Hakim Warrick’s dunk reminds me of the one time he made me scream like a little girl. My details might be a little blurry, but the moral of the story remains. Warrick was playing for Syracuse, and he picked up his dribble with both feet well outside the lane. His teammate was open underneath the hoop, so Warrick’s defender left Warrick alone to keep him from passing to the wide open teammate. Still with no dribble and not wanting to shoot a jumper, Warrick just took off. From a standstill, with — I repeat — both feet outside the paint (!), Warrick trampolined himself toward the basket. He outstretched his arm, over a defender, and defied gravity on his way to the rim. He looked like the dude from The Rocketeer.

Alas, Warrick missed the dunk. But it might have been the most exciting miss in NCAA basketball history.

Click the jump for a dunk that should have made the top ten. Read more »

 Every once in a while, I link to a few articles from other writers around the internet. You know, I throw some dimes.

1. Rajon Rondo interviewed with ESPN about the new NBA 2k11, but his rare humility when discussing the Big Three was most interesting. “It’s still the Big Three,” he says. “Shaq is four. Shaq is an enforcer. I know that from experience. He knocks guards like myself down, but he can’t hit me no more, so I’m excited about that.” Rondo continued, “I’m just one of the guys. I’m not saying I’m not important, but this is a team game. The Big Three still get a lot of attention, and I’m just really excited to start the season with them and be a part of this team. I’m excited.”
2. Speaking of NBA 2k11, it sounds pretty damn amazing. Just read this review: “NBA 2K11 is a love letter to basketball fans. If you don’t follow hoops, a lot of the subtleties will be lost on you. And if you are looking for a loose, fun, crazy dunkfest experience like NBA Jam, you’re going to get hosed. But if you are serious about basketball, this will fill a long-standing void in your hoops-loving heart. This is the NBA. No one else has come close to representing it in such great and accurate detail as this. Honestly, the stuff with Michael Jordan is reason enough to pick up NBA 2K11. The fact that 2K Sports did so much more with this game and improved it so greatly over last year’s title is stunning. This isn’t just the best basketball game ever; it’s the best sports game of this generation.”
3. Doc Rivers on all the locker room shenanigans: “I could really care less, they’re serious in practice,” said Rivers. “After that, they’re grown men, I don’t care how they act. If they wanna have fun or embarrass themselves, or do whatever they want to do, I really don’t care. The only rule I always have is called the respect rule. If anything is getting where to disrespecting someone to point where problem, then it’s a problem. They enjoy each other. I’m sure they’ll cross the line at some point … they’ll get it. That’s fine.” I love the “if they wanna have fun or embarrass themselves” line.
4. Remember when we were worried about this team’s chemistry? Those fears are dwindling, writes Paul Flannery. “Jermaine O’Neal has only been with the Celtics for a little more than a week, but he’s already marveling about how things are done here. There was movie night in Newport and team dinners on other evenings. Back in Boston, the team gathered for a duck boat ride and then ate brunch together on their off day. All of that: the dinners, the team events, and the clowning make up the foundation of what we like to call chemistry. But this is something a little more than that and when O’Neal sees it, he recognizes what it isn’t as much as what it is. ‘That’s a real situation in pro sports that people don’t talk about,’ he said. ‘In Indiana we had some really good teams, but we couldn’t get over the hump because that togetherness wasn’t quite there.’”
5. Shaq says he’s Harvard and MIT material, but he’s “not going to [take classes there] unless it can help me.” Which reminds me of the time I boasted I could drink a gallon of milk in less than an hour, but then said I wouldn’t do it unless it would help me.
6. From WEEI: “On the Sportsbook.com website, the Celtics are 10-1 to win the NBA title this season, tied with the Orlando Magic behind the Lakers (5-2) and Heat (8-5).” If anyone wants to spot me money so I can place the bet, please feel free. I can’t do it myself because I have $88.17 to my name. Seriously.
7. Funniest news of the week, by far? The Indiana Pacers’ starting power forward spot “is Josh McRoberts’ to lose.” No need to do crunches today. That line gave me all the ab exercise I’ll need.
8.  Shannon Brown’s back at it again. Let Shannon Brown dunk. Just don’t let him do it in the dunk contest.
9. Gerald Wallace says what anyone who’s seen Tyrus Thomas play basketball already knows. “I think he’s still a little immature.” Also, Larry Brown compared Thomas to Rasheed Wallace, because neither reached their potential. The only difference? Thomas always has sucked, still does suck, and probably always will suck.
10. And before you go, this video is hilarious.

Got a tip? An article you think should be included? Send an email to jayking@celticstown.com or hit me up on Twitter @CelticsTown.

Larry Bird set Roy Hibbert up with one hell of an opportunity. (Indiana Star)

Roy Hibbert’s eyes lit up like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning when Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird approached him last spring with an idea for the offseason.

