In April of 2011, baseball writer Jon Heyman wrote a column titled, "Why Barry Bonds Belongs In The Hall" for SI.com. The piece laid out a surprisingly well reasoned argument for why Bonds should not be excluded from the Hall of Fame, despite his being surrounded by allegations of steroid use.

While I do believe Bonds took steroids (whether it was knowingly or not doesn't much matter to me, though if I had to guess, I think he knows everything that goes in his body), I don't believe all steroid users should be excluded from the Hall of Fame. I'm not here to sit in moral judgment of another human being.

[...]

As for Bonds, I don't think anyone could reasonably make the case that he needed drugs to be a Hall of Famer. When Bonds signed with his hometown Giants for $43.75 million in December of 1992 to become the highest-paid player in baseball history he was already the best player in the game, and he earned that contract through only good genes (his dad, Bobby, was also an incredible combination of speed and power) and hard work. He had a small head at the time, and he maintained that, at least in the literal sense, for several years to come.

Good job, 2011 Jon Heyman! That's a very logical and pragmatic stance to take, and one that we wish more Hall of Fame voters would adopt. They could all learn a lot from a guy like you, who surely put Bonds at the top of his ballot this year. Wait, what's that you say?

I leaned for months toward disregarding their obvious steroid ties and voting for Bonds and Clemens, arguably the best position player and pitcher over the past 40 years (at least by what they did on the field). But ultimately, I just couldn't do it. At least not this time.

The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to celebrate their careers. Not yet, anyway.

More to the point, I didn't want to reward the cheats.

Huh. In just two short years, Heyman went from refusing to, "sit in moral judgement of another human being" to not wanting to, "reward the cheats." So what gives? Apparently, Heyman was swayed by the wise words of Don Mattingly at this year's winter meetings:

Just to get a gauge what victims of the unleveled playing field think, I quizzed a few former players I respect about what they thought. Don Mattingly, responding to my query at the winter meetings last month about whether I should vote for the steroid guys, answered with two words: "What for?"

If Heyman can be convinced that easily, maybe he should ask himself that same simple question the next time he considers writing a column about the Hall of Fame.

[SI]
[CBS]

Kenneth Faried had a monster game for the Nuggets last night, scoring 19 points and pulling down 19 rebounds in 36 minutes of action. After the game, a visibly exhausted Faried (playing like a rebound-hungry maniac will do that to you) took some time to give a postgame interview. At the 50-second mark of the video above, the interviewer tells Faried what his stat line was, eliciting a genuinely surprised and foul-mouthed response. You won't be able to help but smile while watching Faried bashfully chuckle through the aftermath of his slip of the tongue.

[Westword]

D-Block is a video web series that is produced by the Atlanta Falcons linebacking corps and broadcast from the team's locker room. It's wonderful. Earlier this week, D-Block somehow managed to get a shout out from Mark Wahlberg while he was promoting his latest movie, Broken City.

Wahlberg doing his Wahlberg thing ("If you need a...[flexes]...strong safety for the game, let me know.") is fun and all, but what's really important about this video is that tremendously creepy guy sitting in the background. His slouched demeanor and hidden, unflinching gaze get more terrifying with each viewing. Wait, you guys can see him, too, right? Because I kind of feel like he's staring at me and only me. Oh god, please tell me you can see him, too.

It's not clear who actually took this photo, but J.R. Smith just posted it to his Instagram account along with the hashtag, #ThatWhatTheHellYouDoingLook. He is of course referring to the look of consternation that head coach Mike Woodson is throwing Smith's way during a team huddle.

Smith has always been a chucker who's prone to making questionable decisions on the court, but we never knew that he was a self-aware chucker. This makes him all the more enjoyable to watch. Never change, J.R.

Here's a bunch of headlines—written during the past week—about Derrick Rose's attempts to return to the basketball court that will make you really sad:

Derrick Rose is Dunking Again

Bulls guard Derrick Rose back to dunking, shooting jumpers

Derrick Rose taking some contact

Derrick Rose injury: Bulls PG taking 'predictable contact' in practice

Derrick Rose return: Derrick Rose reportedly 'almost ready to start playing'

Derrick Rose travels with Bulls

Thibodeau: Derrick Rose 'moving along'

Bulls' Derrick Rose getting closer to full practice

Bulls' Rose may start watching games from bench

Derrick Rose: 'Man, I'm So Ready'

Derrick Rose is dunking again, taking some contact in practice

D. Rose Making Progress in Rehab, But Can He Dunk?

Happy Friday.

