It Beats a Guest Spot on Stupid Pet Tricks

Here are the top 10 signs your favorite NBA team probably won’t make the playoffs, as delivered by basketball Hall of Famers on the “Late Show with David Letterman” this week:

10. Oscar Robertson: “Owner won’t pay for team to travel to away games.”

9. Robert Parish: “Coach used timeout to go get Spike Lee’s autograph.”

8. Rick Barry: “Your teammate spends the whole game guarding the ref.”

7. George Gervin: “Power forward has been out two months with the hiccups.”

6. Willis Reed: “During the season, you lost to the Lakers and the Laker girls.”

5. Walt Frazier: “Your team logo is a guy asleep in a hammock.”

4. Clyde Drexler: “Much of the 24 seconds is spent on uncontrollable sobbing.”

3. Bill Walton: “No one on your team can dunk without using a stepladder.”

2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: “Your best player is named Shaquille Wasserstein.”

Bill Russell: “Many nights you have more groin pulls than points.”

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Trivia time: Who is the only player to get at least 40 rebounds in an NBA playoff game more than once?

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Double standard: Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers was fined $10,000 by the NBA for making an obscene gesture during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals Monday, prompting this from Phil Mushnick of the New York Post:

“Fair enough. You never know if a kid who works the night shift is watching. Yet appearing over the last four weeks and, at all times of every day, an ESPN/NBA playoffs promo has featured a rapper gesturing toward his crotch.

“Apparently such a gesture meets with the NBA’s approval and marketing plan. Obviously, it conforms to ESPN’s standards.”

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Standing date: From Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press: “The Los Angeles Clippers had their annual playoff game Wednesday night.

“They call it the draft lottery.”

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Tough sell: After the minor league River City Rascals of O’Fallon, Mo., canceled a Sports Criminals Night promotion, Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked, “What are we supposed to do with our Lawrence Phillips replica jerseys?”

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Crystal ball: For what it’s worth, Lindy’s college football preview magazine has picked USC as the No. 1 team for the 2004 season and predicted the Trojans will play Oklahoma for the national championship in the Orange Bowl.

“The uncertainty on the offensive line is unsettling,” Lindy’s said of USC, “but with a comparatively easy schedule, it will be all grown up by the time of the Orange Bowl.”

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Trivia answer: Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics had 40 rebounds in playoff games against the Philadelphia Warriors in 1958, the St. Louis Hawks in 1960 and the Lakers in 1962.

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And finally: Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel, on security concerns at the Olympic Games in Athens this summer: “You wonder when they’re going to announce the newest Olympic event: synchronized ducking.”