“PHOENIX — Looking up to someone for one of the few times in her basketball life, Brittney Griner leaned into the 7-foot man in front of her, watching and listening as he flipped in one hook shot after another.

Once he was done, Griner took a turn, spinning and flipping up a few hooks of her own over outstretched arms that reached farther than her own lengthy ones.

After getting a crash course in professional basketball from some of the WNBA’s best players over the past week, Griner was given the lesson of a lifetime on Wednesday with a one-on-one session on the skyhook with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

One of the NBA’s greatest players teaching the nuances of perhaps the most unstoppable move in any sport? Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

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AP Photo/Ross D. FranklinPhoenix Mercury rookie center Brittney Griner, left, works out with NBA Hall of Famer and all-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as he shows her his famed skyhook.

“I went to legend school today and it was awesome,” Griner said at the Phoenix Mercury’s practice court inside the US Airways Center.

Griner had gone through a rapid learning curve during her first week of training camp, getting a firsthand look at how physical the WNBA really is while being taught things such as the pick-and-roll and how to avoid being called for illegal defense.

The intensity ratcheted up when Diana Taurasi, Penny Taylor, DeWanna Bonner and Candice Dupree, some of the best players in the WNBA, joined the team after playing overseas.

Wednesday’s session was something different entirely.

Griner has earned her own level of fame as the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft and one of the most heralded players in college basketball history.

But Abdul-Jabbar is on a different level: A Hall of Famer, a six-time NBA champion, a six-time MVP, one of the greatest athletes of a century and one of the most recognizable people in the world.

Even though she was too young to have seen him play in person — she was born a year after Abdul-Jabbar retired — Griner had seen footage of him and certainly knows who he is and his stature.

“I was star struck right there,” Griner said. “You know it when I don’t talk; I like to talk and you know I’m star struck when I’m just listening. I hit you with the yes sir, yes ma’am, I’m definitely star struck.”

The tutorial was put together by Mercury vice president Ann Meyers Drysdale, who asked the NBA office to see if Abdul-Jabbar would be available to address the team and work with Griner.

He accepted and spent Wednesday’s practice watching from a perch above the court with his oversized feet — though a size smaller than Griner’s men’s 17 — poking through the rail.

Once practice ended, Abdul-Jabbar walked down to the floor and addressed the team before taking questions from the players and coaches.

After a group photo, he peeled off his sweat jacket, took off his blue UCLA hat and met Griner under one of the baskets.

“

I went to legend school today and it was awesome.

”– Brittney Griner

After a short discussion, Abdul-Jabbar had Griner play behind him in the post on the right block and gave her a few pointers about using leverage against the defender. He then started flicking up skyhooks, right-handed and left, then gave her a turn, providing running commentary the entire time. They switched to the left block for a few more skyhooks and chatted some more.

Griner didn’t look particularly comfortable with the shot at first, but seemed to be getting it down by the end of the 20-minute session, particularly after Abdul-Jabbar adjusted the way she was holding the ball.

“She did start to get it, how I used it,” he said. “Not everybody uses the same tool in the same way, so you’ve got to make adjustments to that. But I think with her potential and willingness to learn, she’ll do well.”

Griner seems intent on turning the lesson into something more.

Already tough to stop inside because of her size and athletic ability, the 6-foot-8 center would like to add the skyhook to her arsenal — eventually.

“You’ll see some hooks, but to do a true skyhook, that’s going to take a while to get it down perfect,” she said. “But you’ll definitely see once I get a feel. I definitely want to get that in there.”

If she does, Griner could become one of the most unstoppable players in the WNBA.

Abdul-Jabbar certainly did well with the skyhook, ending his career as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and a shot that has not been close to being matched for productivity and indefensibility.

Perfect what she learned from Abdul-Jabbar and Griner has the potential to be a game-changer the way he was.

“She’s a very talented athlete,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “She’s not just tall, she has some skills. She runs the court very well, she’s active. I think she’s going to have a great career.”

She certainly had a good teacher, at least for one afternoon.”

 http://espn.go.com/wnba/story/_/id/9279802/brittney-griner-learns-skyhook-nba-legend-kareem-abdul-jabbar

Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press

When Wiggins made his decision early Tuesday afternoon, he finished a year that began with him as the most interesting non-NBA basketball player on Earth and ends with him having only become more interesting, despite no one learning much of anything about Wiggins himself.

Seriously: I have been aware of Wiggins since at least 2011, when he was a rising sophomore and touted as one of the most talented prep players on Earth. I’m pretty sure I watched this video, from April 2011, around the time it came out.

