Gilbert Arenas, reality show star. It has a nice ring to it, and for the man who has proven to be perhaps the most likeable and charismatic NBA star, it is something that he is actually considering, as he confessed on the DC radio show Big O and Dukes on Tuesday:

"Ya know, it's funny. I got a -- you ever seen the show, 'Rob and Big?' The producers want to do a reality show on me -- the first NBA player to do a reality show. But then I thought about it -- I was like, my life is really not that exciting.

"Ya know, so, I'm thinking about it, because, ya know, I have players like Nick [Young], who's goofy, so we can do paintball shooting and see who can get hurt on the grotto jumping into the pool..."

His hilarious off-the-court persona has been well documented both by himself and bloggers coast-to-coast, so we have no doubt that the Gilbert Show would be a resounding success (although, hopefully it would have a more creative title). This is especially true when you consider the possibility of the program using the Wizards’ other great personalities, namely Nick “The City” Young and Caron “Tough Juice” Butler.

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The Nike Blazer once represented the pinnacle in basketball performance as Nike's first basketball sneaker and the Swoosh's answer to Converse's almighty Chuck Taylor. Improving upon the Chuck, the Nike Blazer added a more supportive leather upper, increased cushioning, and a cup sole.

Flash forward to 2008 and the Hyperdunk with it's Flywire and NASA-created Lunar Foam that represents the pinnacle in Nike's Basketball portfolio, the Swoosh now owns Converse, and the Chuck Taylor and Blazer are nowhere near the basketball court anymore, unless someone is rocking them with a nice fit in the stands.

The Blazer though lives on in other sports, recently resurrected as a skateboarding sneaker, and now it is ready to tackle the trail, the slopes, or an East Coast winter.

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eBay is full of hidden games, particularly when it comes to sports-related items. David Arnott brings you the best oddities.

Some things are both cool and uncool at the same time. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Argyle sweater vests. Scented candles. Fall Out Boy. Olympic Curling. And life-size statues of celebrities.

Meet Bart Starr. Or what is supposed to be a life size statue depicting Starr in the pocket, staring stoically downfield, but looks more like a pissed off Julia Child in a Packers uniform.

The statue could be cool. In the right context, it could really tie the room together, dude. If you approach this piece with a sense of whimsy, acknowledging that it's a crude sculpture and might not have been intended to seriously capture Starr's spirit and meaning, then you'll see the humor in the thing.

For Packers fans, especially, Bart Starr is a symbol of a workman's ethic triumphing over the shortcuts our modern world encourages. The statue subverts that. Judging from the photos, it is, devoid of a craftsman's touch and appears to be awkwardly shoved together. The proportions are all wrong; he's got a huge head, for example, which only encourages an association with cartoon characters.

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Another day, another teaser for a sports video game this fall. I'm beginning to think I'm never going to get to leave my apartment. This time, it's another slow-mo trailer from NBA 2K9 depicting the drama of the alley-oop.
The game is scheduled to hit stores Oct. 7. For new still shots from the game, hit the jump.

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I’m of two minds about Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami, which debuted on August 11 and continues to run in regular rotation on PBS. On one hand, I watched it hungrily for the same reason I’ve watched countless other Ali docs that covered the same oft-trodden turf of his nascent career -- because Ali makes for The Greatest Television of All Time. 

He lights up the screen like no other athlete (and few film stars or musicians) before or since, and there’s an exuberance to his persona in the pre-Liston build-up period that is utterly contagious. Every time I see footage from that time -- Ali and the Beatles; Ali and Jack Paar; an interviewer saying, “I was talking to Sonny Liston the other day,” and Ali breaking in with, “Ain’t he ugly?” -- I feel emboldened somehow, excited to be alive.

But there’s the rub: every time I see that stuff. As a boxing fan and an Ali acolyte, I’ve seen it so many times before. There are innumerous documentaries that cover this period along much the same timeline as Made in Miami. The ostensible raison d’être here was to tell the story of Ali’s days with trainer Angie Dundee (recently profiled in SN Today) at the legendary Fifth Street Gym in Miami. That’s accomplished, but only for about ten minutes at the top, and not with any particular insight beyond some footage of Ali in the gym and driving around the city and the overall acknowledgement that he was there and that in general people liked him. I’m quite sure that if I went back and put a stopwatch on it, the word “Miami” wouldn’t be mentioned beyond the first 15 minutes of the program.

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Leipzig, are you ready to rock!? Yes, the Games Convention is rollin' abroad, and EA Sports has announced a new IP: they're making a tennis game for the Nintendo Wii.

The unnamed Wii tennis title will utilize Nintendo's yet-to-be released Wii MotionPlus, in conjunction with the Wii Remote, for added responsiveness everyone saw on display at E3 earlier this summer.

With few details even available about the game at this point, the biggest news is that players will be able to play at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. That's right; you've got Wimbledon in your Wii.

EA Sports president Peter Moore says the game is coming first to the Wii, but the release doesn't make any mention of other consoles. Either way, the game isn't set to drop until late 2009, so I'm going to say it's safe to go on with your lives and wait for details.

(*No idea if Rafael Nadal will be a playable character, but he did win Wimbledon.)

XXL: MUST-SEE TV

Olympics

It’s day eleven of the occupation and the natives are getting restless. Help us BMX, you’re our only hope. That’s right, people – the BMX competition, a new Olympic sport, makes its prime-time debut tonight (NBC, 10 p.m.). Who said the Olympics were for old people?

Although if you do happen to be old, there’s more gymnastics for you tonight as well, with coverage of the individual event finals in men’s parallel and high bars and women’s balance beam beginning around 8 p.m. on NBC (Shawn Johnson alert). Throughout the evening on the network will be track-and-field finals in the women’s 400m and 100m hurdles, along with the men’s 1500m.

OLYMPICS TIVO ALERT

Despite the fact that it’s nearly impossible to find ANY information about coverage of tomorrow morning’s USA/Australia men’s basketball quarterfinal on the always inscrutable and essentially useless schedule on NBC’s Olympics web site, I am under the impression that it will be aired live on USA at 8 a.m. I could be wrong on that, however, because in keeping with the Olympic mission, NBC continues to make it as hard as possible to find out what is being shown where and when.

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