Thanks to the Daily Dot, we've stumbled upon what appears to be Cardale Jones's new Twitter account. You may recall that Jones, the third-string quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes, deleted his original account after sending out this hilarious tweet. Jones's new account, however, is full of uplifting, pro-school messages:

It's the new and improved Cardale Jones, lover of math! Now, any number of things could be going on here. Cardale may very well have reformed his ways and learned to embrace the value of his college degree, or he might just be trolling everyone. Even worse, this could be a parody account, which would just make us very sad for whoever is behind it. Our hope is that Cardale is trolling, because his original sentiment was spot on. He's not there to play school.

[Daily Dot]

Oklahoma Sooners defensive coordinator Mike Stoops did a radio interview today, in which he threw a few backhanded compliments at Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel. John Hoover of Tulsa World shared some soundbites on Twitter:

We assume that Stoops is referring to Manziel's previous brush with the law and those semi-compromising photos that recently surfaced, although we're not sure what either of those things have to do with Twitter. Anyway, let's not forget that Manziel and the Aggies hung 43 points on Stoops's defense in this year's Cotton Bowl. So, all there really is to say about this is, "U mad, Mike Stoops?"

Infinite Manningfaces For The Game Of The Year And Colin Kaepernick Fooling All Of Wisconsin: Saturday's NFL Playoff Games, In GIFs | This may well be remembered as the game of the season, in no small part because conditions conspired to make things nearly impossible for the combatants, and they somehow both prevailed against those conditions until the game's final moments. Read »

Justin Tucker's Practice Kicks Before His Game-Winner Were Not Allowed, But They Were Also Not Not Allowed | Got that, Broncos fans? It's not allowed, but like, it happened anyway. No penalty. Read »

Jason Taylor Went Through Absolute Hell To Play Football | Taylor describes the "dungeon" at Dolphins Stadium in which they treated his foot problems, talks about Toradol, the painkiller which may create as much pain as it alleviates, tells of the catheter he wore during games, and remembers collapsing, shaking and crying, in the parking lot outside his doctor's office. Read »

Reminder: Peyton Manning Still Better Than Tim Tebow | Reminder: Peyton Manning Still Better Than Tim Tebow Read »

Man Performs Feat Even More Incredible Than Making A Half-Court Shot For $1,000 | You have got to hand it to him, it is damn impressive. Read »

Taste Test: The Portable Yogurt That Isn't | So: Why? Why a ridiculous plastic tube of yogurt? The answer: because of what Go-Gurt tastes like. Read »

Fox Gets Conservative: Did The Denver Coach's Risk-Averse Strategy Cost The Broncos A Playoff Victory? | Fox's conservatism may have cost his team slightly, but he didn't decide the outcome of the game. Read »

According to the Star-Ledger, New York Knicks owner and talentless, flubby musician James Dolan has no qualms about creepily spying on his players during games. During Friday night's Bulls-Knicks game, Dolan ordered two MSG Network employees to keep tabs on Knicks star Carmelo Anthony.

Two audio technicians were stationed at two corners of the court - one a few feet just behind the Knicks bench, the other diagonally opposite - and they were holding those umbrella-shaped contraptions known as parabola microphones, which fed the audio into a DAT recorder on the truck on the loading dock.

These guys had one directive from Dolan: Record every syllable Carmelo Anthony utters and absorbs while he's on the court and on the bench, the Madison Square Garden CEO ordered them, and send the tape directly to me.

Dolan was presumably spying on Anthony for reasons related to last week's on- and off-court spat with Kevin Garnett, which ended with Anthony receiving a one-game suspension. But to what end? Is Dolan trying to create a record of the verbal abuse that Anthony receives each game, or is he trying to decide whether or not his star player needs to be ordered to clean his mouth out with soap?

Either way, this does much more harm to Anthony's reputation than the incident with Garnett ever could have. Garnett got under Anthony's skin and Anthony overreacted. Things happen. But this spying business only serves to throw a magnifying glass over a situation that should have been easily moved on from. Now, Anthony is either an oversensitive baby who needs to tattle about all of the mean things that get said to him, or he is a hothead who needs to be under the constant, direct supervision of his employer.

