Yes, it is still early in the season, but not too early to start tracking some of the feel-good, surprise stories in the league. While it is true that all of these teams could easily be broken, also-ran castoffs by this time next week, they have each fared either better than expected, or just better than usual, thus far this season.

While watching the NBA’s refs make inexplicable call after inexplicable call over the last few decades has made it pretty hard for the NBA to surprise me, I am pretty surprised to see these five teams where they are in the standings almost a quarter of the way into the season.

5. Atlanta Hawks (12 -5)

It’s hard to consider the Hawks a surprise team because they have been nurturing a load of young talent over the last few years. Still, it’s kind of surprising to see them at 12-7 anyway you slice it. They have dropped three out of their last four, but that is not surprising. You expect a young team to have growing pains. The Hawks have won in Boston, blown out Denver and beaten Portland twice. This team has proven that they can beat any given team on any given night. Hawks’ fans haven’t felt that way since John Koncak and company spent their careers making sure ‘Nique never made it to the top.

4. Houston Rockets (9 -8)

Again, it’s hard to call this team a surprise. When you roll with Luis Scola, Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes, you know you are getting a gritty team. PG Aaron Brooks has been inconsistent since scoring 33 in the Rockets’ 101-91 upset of the Lakers. He might just be too small and one dimensional to depend on day in and day out to carry the scoring load. The Rockets are just plain old talent deficient. But they do play for four quarters, which is something most teams stopped doing in about 1992. In the NBA today, that could be enough to finagle an eighth seed come playoff time. If they continue to own Oklahoma City, they have a very good chance. It would say a lot about the Rockets’ organization if they sneaked into the playoffs with this lot of lovable, but limited, winners.

3. Oklahoma City (9 -8)

To be fair, I am still a bit surprised that I am living in a world without the Seattle SuperSonics, so in that sense, I am surprised every time I see this team. Gary Payton, Sean Kemp and Sam Perkins tortured me throughout my teenage years. In the 90’s, the Sonics seemed like a force of nature. Now they are just named after one while  playing in the armpit of America. Kevin Durant going flat-out bananas isn’t surprising anyone. But the Thunder recording wins over the first place Suns and Magic, not to mention a win over the perennially powerful Spurs, is a bit of a kick in the nuts. It seems quite possible that while the entire world is waiting to see where LeBron ends up next season, the real future of the NBA is a Longhorn living deep in the heart of Oklahoma. If Oklahoma does indeed have a heart. Mixing Oklahoma with the Sonics is to me as a sports fan what mixing the USSR with Al Qaeda would be to a Teabagger.

2. Milwaukee Bucks (9 -8)

Brandon Jennings was a popular whipping boy last year. He blazed a trail by refusing to be a farcical college student and played overseas while waiting to reach the NBA’s mandatory age minimum. The teenager was a punch line to many due to his repeated PR gaffes his proclamation that he is better than Ricky Rubio, recipient of more international ejaculate than any player on the draft board last year. Well guess what? He is better than Ricky Rubio. Jennings not only became the youngest player to ever go for 50 when he pounded Golden State for 55 on November 14, but he also has the Bucks in the thick of the playoff race almost one quarter of the way through the season. This guy has the chance to be the first mega-star to play for the Bucks since Lew Alcindor. Ray Allen and Michael Redd are nice, but neither one is transcendental on their own. The fact that only 17 games into Jenning’s career, it appears that he might be one of those special, top tier talents is mind blowing. Although he did tell us so.

1. Phoenix Suns (13 - 3)

It is not so much surprising that the Suns are 14-3 given their soft schedule to open the season. What is surprising is that the Lakers are in second place in the Pacific Division. The fact is, the Suns have wracked up a lot of wins against weaker competition, and they have not fared very well against the tougher teams in the Western Conference. But I don’t care what anybody says, it is shocking to see anybody ahead of the Lakers in the Pacific Division at this point in the season. Yes, the Suns are only half a game ahead of them. But this is the Laker team that is  supposed to challenge the Bulls’s 72 win mark. I know Kobe has been hurting. I know the Lakers are still probably acclimating to Ron Artest parading around the team’s facilities in nothing but his undies. I realize that all of this should change as soon as the Suns hit a rough patch and the Lakers just don’t. But I really expected the Lakers to rule the division from wire to wire. Phoenix is showing that they still matter. Or at least they seem to for now. I certainly never thought I would see the Lakers in anything less than first place this season.

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RonRon is officially the Debo of the NBA. I love how Ariza shrugs his shoulders as if to say,”Coach is trippin, Ron. He wants me to ask for my shoe back. You know I wouldn’t trip. It’s just like it’s both of ours.”

