by Tommy Gimler
It’s halftime of the Lakers/Thunder Game 4, and these two thoughts are occupying the bulk of my brain space:
1) Tell me again why these two teams are playing on consecutive nights and the Heat/Pacers haven’t played since Thursday?
2) I bet nobody is sitting within two locker lengths of Pau Gasol right now in the Lakers’ locker room because he smells worse than a Wisconsin deer hunting cabin on Saturday morning.
Seriously, if the game is mysteriously thrown to commercial during the third quarter because a player shit himself, Gasol would have to be a 3:2 favorite as the guilty man. I mean, he looks like he would be the only player on the court who could probably fill a 21 oz. Wendy’s fountain drink cup with spare change in less than ten minutes if you placed him outside the Staples Center after the game.
But maybe Gasol is on to something. Would you want to guard a guy who’s toting around a fresh pile of dung in his drawers? Or a guy who only showers on Jewish holidays? Or how close would another player guard you if you hid a loaf of limburger cheese under your elbow pad?
The only part of the NBA rule book I could find that deals with hygiene pertains to treating an open wound. So, I guess as long as Gasol didn’t bite hit lip hard enough to expose his blood while crapping himself, he would technically be OK. Or maybe how baseball has unwritten rules like “don’t bunt to break up a no-hitter,” basketball has their own set of rules like “if you shit your shorts, call timeout, and change them instead of posting up an opposing player.”
The bottom line is that Pau Gasol looks like the most foul-smelling player in the league. He looks like eastern Europe, and anybody who has been there knows how bad that part of the world smells. But if you’ve never visited Bulgaria, go run six miles at the end of June, shove your thumb up your ass for 30 seconds, and give it a whiff. It should be a pretty good representation.
According to Kevin Love, it’s actually Ronny Turiaf who smells worse than anybody else in the league. Amar’e Stoudemire confirmed this and said that Boris Diaw would be a close second. I could see Manu Ginobili somewhere on that list as well. The Spurs’ guard looks like he too could smell about as bad as a Los Angeles cabbie…
