Bones is back in the Alamo city!

Brent "bones" Barry has decided to join his old team - the team that traded him along with Francisco Elson to Seattle for the big man Kurt Thomas - the Spurs! Or is this a surprise?

The NBA this year has been at its frentic best with blockbuster trades looming under rumors, strokes of sheer brilliance, players veto-ing trades with their "Larry Bird" rights, trades spoiled by "leaky mouths" of players speaking to the media and of course the deadline thrillers.

There was a long running rumor about Jason Kidd being traded to Dallas for Harris, Stackhouse and others in a multi player deal. However, they lost a chance to take advantage of a loophole in NBA's rules - the 30 day period, when Mr. Stackhouse turned "Mr.Otta vaai" and said "I'll be back in Dallas in 30 days". All this after one Mr. Devean George refused to be a part of that trade using his Larry Bird rights. The world wondered if this trade will ever go through! It did, but after so much speculation and headaches and with a fresh set of players.

The Spurs simply used an advantage the media provides them every year - yeah, they do not cover them till the playoffs. They announced that they had traded Barry and Elson for Thomas. And boy, there was not even a semblance of a rumor! Barry had a calf injury that would cost him 30 more days, so Seattle waived him and now Barry is joining the Spurs on March 21st after five teams other than the Spurs went on a begging spree to sign him up.

And this is indeed a master stroke. Nobody knows Barry's health condition better than the Spurs and they used his "recuperation period" to pull off a trade involving him and now they get him back!

Dallas and others, that is how you do a trade!

Spurs fans, double delight ain't it? Barry is back shortly after the Spurs dispatched the Mavs in a high-octane thriller.

Go Spurs!

Words matter

The Indian Premier League (IPL) - hastily started in an attempt to ward off Indian Cricket League (ICL)'s threat had its franchises recruit players on Tuesday in an "auction".

Auction is not the best option to pick players for any tournament. The players may not be rookies and so you cannot really rank them and recruit, but atleast the monetary issues have to be handled with utmost sincerity and sensitivity.

The sheer money involved here has raised everybody's eyebrows and sparked off needless debates and controversies. Don't be surprised if somebody calls for a probe into this! It's India. And of course you have a plethora of cliches like "cricket under the hammer", "players become greedy" blah blah blah...

Alternatively, use of the word "draft" in place of auction and sensible handling of the monetary matters with the media would have paid of better. Having made an attempt to challenge ICL, taking a cue from their books ain't that bad!

BCCI brains are still raw.

The all-star weekend

The all-star weekend at New Orleans was easily NBA entertainment at its best.

Daniel Gibson hitting 11 shots from downtown in the rookie challenge, two 7-footers from San Antonio winning the shooting contest, Jason Kapono setting a 3-point shootout record, the best slam dunk contest ever and a thriller of an all-star game - the weekend had everything a fan asked for.

The dunk contest was the sickest and arguably the most creative ever. Gerald Green kicked of the creative extravaganza blowing off a candle on a cup cake placed atop the rim while dunking in. And Dwight "Superman" Howard put on an exhibition of amazing creativity and incredible power becoming one of the rarest big men victors in the contest.

Starting off with a vicious 360 windmill from behind the backboard, Dwight followed it up with the "Superman" dunk and followed it up with a left hand to backboard to right hand slam in the finals capping off the night with another sick dunk - picking up a ball from a small net affixed on the backboard and slamming in a windmill. Watch Dwight's sticker dunk last year - sad he did not make it to the finals!

There was also a flip side of creativity when Rudy Gay asked the public via youtube for dunks he can perform on stage.

The dunk contest has been revived and no one will fear that it will lose its sheen - atleast for the next few years. And the bar has been set so high that emulating it is going to need something out of box!

People and Poodle

Munaf Patel - Either get a haircut or bowl fast.

Now, one will talk about Ishant's hair style too. No offense meant to him but on the first look I thought his hairstyle resembled a Poodle. The comparison stops there - he has been a hound down under.

Talking about the usage of Poodle to refer people, nothing can beat the reference to Tony Blair as George Bush's Poodle.

180 + 180 = 360

Today was the first time I got to drive during a snow storm and oh boy, what an experience it was!

In the early stages it was just like "white dust" blowing heavily across and it was not tough to negotiate it. I continued my drive on I-84 and it was still okay and pretty much easily manageable until I got off the highway. By then, the roads were just nasty and full of tire marks and dirty snow. The marks took whatever grip that remained on the road and all that was there was hydroplaning. Or should I call it iceplaning/snowplaning etc?!?

Anticipating the need to brake often, courtesy a plethora of traffic lights I took a detour through a country road and that was it! A suave 180 degree spin at the entrance. That country road was hiddeous! Luckily the other road with all those signals was just a stone's throw away. So, left turn, detour again and boy, another 180 degree spin - this time even worse and wobbly. All these when driving at 5-10 mph.

Some presence of mind and absence of any cars around saved the day and I reached home safe. Malai had a 360 + 360 experience driving in sleet. Jeezaloo!

And, where is the guy who honked hard twice at me from an SUV? Why don't you drive a compact size car and honk from inside? Driving in snow ain't fun dude!