Embrace the debate, you guys! Here's a painfully awkward clip from today's edition of First Take in which Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, who is not afraid to speak his mind, has some very unkind things to say about resident ESPN troll Skip Bayless.

Bayless continually tries to bait Sherman into expounding on his rivalry with Darelle Revis, but Sherman chooses to ignore those questions in favor of lobbing personal attacks at Bayless. "I'm gonna crush you on here, in front of everybody," says Sherman after referring to Bayless as "ignorant, pompous, and egotistical."

There's usually nothing to be learned from a troll-off like this, but towards the end of the clip there is a moment in which Bayless neatly crystallizes everything that is wrong with his brand of punditry. When Sherman tells Bayless that he loses credibility by claiming that Sherman's abilities are not in the same league as Revis's—which is a good point—Bayless replies simply, "No I don't. I gain it!"

Welcome to First Take. Fuck you.

This happened during a match between Al-Nahda and Al-Salam Zgharta of the Lebanese second division soccer league. It is very weird. It begins with the referee issuing a yellow and a red card to Al-Nahda's Youssef Omar, who then decides to attack the referee and chase him across the pitch. And then more people start chasing him, and the poor referee spends the next two minutes running away from a growing horde of assailants. There are also guys with guns, who don't seem to be interested in doing much.

Much respect to the referee, though, who embarrasses his attackers by repeatedly outrunning them. We can only assume that shame is what causes Omar to collapse in agony at the 1:52 mark.

[3news]

BFFs Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un have now had their friendship immortalized by the internet jokesters at Official Comedy. Enjoy this re-imagining of arcade classic NBA Jam, in which supreme ruler Kim Jong Un reigns...uh...supreme.

[Official Comedy]

Here's JaVale McGee's latest addition to his growing repertoire of awesome celebrations. We've seen the fingerstache and the finger-lickin'-good three-point celebration, and now we have this. After blocking a Matt Barnes layup attempt in the third quarter of last night's Clippers-Nuggets game, McGee quickly retrieved the ball and pretended to autograph it in dramatic fashion before handing it back to the referee. Here's the moment in GIF form, courtesy of @cjzero:

[TNLP]

Lost in all of the hullabaloo about the New York Mets' tone deaf decision to lease a Citi Field storefront to Amway was any kind of explanation regarding what exactly is inside of an Amway store. What use does a company that makes its profits via the Sisyphean efforts of Independent Business Owners have for a retail location? Luckily, Howard Megdal of Sports On Earth was willing to take a field trip to the Citi Field Amway, and he found himself in a very strange place.

Upon entering the Amway storefront, one is immediately confronted with a massive array of colors, coming from various kinds of energy drinks at what looks like a juice bar, stools and all. Just step up and order a drink ... or don't, because that's not how this works. Amway's program involves I.B.O.s selling to you directly. Had it opened up a conventional store, Amway would be competing with its own customers. Even the vending machine, which had water and Mountain Dew, among other drinks, was completely empty of any XS, the Amway energy drink, or any other Amway beverage.

In addition to the juice bar that doesn't sell juice, Megdal was shown a demonstration of a weird skincare diagnostic product (F.A.C.E.S. Artistry Skincare Recommender), and a cleaning product that can remove wine stains from dollar bills. Neat!

Megdal did eventually make it to the Product and Registration Room, which sounds like something that one would find inside of a Scientology center. But he was at least able to buy things there. Sort of:

Three iPads sat along the far wall; a potential consumer had two choices. If I wanted one of the few products in the retail room, I could simply go onto Amway.com, fully fill out a form with all of my information and then make a purchase. Or, if the product wasn't in the retail room, I would still need to fill out all of my information, which would then be sent to an I.B.O., who would then complete the purchase. When I asked Nancy if anyone had purchased anything yet in the retail room (officially called the Product and Registration Room), I was told that no one had. Not a single product? No.

Be sure to check out the whole story. And get ready to enjoy your weird store, Mets fans.

[Sports On Earth]

Here are all the players in NBA history who shot 29 or more times in a game but attempted two or fewer free throws. It's quite the list, really. Among other things, it's also a pretty good list of the best fadeaway artists in NBA history. You can almost see these games in your head. Catch-and-shoots, pull-up jumpers, baseline turnarounds. Just take a look at the first 15 entries (data via Basketball Reference, sorted by points in descending order):

• Hakeem Olajuwon, Jan. 30, 1997: 48 points, 24-40 FG, 0-0 FT
• Michael Jordan, Mar. 28, 1991: 44 points, 21-32 FG, 2-2 FT
• Kobe Bryant, Apr. 2, 2006: 43 points, 19-32 FG, 2-2 FT
• Michael Jordan, Mar. 24, 1993: 43 points, 20-29 FG, 1-2 FT
• Chris Mullin, Dec. 28, 1992: 42 points, 19-31 FG, 1-1 FT
• Glenn Robinson, Dec. 18, 1996: 42 points, 19-30 FG, 2-2 FT
• Carmelo Anthony, Mar. 30, 2004: 41 points, 19-29 FG, 1-1 FT
• Dennis Scott, Apr. 13, 1993: 41 points, 16-31 FG, 0-0 FT
• Mark Aguirre, Feb. 20, 1987: 41 points, 19-30 FG, 0-0 FT
• Mike Mitchell, Apr. 13, 1986: 40 points, 19-29 FG, 2-2 FT
• Gary Payton, Dec. 4, 2002: 40 points, 19-30 FG, 1-2 FT
• Tim Duncan, Apr. 1, 1999: 39 points, 19-31 FG, 1-1 FT
• Ron Harper, Dec. 16, 1989: 39 points, 19-29 FG, 1-2 FT
• Alex English, Dec. 6, 1988: 38 points, 19-31 FG, 0-0 FT
• Kobe Bryant, Dec. 26, 2009: 38 points, 16-30 FG, 2-2 FT