Bird asked the Pacers center if he wanted some help, and tossed out the names of three potential teachers: Bill Russell, Bill Walton or Kevin McHale. All three are Hall of Fame big men.

“He said it would probably be one of those three guys. I just had to give him my summer schedule so he could set it up with one of them,” Hibbert said. “Who wouldn’t want to work with those guys?”

Bird lined up Walton, a former teammate with the Boston Celtics, and he has spent part of the summer working with Hibbert at Conseco Fieldhouse.

Danny Ainge, you’ve gotta hop on your Blackberry ASAP. I know Clifford Ray is seen as one hell of a big man coach, but I’m willing to bet that Bill Walton has a few tricks he could teach the Celtics big men. There’s no reason he should be wasting his tips on stiffs like Roy Hibbert.

What an amazing picture.

Former Celtics stiff Vitaly Potapenko, a remnant of the “good ole days,” has been named assistant coach of the Indiana Pacers.

“We are very pleased Vitaly is going to be part of our staff,” said Pacers Coach Jim O’Brien. “He was an extremely hard worker as a player and did a great job in Fort Wayne for our NBADL affiliate last year.”

“I’m definitely happy to be here working for Coach O’Brien and (assistant coach) Frank Vogel who I had the opportunity to play for in Boston,” said the 35-year-old Potapenko, a native of Kiev, USSR. “It’s great to be back in the Midwest where I went to college (Wright State) and it’s great to be in Indiana where basketball is so popular and the fans are so great.”

I can still remember to this day when the Celtics traded Andrew Declerq and a first-round pick for Potapenko. One of the best days in my life! The Celtics were going to be contenders! I couldn’t believe the C’s had acquired one of the best centers ever!

…Ever to come out of Wright State, that is. By the way, I can only hope a whole bunch of people were fired for picking Vitaly with the 12th pick in the 1996 Draft — the 13th pick was that arrogant prick I hate with all my heart Kobe.

I'm slightly embarrassed to live in a country that was once represented by Jermaine O'Neal.

If you could ask only one question of Jermaine O’Neal, what would it be?

Would you ask him how his career fell apart so suddenly?  How it was that he transformed from an All-Star one minute to a bum the next?

Would you ask him, instead, what it was like to be a big part of the Palace Brawl?  To see a team with championship aspirations torn apart by suspensions and backlash?  What it felt like to land one of the flushest punches in recent history, to completely obliterate some poor schmo who looked like Entourage’s Turtle?

Would one of those questions be your choice? I hope not.

While those are all questions you’d have to seriously consider, there’s only one choice you can make:

“Uhh, Jermaine, bro, your last name is O’Neal. Are you Irish, bro?”

And his answer would go a little something like this: (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

“You know what, I get that question all the time,” he said. “I probably should do some research on that. Not that I know of. That’s a good question.

“I’ve gotten a lot of questions on that, in my 14 years in the league, whether I was Irish or not. I don’t know.”

The reporter who asked the genius question, Ira Winderman, then asked a follow-up question that should never be considered if you could only ask one.

So does he favor corned beef and cabbage?

“Uh, no I don’t.”

So, to recap: Jermaine O’Neal may or may not be Irish, but he most definitely does not eat corned beef and cabbage. Consider yourself enlightened.

But don’t consider yourself done deciding who’s Irish.  Next up for the most important question ever?  Patrick O’Bryant.

Whoever that is with Larry Bird has some mighty thick spectacles.

Donnie Walsh vividly remembers his first meeting with Larry Bird. (Boston Herald)

“I’ll never forget that meeting,” Walsh said. “We sat down and talked and he spent 45 minutes telling me what he was going to do from the first day of training camp to the last day of the season.

“And when I look back on it, that’s exactly what he did. Everything. Everything.”

What did that entail?

“He went over everything from how he was going to run practices to what each player needed to do to get better,” Walsh said. “He was totally prepared.

“He started by saying he had to hire two really good assistants because he’s never done this before. And then he said exactly what he was going to do on the first day of practice, and he went from there.”

Walsh said there wasn’t a single facet left unplanned.

“Larry established things and stayed with them,” he said. “He had practice the same time every time. Our team left for the plane the same time every time. . . . It created a routine, and the players, without even knowing it, started playing like that. He made them understand what they had to do and he made them do it by habit – and that carried over onto the floor in games. They knew what to do.

“He gave them a lot of freedom, but he gave them structure, too. I thought he was great.”

How great, though? Walsh, a man who has been around the NBA since 1979, thinks Bird is one of the best coaches he’s ever seen.

Meanwhile, he looks back on a coach he ranks with the best in the game – even with his friend, Larry Brown.

“Larry Brown wants to teach. . . . But when you have a great team,” Walsh said, “Larry Bird will take them as far as they can go. He’s the best manager of a team I’ve ever seen.”

Is there anything Bird couldn’t do?