Anthony is neither of those things, of course, and the only real lesson to be taken from this report is that James Dolan is a weirdo and a schmuck. But we already knew that.

[Star-Ledger]

Jovan Belcher's autopsy report has been released, and it reveals that his blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit at the time of his death. Recall that a sleeping Belcher was pulled from his running car outside of Brittini Glass's apartment by Kansas City police officers at 3 a.m. on the morning of the murder-suicide, and then allowed to return to Glass's apartment in order to sleep. The fact that Belcher's BAC was at .17 five hours later would suggest that he was incredibly intoxicated at the time that he spoke to the police.

Here are the full autopsy reports for both Belcher and Perkins:

Perkins Autopsy

Belcher Autopsy

[USA Today]

I was not previously aware of the fact that there are NBA security guards whose job it is to prevent players from getting too close to the referees during video reviews. But as the video above shows, such security guards do indeed exist, and one of them got into a hilarious tête-à-tête with Dirk Nowitzki at the end of last night's Mavericks-Kings game.

Like any good defender, the security guard stays right up in Dirk's jersey, stays low, and moves his feet. Dirk even tries to throw a stutter step move at the 32-second mark, but the wily old man quickly locks Dirk up with his superior lateral quickness, before whispering what we can only assume was some withering trash talk in the big man's direction. Don't bring that weak-ass shit in this guy's house, Dirk.

It's really not fair that Kevin Durant can do stuff like this. His uncanny combination of size and shooting touch would be enough to carry him to a Hall of Fame career on its own. But Durant also has to possess the kind of sublime speed, strength, and leaping ability that make face-melting plays like this dunk from last night's Thunder-Suns game possible. He has to be the guy who, at 6-foot-11, can freeze his opponent with a simple, fast-twitch hesitation move, and then glide through the paint before rising up and banging home a dunk right in the face of poor Marcin Gortat. It's just not fair.

The good news for the Lakers is that they ended their six-game losing streak on Sunday by defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers 113-93 in Dwight Howard's first game back from injury. The bad news is that the Lakers still have an uphill climb to the playoffs, and now Mike D'Antoni is looking to increase Kobe Bryant's defensive role. From ESPN Los Angeles:

Bryant drew the primary defensive assignment against Kyrie Irving on Sunday and limited the Cleveland Cavaliers star guard to just 15 points in the Lakers' 113-93 victory.

In the wake of Bryant's outstanding effort against Irving, Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni has vowed to use the veteran guard in similar defensive situations.

[...]

"He disrupts the whole offense on the ball," said D'Antoni, who added that Bryant will draw either Brandon Jennings or Monta Ellis when the Lakers host the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday. "He's done that a couple games, so we'll continue to milk that one."

Kobe Bryant is 34 years old, has knees that are held together by German blood-spinning voodoo, and is already playing 39 minutes per game (the most of any guard in the league). Now D'Antoni wants him to match up against the opponent's best offensive player on a nightly basis, because that is a great idea and one that will definitely not end with Bryant burning out completely.

One would think that adding Dwight Howard, a former defensive player of the year, to the roster would ease Bryant's defensive burden rather than increase it. And yet, here we are. The Lakers' desperation continues to grow and Bryant's play continues to be the only thing that is keeping them relatively afloat. It's almost enough to make us feel bad for Bryant, but this is the Black Mamba we're talking about. Deep down, in the parts of his mind that house fantasies about one day getting to win Game 7 of the championship while playing 1-on-5 and hoisting 87 shots, he's probably loving this. This season may end up being the death of Bryant, but at least he'll go out with his hands on the wheel.

[ESPN]

Ugh. That's all that can be said about the following bit of commentary from Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, as spoken on Coach K's radio show and transcribed by DC Sports Bog:

"This is an assault on tradition," Krzyzewski said. "What sets us apart from the pros? What sets us apart from the rest of the world? Intercollegiate sports is really something that only the United States has. No other country has that. And our thing is based on all the right values: loyalty, honesty, tradition. The branding that you have gotten from doing that has elevated the academic institutions that those athletic programs represent. And doing things the way we're doing it now, based on money, I think it takes away from the academic missions and the innocence that an academic institution has."

