Larry Brown’s Departure

There is something comforting about a day in which the biggest news hardly seems like news at all. Larry Brown resigning from an N.B.A. team (or being fired, or mysteriously finding the locks changed on his office door) falls into the category of the sun rising in the morning or snow falling in winter. You may need to be reminded which team changed those locks this time (Charlotte) and how many N.B.A. teams remain that haven’t fired him (very few), but be assured that you have plenty of company in your complete lack of surprise
That’s not to say the Bobcats’ dysfunctional mess is not worthy of some rubbernecking. This is Michael Jordan’s team now and, as Adrian Wojnarowski writes on Yahoo.com, he had a lot to do with the head-scratching player moves, even if some were because he let Brown talk him into them. It’s clear Jordan needs to start a full-scale rebuilding and, as Ian Thomsen writes on SI.com, Brown does not have the patience for such things. In fact, he could run through four or five N.B.A. teams before the Bobcats straighten themselves out. At the moment, that unenviable task falls to Paul Silas, who may soon wonder why he came out of coaching retirement for this, writes Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer.

The flip side of the Bobcats story right now is the Boston Celtics, who have won 14 in a row, including a game Wednesday night against Philadelphia that they had no business winning. But, as Peter May writes on ESPN.com, that is the sign of a truly good team, winning even when they stink. Another sign: the perpetually horrible free throw shooter Shaquille O’Neal sinking two after receiving courtside tips from David Ortiz, the Big Shamrock getting tips from Big Papi.

This, of course, is only marginally sillier than Wednesday’s preoccupation with videos that allegedly uncovered Jets Coach Rex Ryan’s foot fetish. Considering the Jets universe is full of whoopee cushions and funhouse mirrors, this dose not even qualify as unusual. As Kevin Hench writes on Foxsports.com, there isn’t anything nefarious about being attracted to your wife, and Steve Serby of The New York Post felt bad he had to be squirming through questions about it. The rest of us were squirming through all of the bad foot puns.

You could have turned your attention to Boise State’s resounding victory in the Maaco Bowl (not making that up), but you would have been watching the end to the most disappointing 12-1 season ever, writes Stewart Mandel on SI.com. Or you could have rolled your eyes upon learning that the N.C.A.A. is spending its time investigating whether Ohio State players perpetrated a hideous crime in trading autographs for tattoos. (Insert groaning sounds here.) Perhaps it should be investigating just how the Poinsettia Bowl (not making that up either) is going to be played in Qualcomm Stadium Thursday night without the use of canoes.

The only sogginess at the Stanford-San Francisco women’s basketball game Wednesday night was the tears shared when Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer won her 800th career game in a game against her former player Jennifer Azzi, the San Francisco coach. There are also tears in this story: the former Yale hockey player Mandi Schwartz will have to continue her battle against leukemia after finding out the cancer had returned. And the tears in this story are of the happier kind: SI.com’s Paul Daugherty writing about his disabled daughter and the college basketball coach who made her a manager of his team.