Etch this in stone: Reggie Bush won’t ever be honored in L.A.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can rest assured: He’ll have a statue downtown long before Reggie Bush, Mike Garrett or anyone affiliated with the NCAA. …

Lane Kiffin can only hope that “USC loses its appeal” is a one-day headline and not a general consensus among recruits. …

If the Lakers wanted to bring in a coach who preaches defense above all else and is roundly criticized for running an unimaginative offense, they could have hired Ben Howland. …

“With Mike Brown as coach of the Lakers,” reader Bennett Tramer of Santa Monica, a Cleveland native and Cavaliers fan, emails to note, “look for the same offensive movement associated with Stonehenge, Easter Island and the Great Pyramid.” …

When Jerry Buss says, “We really don’t consult the players on these matters,” as he did this week, has he forgotten that he once fired Paul Westhead within hours of Magic Johnson’s publicly torching the coach? …

Dirk Nowitzki was even better against the young Oklahoma City Thunder than he was against the Lakers. …

By fining Joakim Noah half of what it fined Kobe Bryant for uttering the same homophobic slur, the NBA sends the message that verbally abusing a game official is twice as offensive as verbally abusing a paying customer. …

Matt Kemp’s continued strong play notwithstanding, the Dodgers show few signs of turning things around and a recent Wall Street Journal study suggests it’s already too late. …

Since 1996, the study shows, only 9% of teams with losing records on June 1 wound up with 90 victories, the number that teams usually shoot for to make the playoffs. …

In other words, Dodgers fans, wait till next year. …

Three-time champion Greg LeMond once said of Lance Armstrong’s remarkable transformation from cancer survivor to seven-time Tour de France winner: “If the story is true, it is the greatest comeback in the history of sport. If it is not, it’s the greatest fraud.” …

Recent testimony, unfortunately, suggests it’s the latter. …

Jackie Robinson, of course, tops a Sporting News ranking of the top 10 “game-changers” in sports history. …

Tom House, retiring from coaching after four years as a USC assistant, is the answer to this trivia question: Who caught Hank Aaron’s 715th home run ball? …

Nikola Vucevic, at 6 feet 11¾, measured as the tallest player at the NBA predraft camp in Chicago, which might jump the former USC forward into the first round. …

USC listed him at 6-10. …

James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers, via Twitter, on a new NFL rule that would punish teams for their players’ multiple flagrant hits: “I’m absolutely sure now after this last rule change that the people making the rules at the NFL are idiots.” …

Danica Patrick, rumored to be headed to NASCAR, is a 25-1 shot to win Sunday’s Indy 500, according to odds posted at bodog.com, and a 6-1 pick to finish among the top three. …

She finished third in 2009. …

Hugh McElhenny, Marques Johnson and Valerie Brisco-Hooks are among the inaugural class of honorees that will be inducted into the Los Angeles High Schools Sports Hall of Fame on June 5 in the Town and Gown Room at USC. …

Information: (213) 241-5835. …

John Elway, among the others who will be inducted, was the winning pitcher in Granada Hills’ 10-4 victory over Crenshaw in the 1979 city championship game at Dodger Stadium. …

The loser was Darryl Strawberry. …

Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final on Fox, matching Wayne Rooney and Manchester United against Lionel Messi and Barcelona, features two of pro sports’ most valuable franchises — with a combined worth of nearly $3 billion. …

Novak Djokovic, declining to divulge details of his switch to a gluten-free diet, told reporters in Paris, “I can tell you who is my girlfriend, but I cannot tell you what I do with my girlfriend.” …

Who asked? …

Noting that Chad Ochocinco stayed atop a wild bull for 1.5 seconds at a Professional Bull Riders event, Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald writes, “During that 1.5 seconds, he managed to tweet twice and change his name once.”

jerome.crowe@latimes.com