Rip, you can bid on these

A few days ago we posted a link to about Lionel and Richard Hamilton. Rip attended Lionel's baskeball camp, won a free throw shooting contest, and was supposed to win Lionel's sneakers. For some reason, Rip never got the shoes.

Well, here you go.


Buy It Now is at $50 with $15 shipping.

Devon White Video

Here's a link to a video of Devon White. Firefox couldn't handle this so good luck. If Devon's offense is as hard to handle as his videos, then we're in good shape.

Former La Salle Recruit & Poisonus Snakes

No snarky comments from me on this one. I love water snakes and Chris Pontius and people jumpping over things. As silly as this looks, it's a pain in the ass to get this done. There's like snake handlers on set and they're invoicing and everbody wants to know when craft services will be here blah blah blah. Getting anything done in production is a production so kudos to whatever agency was behind this. Water snakes are the new chimpanzees. Comedy gold!

Why is Sual Playing as Much as You?

As much as I enjoyed watching the Hornets during the playoffs, I was always a little bummed that I never got to watch Sual. Something's wrong when one of the best basketball players you've ever seen gets as much PT as you do.


Hornets fans aren't too happy with the money they're giving to our boy. Here's offsideswithfletcher.....

Mike James & Rasual Butler. Next season these two stiffs will make a combined 9.6 million dollars! Seriously!

Because of these garbage contracts the Hornets will not be able to trade these two players. They’re stuck with them!

So, If I were GM I’d hand Mike James the back-up point guard spot. I hate how selfish he is, how he looks to shoot everytime he touches the ball…..but if he’s on the roster eating up 6 million dollars in salary he should be playing more. I’d give him a shot!

Butler is a total bust to me. Just make him inactive and hope he retires or asks for a buyout!

Damn. Hornets fans are calling for Birdman to come back and Sual to retire. The world is upside down.

"Recycle for Sight" Month at the Lion's Club

Being the only Den writer who works in the non-profit sector, I feel compelled to not only promote the betterment of LaSalle basketball, but the betterment of our community.

Two-thirds of the Den wear glasses (gazelles and boars are not known for their eyesight) and May is "Recycle for Sight" month. No organization in history has done more to promote sight and end preventable blindness than the Lion's Club, the international network of lions and ladies dedicated to humanitarian service. Drop off your used prescription and nonprescription glasses and sunglasses to a Lion's Club near you or send them by mail. Read more about "Recycle for Sight" month. The Den is looking to collaborate with the Lion's Club to be our official charitable partner.

On a related note, LaSalle basketball shall rise to prominence, or at least memorableness, when we get a baller with some thick rims, and not the kind you find on an Escalade. Cue Harris from Major League: "I think they like good, young man." Athletes don't like to show weakness, so few admit to bad eyesight. But everybody loves a guy in glasses who takes charges and hustles. Mufasa cheers for guys in masks; I like goggles.

All-Time Goggles & Spectacles Team:

Center: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (back-up is Moses for a quick blow)
Forward: James Worthy (only one on this list who was born with goggles)
Forward: Horace Grant (bro Harvey will get garbage time and you won't even know a switch was made)
Guard: Thurl Bailey (okay, he's a forward but he could shoot. He's my two guard)
Guard: Gazelle (since there is not one documented case of a point guard wearing glasses on the court I'm calling my own number)
Sixth Man: Kurt Rambis
Coach: John Wooden
Towel Boy: Chris Sabo

Richard Hamilton & Lionel

Being the only native New Englander in the Lionel's Den crew, it's hard to figure out who to root for in the NBA. I grew up with the Celts but pretty much abandoned them once they tore down the Garden and ushered in the Antoine Walker era.


Mufasa always liked Rip while he was at UCONN - I'm a fan of passionate players and facemasks so Rip is two for two. Then there's this from MLive.com....

Being comfortable knocking down free throws in pressure situations, was something Hamilton learned how to do at an early age.

He recently told the story about how he went to a basketball camp that was being hosted by former NBA player Lionel Simmons.

Simmons wanted to see which of the kids could make free throws with all the other kids yelling and screaming at them. Whoever made three in a row would get a pair of Simmons' sneakers.

Hamilton said he was the only one to make all three free throws.

"I try to put myself in that zone as a kid, because I made those free throws," he said.

And the sneakers?

"He never gave me those sneakers and I'm still mad about it," Hamilton said jokingly.

Lionel, come through with the sneaks.

Pittsburgh v Philly - Who you got?

If you like getting mad about irrelevant things like "Which PA city has the best junk food" then you're in luck. Gordie Jones, great name, wrote an article comparing all things Philly with all things Pittsburgh.


Turns out, Pittsburgh is way better than Philly.....I guess.

Iconic junk food: In Philadelphia, it is the cheesesteak. In Pittsburgh, Iron City Beer. Advantage: Philadelphia. (Though the fact that Pittsburgh also gave us the Klondike Bar and Heinz ketchup -- not to mention Rolling Rock beer, which used to be brewed in nearby Latrobe -- makes this closer than it otherwise might have been.)