Since then, we have learned all about the hype about Wiggins — I know, off the top of my head, that both of his parents went to Florida State; that some of FSU’s women tried to sway him when he visited Florida State; that FSU getting absolutely obliterated by Florida on that visit didn’t dissuade him from keeping FSU among his finalists; that he picked Kansas and North Carolina as finalists seemingly on a whim; that he announced his private, one-reporter commitment ceremony off-handedly at a barbecue; that he’s been living with a host mother in West Virginia for much of the last two years, at least partly because Canada just wasn’t much of a basketball challenge; that his prominence attracts people who love to knock prep athletes down a peg; and that his “high school” coach, Rob Fulford, is a very cool dude; that he hadn’t even told his parents about his decision as of this morning — but very little about Wiggins.

What we know, or what we think we know, is that Wiggins has shied away from the media almost to the point of aloofness, a reticence that seems anachronistic for a high school senior in 2013, much less for the most talented basketball player outside the NBA. And that’s really about it.

All I know for sure is this: Andrew Wiggins making his decision today was the last major domino that will fall to set up a tremendous 2013-14 college basketball season. And while that would have been true no matter what he chose, Wiggins picking Kansas is Wiggins choosing one truly weird timeline.

What Andrew Wiggins means to Kansas

Wiggins had the potential to deliver a national championship to any of the four schools he named finalists. He would have improved Florida State more than any other program, with a chance to change its trajectory forever. He could have joined the juggernaut to end all juggernauts at Kentucky. He could’ve been Michael Jordan’s heir at North Carolina.

Instead, Andrew Wiggins picked the dark horse.

Wiggins’ recruitment boiled down in most eyes to a two-team race with two also-rans, casting Florida State as favorite, Kentucky as runner-up, and Kansas and North Carolina as big names thrown in for, well, some reason. Kansas does provide the best example of one player serving as an entire team in the history of college hoops, in Wilt Chamberlain, but Wilt played a while ago, and Wiggins is not Wilt, obviously, because of differences in height and personality and game and, well, everything.

But Wiggins joining a Kansas team that loses more than any of the other three contenders from its 2012-13 squad is incredibly interesting (Kansas has an excellent class of top talents, including Joel Embiid, Wayne Selden, and Conner Frankamp, coming in, but Wiggins would be far and away the best scoring option in a way he wouldn’t be at any other school), and proof that the basketball gods will simply not allow Bill Self to lose a Big 12 title.

In fact, Wiggins picking Kansas might be most interesting as a reflection of everything Self has done there, in taking the foundation for greatness that Roy Williams built and adding even better recruiting — and, arguably, coaching. Kansas loves its basketball, and has been great at it, but hasn’t produced superstars on par with the rest of the bluest of blue-bloods in the sport under Self: the best Jayhawks of the Self era have been longer on talent and drive than personality.

And the relative lack of Self era NBA stars (likely to be rectified by Ben McLemore before long) has helped cast him as a very smart coach who wins at an absurd rate — Self has an .836 winning percentage at Kansas; Adolph Rupp had an .821 at Kentucky — with great talent that is rarely the best talent. Now Self has the most talented player in college basketball one year after having McLemore and a better supporting cast and making an exit in the Sweet Sixteen. Wiggins automatically reboots the national championship hype for a team that might have seen its streak of Big 12 titles end in 2013.

This is Self’s greatest recruiting coup, and always will be, but he’s either going to make good on it or make a lot of Kansas fans very mad. But, hell, what if Wiggins leads Kansas to a national title, doing more than that best recruiting class in history at Kentucky by himself and topping all of his previous hype by leading one great coach’s merry band of youngsters to a title?

What Andrew Wiggins will mean to college basketball

Wiggins will assuredly be part of one of the best college basketball seasons in recent memory. The nation’s talent pool is loaded, with a number of players following Wiggins’ lead and reclassifying from the high school class of 2014 to the high school class of 2013 to speed up their pursuits of NBA riches and enough talent (Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart, Cauley-Stein, Michigan’s Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary, Baylor’s Isaiah Austin) turning down the NBA to stay to make the best teams of 2013-14 among the best of this millennium.

Wiggins would have been part of many marquee games, no matter where he went: he had a 75 percent chance of seeing Florida’s loaded team in Gainesville (of his four finalists, only North Carolina doesn’t play the Gators on the road in 2013-14), would have played North Carolina if he went to Kentucky or Florida State, would’ve played Duke if he headed to Kansas, Florida State or North Carolina, would’ve played Oklahoma State and Baylor if he went to Kansas, would have played Baylor in Cowboys Stadium if he goes to Kentucky, and could have played for Kentucky in a game at Rupp Arena against a Louisville team coming off a national title that will be given Game of the Century hype.

