Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn’t stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

Brett Favre can throw a football over 50 yards. Chuck Norris can throw Brett Favre even further.

These things, of course, are all true. Now, as to Chuck Norris’ defense of Mr. Tebow, which Mr. Norris wrote on a site called WND.com (which also counts Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent among its contributors). The martial-arts expert and well-known action hero truly believes that the NFL doesn’t know what it’s doing when it rejects Tebow as a star quarterback.
“America has the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships) and the UCP (Ultimate Clutch Players),” Norris writes. “One is mixed martial artists, and the other is quarterbacks of the NFL. They all are athletic warriors who are extremely determined to win.
“My favorite in the UFC is Georges St. Pierre. My favorite UCP in the NFL is Tim Tebow.”

Norris goes on and on, quite rhapsodically:

I have been following Tim since he became a quarterback for the Florida Gators, and I have never seen a more determined and inspiring athlete play the game of football. And I’m not alone in that sports assessment.

Norris then goes on to quote Akbar Gbajabiamila, Michael Strahan, and Forbes Magazine in his assertion that ” Tebow is a player who rises to the occasion and delivers big in critical game moments.”

Norris then insists that the Jacksonville Jaguars are the right home for Tebow.

Why? To put it simply, because Tim could help turn the mediocre team into a championship one. Tebow works miracles on the field, and his inclusion would embolden the spirit of the Jaguars among the team and fans.

Plus – and this has no reflection on the current quarterbacks – Tim is from Florida, where he bears a victor legacy and an extensive fan base, to boot, from his days with the Gators. Tim was raised in the Jacksonville area, where he became a high-school football star. Then his young, stellar career shot into the stratosphere when he led the University of Florida in Gainesville to some record-breaking wins. Tim won two national championships with the Gators and became the first sophomore ever to win the coveted Heisman Trophy.

So, Mr. Shad Khan – the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, David Caldwell – their general manager and coach Gus Bradley, I would give the preceding some serious thought. Whatever you would pay Tebow would be recouped tenfold by the increase in attendance and fan base. With Tim as the quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, they would add thousands (if not tens of thousands) of additional fans to the stadium, including me – even though I don’t live in Florida!

After quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Norris then blames Tebow’s current employment status on the media, and the fear NFL teams have of public scrutiny. He ends his argument with a simple plea: Won’t some visionary team take a shot on this American hero?

All that is needed now is an owner, manager and coach of a football team who have the vision and faith to watch Tebow turn around their team. I guarantee that they will see positive results. I have been an athlete all of my life, being a six-time undefeated world middle weight champion in the martial arts, and I know a winner when I see one.

Tim Tebow is a winner – plain and simple!

Well, there are winners, and there are winners. And all kidding aside, while Norris’ martial arts qualifications are above reproach, his insistence that Tebow could lap the field as an NFL quarterback reminds me of a scene Norris did with Bruce Lee in one of my favorite kung-fu movies, “Way of the Dragon.”

Yes, it’s staged, and yes, Bruce Lee is supposed to win because it’s his movie. But Lee was faster, had a more expansive technique base, and brought a power to his attack that Norris simply didn’t possess — at least, in the movie. In this case, and since Norris brought himself up as an athletic example, I would compare Norris in this role to Tebow in the NFL — good enough to stay in the fight, but with enough obvious weaknesses to get his butt kicked (or worse) against a superior opponent.

In this movie, Lee is the equivalent of Tom Brady, or Peyton Manning, or Aaron Rodgers. He’s simply the superior athlete in every way, and when it comes right down to it, that’s what the NFL wants.

I’d also respectfully ask Mr Norris to take a good look at Cam Newton, Robert Griffin, Colin Kaepernick, and Russell Wilson. Like Tebow, they’ve all been winners, and they’re all mobile quarterbacks. But unlike Tebow, they can all throw the ball consistently at the NFL level without a large number of schematic setups to offset their weaknesses. To put it in terms that Mr. Norris could clearly understand at the root of his athletic soul, those guys are the black belts, and Tim Tebow is not. Not at this level, and there are some things that can’t be hidden with all the rhetoric in the world.

If only the Indiana Pacers employed a lengthy, defensive-minded center that could patrol the paint down the stretch of close games.

Wait, what?

Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel shockingly decided to remove all-world defender Roy Hibbert from his lineup in his team’s two most crucial possessions of the season on Wednesday night, and the Miami Heat took advantage while winning Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Two different times, down the stretch of overtime, Heat MVP LeBron James slashed to the rim for easy lay-ins, as Hibbert could only look on from the bench while Vogel went with reserve wing Sam Young to “counter” Miami’s small lineup.

After Pacer All-Star Paul George tied the game following James’ first slash with three clutch free throws to hand the Pacers a one-point lead, LeBron James responded with the spin move and game-winning lay-up over … Sam Young.

And not over Roy Hibbert, considered by just about everyone else in the NBA (save for his own coach, at least on this Wednesday night) to be the most important part of the NBA’s best defense in 2012-13.

