Filed Under » Memphis Grizzlies

Your friend Jeff, who normally around this time of year is bitching about "the same teams always being in the playoffs," now has a stick up his ass about the Indiana Pacers and Memphis Grizzlies being in the NBA conference finals.

"Pacers and Grizzlies? Who gives a crap about them?" says Jeff. "I can't name a player on either team."

Jeff isn't too jazzed about the San Antonio Spurs being in the Western Conference Finals either.

"I'm so sick of them. They're so boring," he said. "And it's another small market team that no one gives a crap about," he added — oddly, considering just weeks ago he said David Stern and the NBA officials conspire to advance big market teams in the playoffs.

"I don't want to watch these nobody teams in the playoffs," said Jeff. "What I wouldn't give to see the Lakers and Celtics still around."

Jeff made this statement without irony despite bitching incessantly during the 2010 NBA Finals about having to watch the Lakers and Celtics. "Enough with these teams already," he said then. "The NBA needs some new blood."

NBA commissioner David Stern said today that he is "absolutely tickled to death" that the Memphis Grizzlies, up three games to one on Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder, "probably believe they're going to advance out of this round."

"It's just the dearest thing," said Stern. "I almost want to pinch Marc Gasol's fat cheeks."

Despite Memphis looking like the clearly superior team through the first four games of the series, Stern says he has put out the order to his officials that "under no circumstances" are the Grizzlies to close out the series.

"Both Los Angeles teams lost in the first round, Brooklyn lost, Boston lost, Chicago is on the way out, the Knicks are losing. I can't lose all of those big markets and a star of Kevin Durant's caliber," said Stern. "I mean, let's be reasonable here. I didn't build this league to where it is by giving people NBA Finals featuring the Memphis Grizzlies and Indiana Pacers. Nobodies versus nobodies. Not a chance."

The end of the lockout has been positive news for most players in the NBA. But for Memphis Grizzlies forward Rudy Gay, it means a return to the bullying that has tormented him throughout the first five years of his career.

"All my life I have been bullied for the perceived feminine qualities of my first name, and it has only gotten worse since I started playing professional basketball," said Gay during a small press conference this morning. "I am here today to announce that I will no longer tolerate it."

Gay stated in the press conference that throughout his career he'd been called names like Trudy, Judy, Rhubarb and Rudy Tooty Fresh 'N' Fruity by teammates both to his face and behind his back.

Gay said that the ridicule is particularly merciless when he under-performs and teammates call him Moody Rudy, making snide insinuations that he is menstruating and that that is the cause of his poor performance. He also said that teammates will avoid coming near him in the shower or on the bus for fear of catching "Rudy Cooties."

"Honestly, Rudy isn't even a very effeminate name. I don't know any girl Rudys, except for Rudy Huxtable, I guess, and she's not a real person," said Gay. "What about players with names like Nenê or Emeka or Shannon? No one's hatin' on them."