Vujacic's million dollar bush shot

By taking and subsequently burying his meaningless last second three point shot in last night's decisive Lakers-Spurs game, Los Angeles Laker G Sasha Vujacic instantly created a legion of Vujacic Haters and Vujacic Lovers. CNBC is reporting that the shot, which resulted in an 8 point Laker win as opposed to a 5 point Laker win, swung an estimated one million dollars worth of gambling action. The money apparently went from parties who bet on the Spurs minus the points to those that did not. (Arbitrary last second shots by foreigners who don't understand basketball etiquette: Reason #57 why its foolish to bet on the NBA.)

Footnote: From what I could discern from the clip CNBC showed, San Antonio's Michael Finley may be counted amongst the Vujacic Haters. After the shot, he gave Vujacic a nasty look that sort of said "Not in America, pal."

The flaws in Erin Burnett's game

Now for something completely different. A barely-connected-to-this-post rant about CNBC daytime anchor Erin Burnett. When the CNBC reporter who ran the Vujacic story described the last second shot as "controversial," Burnett scrunched her nose and replied "Controversial? I thought the object was to win by as many points as possible!"

Okay, Erin. First of all, winning by "as many points as possible" has never, ever been the object of basketball. So comment on things you know (which ain't much), you twit.

Second of all, as you may suspect, I take a huge burn at Burnett. Everyone thinks she's so hot, to me she looks as plain as Wonder Bread. But that's neither here nor there.

What gets me about her is her pedantic nature. I mostly know her work from her appearances on "Morning Joe", this MSNBC political show I watch in the mornings. There she does Q&A segments every morning in which she basically pitches the day's offerings on CNBC. That's fine. What I can't stand about her is the way she laces every comment about every topical economic story with her "Wall Street first, Main Street... oh, third or fourth I guess" political agenda which she tries to disguise as unassailable economic thought that cometh from God's mouth to her ear.

I bet she thinks that kind of absolutist commentary positions her as a financial expert, but it actually makes her look like a typical media simpleton. Someone once wrote that the fool thinks she is a wise woman, and only the truly wise woman knows herself to be a fool. Those words are as true now as they ever were then, and they ought to be shared with at least half of the talking heads on cable television.

Thus ends possibly the first and last anti-Erin Burnett rant ever featured on an NBA blog. Now what was the original topic of this post?