This is great -- an Einstein chalkboard generator: http://tr.im/p3vm

What has happened to the team with the NBA's best record, the League MVP and the Coach of the Year?  They're down 3-1 to the Orlando Magic and historically-speakinghave a 3% shot of advancing to the NBA Finals.  Only 8 teams in the history of the NBA have come back from a 3-1 deficit to advance to the Finals.  If that miracle is to happen, several changes are going to have to be made.  If you look at stats alone, the problem becomes obvious - Head Coach Mike Brown is not making the personnelsubstitutions that absolutely need to be made in order to stop the losing. 

Let's break down some key stats:

LeBron James is averaging 3.10 more minutes per game in the playoffs than in the regular season.  It's become quite obvious that the rest of the team isn't pullingtheir weight, making it necessary for LeBron to get only 9 minutes of rest each game.  He was used to 12 (an entire quarter).  LeBron's freethrow average is down slightly, as are his assists per game (no one to pass to?) and blocks per game.  He's virtually on-par with his regular season play except for these key stats: his defensive rebounds are way up (an extra 1.4 per game in the playoffs), his turnovers are down (0.4 less in the playoffs) and his points per game have gone up 7.6. That last statistic is evidence that the rest of the team isn't showing up, forcing LBJ to do it all.  One man can't do it all.  Even Michael Jordan could rely onScotty Pippen to contribute.

Mo Williams has been a playoffs disappointment.  His FG percentage, 3-point percentage, free throw percentage, defensive rebounds, steals per game and points per game are all down.  Scotty Pippen he is not.  LeBron is stepping up his game; why can't Mo?

Delonte West is playing an identical game in the playoffs as he did in the regular season.  It's good that his numbers aren't dropping, but he too needs to step it up.

Anderson Varejao's defensive rebounds are way down (2 per game less) as are his assists.  These are the reasons he's in the game in the first place.  Andy isn't a scoring machine; Coach Brown doesn't start him for the points.  He's in there to gobble up loose balls and get the ball to a scorer.  He isn't doing either of those particularly well, as compared to his regular season statistics.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas...where to start?  Z's defensive rebounds and assists are slightly up, but every other recordable statistic is way down.  This appears to be Z's swan song; he's out of gas.  His 3-point percentage is WAY down (he's shooting .154 when he normally shoots .385), his free throw percentage is down, his offensive rebounds are down, as are steals per game, blocks per game and points per game (down 2.10 points).  Z didn't show up for the playoffs.  Perhaps it's time to slash his minutes?  Perhaps, however, it's too late to do anything right now.

Mike Brown has stuck with those starting 5 throughout all 12 games of the playoffs.  He has not wavered from this even once.  Perhaps Coach Brown is becoming way too predictable.  His team certainly is.  When it comes down to the wire, we all know who is going to get the ball - LeBron.  No one else will ever get the ball.  Yet, we know that this team is full of players who can come through in clutch situations: Mo, Delonte, Joe Smith, Daniel Gibson...they've all shown in the past that they can do this.  Why is Coach Brown so stuck in his ways?  He is undoubtedly a defensive guru.  But his offensive planning and play-calling are laughably predictable.  And it's hurting this team when the games matter most.

Now, let's look at the other players who have for some reason fallen out of favor with Coach Brown...

Joe Smith is averaging 1.5 minutes less per game.  Wally has had 7.9 minutes taken away from him.  Daniel Gibson is averaging 13.10 minutes less per game in the playoffs and Sasha Pavlovic 6.6 less.  But the glaring omission from the court has been Ben Wallace.  Big Ben is averaging 11.30 minutes less per game in the playoffs than the regular season and his absence is KILLING THIS TEAM.  When Ben has actually had playing time, his FG percentage has been way up (.750 vs. .445 in the regular season).  Why isn't he getting more minutes?  As a result of his lack of playing time, we're missing out on 4 rebounds per game and over 1 block per game.  Those rebounds and blocks could be the game-changing difference we've needed in games that have been decided by fewer than 4 points.  Would we be in this 3-1 hole if Ben Wallace was playing more?

As a result of cutting minutes for all but the 5 starters, the team is playing tired.  Against a team that is a fast-paced 3-point-shooting juggernaut, this is a fatal mistake.  You need to have fresh legs in there at all times against the Orlando Magic.  The Cavaliers have the talent necessary to advance to the NBA Finals and dare I say it - actually win the title.  But their coach has chosen a bad time to start making critical mistakes, and it's going to extend the Cleveland Curse at least another year, I'm afraid.  And when LeBron's contract is up after next season, do you honestly think he's gonna stay here in Cleveland when the historical greatness of an NBA player is measured in rings?  Here in Cleveland, LeBron has no rings. 

I don't see that changing, and it breaks my heart.

