While watching the first episode of the new season of Entourage for the second time

I'm a little perplexed that Kobe Bryant decided to not have surgery to fix the torn ligament in his right pinkie. He's had the injury since February, so he had to have known the time table for a recovery. He had said while he played through the injury during the regular season, playoffs and Olympics that he would get it fixed as soon as his off-season began. So, why the change in decision? The max time table is 12 weeks, but Kobe is a famously quick healer. He has an insane ability to compartmentalize pain better than any athlete I've seen, so it's likely the injury won't affect him the way it would another athlete (or at least he won't let anyone know it affects him)...

What is going on with Vince Young? He admitted during the off-season that he wanted to retire after his rookie year, which is a disturbing thought for a player of his stature that's even worse to admit publically. Now he apparently didn't want to return to the field on Sunday after throwing his second interception and then he allegedly wanders off Monday, with friends and family concerned for his safety. If you were one his teammates, would you have the confidence in him to lead your team? If you answered "hell no," then that'd make you like nearly every Tennessee Titan player right now...

One of the most quotable athletes is Stephon Marbury, partly because the guy is just crazy -- and he doesn't mind letting people know it. Here are a few gems from a recent interview:

"I drink life’s happy water which is bottled at the divine source."

"If I didn't play the way how I played, I wouldn't have gotten no max contract. ... Don't get mad at me, because I'm telling you what's real. One plus one is two, all day long, and it's never gonna change. And that's factorial."

And then there's this brilliant quote where Steph tries to figure out why the sports writer whom he's speaking with is an atheist.
"If your mind can transform thoughts to create rockets to go into space, who is to say if an Ark was built? Like, if you could build spaceships to go from off this ground, to go up into the sky, and go land on the moon — you're saying, these things can't happen? So everything gets challenged, you understand what I'm saying?"