You think Earl Boykins could get away with that shit?

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LeBron James has been putting a lot of thought into it, and he thinks every player in the NBA who wears the number 23 should give it up to honor Michael Jordan.

“I just think what Michael Jordan has done for the game has to be recognized in some way-soon,” James said. “There would be no LeBron James, no Kobe Bryant(notes), no Dwyane Wade(notes), you name all the best players in the league right now and the last 10 years, there would be none of us without Michael Jordan.”

First of all, this has to be the first humble gesture ever made where the gesturer refers to himself in the third person.

“It’s time,” James said. “He’s the best basketball player we’ve ever seen. Mike does it on the court and off the court. If you see 23, you think about Michael Jordan. You see guys flying through the air, you think about Michael Jordan. You see game-winning shots, you think about Michael Jordan. You see fly kicks, you think about Michael Jordan. He did so much, it has to be recognized, and not just by putting him in the Hall of Fame.”

I also find it pretty humorous that he thinks the number 23 is sacred enough to permanently retire league-wide due to the unparalleled accomplishments of MJ, but he also saw fit to choose it for himself in the first place.

None the less, it is a great idea and a wonderful gesture. Yes, people will complain that other former NBA stars are equally or more deserving, but MJ gave the NBA an explosive sizzle it has held onto ever since. He changed the game and a lot more. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game and averaged 50 and 25 over the course of a season, but MJ was the ambassador that brought the NBA to the furthest corners of the earth. He didn’t win as many championships as Russell, but he changed the way Madison Avenue does business forevermore. Just as Jerry West is known as the official logo of the NBA, the number 23 should be hung in every stadium as homage to how great the NBA can be.

That doesn’t mean there are a lot of other great players who shouldn’t be remembered through some sort of retirement gesture. There are many other things the league should retire, such as the hated Thunder Sticks and teams playing the first three quarters of every regular season game like their mommies forced them to go to their basketball game when they really wanted to stay home and be LeBron on Playstation. But that is not so much out respect for the past as it is respect for the fans.

Here are some other things that should be left to the legends:

The Afro - This one is a no-brainer. The afro belongs to Dr. J. It’s just that simple. A lot of players have rocked it, and the hairstyle itself actually led the ABA in rebounding three times in the mid-’70’s, but nobody owned the ‘fro like Dr. J.

Some of the players this would affect:

Ben Wallace, Moochie Norris (OK, he’s not in the league anymore, but as he is the only player to ever parlay a ‘fro into a 50 million dollar contract, he makes the list.), Ricky Davis, Michael Beasley, Fletch

Endorsing Clothing Lines - Check out this Larry Bird commercial for Chadon Bluejeans and tell me there is a player in the NBA who could throw on a pair of skin-tight, pseudo-designer jeans like Bird did in this commercial:

Was that a body double on that last shot, or did Larry just say, “Fuck it. I haven’t been running suicides every morning for the last 20 years to not show off my ass.”? Either way, the NBA should strongly consider banning players from ever doing anything like this again.

Some players this would affect:

Pretty much all of them. Or at least all the ones with an annoying cousin who won’t get off their dick about what a great idea it would be for them to start their own clothing line. After all, what grown man doesn’t need a hoodie with a silhouette of Chris Bosh’s face on the back of it? Kinda makes him look like Che’.

Declaring Too Many Willis Reed Moments- This one is on the announcers. Every time a player is treated for an injury during a playoff game, the announcers wonder if it will be a “Willis Reed Moment” when the player reenters the court via the tunnel to the dressing room. Because there is no other way for a player to get to the court, superficially, it is an easy comparison to make. But they seem to forget that Willis Reed was inspiring his team to a game seven win in the NBA championship against the Lakers, not coming back to the floor during a first round series against them.

Some players this would affect:

Well, ok, maybe just Yao Ming. And it is still heart wrenching to see the big fella wincing in pain knowing how much he wants to help his teammates. But there will never be another table set for a moment quite like Willis’s.

Daisy Dukes/Ho Shorts/Nut Huggers - Nobody kept viewing audiences in fear of seeing an accidentally revealed testicle like John Stockton. Luckily, he didn’t have great hang time. Sure, entire eras worth of players also exposed their tan-lines similarly, but Stockton wore his hooker shorts long after the Fab Five introduced the world to baggy gear. These days, when you think nut huggers, you think John Stockton. Today’s players need to respect that.

Players this would affect:

None of them, thankfully. Although after seeing LeBron in his hipster gear on TNT last weekend, nothing would surprise me.

