Winnger for Most Ironic Comment Ever goes to Kobe, who said this after Gilbert Arenas dropped 60 on him while the Wizards beat the Lakers in L.A.:

“First of all, he shot 27 free throws. We as a team shot 30. Think about that. But him individually, it’s funny, he doesn’t really seem to have that much of a conscience. I really don’t think he does. Some of the shots that he took tonight, you miss those, they’re just terrible shots, awful shots. You make them and they’re unbelievable shots.”

The mind staggers to try to find a comparison. Make your own.

Galley Reader P.G. sends us this short piece about new Harry Potter David Yates, who’s at the healm of the film version of Order of the Phoenix. Here’s a clip from the piece:

“Phoenix,” the fifth book in author J. K. Rowlings’s series, is by far the most ideological, and seems allusive to post-9/11 politics. Harry knows that the evil Lord Voldemort has been reborn and is building an army, but the wizarding government, the Ministry of Magic, refuses to believe him. At Hogwarts, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, the ministry’s Dolores Umbridge, won’t teach the students actual defense spells, under the pretense of protecting them. As the world grows more dangerous, and Umbridge restricts more and more of the students’ personal freedoms, Harry and his pals form a secret club to teach themselves how to battle Voldemort and his minions. “It’s like the French Resistance movement of the 1940s,” Heyman says. Which is right up Yates’s alley. “There’s a really interesting principle at the heart of this story,” says Yates, in an exclusive NEWSWEEK interview. “The ministry is this bureaucratic authoritarian regime trying to impose a fundamental doctrine on this liberal wacky school. The ministry isn’t very good at accepting the beauty of differences. Everything has to fit in a box, and if it doesn’t fit, it must be removed. The wonderful thing this story tells kids is that it’s OK to be different.”

Except that that’s exactly not the point of Order of the Phoenix. The message is more properly understood as: The world is a dangerous place and sometimes, no matter how deep in the sand you try to stick your head, bad people will try to kill you. If you refuse to fight back, you’re a willing accomplice to evil. Hogwarts isn’t a whacky liberal enclave–it’s Sandhurst, where Churchill is teaching a rising generation of warriors how to fight the battle their parents shirked. And the Ministry of Magic isn’t John Ashcroft’s Justice Department or the Catholic Church or whatever other repressive, patriarchical, neanderthal hive Yates might want to equate it with: It’s the frackin’ League of Nations.

At least, that’s what I took away from Order of the Phoenix. But maybe I’m just a neocon warmonger. Tell me where I’m wrong.

It belongs, of course, to Blog Crush Classic:

This chick might as well go gay because no dude is gonna wanna follow Tom Brady. He won the Super Bowl three times, he’s richer than most countries and he looks like a damn model. I made a list of the guys who have more to offer a girl than Tom Brady:

1. Bruce Wayne

And that was pretty much it.

This piece on the corporate structure of Nintendo could have (should have) appeared in the WSJ. Highly interesting.

(1) Take fresh injury.

(2) Add insult.

(3) Mix well.

It keeps getting worse. The Inky is now reporting:

As the 76ers decide when and where to trade Allen Iverson, they are seeking the advice of former 76ers coach Larry Brown, who is acting as a consultant to team president Billy King as the latter sifts through the many offers for the temperamental guard.

Brown moved back to the Philadelphia area weeks ago after being fired as coach of the New York Knicks last summer. . . .

Brown’s longtime agent, Joe Glass, confirmed that Brown was again working with the Sixers.

“He’s a friend of the family,” Glass said. “I guess that’s the best way to put it. He’s good friends with Billy, with Mo [Cheeks], with Ed [Snider, the team’s chairman]. I guess they want to pick his brain. It’s as non-exotic a situation as you can have. They’re just picking his brain, which is good.”

Because Brown only, you know, WRECKED THE FUCKING FRANCHISE with this fickle trades back when he was with the team. And then left the team in the lurch after limp-wristing them through a playoff series with his future employer. And then, after being given a free-pass out of his contract by the Sixers organization, publicly trashed Iverson, helping to push his trade value down.

This is like the Secret Service reanimating the corpse of Lee Harvey Oswald to consult with it on presidential security.

Bonus: Galley Brother B.J. writes:

Am I the only one who wouldn’t be even remotely surprised if Brown traded AI for a 2nd round pick then took over as head coach of the team he just traded Iverson to? You wouldn’t be shocked if he screwed the 76ers again to help his career would you?

Update: So Iverson is leading the East in all-star ballotting for guards. How awesome would it be if the Sixers keep dangling him, the all-star break comes, and Iverson starts the game wearing a generic Eastern Conference jersey?

What could make you love Blog Crush II even more? How about this:

“What, like a guy wearing a $10,000 suit isn’t making the playoffs? Come on!”

Both from the same story. The sad news is that Lindsay Davenport announced yesterday that she has “no plans to play again.” Davenport was an impossibly likeable player, one of the few grownups in the women’s game, and a great champion. Hard not to love her.

The good news is that she’s leaving the game just as she’s become pregnant. Tell me this isn’t the best way to retire:

“I hate the word ‘retirement,’ but this season was such a struggle physically for me, and I can’t imagine playing again,” Davenport said by phone from her home in Southern California. “I can’t say there’s any sadness, yet, about missing tennis. My life is with my husband and my future child.

“I feel like the second part of my life is about to begin, and I feel so lucky that if everything goes well, I’m able to go out like this. The timing couldn’t be better,” she said.

Good for her.

Pajiba sends us to this excellent clip of Matt Damon doing a stone-cold impersonation of Matthew McConaughey.