God, it's been how many years since Space Jam, and some people are still under the assumption that sports stars are good actors? It's not just Lorne Michaels and his poor casting choices for season premieres: during NBA games, players will screech and holler every time someone so much as touches them, hoping to get a foul call.

"It's just a part of the game to try and get the call," he said. "You are trying to sell what you're doing. When you go to the hole and you think you're getting hit, the first thing you do is flail or yell. And sometimes they get the call and sometimes they don't."

And while it doesn't seem to dangerous to let grown men scream like a banshee every time they get near the basket, it is certainly hurting our Hollywood standards.

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Was the hiring of Yi Jianlian, a 7-ft tall starter from China, a covert move by the New Jersey Nets to attract all the kids from Chinatown? That seems to be the assertion: some sort of national pride will attract the inhabitants of BeBo (below Bowery) to come see a fellow statesman in an NBA game.

It's not technically a bad idea, as the Beijing Olympics renewed China's interest in the American-dominated sport.

But according to the demographics, the majority of basketball fans in the country are Caucasian, while a large portion of players are African-American. So the New Jersey Nets logic of race-baiting to attract new fans seems like a backward tactic to encourage a new audience.

Still, Jianlian is an admirable power forward, and his draft may have had nothing to do with race until The New York Times got a hold of the story and went around interviewing everyone in Chinatown.

• China is upset with the media complaining about limited freedoms, even though the country promised to lighten up when it bid for the Olympics. Roughing up British journalists and keeping greens free from demonstrators, says China, "does not mean we are not fulfilling our promise." [WSJ]

• The Spanish are upset that everyone is calling them racists, even though their Olympics basketball team was photographed pulling their eyes into slants to imitate the Chinese. It's our fault for "gratuitously" trying to "damage the image not just of the federation but of the country and Spanish sport" in general by assuming they were having a joke at China's expense, and not celebrating athletic brotherhood with them.

When Spain's national basketball team got caught in a photograph pulling its eyes into slants — to mimic Chinese eyes — before the Olympic games, they were immediately lambasted by everyone form the International Olympic Committee to fellow athletes. This is because it's mean to stereotype your fellow brothers in sport and so grossly offend them (despite growing popularity for eyelid surgery). The team tried excusing it, with Jose Manuel Calderon of the Toronto Raptors saying, "We thought it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as somewhat loving. From here I would like to declare that we have a huge respect for the East and their people, some of my best friends in Toronto are from China and one of our Spanish National Team sponsors is the Chinese brand Li Ning. Anyone who would like to interpret this differently is absolutely confused."

Ah yes, the "but I have a Chinese friend" excuse.

No matter. While the Chinese team did lose to Spain on Tuesday, they found that stereotypes work both ways:

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If you’re a Knicks fan, this season has been depressing, and if you’re a Knicks reporter, this Isiah Thomas-Madison Square Garden regime has been repressing.

Yesterday afternoon, MSG security gardens got physical with Knicks beat reporters when they tried to speak with an ejected fan.

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With the Knicks season already over, we’ve turned our attention to college ball, and we discovered it’s just as disheartening.

At the Kansas State-Oregon match up last night, Kansas State forward Bill Walker had to pee so badly he stepped to the sidelines and relieved himself on several towels. Even towel boys for the Knicks have it better than that.

Kansas State, along with public hygiene, ended up losing the game.

[Photo Credit: Kansas City Star]

For all the boys who grow up dreaming of playing for the New York Knicks, there’s a smaller, dorkier contingent of basketball fans who dream of covering the Knicks. And like so many fantasies, this one is better left unrealized.

According to The Observer, the Knicks beat is one of the worst jobs in journalism. (We would have gone with Iraq, but what we do know?) And it’s not just that the Knicks are bad, which they are, it’s that the Knicks organization and the Madison Square Garden are neurotic, micomanagers.

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