It’s been a long week of Kobe rumors and the Trail Blazers trying - with no avail - to bluff their way into the NBA draft.

Speaking of the NBA Draft, read the “best of” one live-blog from Thursday (Awful Announcing)

Another team is attempting to create the impression of progress through the cunning use of uniform changes (Just Call Me Juice)

ESPN likes to play a little game called “one degree of separation with the New York Yankees” (One More Dying Quail)

One million more people watched the USA beat Mexico in the Gold Cup than watched the final game of the Stanley Cup Finals: hockey is doomed (Rumors and Rants)

If you live to 80, your odds of being struck by lightning are one in 5,000. It is considerably higher if you are holding one… or a set of metal objects such as golf clubs (Signal to Noise)

As anyone who actually reads this blog knows, I’m all about the completely premature predictions, such as Baseball America’s prediction of the 2008 College World Series field (College Baseball Blog)

Some updates on Michigan athletics including the fact that Jalen Rose is a Maryland grad? (The M Zone)