Links of the Day (Congratulatory Butt Pat Edition)

• Today's big story was Grant Hill and Reggie Evans getting tossed out of Wednesday's pre-season game for excessive ass slapping. Now, RwH is generally a proponent of this gesture. It's appropriate in many circumstances on the basketball court: Encouragement after a hustle play, an "attaboy" for a particularly good one, appreciation for an opponent, or a "we'll get 'em next time" after a turnover. In fact, instead of giving out "hat tips" to other bloggers and readers for bringing my attention to interesting content (as is customary on the Internet), I think RwH will, from now on, give out ass slaps. With that said -- and contrary to what everyone on the Internet seemed to be saying -- what Hill and Evans did went beyond that. This had nothing to do with the new technical foul guidelines and everything to do with two guys (one a notorious agitator), who had gotten matching techs the previous play continuing to antagonize each other.
• Ass slap to Red's Army for this post calling out Tim Kurkjian for either over-stating the excitement of a playoff no-hitter or under-stating the excitement of a transcendent performance from a basketball player. My friends and I actually had an email discussion about this years ago, and my position was (and still is) that baseball and football have no analog to a truly great performance in basketball for one reason: flow. I've never been in a baseball stadium for a no-hitter, and I know that as a pitcher gets closer to the no-no, the excitement in the stands builds. But he still must sit on the bench for several minutes at a time while his team bats, during which period a number of events can take away from the moment, at least temporarily. Football is the same; a quarterback might complete every pass he throws, but he still has to come off the field every time his team scores. In basketball, players play offense and defense, and you know that when a team scores, they'll have the ball back in less than a minute -- and often in just a few seconds. When someone is putting on a truly transcendent performance on the basketball court, the whole gym is electric. There are no lulls, and that makes a huge difference.
• Another ass slap to Red's Army for first- and second-half highlights (in HD) from the Philly game that make us look awfully good.
• SLAM Online is ranking the top 50 players currently in the NBA. Rajon Rondo is 17th, ahead of Paul Pierce (19th), Kevin Garnett (29th), and Ray Allen (50th). Scanning the list quickly, it appears that this puts Rondo ahead of all point guards not named Rose, Nash, Williams, or Paul. He should be ahead of Rose, but whatever.
• The story behind this Michael Jordan dunk is great.
• I've said that if I ever get a tattoo, it will simply be "Havlicek stole the ball' written across my back. Looks like a Knicks fan has similar loyalty.