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Jeremy Tyler quit high school to play pro hoops in Israel. That is just awesome. What will be next? I suppose a parent will eventually attempt to cryogenically freeze their teen with the plan to thaw them out in a year when their draft prospects seem to be the best. It is hilariously beyond the pale how out of whack people’s priorities are. Why don’t we just go all out and set up some Chinese-style sports academies and train our gifted athletes from the embryonic phase? It would save them from ever having to seek any kind of traditional education, and Glenn Beck would love it. He could do little video shorts of ballers dunking with Stalin’s face super-imposed over their heads.

I can understand wanting to duck out on the sham of helping the NCAA turn a profit for a year before entering the draft. But who would want to miss their senior year of high school? Could his grades have been so bad he would not have been able to play this year? That seems practically impossible. If you just show up to class in high school more often than not, you should be able to pull off a nice series of the “C’s” and “D’s” one needs to stay on the court.

Naturally, the 6′11 18 year-old is struggling with living in a new country, playing against grown men and not being the big man on campus. Tyler was apparently surprised he was not handed the keys to the kingdom as soon as he showed up to play for Maccabi Haifa. He is only playing a few minutes a game, and is not that impressive thus far. But riding the bench in the Holy Land has to be better than frantically copying a friend’s geometry homework in the hallway before the bell rings to start class.

“It’s tough going to practice every day, twice a day, working as hard as you can, and once the game comes, you get no love,” he said.

He is thousands of miles away from everything he knows and loves. He is not getting in the game. He will not be getting laid at prom. Is that worth it for $140,000? (Answer: Eh, probably. We’re in a recession, you know?) But will his struggles in Israel hurt or help his NBA status?

People seem to think the jury is still out. Aran Smith, president of NBAdraft.net had this to say:

“This will be a real test for him,” Smith said in an email. “Will he ’soldier up’ and rise to the challenge? Or will he run and hide and look for a way out.”

Tyler is projected as a possible lottery pick next year, and Brandon Jennings fast start with the Bucks is only helping his case. Next year he will be a millionaire. But he will still be a high school drop out.

President Obama, it’s time to consider a “Sports Czar.” Preferably one that wears a big furry hat and screams about how he was sodomized by a pack of wolves in Siberia during his special forces training every time one of his six year olds complains that he should at least let them stop running during the REM period of sleep.

Can America stamp out education in the name of sports? Yes, we can!

Jeremy Tyler’s high school highlight reel:

Not sports related, but I just want this in writing since the subject of Glenn Beck came up: I predict Beck, or a similar nut, will openly question whether or not Fort Hood shooter and army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan used his influence over soldiers to plant “Manchurian Candidate” style, deep-cover unconscious terrorists in the armed forces. What is today? Wednesday? Give him till Friday.

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I ask you, Death, please watch this before even considering making a move:

Yeah, he lost, but if he could last that long with Bruce Lee, think about what he would do to your brittle-ass skull face, Death.  Good luck, Big Fella. I am privileged to have one more chance to root for you.

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The word is that Allen Iverson is not coming back to the Memphis Grizzlies. Does anybody care?

Allen Iverson is a force of nature. He is the embodiment of everything wrong with the entire universe. That is a lot of weight for one guy to carry, but it resides comfortably inside one of the largest egos in the NBA.

Allen Iverson is a cosmic entity representing the death of team play, material excess and self-absorption to the point where he may have absorbed himself dry. There is nothing left to cling to. His rickety knees and a faded “all about me game/attitude” that doesn’t translate well to veteran leadership have seen to that.

Iverson missed the pre-season and the first week or so of the season with an old man hammy. Iverson being Iverson, of course, expected his teammates to recognize that the operation should through him immediately upon his return. When that didn’t happen, his pouting began immediately. And now he reportedly packed up his bags and simply bounced.

Perhaps cooler heads will prevail, and once emotions simmer down, he will return. But do the Grizz want that? Does anyone? The real question is, who in Memphis thought that this might work out for more then the exactly zero seconds that it did? Did having that over the hill cancer of a Prima donna on a billboard really make one person go buy season tickets? Anybody who was convinced deserves to sit through a season of grizzly (no need to capitalize, eh?) basketball with their bored to tears faces resting against their silenced thunder sticks.

Iverson accomplished a lot of things in his career. He got more out of that wiry frame than anyone else could have. He entertained millions of people and piled up individual accolades. He even managed to get the Sixers to and NBA Finals. Maybe history will forget how pathetic the East was at that point and that the Lakers creamed them.

But mostly, I think history will forget Allen Iverson. Whiners might get paid. But it’s the winners we remember.

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What does it take to get a publishing house up and operating? Because if I can get the investors together, I think there is a multi-million dollar idea we can run with.