Miami showed some rust in Game 1, as it did during the team’s second round matchup with the Chicago Bulls after an eight day layoff earlier this month, but the seven day layoff between their conquest of the Bulls and this pairing with Indiana was entirely different. Indiana is working with the same lineup they’ve known since last October, and they match up terrifically with a Heat team they topped in two out of three regular season meetings.

The Pacers had their breaks in this Game 1 near-win – Paul George hit a ridiculously lucky game-tying three-pointer to send the contest into overtime, and George was fouled late in overtime to tie the game once again before James’ game-winner – but the near-even score should be considered a statement, and not a fluke. Indiana is just the sort of team to play Miami to a veritable draw, even while in Florida.

Here’s George game-saving shot to keep his team alive at the end of the fourth quarter:

James came through with perhaps the quietest 30-point, ten-rebound, ten-assist game in NBA playoff history, while co-star Dwyane Wade seemed refreshed on his way toward 19 points. On the other end, David West took advantage of a lacking Heat frontcourt while piling up 18 first half points (and 26 overall), and Paul George showcased a significant amount of moxie on his way toward a team-high 27 points. George had his hiccups down the stretch of regulation, but by and large he was taking chances in the face of a Heat team designed to shut down athletes of his caliber.

Because this was a stalemate, though, the scrutiny falls on the novelty that ended the game.

Hibbert was on the court when the Pacers hit the floor on the defensive end with the game tied and 24.6 seconds left in overtime. After seeing Miami’s lineup, though, Pacer coach Frank Vogel decided to pull his center for Sam Young, and LeBron James immediately went to work on Indiana’s “SWITCH EVERYTHING!”-defense, taking advantage of George Hill and scoring a lay-in over Young.

The Pacers followed with a broken play that led to Wade slapping George’s arm as he went up for a three-pointer, and the Indiana All-Star nailed three out of three free throws with 2.2 seconds left to put the Pacers up one.

Which led Vogel to, once again, put Hibbert on the bench.

James responded with a brilliant, lightning-fast lay-up to win it at the buzzer. There’s no guarantee that Hibbert would have stopped a shot like that, or even been able to rotate and cover a move like James’ in that instant. Or that he would have even been able to deter James from driving, much less finishing.

Still, Roy Hibbert would have helped. Any part of him – his length, his side to side movement, his intelligence, or just his presence – would have helped.

Scouting helps, in this league, and Frank Vogel has one of the bigger brains in the NBA. He routinely advises his team mid-game of which play is coming next, and he brings a video operator’s knowledge, a leader’s wisdom, and a fan’s passion to the head coaching gig he so richly deserves.

He dropped the ball, though, twice. Twice in a game that may have been Indiana’s best chance to win on the road, and change the shape of this series.

It’s now Frank Vogel’s job, as that leader, to convince his men that Game 1 wasn’t Indiana’s best chance to take a game in Miami, and that their best days are ahead of them. It’s his job to convince them that Game 2 will be just as close. And that they’ll be back for Game 5. And that a Game 7 could be in the offing.

After his late-game moves in Game 1, though, he’ll have to convince more than his players that he’s up to the task.

Rick Ross, Ace Hood, French Montana and Busta Rhymes jump on the remix to Mack Maine’s ‘Kobe Or Ginobili’.

Previously: Mack Maine ft. Talib Kweli & Lil Wayne – Celebrate (Video)

First single off Kay Slay’s upcoming The Last Champion mixtape.

Audio courtesy of DopeStateOfMind.

Previously: Video: DJ Kay Slay Ft. Fabolous, Rick Ross, Nelly, French Montana & T-Pain – About That Life

Bronsolini, Logic, Travi$ Scott, and Dizzy Wright close out RapFix Live today with a freestyle.

A magnetic resonance imaging scan of Carmelo Anthony’s ailing left shoulder revealed a partially torn labrum that could require offseason surgery that would shelve the New York Knicks’ All-Star forward for months, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

Knicks fans looking for an explanation for Anthony’s decline in shooting percentages from regular season (44.9 percent from the floor, 37.9 percent from 3-point range) to postseason (40.6 and 29.8, respectively) might point toward the bum shoulder, which Isola reports has caused “chronic pain” for the league’s leading scorer ever since he initially injured it late in the third quarter of the Knicks’ April 14 win over the Indiana Pacers:

Anthony re-aggravated the injury early in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the Knicks’ opening-round series against the Boston Celtics, when Celtics center Kevin Garnett grabbed Anthony’s left arm on a screen:

(As if Knicks fans needed another reason to curse the name “Kevin Garnett.”)

Anthony also appeared to further re-aggravate it in the Knicks’ Game 6 victory after bumping into Boston guard Avery Bradley:

Anthony later said he felt his “shoulder popping out of the socket, which is common for someone suffering from a torn labrum,” according to Isola. The Knicks have yet to officially announce the injury or give any medical update on Anthony following the MRI.

At the Knicks’ exit interviews following the team’s six-game second-round loss to the Pacers, Anthony acknowledged that the shoulder gave him trouble throughout the playoffs, according to ESPN New York’s Ian Begley:

“I don’t think it’s any major damage,” Anthony said Monday after meeting with the Knicks’ coaching staff for exit interviews. “But we’ll see. We’ll find that out shortly.” [...]