Famous person: Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh) vs. Nicodemo Scarfo (Philly). Advantage: Pittsburgh -- but please don't tell Mr. Scarfo or any of his associates.

Fictional jock: Pittsburgh offers Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) of ''Slap Shot'' fame. Philly counterpunches with Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Advantage: Philadelphia. (Yo, do they have a statue of Reg in the Steel City? And did he ever go the distance with Creed?)

Entertainer: Mr. Rogers (Pittsburgh) vs. Bill Cosby (Philadelphia). Advantage: Pittsburgh, because of recent headlines and Eddie Murphy's old ''Saturday Night Live'' sendup of Mr. Rogers, ''Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood'' (''Oooh, it's Mr. Landlord, boys and girlsÂ…'').

Signature athletes: In Pittsburgh (and environs), they are quarterbacks (Johnny Unitas, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Joe Namath). In Philly, they are ballers (Wilt Chamberlain, Earl Monroe, Paul Arizin, Tom Gola). Advantage: Pittsburgh, though the Wilt factor makes this a photo finish.

Your final score: Pittsburgh 3, Philly 2.

See, you're annoyed aren't you. This might be the only article to ever compare Joe Namath to Gola.

Yeah, 300 v 4 is fair.....

Let's say we had Donnie Carr, Rasual Butler, Tom Gola and Lionel all on one team. And they had to play 300 average players. And they lost. Would you call that a battle? 300 vs 4?

Whatever.
National Geographic has a doc on the "Battle at Kruger" this Sunday. Hopefully it will be a little more of a balanced look at this unbalanced "battle".

Unsigned New Yorkers

From the crew at Bounce Mag. Since Mufasa lives in NYC, I'm partial to New York dudes. Once you get beaten by an 11 year-old in a game of one-on-one you become a believer in New York talent pretty quick....or come to the realization that you've lost a step. I'll take any of the dudes in the video.....

The Big Apple Scholarship game on April 20th showcased NYC’s Top 40 NYC unsigned seniors, based on their academic achievements and basketball ability. Peep the kid who does the in and out, gets his shot punched, retrieves it, then gets his defender with the same dribble move and finally scores! That’s persistence!

Practically Unstoppable

Not growing up in or around Philly, I don't take for granted how awesome of a name "Strawberry Mansion" is. It sounds like some indie band or place where Robert Plant and David Bowie would make love to hundreds of women.

In any event, this makes me happy.

"When we played against Mississippi this past season, I saw a lot of kids 6-7 or 6-8, weighing 240 or 250 pounds," Giannini said of his team's close loss to Ole Miss in Puerto Rico. "They really impressed me with how strong and athletic they were in the post. They were practically unstoppable.

"I see that being Devon in the future. I like the way he plays now. And once we get him in the weight room, and teach him how to play college basketball, he's going to become that much better. I truly see him being a real force in the Atlantic 10 Conference in a few years."

Philly Daily News

Devon White Signs With La Salle

Devon White, 6-8 from Philly, signed with La Salle and it is now appear what La Salle's gameplan is for next year.

Run. And fast.

No Milko Lieverst to slow things down here. We're running the floor and I'm lovin' every minute of it. This is exactly how we beat St. Joe's last year at the Palestra - they had nothing left in their tank at the end of the game.

Also, adding another 6-8 guy to the roster (to go along with the MSU transfer), adds enough height to make us competitive.

We're coming back to the days of Loyola Marymount when they would score 130 points a night. Beautiful things coming back to Olney, and it isn't the hail of gunshots that signals the start of spring and a second coming.

Let's hope it comes fast.

Where's Our '54 Explorer Who Remembers that 'Three Cigar Night'?

Keeping the dream of a new arena alive takes money. Know who has some money? Business school alumni in their 70s.

I'm going to guess LaSalle has more multi-millionaires among its alumni than does the University of Loyola (IL) whose student body will begin their 12th year of cheering the Ramblers in the Joseph J. Gentile Center.

In the early 90s, Joe Gentile, '46 Loyola grad and owner of a car dealership, made a $3.5 million dollar gift towards the construction of a new basketball arena. According to reporting on andrewsantella.com, Mr. Gentile was moved to make the big gift through a combination of being sick and tired of watching a losing program and a fond nostalgia for the glory days.

Loyola basketball is like the LaSalle of the Midwest - fall from grace program with a great tradition of winning throughout the 50s and 60s including an NCAA championship. Gentile, an up and coming business man, reflects fondly on that sweet spring evening in 1963 when Loyola won its only title:

"It was a three-cigar night, one of the most exciting nights in my life," he says. "I'll never forget it."

Time is starting to run out for us. LaSalle has a window of about 10-15 years before there aren't any more alumni who remember that 'three cigar night' in 1954. Where is the alum who did well and now wants to do good for the basketball program? Where's our Joe Gentile? This is a Catholic school so a Gentile shouldn't be too hard to find.

LaSalle has several expansion and capital improvement projects in the pipeline so this won't get done without an alum making the first move. Wealthy alum, if you bring the cigars to the ground-breaking, the Christian Brothers Brandy is on the English majors.