Kareem Never Did Like to Hear Trash Talk

Once there was a time when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was greeted with chants of “Sweep! Sweep!” as encouragement to finish off a playoff opponent as quickly as possible.

Now, the chanters just want Kareem to clean up his neighbor’s frontyard.

According to the New York Daily News, Abdul-Jabbar caused an uproar in his new Harlem neighborhood by moving into a brownstone and dumping a large pile of trash, including an old pair of size-17 basketball shoes, in front of the home next door to his.

Next-door neighbor Gisele Allard told the Daily News, “I don’t think this is a nice way to arrive in the neighborhood. What if this had burned last night?”

Abdul-Jabbar spent all day Saturday moving into a large home that overlooks Mount Morris Park. Whatever didn’t make the cut inside Abdul-Jabbar’s new place wound up in front of Allard’s home, which has its doors boarded up.

“It would not matter if it was the Queen of England,” Allard said. “Most people are not abusive like that.”

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Trivia time: How many times did Abdul-Jabbar sweep a playoff opponent during his years with the Lakers?

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Move that furniture! This is how Chicago’s 26-0 season-opening victory over Green Bay was viewed in the winning and losing cities: In Green Bay: “Brett Favre is ready for the rocking chair.” In Chicago: “Thanks for the furniture!”

Rooting for the Bears, but knowing Green Bay hadn’t been held scoreless in 233 consecutive games, Randy Gonigam, a furniture store owner in Plano, Ill., figured the Labor Day weekend was the right time to offer customers free furniture -- worth up to $10,000 -- if the Bears shut out the Packers.

After the Bears held up their end, Gonigam handed out refunds totaling $275,000.

Gonigam got the idea after listening to Chicago linebacker Brian Urlacher boast that the Bears would have the best defense in the league this season.

“As a Chicago sports fan, you get frustrated,” Gonigam told the Associated Press. “I thought, ‘Prove it.’ ”

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Take a seat already: Jake Plummer was in the Pro Bowl last season and Drew Bledsoe as recently as 2002, but after each was intercepted three times Sunday, ESPN asked viewers which one deserved to be benched first. With 17,809 votes in to ESPN.com on Wednesday, Plummer led, 52% to 48%.

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Trivia answer: Abdul-Jabbar’s Lakers swept 11 playoff series, including three during his final season in 1988-89: Portland (3-0), Seattle (4-0) and Phoenix (4-0). In the NBA Finals, those Lakers were swept by Detroit.

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And finally: One of Abdul-Jabbar’s new neighbors found a prize among the rubbish, which included a Lakers ID card, a front-row ticket to last April’s NCAA basketball final, a “Dear Kareem” postcard from a masseuse and an empty cardboard box for a kendo sword.

William Stratford grabbed the size-17 sneakers and said he planned to ask Abdul-Jabbar to autograph them. “I don’t see why everyone is stressing,” said Stratford, who added that he might sell the shoes on EBay.

mike.penner@latimes.com