When in a recession, it always pays to have a second hustle — especially for Black men in America. John Singleton, Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans are doing their part to help out by holding training camps for football players who want to tackle acting.
From April 2-5, the first NFL Pro Hollywood Boot Camp will be held at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. To date, twenty former and current NFL players will participate, said the league Monday in a statement.
Kobe Bryant is not happy.
One of his closest friends on the Lakers, Lamar Odom, was traded Saturday night to Dallas for a first-round pick in the 2012 amateur draft, depriving the Lakers of their top rebounder and a solid character guy in the locker room.
“I don’t like it,” Bryant said Sunday. “I’ve known Lamar for a long time, and for the team itself, he’s meant a lot in terms of his versatility, his personality. He’s a big presence for us in the locker room, just from a team chemistry standpoint. He’s great at bringing guys together and things of that nature.
“I trust management knows what they’re doing. I let them do their jobs, I never get in the way but it’s tough. You’re talking about sixth man of the year last year. He played lights out.”
Odom, 32, averaged 14.4 points and 8.7 rebounds last season.
Bryant wasn’t buying into speculation that Odom’s off-the-court activities were distractions, including a burgeoning reality-TV career with wife Khloe Kardashian.
“I don’t understand the criticism of [the] reality shows. I don’t get it. He had his best season last year. It clearly wasn’t a distraction. He played his ass off. I don’t get where that comes from.”
Bryant also didn’t like that Odom was sent to the Mavericks, who eliminated the Lakers in last season’s playoffs with a sweep in the Western Conference semifinals.
“Especially to them,” Bryant said. “We were supposed to come back and get them back, know what I mean?”
Read more at L.A. Times.com
NBA fans were a buzz on Thursday (December 8), when news surfaced that the Los Angeles Lakers had agreed to a deal to trade Paul Gasol and Lamar Odom for New Orleans Hornets’ superstar guard Chris Paul.
But, Lakers fans’ dreams were crushed when NBA commissioner David Stern nixed the trade, due to “basketball reasons” — the NBA owns the Hornets… by the way.
The news came within hour of the Hornets striking an agreement, in principle, with the Lakers and Houston Rockets on a three-team trade that would have sent Paul to the Lakers to play alongside Kobe Bryant; Odom would go to New Orleans; and Paul would go to Houston, who were going to send Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic and draft picks to the Hornets.
Stern, however, was the kill buzz, when he informed the Hornets that they couldn’t make the trade, stunning team officials who had been working around-the-clock for days in hopes of bringing an end to the Paul saga before the season officially started.
Various reports claimed that angry owners were demanding the trade be vetoed. However, league officials dispute claims by insisting that the decision was Stern’s.
“It’s not true that the owners killed the deal,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said. “The deal was never discussed at the Board of Governors meeting and the league office declined to make the trade for basketball reasons.”
NBA players have agreed to additional drug testing, adding offseason screening for performance-enhancing drugs only. Union executive director Billy Hunter sent a memo yesterday to players detailing these and other changes of a new labor deal and recommended they ratify the agreement. Less clear is a provision for human growth hormone testing.
According to the memo, an NBA-NBPA joint committee would study the “possibility of an HGH testing program.” League spokesman Mike Bass, however, insisted both sides agreed to HGH blood testing, subject to the process being validated by a “neutral committee of experts.” It wasn’t immediately clear who would be on that panel. No matter what, players will face additional testing if the deal is ratified. The memo also stated that beginning in the 2012-13 season, players can be tested up to two times during the offseason for steroids and performance-enhancing drugs only. They would not be screened for drugs such as marijuana.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch
In a revealing interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, LeBron James reveals that he acting very “King” like — but that’s all going to change this season. He honestly examines how being cast as the villain changed him for the worst, and that he really wasn’t “that guy.”
From talking about his father’s absence to his mother’s erratic presence, James is open about the experiences in his life that affected him the most profoundly. Two of the highlights that illuminate how James wants to be viewed this season are below.
He regrets “The Decision”:
“If I could look back on it I would probably change a lot of it. The fact of having a whole TV special, and people getting the opportunity to watch me make a decision on where I wanted to play, I probably would change that. Because I can now look and see if the shoe was on the other foot and I was a fan, and I was very passionate about one player, and he decided to leave, I would be upset too about the way he handled it.”
On playing the villain role:
“It basically turned me into somebody I wasn’t. When you start to hear ‘the villain,’ now you have to be the villain. And I started to buy into it. I started to play the game of basketball at a level or in a mind state that I had never played at before. I mean angry. That’s mentally, and that’s not the way I play the game of basketball.”
TMZ got its hands on the Oct. 6 911 call placed moments before Terrell Owens was rushed to an L.A. hospital for a possible pill overdose — and according to the woman on the phone, T.O. was trying to kill himself.
During the call, placed at 11:02 PM, the dispatcher asks the woman, “Was this a suicide attempt?” She responds, “Yes, I believe so.”
While she was on the phone with the dispatcher, the woman, who sounds like his friend and publicist Monique “Mo” Jackson of VH1′s “The T.O. Show,” claims the NFL free agent was “talking to his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend … [I]don’t really know what you wanna call it.”
Former world number one Serena Williams has pulled out of the French Open because she has not fully recovered from health issues, organizers announced Thursday.
“American Serena Williams, who has not fully recovered from health problems — pulmonary embolism, foot injury — … has pulled out,” organizers said in a statement.
Serena, who has not played since last July, has dropped to 17th in the WTA rankings. She won the French Open in 2002.
Her sister Venus is a major doubt for the May 22-June 5 tournament having not played since January because of a hip injury.
The Black Mamba,” directed by Robert Rodriguez staring Kobe Bryant, Danny Trejo, Bruce Willis and Kanye West is a six-minute short movie/ commercial produced by Nike that will be shown in select theaters.
Jay-Z and LeBron James unveiled the new gym at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles. The gym was funded as a joint effort between the Two Kings as part of Sprite’s Spark Parks campaign and features a mural donated by renowned tattoo and graffiti artist Mr. Cartoon.
On Saturday, Kobe Bryant celebrated a special moment in Hollywood. He was the first athlete to have his hands and feet imprinted at the Grauman Chinese Theatre. The hand and footprint ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. The ceremony is usually reserved for celebrities, an exception was made for the basketball great. Bryant signed his name in wet cement in front of the Grauman Theatre and underneath the signature were imprints of his hands and feet with his jersey number 24.
Dre Black So Fresh 