This first video is weird. Really strange. It’s completely silent, and Josh Smith is doing odd things to Mike Bibby.

Maybe we should hook Josh Smith up with Steve Nash. But while Smith was apparently serious with his shoulder groping, at least Nash is just joking here. The digs of Robin Lopez are great (“If you were a little more like me, you might be on SportsCenter once in a while.”).

Wouldn't you rather see Larry Bird in the HORSE competition than Omri Casspi or Rajon Rondo?

You weren’t the only one. An unnamed league exec bashed the NBA’s HORSE competition and the players it selects, and suggested some changes to make it better.

Via TrueHoop:

The league selects the absolute worst H.O.R.S.E. competitors.

Rajon Rondo???

Here’s how you make H.O.R.S.E. good:

You gotta have the guy who hits crazy impossible shots. Steve Nash would have been perfect.

You gotta have guys with OVERSIZED trash talking personalities. A guy like Eddie House or Rasheed Wallace or even Brandon Jennings. Just an all-round talker.

Nash, Nate Robinson, Rasheed, and Baron Davis. Now that’s a HORSE competition worth watching.

Omri Casspi should be interesting. He looks like he has some off-the-wall stuff.

Not Kevin Durant’s boring a–! And definitely not Rondo! Knock him out making five consecutive free throws!!

I say take it one step farther: have Larry Bird and Reggie Miller participate in the HORSE competition. Can you imagine Bird, mic’ed up, trying to eliminate Reggie? Trash-talking the whole time? Would either of them ever miss a clutch shot to end the game?

Someone on one of the million NBA telecasts I watched over the last week suggested that Bird and Miller be asked to join the three-point contest, but HORSE seems like an even better fit.

The Celtics have gotten rid of their morning walkthrough, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Here are a few Celtics links, and maybe even an NBA link or two, to help wake you up and get you focused for the day.

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald- “Kendrick Perkins may have no bigger fan in the NBA than Clippers assistant coach John Lucas, who runs a gym in Houston in the offseason and has worked with Perk since the center came into the league. ‘I love that kid,’ Lucas said. ‘I knew about him right away just by his commitment. He’d drive 75 miles each way, every day to work out in Houston. He did that for the first month, and then he got a place for the next two months. Then he’d drive in for the week and go home on weekends. That’s commitment.’”

Mark Murphy, Boston Herald-  “’I look at it like he’s just testing me,’ [Tony] Allen said of the Celtics coach. ‘Each test I pass is another game to get confidence. I’m just trying to get my body back in strength. It’s an honor and a pleasure to just be out there playing,’ he said. ‘All I ever wanted to do was to just play. I’m trying to make the best of it, trying to help this ballclub win games. It just feels good being out there.’”

Steve Bulpett, Boston Herald-  “No less a point-guard expert than Phoenix’ Steve Nash has become duly impressed by Celtics guard Rajon Rondo . ‘He’s pretty unique,’ said Nash, the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player. ‘I can’t think of anyone who quite has the same skill set he has. I mean, I guess the closest thing would have been maybe Jason Kidd in his day, but they’re still different types of athletes.’”

Daniel Kobialka, NESN- “The Celtics may have hit a roadbump in January, but team president Danny Ainge is not ready to give up on this season just yet. ‘We haven’t been healthy this year, and I feel like we’re going to be,’ Ainge told The Boston Globe. ‘It just happens that we put it on cruise control a little bit too often. But I think that our team is very talented and we have a good mix of players.’”

Have a link I might want to look at? Send it my way by email (thomasking@celticstown.com) or Twitter.