“It was bothering me since it happened,” Anthony said. “To be able to play with that and get through the pain, it just came a point where you just try not to think about it. That’s where I was at mentally.”

Isola reports that the Knicks’ plan at the moment is to let Anthony rest for the next three to four weeks before re-evaluating, in the hope that the injury will heal on its own. If it doesn’t, surgical repair could be considered; if surgery is needed, “it could sideline Anthony from three to five months and could compromise his availability for the start of training camp in October,” which is pretty much the exact opposite of what Knicks fans still licking their wounds from an Eastern Conference semifinals exit want to hear.

For now, though, all Anthony, the Knicks and their fans can do is wait.

French played the Webster Hall in New York City last night for his Excuse My French album release show and Diddy, Swizz Beatz, Wale, and Raekwon were some of the surprise guests to make an appearance on the stage last night. Here’s how it all went down.

Previously: Video: French Montana Interview w/ The Breakfast Club

Previously: Video: Talib Kweli – Get By (DECODED)

Since the infamous “Malice in the Palace” brawl in Detroit in 2004, the NBA has done whatever it can to avoid any perception as a league that condones or tolerates fighting. Suspensions for relatively minor tussles have increased in length and flagrant fouls have become more common to stop players from crossing any lines of safety. It’s an understandable goal that mostly seems to be working.

It’s also possible that these efforts have ignored separate but related issues. In an interview with Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones on ESPN’s “Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable” on Wednesday, 18-year NBA veteran Jerry Stackhouse detailed the stories beyond a few of his many fights as a pro. Some took place off the court, some on. All were events that the league likely wishes never happened.

Yet, despite the NBA’s institutional aversion to fighting, Stackhouse presents these events as normal and sometimes even cathartic moments in the life of a professional athlete. For instance, Stack references the time Kirk Snyder thanked him for fighting him (Bomani: “He told you that he needed to bleed?”) and a tussle with Christian Laettner on a flight that managed not to interrupt their close friendship. To hear Stackhouse put it, these fights involved players needing to blow off steam, not a bunch of thugs trying to hurt each other because they know no other way of interaction.

That doesn’t mean fighting should be condoned — it just suggests that it’s a symptom of something else. In stamping out fighting, the league can’t ignore the role it serves as an emotional outlet. What the alternative should be is unclear, because we don’t know enough about the specifics. Yet, if the goal is to improve the league’s image and keep players safe, a focused approach to stopping fighting might not be the answer. The solution has to be holistically minded.

In his 13-year career, Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher established himself as one of the greatest NFL players of the new millennium. And when he officially retired on Wednesday, it got people thinking about his legacy. A Super Bowl appearance, 180 regular-season starts, 41.5 sacks, 22 interceptions, 1,052 solo tackles, eight Pro Bowls, four First-Team All-Pro nominations, and his status as one of the few players to rack up the AP’s Defensive Rookie of the Year (2000) and Defensive Player of the Year (2005) awards all will likely lead Urlacher to the Pro Football Hall of Fame sooner than later.

That said — and this happens to every great player — there are those moments one would rather forget. When Urlacher called into the Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday morning, Patrick went through many of Urlacher’s great moments, and then got him to remember one of the goofier plays of the 2006 season — which may have been Urlacher’s best.

When Patrick asked Urlacher, “Who was the quarterback or running back you didn’t get, and you really wanted to?” it didn’t take Urlacher long to remember one particularly embarrassing play against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. It was Week 12 of the 2006 season, and Brady — who will hardly go down as the most mobile quarterback of all time — managed to elude Urlacher in the open field on a fourth-quarter scramble. As you can see in the video above, it was an atypical play for several reasons.

“Brady always kicked our butts — I don’t think we ever beat [New England] when Tom Brady was the starting quarterback,” Urlacher remembered. “He juked me out of my shoes in 2006.”

As Patrick said, “Every white guy who couldn’t move loved that play, because it was Brady who was doing it.”

“Man, he really got me, and he’s one of the best of all time,” Urlacher concluded. “There were just some guys I had a hard time with.”

Not too many, but Urlacher also remembered his first experience against Minnesota Vikings superstar back Adrian Peterson, which did not go well at all for the veteran linebacker. It was Week 5 of the 2007 season, and Urlacher said something that got up Peterson’s nose. He soon found out that it was a bad place to be.

“We had decent games against Adrian, but the one game I wish I could take back was the first game of his rookie year. He rushed for, I think, 220 yards (224 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries), and ran a kickoff back 70 yards. At the beginning of the game, I said something … I don’t remember what I said, but I think I pissed him off. I said something about being a rookie, and he had a good game. ‘Rookie this, rookie that,’ and that was a bad move.”

And that’s one of the things we like best about Brian Urlacher — one of the things that has always made him a rare individual. No matter how great he was at his peak (and he was spectacular), he could always be honest about the foibles that even the greatest must endure.