blogosphere and everywhere else — this conversation will be around for a while, y'all — but I'd like to shift it in another direction: The last few days we've seen Randy Moss and Terrell Owens also act like, well, Randy Moss and Terrell Owens. And Brett Favre just won't go away. So who's in your doghouse right now: Moss, Owens, Favre or Garnett?