As it is, at Kansas, Wiggins will play against Duke, Florida, Georgetown, Oklahoma State, and Baylor, and the slew of future NBA players on those teams. And it’s good for college basketball, even if it’s not necessarily good for Andrew Wiggins, that he has to play against non-professional players for a year. That year is going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

What Andrew Wiggins means

Maybe the most important thing about Wiggins is how he has conducted himself during his recruitment, and how it’s confirmed that top recruits, 18-year-old kids, are simultaneously the most powerful and least powerful people in sports.

Wiggins could have done literally anything for today’s announcement — hiring a plane to write it in the sky, texting just one friend to tell her where he was going, asking fellow Canadian star Chris Hadfield to tweet it — and gotten media attention. He picked a method seemingly designed to shake as many reporters as possible — and the only guy there saw his Twitter following explode. His high school coach’s Facebook profile picture is the funniest thing I’ve seen this week:

…and yes, it’s real.

Wiggins will not have this much power to choose the fate of his career again until he’s signing his second NBA contract. Now that he’s chosen a school, he’ll be locked in there for a year; after he announces for the 2014 NBA Draft or chooses to come back for 2014-15 announces for the 2014 NBA Draft, he’ll be subject to the caprices of the NBA’s ping-pong balls, then locked into a rookie contract, then subject to the whims of his coach. Wiggins will get to pick his agent and his endorsements or eschew them, but that’s not determining his fate as much as it is lining his pockets.

It will be at least four years until Andrew Wiggins has as much control over his life again as he did when he woke up this morning. But, on the bright side, at least everyone will stop asking him where he’s going, even if they start asking why.

I don’t blame him for waiting it out: he’s taking time to make sure he’s making a good decision, something I wish every person considering what amounts to a job offer could do, and he’s, perhaps inadvertently, showing that virtually any big-time prospect could do the same, even if few would be quite as impervious to critique as Wiggins’ talent renders him.

And I don’t think I will be any less excited about Andrew Wiggins because he’s not excited about talking to reporters, which I find refreshing: I, personally, know that I like knowing as much as possible about sports and the figures who are important in them, and yet Wiggins being shy has made it no harder to enjoy him and slightly easier to appreciate him as an uncommonly level-headed teenager.

Andrew Wiggins has handled a public post-Decision decision better than many prominent NBA players with more power have, and I think that’s promising: if more recruits take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that come with being painted into the future with the indifference that Wiggins has, perhaps the people who take those shots will realize they are ultimately doing nothing of use, and help make the process of young people deciding on their paths a little more sane.

I thought Wiggins prized his small circle and his privacy more than anything else, thought his parents would be happiest with him attending their alma mater, and thought he would more comfortable with Rathan-Mayes at his side than at any of his other finalists. And so I’m a little stunned that Wiggins picked Kansas, but I’m happy for him: I have come to respect his process as much as his play, and because I want him to be happy.

After all, my selfish interest in being right about Wiggins doesn’t matter. It’s far more important to me to enjoy Andrew Wiggins than to worry about whether I’ve read him right. And I sure hope that will be true of the rest of the college basketball world, too.”

http://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2013/5/14/4329834/andrew-wiggins-kansas-2013-recruiting-florida-state-kentucky-north-carolina

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9267427/ex-detroit-lions-receiver-titus-young-arrested-third-week

Bryant is in a court battle over whether hundreds of items can be auctioned off.

Pamela Bryant says her son told her the memorabilia was hers. She arranged earlier this year to auction it off through Berlin, N.J.-based Goldin Auctions and received a $450,000 advance.

Last week, lawyers for Kobe Bryant wrote to the auction house demanding it cease the June sale. Goldin is suing to assert its right to sell.

“I never told my mother that she could have my personal property, let alone consign it for public auction,” Bryant wrote.

In a filing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Camden, Kobe Bryant says his mother acknowledged to him recently that she did not have permission to sell the items.

“I confronted her about her false statement that I had given my memorabilia to her,” Bryant wrote in the filing, which was seen by The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I said to her, ‘Mom, you know I never told you that you could have the memorabilia.’

“Her response was, ‘Yes, but you never said you wanted it, either.’ Of course, this is untrue, since my wife and I requested that she return my memorabilia several years earlier.”

Bryant was drafted into the NBA directly out of Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pa. His high school uniforms are among more than 50 items listed for June auction.”

