The Stars Aren’t Brilliant Enough to Please Him

Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune writes that it’s a travesty that the Lakers have four players in the NBA All-Star game while the Bulls’ Dennis Rodman wasn’t selected:

“Four Lakers? Four all-star Lakers?

“Maybe this was done just to make sure that at least one of them shows up, still a possibility.

“But short of outright apathy toward the Bulls, there is no way to explain how the greatest basketball team on earth has only one all-star [Michael Jordan] and the Lakers have four, even when that one All-Star is the star of stars.”

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Trivia time: What is the NBA record for highest team field-goal percentage?

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Nowhere man? NBC commentator Isiah Thomas, on the Lakers’ Elden Campbell after he missed a slam dunk in Sunday’s rout of the Chicago Bulls: “You can’t figure the guy out whether he’s here today, or gone tomorrow.”

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No-brainer: Charles Barkley seems relieved that he wasn’t invited to the All-Star party next Sunday.

“What would I rather do: spend three days in New York, where it is going to be twice as crowded as usual, or spend three days in Vegas rolling the dice?”

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Ice warriors: Chicago Blackhawk Coach Craig Hartsburg on the fight between the Blackhawks’ Reid Simpson and San Jose’s Marty McSorley that lasted one minute 22 seconds Thursday night:

“That was an unbelievable fight. Probably two of the toughest guys in the league toe-to-toe. . . . It was scary.”

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A new angle: General Mills Inc. is going fishing for a champion to feature on its Wheaties cereal box.

The company said it plans to put the winner of the Wal-Mart Forrest L. Wood Tour--a bass fishing circuit--on Wheaties boxes that will probably show up this summer on store shelves.

The company hopes to draw new customers from an untapped group of sports fans with the selection.

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Did they escape? Todd Phipers in the Denver Post: “When new Raider Coach Jon Gruden was finalizing his contract, he and club executive Bruce Allen found time for just one sight-seeing trip--to Alcatraz.

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Looking back: On this day in 1982, Steve Mahre, twin brother of overall champion Phil Mahre, became the first American to win a gold medal in Olympic or World Championship competition when he edged Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark by 0.51 seconds in the giant slalom.

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Trivia answer: .545 by the Lakers in 1984-85.

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And finally: Dr. Don Beck, director of the National Values Center in Denton, Texas, told Waltrina Stovall of the Dallas Morning News that in Super Bowl competition, the winner-take-all philosophy is exacerbated by “The Ring.”

“The Super Bowl ring is the thing,” he said. “A loser in the Super Bowl does not get The Ring, and The Ring is like a magic, animistic tribal icon--almost seen as the mark of man. Anything less than the Ring is nothing. Second place is as bad as 30th, because you don’t get The Ring.”