What is the "assault on tradition" that Coach K is referring to? The University of Maryland's migration to the Big Ten, of course. On the scale of Things About College Sports That Are Worth Wringing One's Hands Over, conference realignment ranks somewhere around 469. Of course, if you're the kind of guy who can attribute values like loyalty, honesty, and tradition to big-time college sports with a straight face, then yeah, I guess conference realignment is something worth getting bent out of shape over. Mike Krzyzewski is and always will be that kind of guy, lamenting about doing things "based on money" while his head remains buried in a pile of cash begotten by cheap labor.

[DC Sports Bog]

The way we see it, there are two possible typos in the chyron above. The first, and most obvious, is that "rugs" is actually supposed to say "drugs." This scenario makes sense, given all the news that's recently come to light about Lance Armstrong's use of performance enhancing drugs. Or, "Armstrong" is supposed to have an apostrophe and an "s" affixed to the end of it, and the report in question is about Lance Armstrong's new used rug business. This scenario makes zero sense, but we like to imagine that it is true because that would be funny.

[HyperVocal]

If you use the internet on a regular basis, you've probably come across one of those Bad Lip Reading videos. Many of them are funny, but this one in particular caught our attention because it features NFL players.

Even if you consider yourself too cool to laugh at perfectly-tailored-for-the-internet viral videos, you will chuckle at Joe Staley asking Colin Kaepernick to help him burn an old man.

[YouTube]

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. There's a smattering of NBA and college basketball action to keep you busy tonight, so enjoy that. We'll see you tomorrow.

According to the Gainesville Sun, former University of Florida and NFL quarterback Doug Johnson has had a sworn complaint alleging that he assaulted a man after the LSU-Florida football game filed against him. The accuser, 28-year-old Joe Cappelletti, claims that he and his friends were twice attacked by a group of Florida fans that included Doug Johnson. From the Sun:

Cappelletti told The Sun after the incident that he was walking down West University Avenue near St. Augustine Church around 9:30 p.m. when two women and three men in a rickshaw pulled up. They started yelling at Cappelletti's group, and one pushed Jamie Davis, Cappelletti's girlfriend. Cappelletti grabbed one of the men and they tussled and exchanged some words before everyone dispersed.

His group crossed the street, Cappelletti said, and the same three men jumped out of the bushes and attacked them.

Cappelletti suffered a broken nose and numerous facial fractures. Additional complaints were filed against 39-year-old Andrew Greer and 35-year-old Megan Cranston. However, an attorney representing Johnson, Greer and Cranston claim that his clients were acting in self-defense.

My clients suffered an unprovoked attack in front of a church at 1800 W. University Avenue on October 6, 2012, during which Doug Johnson was knocked unconscious. They, and the other members of their party, left the scene in an effort to provide a safer environment for their respective wives and girlfriends. They were pursued by their original attackers, and they lawfully defended themselves when attacked for a second time

So who the hell knows what actually happened. All we really know is that a bunch of people who are way too old to be getting into fistfights after college football games got into a fistfight after a college football game, and one of them used to be a shitty quarterback.

[The Sun]

The screencap above was taken from ESPN's fantasy homepage, which features a live-updating, scrolling box containing tweets from ESPN's various fantasy sports writers. You'll notice that the second tweet on the list, sent by Matthew Berry, looks a little odd. Who the hell is ***** Van *****?

It's Dick Van Dyke, of course, but poor Matthew had his tweet unnecessarily censored by ESPN's automated content filter, which reckons words like "dick" and "dyke" big no-nos. These are the breaks that come with working for a Disney owned company, but we personally appreciate the reminder that Dick Van Dyke's name is rather hilarious when, you know, you really think about it.

Um, what? Remember last week, when Chip Kelly decided he would be staying at Oregon rather than jumping to the NFL after having been wined and dined by both the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles? Well, forget all of that. ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that Kelly has in fact decided to become the next head coach of the Eagles. It's not clear what exactly spurred Kelly's change of heart.

We're big fans of Kelly, and his arrival in Philadelphia suddenly makes the Eagles a team worth getting excited about. At Oregon, Kelly created the most exciting offense in college football, and we can't wait to see what kind of schemes he'll be able to cook up for LeSean McCoy, Michael Vick, and DeSean Jackson. And anyone who is still skeptical about a "college offense" working in the pros should be reminded that three teams that used a read-option scheme made it to the playoffs this year.

Most of all, though, we're hoping that Kelly will bring his hilarious playcards to the NFL.