Today's High 5 - NBA Finals edition

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5. LeBron haters, led by classless Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, are in heaven. The Evil One not only lost in the NBA Finals but looked pretty feeble in doing so.

Only a pathetic loser wastes so much time and energy hating an athlete for merely making a basketball decision.

4. At the same time, I have little sympathy for LeBron, whom some have painted as a pitiable victim. He faced an unfair amount of scrutiny, his apologists claim.

Please. He couldn't have handled his exit from Cleveland more poorly. He made his choice. He gets to live with the consequences.

Bottom line: In the most important games of his career, when he had a chance to make the haters eat crow, he pissed down his leg.

3. My fellow Marquetter Dwyane Wade did his best to carry LeBron during the Finals but he, too, cracked under pressure. At least he's already got his ring.

2. In a move even bolder than the '85 Bears doing the Super Bowl Shuffle at midseason, Mavs guard Jason Terry got a tattoo of the NBA championship trophy. After some early-series struggles, he played huge in the final two games and earned the right to keep his ink.

Terry, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion and several other Dallas veterans showed how hard work, stick-to-itiveness and teamwork can yield incredible results.

Those were good stories for the victors, and yet I was more interested in the one authored by Tyson Chandler. Practically run out of Chicago by a Bulls management team that thought he lacked heart, the Mavs center got one important offensive rebound after another.

Who'd have thought he'd be the first post-Jordan Bulls draft pick to win an NBA title?

1. Larry Bird averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists during his amazing career, rescued a Celtics franchise that had lost its way and led Boston to three titles -- including one in just his second season.

There isn't a soul who would compare Dirk Nowitzki to Bird if both men weren't white. Nowitzki is no Larry Bird.

That being said, it was nice to see Dirk win his first title and play so well in taking the Mavs to their first ever championship.

His fourth-quarter offensive performances throughout the playoffs helped erase the bitter memory of his 2006 choke job in the Finals. It must have been a huge weight off his shoulders.

This time, he completely took charge -- just as Bird and Jordan and Magic did in their day. And just as LeBron couldn't do for the Heat.
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Jimmer's not even a nose hair on basketball's Mount Rushmore

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Of all the silly things uttered by coach-turned-yakkers during the NCAA tournament's opening weekend, the silliest had to be St. Joseph's Phil Martelli saying Jimmer Fredette might be having the greatest season ever by a college basketball player.

Talk about a man-crush.

Greatest season ever? Helllloooo! Pick any of Oscar Robertson's seasons. Or Pete Maravich's.

How about Lew Alcindor? David Thompson? Bill Russell?

You want more recent? Is anything The Jimmer doing better than what Kevin Durant did as a Texas freshman in 2006-7? Or what Adam Morrison did at Gonzaga a year earlier?

OK, maybe Martelli meant that, given the relative lack of talent at BYU, Fredette might be the most important player to his team.

If that's what Martelli meant ... he's still delusional.

I mean, Larry Bird carried -- and I mean CARRIED -- Indiana State within an eyelash of the 1979 national title. Bill Bradley was a one-man show for Princeton's 1965 Final Four team. Jerry West and Magic Johnson had some pretty fair seasons for some OK teams, too.

Oh, and all Wilt Chamberlain did in his two years at Kansas was average about 30 points and 20 rebounds ... but I guess he was no Jimmer.

And those are just off the top of my chrome dome. If I felt like doing research, I'd probably come up with a dozen or two more.

Isn't it enough to say that The Jimmer probably is this year's top player, not to mention a guy who is darn fun to watch?

Isn't The Jimmer hyped enough without Phil Martelli suggesting he belongs on some kind of college hoops Mount Rushmore?

I'd like to give Martelli a pass and call him a smart guy who simply got swept up in Jimmer Fever.

Or I could take a page from Martelli's book and say that might have been the stupidest comment in television history.
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