Allen Iverson is a CANCER.  Not only is he disruptive to a team already shaken up, but he now wears street clothes when his team needs him the most because of a "back injury".  Truth be told, he had stated that he wanted to be traded instead of coming off the bench.  Curry benched him because of his disruptiveness to the team, his tardiness to practice, and mouthing off to the head coach.  So, does he learn his lesson and work hard to prove his worth?  No - he whines to the press about wanting to be traded.  So, now instead of being there in the playoffs, he sits on the sidelines in street clothes, being the total waste of a basketball player that he is.  Chauncey Billups would not have been like that.  Billups would have netted several more wins for his basketball team, and not left them in the last-place seed that they are in against the mighty Cleveland Cavaliers.  Detroit doesn't stand a chance.  If they win a game, it will have to be in Detroit, and only because the NBA needs more money, not because they actually did anything to pull out a victory.

As of this year, the powerhouse that was the Detroit Pistons is no more.  Halleluiah!

1. Why do we park in a driveway and drive through a parkway?
2. Why is the Red Lobster sign blue?
3. Why don't we get goosebumps on our face?
4. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
5. Which fruits are in Juicy Fruit?
6. Is there another word for synonym?
7. What does Geronimo yell when he jumps out of an airplane?
8. Why do we play in recitals and recite in plays?
9. Which is messier: to be dirt poor, or filthy rich?
10. When you erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?
11. What was the best thing BEFORE the advent of sliced bread in 1928?
12. Why is it called a TV "set", when you only get one?
13. Did George Washington just flash a dollar bill for his ID?
14. Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
15. Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
16. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

The people who never make more than minimum wage can do far better if they're just invested in themselves.  Not in a government, not in a president, not a congress, not a program.  How many people in those people's lives tell them that they're special?  Versus how many tell them "you don't have a chance.  You don't have a prayer.  This country's racist!  It's homophobic!  It's bigoted!  You don't have a chance.  You need to vote for us."

Even I, ladies and gentlemen... You listen to me and you look at me and you see whatever you see, but you see me as successful.  It may make you mad, it may make you furious.  But nevertheless, you see me successful.  But you don't know the 35-37 years that I've spent in this business, since I was 16, minus five that I worked for the Kansas City Royals baseball team... you don't know the seven times that I got fired and you don't know how many people in this business told me to quit and told me to give it up.  That it's not a fair business and even if you're good, there's too many idiots above you, too many jealous people above you that don't want you to get anywhere because you're better than them. 

Hey, hello - that's the world. 

There are a lot of professors that don't want you to be smarter than they are.  There are a lot of people working at banks who are tellers that could probably be working on the investment side, but somebody's threatened by them.  Everybody's trying to hold everybody back.  It's just human nature. 

And it's only the belief in yourself that propels you through all of those things, and yourself as the individual. 

I got fired seven times.  One time was it probably justified.  The other times due to vagaries of the broadcast business.  But each time I got fired, the guy firing me said "you know, you really don't have what it takes to succeed here.  If you want to stay in this business you need to go into sales or something else because you really don't have that much talent."  And I'm saying to myself "how would you know?  You've never let me exhibit it.  You and your brilliant management have come up with ways that I can only say this here or that there and I can only take that much time ... How do you know what my talent is?  And when was the last time you cared to really find what my talent is?"

Without believing in yourself, you're going nowhere. 

And you won't believe in yourself if somebody beats the individual out of you.  If somebody convinces you that you don't deserve to do any better than anybody else because that's not fair... And they are teaching you that in school, about your grades ... And they're teaching you that about economics, that it's not fair that you drive a nicer car than the schlub down the street, it's not fair, it's humiliating to the people who have less.  So they're trying to beat the individual out of you and the individual in you--the belief in yourself--is the only thing you've got to compete against everybody that's trying to hold you back.  And they all are.  It's the way of the world.

You look at things from afar.  You look at pop-culture.  You look at movie stars.  And you think that's a community and they all decided one day that Cameron Diaz is great and they all got together and they all love Cameron Diaz and they've all made her a big star... That's the image they project because they want you to think it's all a giant -- Cameron Diaz is just like everybody else.  She had to fight for everything she has.  And they're nipping at her heels as she gets older, same thing with Julia Roberts.  It doesn't change.  No matter where you are, no matter what kind of glamor.  You take a look around you: the genuinely successful people, the people that you want to be, did not check their individualism at the door when they started their work.  They didn't check their self-interest at the door and they didn't check their self-respect.  And they didn't turn over the belief in themselves to somebody else. 

That's all I'm talking about.

And that's all under assault by this administration which wants to control and limit freedom because the only way Obama can get the power that he wants and the Democrats can get the power they want is if you willingly turn it over to them.  By getting rid of your self-interests and your self-respect... Your best interests do not coincide with your government's. 

Especially now.