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy was released from jail today. Now, most publications see fit to use the word “shamed” or “disgraced” when describing the guy. Personally, if I could, I would just go with a word that meant “typical NBA referee who is admitting everything I ever suspected to be true about the unscrupulous calls I have seen with my own eyes over the years.” But since there isn’t, I just went with his name. That has become enough of an adjective in and of itself anyway.

Random House has decided not to publish Donaghy’s opus “Blowing the Whistle (Get it? He used to blow whistles professionally, then he went to prison where god knows what he blew, and now he is a “whistle blower”). For some reason, they don’t trust they guy.

Supposedly, Donaghy uses the book to accuse other refs of gambling and the NBA of showing favoritism toward star players and giving officials a wink and a nudge when they wanted a playoff series extended.

If you have been watching the NBA long enough, and by long enough, I mean, if you have ever watched an NBA game, it is likely you have seen something you deemed suspicious. Is there a living, breathing NBA fan that doesn’t think the NBA pulls strings to lengthen playoff series? And it is safe to say that in the 90’s, it often looked like the gusts of El Nino were sending MJ to the line as often as an actual foul did.

David Stern can try and sweep Donaghy under the rug as much as he wants. He can call him one isolated bad man amongst a sea of officiating integrity. But is there one single person who believes that?

Ask Tim Duncan if he would trust Joey Crawford more than Tim Donhagy to call the game with integrity. Donaghy may be a scumbag, but he never gave a player two techs and ejected him before tip-off of a playoff game, as Jake O’Donnell did to Clyde Drexler back in ‘95. My guess is all NBA fans can spit out a list of suspected chicanery without much reflection. We have all seen NBA calls that went beyond head-scratchers. Well, we still scratched our heads, but as we did we wondered if a fat guy named Sal/Tony/Vinnie sitting outside a pork shop in Little Italy just put in the word that, goddamit, Golden State better win by at least 12.

I am not saying that Donaghy is trustworthy. Clearly he is something of a shitbag with a gambling problem. There is no reason to think every word that comes out of his mouth isn’t a lie.

But I would read a book filled with those lies just for the feeling of vindication that would surge through my body with every potentially libelous accusation. I’m guessing I am not the only one. In fact, I am guessing everyone who has died 1,000 deaths after their team went down in flames due to a phantom call at just the wrong time would throw down 24.95 for a hardcover.

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And of course we all know that President Obama is a big basketball fan. The President is smart enough to know that Yao is one of the most popular, if not the most popular Chinese citizen. Whatever else you think of the man, Obama knows how make a crowd warm up to him. In his recent trip to China, the Commander in Chief dropped Yao’s name into a speech that may have made him a few million new friends. President Obama said “I have learned from the words of Yao Ming, who said, ‘No matter whether you are a new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another.’ Well, through the constructive meetings that we’ve already had and through this dialogue, I’m confident that we will meet Yao’s standards.”

This made me wonder what would happen if Obama used other NBA players to shape his ideas about foreign policy.

For example, if Ron Artest was one of the most popular citizens in one of the largest countries in the world, and Obama wanted to use one of his quotes to win the populace over he could say, “I have learned from the words of Ron Artest, who said, ‘If there was a fight between the fans who loved me or booed me, I think the boos would have won.’ I am confident that we can change our relationship so that if there was a fight between the people in your country who hate the US and the people in your country who love the US, well, I could send Ron Artest over there to beat all of them down and then just start building more McDonald’s and Starbucks.”

Or what if Charles Barkley was actually royalty in some far away, really fun country? Obama might use this line: “I have learned from the words of Sir Charles Barkley who said, ‘I can be bought. If they paid me enough, I’d work for the Klan.’ I am confident that with the intervention of enough special interest groups we can avoid ever making any significant policy change, and the citizens of your great country can continue to guzzle booze into the morning hours and blow all of the aid we send you at the craps table of Monte Carlo. I am confident we will meet Sir Charles’ standards.”

Finally, what if Dennis Rodman was the most popular citizen in a country called Wormistan? Obama would certainly use the line: “I have learned from the words of Dennis Rodman, ‘Chemistry is a class you take in high school or college, where you figure out two plus two is ten, or something.’ It is important the U.S and Wormistan realize that after today’s discussion, our chemistry will be better than ever. Depending on what the hell chemistry means, of course.”

Ahhh…what a world it would be.

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But of course, I was wrong.

What’s left for the guy who has brought the hood into every single arena he has ever played in? Exporting it to China:

When my buddy told me about this video, I assumed the worst. But I gotta tell you, after watching it a few times, I really think it is as good as just about anything you hear on the radio these days. Granted, that is about as impressive as being the best dunker in the WNBA, but still. A lot of people will hate on him, but he does not totally suck. In fact, Ron can flow.

