The San Francisco Giants have been in the bay area for 50 years and in order to celebrate the occasion have invited the greatest outfielders from its five decades in California.  Obviously that means Barry Bonds should be present that may not be the case though. The Giants invited Bonds to attend the ceremony, but Barry has not confirmed that he will be there.

Barry is an important guy and even though he won't say why he's so pre-occupied this is probably what he'll be doing.

Answering phone calls from all the major league teams that want his services.

Visiting Greg Anderson in prison

Negotiating a TV deal for "Bonds on the Couch"

Walking his dog

Taking out the Garbage

Sitting in his trademark recliner

Judging American Idol

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Eating Dinner with Jeff Kent

Quaterbacking the Green Bay Packers

Watching Barry Bonds highlights on his TiVo

Polishing his World Series ring...............

Don't let his offensive numbers fool you, Kobe Bryant has been key in Team USA's victories. While Dwyane Wade and LeBron James have shouldered the load offensively, Bryant has been the team's defensive stopper, or as he says, "The Doberman".

 Kobe is quite possibly the best defensive player in the NBA , when you consider that he must also perform on the offensive end. (Imagine what a great defender Kobe would be if he focused solely on his defense and his team didn't need him to run the offense as well.)

With Team USA's arsenal of offensive players, Kobe can focus on shutting down the opposing team's best player, and so far he's done his job.

Last year Bryant shut down Leandro Barbosa of Brazil in the Tournament of the Americas and then this year he made Sarunas Jasikevicius of Lithuanina look like a JV girls basketball player. Kobe's defense, as well as team defense is what was missing from the Olympic teams that failed earlier this decade. If Team USA can continue to pride itself on its stingy defense and not acrobatic dunks they will be wearing gold around their necks come late August rather than that ugly Bronze color they brought home four years ago.

For those of you that don’t listen to everything that comes out of Paul Pierce’s mouth let me fill you in. Earlier this week he was asked who he thought was the best player in the world….His response…. “I don't think Kobe is the best player. I'm the best player. There's a line that separates having confidence and being conceited. I don't cross that line but I have a lot of confidence in myself.”

Now it’s good to have confidence, but Paul may have inhaled a little too deep when smoking one of those victory cigars. He may be better than Kobe at certain things but basketball isn’t one of them….Now I like Paul Pierce and I will agree that he is better than Kobe at some things… well like these for instance

Wheelchair racing…(NBA Finals…enough said)

College…(Kobe didn’t go to college….and Pierce well …he went to Kansas..so this is almost a draw…)

Wearing a green headband….

Polishing the NBA Finals MVP trophy (Pierce=1 Kobe=0)

Upset Vern Troyer (Mini-me…youtube it..)

Coexist with Ray Allen (Kobe and Ray don’t like each other)

Win a title without Shaq…..

Telling the media how great a player he is…

Scoring less than 81 points in a game…

Well Bill got what he wanted, sort of. No Hillary didn't ask for a divorce, wrong Bill. Bill (Ron) Artest was finally sent packing from the Sacramento Kings not to his hometown New York Knicks or to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Houston Rockets.

If Artest can keep himself in check (don't beat up fans, take time off to produce music, etc.....) the Rockets should be considered in the upper echelon of Western Conference teams....that echelon has ballooned to 9 and only 8 make the playoffs..... At this rate the Eastern Conference may as well pack it up and go home. Never mind the fact the Celtics won the title this year. The West is loaded with Utah, New Orleans, the Lakers...then there's Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Denver, Portland, maybe Golden State and the Clippers oh yeah and the ROCKETS. That's eleven teams. Tim Donaghy is foaming at the mouth thinking about the odds in Vegas on who will win the West.

Okay maybe the Nuggets and Warriors are a stretch when you consider what they've lost in free agency, but all the other teams have a legitimate shot. Especially the Rockets, with Artest on the squad Houston will easily have the best defensive team in the entire NBA. Shane Battier, the tree (Yao Ming) McGrady and Ron Artest. The Rockets have good perimeter shooting to go along with its newly improved defense with, Rafer Alston, Brent Barry and Luther Head.

Artest is an above average offensive player and now when Yao and McGrady decide to take their usual 40 games off the Rockets won't suffer too much of a drop off. This move made sense for Houston, which sent Bobby Jackson back to the old capital of California (Sacramento) for Artest.

The odds of another appearance in the NBA Finals for the Lakers are starting to rival those of Charles Barkley going on a diet..(not too good), but hey no worries because the Lakers have Sasha Vujacic back so that should solve everything.

One for two isn't bad. After watching their inspirational reserve forward, Ronny Turiaf sign with the Golden State Warriors, the Lakers inked Sasha Vujacic to a three-year, $15 million deal on Friday.

Despite threats that he would leave the Lakers and play overseas for more money, "The Machine" realized $5 million a year isn't that bad an offer. Vujacic is a young guy so he doesn't have a family to feed like Latrell Sprewell and his hair covers his ears so he doesn't need to buy a pair of earrings like KG., but what he does want is a more instrumental role in the Lakers lineup.

With the loss of Turiaf and the struggles of Luke Walton, Vujacic will get that playing time. He is the fearless sharpshooter off the bench the Lakers covet, which has occasionally caused problems when the game was on the line and Kobe was on the floor.

However, the Lakers should not be satisfied with just signing Vujacic because as we saw in the Finals the purple and gold need help in many areas. Mitch should continue to pursue a trade for Lamar if he can get equal or better value and the Lakers should not count on Andrew Bynum to be 100 percent at the start of the season because his injury just continues to linger. The West is getting stronger and no disrespect to Sasha, but a lanky three-point shooter who didn't receive offers from any other NBA teams isn't going to single handedly win a championship especially if his ankles are still injured from his last encounter with Ray Allen.