www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/25/SPJPUM98P.DTL&tsp=1"> get into a nasty spitball spat with Lane Kiffin. Apparently, Al is a little upset that the Raiders once again didn't have a winning season and blames himself Lane. He is also pretty miffed that Lane talked him into trading Randy Moss. It's a little unclear as to what is going on as ESPN and the Chron have differing accounts but it appears that Al is trying to get Lane to quit so he doesn't have to fire him. ...

Here's todays sports news...

-With tonight's 108-82 win against the running joke that is the New York Knicks (seriously, what does it take to get fired in that organization?), the Warriors have now won three in a row and are one game from totaling the amount of wins our local football teams have. The Beard led the way with 31 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Stephen Jackson got 23 points. For the Knicks, Starbury played his first game of the season showing that blackmail does work ...

-Down, down, down go the Warriors ,who lost their fifth straight, losing 106-97 to the Knicks in New York. -Once again, the Sharks faced off against the Ducks and once again, the Ducks got the better of them. Same old story. This was the Ducks fifth win over the Sharks in seven games. -Jeff Garcia won't be dooming the final years of his life by signing with the Raiders as they fail to come to......

-The Warriors get a big lead, lose a big lead, then regain a big lead as they beat the NY Knicks. Tim Kawakami thinks the Warriors need to tank the season by giving Patrick O’Bryant some playing time. ...

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. ...

Ding-ding! NBA fans, lehhhhhhhhht's get ready to ruuuuuummmmm-bbbbllllllllllllle -- again.

Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, the most famous boxing arena in the world, the NY Knicks and Denver Nuggets set upon each other in the squared rectangle for what snarky bloggers and snide sportswriters have billed as the Throwdown in Showtown.

Even though Larry Brown hasn't been officially fired from his job as coach of the New York Knickerbockers, rumors are already growing that his next coaching destination will be here in Oaktown, as head coach of the Golden State Warriors. We have no idea if there's any dint of truth out there about the rumors and think it's probably just wild speculation due to the fact that Golden State is one of the few remaining NBA teams who Larry hasn't coached yet. He is also neighbors of Warriors owner Chris Cohan in East Hampton. Still, there's enough out there to have message boards full of stories that everyone in Golden State has been fired or at least Brown has already been hired or that Brown was about to fired except Mullin objected and so now Mullin might be fired. ...

Phillyist notes a fistfight between local pols that leaves one man down for the count. Jehovah's Witnesses get a Philly contributor out of bed, things get a little geeky with a film festival and geeky gets taken to a whole new galaxy when they talk with the Dragon Queen of the Dark Kingdom. Shanghaiist gets all excited this week over a new nightclub in the city unfortunately named "Snatch" and Mike Tyson is scheduled to......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi's tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy's most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. They also found the best possible use......

ESPN the Magazine (as opposed to ESPN the occasionally showing sports TV channel, ESPN the Web site, ESPN the restaurant chain, and ESPN the movie studio) recently decided to put together a poll that ranks every franchise of the Big Three sports (hockey isn't included as it wasn't playing last year). The ninety-two teams are ranked based on online survey questions and the magazines' own research and are based on things like
wins, management, fan relations, and cost. The top five franchises? The Spurs, Pistons, Steelers, Colts, and the Anahiem LA Angels. So much for sports life in the big cities. The worst five teams? The Knicks, Trail Blazers, Vikings, Bobcats (still too young of a franchise to decide) and coming in last, the poor homeless N'Awlins Saints. So how did our local teams do? In short, meh (we would link to the article in question, but for whatever reason, IT"S NOT ONLINE! This is the 21st Century-- everything should be online. We mean, we can find naked pictures of Natalee Holloway out there, but we can't find a damn ESPN article? What's up with that?) As befitting our no longer regal status in the sporting universe, most of the Bay Area teams came in somewhere in the middle with the Oakland A's deemed the best Bay Area franchise, at 42. Praise was given for it's inexpensive tickets, players (12), and value (17) but were given demerits for management (too cheap) and locale (the dumpy Coliseum, or the Stadium Al Ruined). ...

SFist has done their fair share of snarking on the Warriors in the past and feels kind of bad about it. It was just too darn easy, kicking that dog when they were down. But things have changed since then. The Warriors are h-o-t hot right now, hotter than leather chaps-wearing Jessica Alba dancing on a stripper pole. Well, not that hot, but you get our drift. Last night, the Warriors beat the Seattle SuperSonics 101-92 to win their fifth in a row, their longest winning streak of the year. And that's Seattle, as in Division Winning, possible title contending Seattle. Of course, as Ray Ratto pointed out, we've been here before and we're still talking about a team that's once more going to go to David Stern's little game show he likes to call the NBA Lottery Draft, but something feels different this time around. We are, after all, talking about a team that was well out of it months ago but is suddenly playing with a fire, passion, and energy usually not seen in these here parts....