I don’t care what anybody says, Ron Artest is the most interesting character in the league since Daryl Dawkins arrived from the planet LoveTron. Starbury is a close second, but he doesn’t have the game to back it up anymore, so he is really just a sideshow at this point.

It took a lot for Ron to outdo himself in my eyes. I mean, he is already responsible for the biggest brawl in NBA history. He once asked Larry Bird for time off from hoops to promote his rap career, which is the basketball equivalent of asking General Patton for time off from WWII so you can work on your tan on the beaches of Normandy. He allegedly once recorded a country tune with an elderly woman (20 million internet points to whoever can find a link). But my all time favorite Ron Artest moment was when he sang an apology song to Paul Pierce after pantsing him during a game.

And of course, he exploded my head when he told us that he didn’t think playoff basketball was particularly physical compared to pickup games back in his neighborhood where people were known to get stabbed through the heart with scorer’s tables.

But watching a club full of enthusiastic but confused Chinese hip-hop fans bob their heads and throw their hands up while RonRon raps about looking for an H-town girl, an East Coast girl, a West Coast girl, or maybe, if there is a willing honey in the audience, a Shanghai girl, was perhaps the most sublimely amusing experience of my life.

The kid at the 4:30 mark is particularly hilarious. If someway, somehow Artest’s TruWarier Productions can be the next big thing in China, I might be the happiest blogger in the world.

Ron has some rap skills.  He definitely worked that crowd.  They looked like they were enjoying it. If he can somehow convince Yao Ming to dress up like Ziggy Stardust and maybe pull one of these, he will own China.

Update: Last night I noticed that someone arrived to my page by Googling “Ron Artest Undewear.” I did not know what to make of it until I saw this. The man called Crazy Pills truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Underwear today. For the first time, I am scared for tomorrow.

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Only “Bruno” kept this from being the most disappointing thing I have seen all year.  There was so much publicity of Nike confiscating the dunk that I assumed Jordan Crawford’s dunk was more ridiculous than Tony Romo breaking up with Jessica Simpson the day before her birthday.  It made me excited to think about how awesome the dunk might be. I figured it must have been a lot better than Courtney Lee’s dunk on Lebron in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

At a minimum, it had to be better than Danny Granger’s dunk on Lebron, right?

Wrong.

Honestly, I would have been better off not seeing the video. Once I heard Nike confiscated it, I assumed it must have been one of the sickest and most embarrassing jams  ever.  I thought it would be even more insane than Kevin Johnson’s dunk on Hakeem.

(Editors note: Dream had five fouls.)

My assumption was that Jordan Crawford was coming on a fast break and Lebron was ready to meet him head on. And then Jordan jumped right over Lebron with the ball landing on James’ face and Crawford hanging on Lebron after the dunk. To my utter dismay, I couldn’t be more disappointed. The video was about as satisfying as eating bread by itself.

Jordan Crawford had a wide open lane to the hole. At the last second, Lebron made a lousy effort to block him, but Crawford had a lot of momentum. Frankly , it looks like LeBron didn’t care enough in a meaningless pickup game to go up high and block the shot. Until he heard the crowd explode, I don’t think he cared at all.

I don’t know what is more pathetic. All the hype this dunk received even though it was so weak, or the fact that Nike confiscated the tape and ended up giving Crawford undeserved publicity and embarrassing Lebron 100 times more than he would have been embarrassed had the dunk been shown in the first place. The reality is, the only winner in this weak dunk is Jordan Crawford.

Nike looks bad for confiscating the video. Lebron looks bad for his involvement in Nike confiscating the video. And we all look bad for giving this dunk too much attention.

At the end of the day, the only winner is Jordan Crawford.  He got a lot of attention, plenty of TV face time and now there are a lot more people in this world that know who Jordan Crawford is. Crawford should thank Nike and Lebron for confiscating the video. If it would have been released, the whole world would have seen the weak dunk and no one would have  cared.  As disappointed as I am with the dunk, Nike and Lebron, I can’t help but be kind of happy for Crawford’s sudden popularity.  He seems like a good kid and handled interviews well.  20 year-old Crawford should give 24 year-old Lebron a class on what it means to be humble and not a sore loser.

Lebron still demonstrates a lot of immaturity by his handling of the dunk and not shaking the Magic players hands after the Eastern conference finals. But than again, he is 24 and a gazillionaire. If this is the worst thing he ever does, that’s actually not so bad.

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Picture by Craig Hatfield.