• After last night's 36-point, 14-29 FG, 2-2 FT performance, that list is also home to J.R. Smith. In fact, he's on there twice. His name may not appear as many times in the top 100 as Kobe Bryant's (6) or Michael Jordan's (3) do, but he embodies the spirit of this list more so than they ever will. Whereas "volume shooter" only partly describes MJ and Kobe, it tells you everything you need to know about Smith. He is essentially what you'd get if you combined all the gunners on this list into one player and gave him free rein on the floor and 25 minutes of run.

  Heading into last night's Thunder-Knicks game, everyone knew that if a 'Melo-less New York was going to stand a chance against OKC, "good" J.R. Smith was going to have to show up in place of "bad" J.R. Smith. "Good" J.R. is the guy who can sink double-digit three-pointers and run the opposing team off the court by himself. "Bad" J.R. is the guy who bricks six shots in a row and makes Knicks fans want to jam a fork in their eye.

  For the first three quarters of last night's game, "good" J.R. was in rare form. After nailing five three-pointers and a variety of pull-up and step-back jumpers, Smith headed into the fourth quarter with 31 points; his team led, 81-75. And then "bad" J.R. showed up and decided to shoot 2-9 from the field during the fourth quarter before missing the potential game-winner on an ugly isolation play. It's maddening to watch Smith transmogrify himself from a great player into a bad one so quickly, but it shouldn't be. Because what I realized last night is that there really is no difference between "bad" J.R. and "good" J.R.

  Compare him to OKC's point guard, Russell Westbrook, whose own Jekyll-and-Hyde issues have been discussed at length. You know what a good Westbrook performance is, and you know what a bad one is, too, and there's a clear line of demarcation between them. When things are good, he's attacking the rim, getting transition buckets, and not entirely forgetting that he has the most dynamic scorer in the league on his team, too. When things are bad, he's settling for too many of those cockeyed jump shots that seem to come spinning off the rim like a cue ball off the break. He's throwing up three-pointers and generally shooting when he should be passing. Those are clear, identifiable differences.

  Smith's game can't be so easily divided. The mechanics of his good games are the same as those of his bad ones. Both are defined by Smith shooting the ball. A lot. And from every spot in the arena, up to and including from behind the sneeze guard at Ainsworth Prime. The only difference between a good game and a bad game lies in whether or not those shots are falling. Watching Smith play isn't a lesson in right versus wrong so much as it is a lesson in basketball fate. He doesn't really control the outcome of his actions any more than a flipped coin can decide whether to land on heads or tails. He just shoots, like he's always done, and the rest is up to the gods. He's actually a comforting presence in the NBA, in his own way. You always know what you are going to get from him, even when you don't.

Welcome to your Sad Derrick Rose update. When video of Sad Derrick Rose making a sad dunk began circulating around the internet a few weeks ago, many people pointed out that Rose jumped off his right foot rather than his left, which sits below his sad, surgically repaired left knee. It turns out that Rose is not yet comfortable dunking off of his left foot, and won't return to the floor until he is, even though he has been cleared to play by team doctors:

Derrick Rose's doctor has cleared the Chicago Bulls' star to play, a team source said, but his long-awaited return to the lineup won't occur until he can confidently dunk off his left foot, Rose has told the team.

Rose, who had surgery to repair a tear to the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee on May 12, has been videotaped dunking off each foot, but more casually than he would during a game. A source said that although he has been practicing and scrimmaging hard, he told the Bulls that until he feels "in his mind" he can confidently dunk off his left foot in a game situation, he is not 100 percent mentally ready to return to competition.

"Mentally ready" is never a phrase you want to hear in regards to a player's return from catastrophic injury, although it's hard to blame Rose for his trepidation. He knows that his reckless athleticism is simultaneously his best weapon and the biggest threat to his future health. At some point, he's going to have to get over that mental hump and not be afraid to try things like this, but for now, he remains Sad Derrick Rose.

[ESPN]

The World Baseball Classic is well underway, which means that the eyes of the international media are fixated upon the games. It also means that we have the opportunity to run game recaps from foreign media outlets through Google Translate for the sake of our own amusement.

Please enjoy Gazzetta, a major Italian newspaper, leading its recap of the Italy-Mexico game with this:

There are games that you can not forget. No more. This debut in the World Classic - the new World With The Stars - against Mexico's Adrian Gonzalez and Sergio Romo, two stars of the Major League, enters in the history of baseball blue: as it is acquired, for the like Italy 'won it (but could also lose it), for as the players took turns, all indeed all (including coach and led by Marco Mazzieri, which has among his assistants people like Mike Piazza and Frank Catalanotto). A victory over the wire 6-5, last out, last bouncy before freeing the joy, all the mountain with Jason Grilli, author of salvation, as good as the winning pitcher Nick Pugliese, who plays in Italy and not in Major, as good as Alex Liddi, who arrived in base 5 times of 5 and author in the first inning of the second point beat Italy.

As we've said before, we are light years behind Italian sportswriting. Italy also just mercy-ruled Canada, so things are going pretty well for them.

[Gazzetta]