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/9257907/kobe-bryant-says-mother-given-permission-sell-stuff

 Vick, who will turn 33 next month, outran the 24-year-old McCoy and then tweeted about it after several teammates had posted on Twitter about the race.

“So today at the field 1 of my teammates called me old,” he wrote, adding that the teammate begged him to race the 40-yard dash. “Anybody want to guess which player?”

“Beat him by a few yards too lol,” he wrote, adding #SpeedKILLS to the tweet.

ProFootballTalk.com, citing a source with knowledge of the situation, reported that McCoy had been giving Vick a hard time for weeks, calling him “old man” and challenging him to a race. Vick reportedly had laughingly dismissed McCoy’s challenges until Thursday.

According to the report, Vick asked Chip Kelly whether he would allow the two to race, and the coach granted them permission.

Eagles teammates buzzed about the race through their own Twitter accounts.

Tight end Clay Harbor wrote: “The rumors are true… Vick dusted McCoy in the 40yd dash.”

Defensive end Clifton Geathers marveled at Vick’s win and took the opportunity to inform some of his former Cowboys teammates about the result. He tweeted: “Never seen a QB beat a runner back by 4yards until today Vick is a fast as mug @JayRat90 [Jay Ratliff] @hatcher97 [Jason Hatcher] @Fast_Teddy [Teddy Williams].

McCoy took the loss in stride, joking on Twitter that Vick “cheated.”

He gave Vick credit, however, writing that Vick was “Top 3 fastest man on the TEAM.”

Vick made sure to let McCoy and his followers know there are no hard feelings between the two players.

“Love you Lil bro @CutonDime25,” he wrote.”

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9235814/michael-vick-outruns-lesean-mccoy-challenge-philadelphia-eagles-practice

“Years after starring for the Nets, Kenny Anderson coached a Jewish hoops team — Getty

Well, that didn’t last long. Less than two years after being appointed as head boys basketball coach of a local Jewish high school, former NBA star Kenny Anderson has been fired in the aftermath of an arrest for a suspected DUI.

Anderson spent the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons serving as the head basketball coach at Davie (Fla.) David Posnack Jewish Day School, after being hired in September 2011. Anderson struggled to turn around the school’s fortunes, with Posnack finishing the most recent season with a woeful, 1-14 record.

However, those on-the-court struggles weren’t the reason that Anderson was fired. Rather, he was dismissed because he was arrested not once but twice for driving incidents in which it is alleged that he was inebriated. On Saturday,Anderson was arrested and held on suspicion of DUI after being witnessed swerving erratically. In December 2011, the coach crashed his car into two trees, but was eventually not charged with DUI because he fled the scene (fittingly, he was charged with fleeing the scene). No one was injured in either incident.

Yet the reputation of Posnack was apparently damaged enough to elicit an immediate response from the school, which issued a statement saying in no uncertain terms that Anderson would not be back leading the Posnack basketball program in 2013-14.

“Kenny Anderson will not be returning as head basketball coach next season for the David Posnack Jewish Day School,” Posnack Athletic Director Danny Herz wrote in a statement that was obtained by Miami-based website Gossip Extra.

There’s no word on what Anderson expects to do next, but the area will almost surely reflect on his time at Posnack as a true curiosity. The former 14-year NBA veteran has no direct ties to Judiasm, andhis appointment appeared to come out of the blue.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/former-nba-star-kenny-anderson-fired-coach-jewish-212116016.html

The Jets confirmed the release in a three-paragraph news release, a long way from his Super Bowl-sized news conference last March.

“We have a great deal of respect for Tim Tebow,” coach Rex Ryan said. “Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we all had hoped.  Tim is an extremely hard worker, evident by the shape he came back in this offseason. We wish him the best moving forward.”

Ryan and general manager John Idzik informed Tebow early Monday morning in a face-to-face meeting at the team’s facility, before he worked out with teammates, a source said. Tebow left the building shortly thereafter.

Tebow was dressed in his workout clothes Monday when he was called to Idzik’s office, according to league sources.

So ends one of the strangest chapters in team history — maybe in league history.

Tebow received rock-star media coverage from the moment he arrived. His introductory news conference last March drew more than 200 media members, highly unusual for a backup quarterback. The Jets were criticized for the excess.

After using a second-round pick on Geno Smith, the Jets had six quarterbacks on the roster and someone had to go. The Jets tried for months to trade Tebow, sources said. His release was earlier reported by the New York Post.

The team’s plan always was to take no more than five quarterbacks into their organized team activities. When no other team offered even a seventh-round draft pick for Tebow by the conclusion of the NFL draft on Saturday, the decision was imminent, sources said.

The Jets had given permission this offseason to Tebow’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, to try to seek a trade, a source familiar with situation said. More than one team reached out to see if Tebow were willing to switch positions from quarterback to tight end, but he was not.

Various members of the Jets organization were warming to Tebow this offseason, which is one reason Idzik released the quarterback Monday morning, the source said. Idzik did not want the type of Tebow distractions in 2013 that last year’s team endured.

Tebow attended the first two weeks of the offseason program. In fact, he reported 12 pounds under his 2012 playing weight. Despite vague comments by team officials, they never had any intention of retaining him.

The Tebow trade never came close to living up to the hype, as Tebow played in only 77 offensive snaps. It became apparent late in the season that he’d be one-and-done in New York.

The final Tebow bill: It cost the Jets a fourth-round pick and $1.5 million in salary, plus another $2.5 million they had to pay the Denver Broncos to satisfy part of the trade agreement.

The ill-fated trade also contributed to the demise of general manager Mike Tannenbaum, who was fired after the 6-10 season.

Tebow’s Top 10

Tim Tebow’s days in a New York Jets uniform have come to an end. ESPNNewYork.com looks back on his Big Apple experience. Tebow’s Top 10

“It’s just a trade that didn’t work out,” Tannenbaum told ESPNNewYork.com after the season. “Each year, we’ll make 200-plus transactions. Some worked out, some didn’t.”

The Jets will have an open competition at quarterback, but without Tebow, who became expendable when the Jets signed David Garrard and drafted Smith.

Many figured he’d wind up playing for his hometown team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, but the new GM, Dave Caldwell, shut down that idea at his first news conference in January.

Tebow could help his chances by agreeing to switch positions, several league executives said, but he wants to remain a quarterback.

He recently spent time at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., honing his oft-criticized mechanics with former NFL quarterback-turned-instructor Chris Weinke. He also worked out in the Tampa area with former Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde.

Known for his eternal optimism, Tebow has refused to bash his New York experience.

“I felt like it was a learning opportunity for me,” he said at the end of the season, reflecting on the year that wasn’t. “There was a lot that I’ll take from it. There’s a lot that I learned and there are lot of relationships that I’ve built, so I know that it happened for a reason.”

His brief stay was surreal at times, never lacking for drama.

Tannenbaum predicted Tebow would be a “dynamic weapon” in the Wildcat offense, but the Tebow package never became a staple in the offense. Coordinator Tony Sparano never found a way to use him, and their relationship became strained, sources said.

The low point came late in the season, when Rex Ryan benched Mark Sanchez and elevated third-stringer Greg McElroy to the starting job, infuriating Tebow. He expressed his displeasure in a meeting with Ryan and was replaced in the Wildcat, with sources telling ESPNNewYork.com that Tebow asked out.

Tebow, who led the Broncos to a playoff win only one year earlier, finished with modest numbers: Eight pass attempts, six completions, 32 rushes for 102 yards and no touchdowns.

And countless headlines in the New York tabloids.”

http://espn.go.com/new-york/nfl/story/_/id/9222870/new-york-jets-cut-tim-tebow

Monday-Friday

620am Beastfit class. Instructor: Nick Thierry

8 Am: Strength building: Instructor : Jake Mcgeorge

Noon: Lunch Crunch. Instructor : Kaylani Sung Austra Bloom, Mary Olarte

6:30PM: Beastfit Class. Instructor: Sergio Jones

Saturday:

930am Beastfit Class Instructor: Sergio Jones

Sunday:

6pm Beastfit class Instructor: Sergio Jones

Address: 1235 sw 16th ave  Portland, Or

Contact: 503 894-3614

 Beastfitnation@gmail.com

HIRING MEETINGS

Tuesday-Thursday 7:30pm

Sunday: 430pm

“We’re nearly 20 games into the young MLB season, and last week’s match-ups featured their fair share of heat to the diamond. New York Yankees star pitcher, CC Sabathia, had a monster week as he not only wore his Air Jordan 12 PEs in a win against the Diamondbacks, but he also gave away a pair of the Jordan 6 Rings “42″ PE Cleats he received for Jackie Robinson Day. Jimmy Rollins, Carl Crawford and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki also had strong showings last week, rocking an array of respective PEs. Check out the rundown of cleats worn on the diamond last week and be sure to check back next Monday for another full recap of Base Kicks.

http://www.nicekicks.com/2013/04/base-kicks-4-22-2013/