On Monday, Stan Van Gundy was fired from his job as coach of the Orlando Magic. After the emotional tractor trailer jack-knifing that was this Magic season, this move was inevitable. It was a day of housecleaning for the franchise, as they also relieved general manager Otis Smith of his general management duties. Somewhere, no doubt, Dwight Howard ran through a wall, Kool-Aid Man-style, in delight.

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So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

About 15 minutes after JaVale McGee’s thorough handling of Andrew Bynum was complete, members of the media began to file into the relatively small postgame press room in the bowels of the Staples Center. They were informed that first to the podium would be victorious Nuggets coach George Karl, whose team had just staved off elimination with 102-99 win over the Lakers. The player from Denver, it was announced, would be McGee. Even after the best game of his career — 21 points and 14 rebounds — in the biggest game of his career, there were laughs.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.

• Notes kept by Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long during his investigation show that former head coach Bobby Petrino's relationship with his assistant began with a kiss over lunch last fall. "Hi, I'm Bobby Petrino," the coach said immediately afterward. "Thanks for not being weird when I kissed you just now."

The reason LeBron James took such an L after he made The Decision wasn't so much because of where he decided to play as it was about how he conducted himself while making the announcement. Simply put: It was corny. A faux-casual/faux-altruistic setting, a rigid line delivery that made it seem like he had been rehearsing all day in front of a mirror. The dorky phrasing about taking his talents to a beach. It all went wrong, all at once, and forever changed the way many people viewed the greatest player of his generation. It wasn't that he was evil. It's that he wasn't cool.

Dwight Howard makes LeBron James look like Paul Newman.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.

• Detroit's Austin Jackson got the first walk-off hit of the season, an RBI single in the ninth as the Tigers beat the Red Sox 3-2. "Wait a second," slurred inactive Boston pitcher Josh Beckett, staggering out of the dugout to confront the umpire. "Thassa endofa game? Wha inning isst?" Luckily, he stumbled and fell before he could reach home plate, where he spent the next 20 minutes mumbling "you think you're better'n me?" to a piece of grass.
• J.P Arencibia hit a three-run homer in the 16th inning as the Blue Jays beat the Indians 7-4 in the longest season opener in MLB history. The few thousand fans who stayed for the entire game — again, between the Blue Jays and Indians — remain quarantined inside Cleveland's Progressive Field this morning as experts check for signs of contagious insanity.

Stan Van Gundy and Dwight Howard starred in what might be the most cringe-worthy impromptu press conference of the NBA season on Thursday. But you know who, or more accurately what, stole the show? Stan Van Gundy's Diet Pepsi can.

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.

• President Barack Obama picked his official March Madness bracket, putting Kentucky, Ohio State, North Carolina, and Missouri in the Final Four, with the Tar Heels winning the championship. At least that's what ESPN is reporting; according to several Republican sources, Obama actually picked a Final Four of Harvard, Duke, Kim Jong-un, and the Nairobi Fake Birth Certificate Corporation, with Duke winning it all.
• In the First Four in Dayton, South Florida took the fight to Cal early, running up a big lead and winning 65-54. That leaves just one team from the Pac-12 in the tournament, but conference officials are confident that Colorado will restore their honor by winning the national title.

The most miraculous thing about this entire will-he-won't-he Dwight Howard ordeal is that it has somehow made LeBron James and his decision to make his decision with The Decision look like a good decision! At least he made a decision, right? Howard has been holding the Magic, and in a way the rest of the NBA, hostage as he bobs and weaves around questions about his basketball future. On Tuesday night, following a colossal, 24-point, 25-rebound performance in a 104-98 Magic victory over the Heat, Howard again commented on the possibility of being traded: "We've been talking, like I said, for a while. I told them [Magic front office] I want to finish this season out and give our team, give our fans some hope for the future. But I feel they have to roll the dice."

Of course, Howard's latest statement has done nothing to quell the rumors that he will, in fact, be dealt by the trade deadline and that being dealt is exactly what he's agitating for. Or not. Nobody can really tell what Dwight Howard wants, other than to make Otis Smith and Magic president Alex Martins feel like escapees from an insane asylum. He exists in a state of Indecision. Jim Gray should ask him about it …

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.

• Randy Moss is back in football. The 35-year-old receiver signed a one-year deal with the 49ers after working out for Jim Harbaugh. Sources reported that the workout went really well, except for an awkward moment near the end when Harbaugh shoved Moss to the ground while shaking hands, and Moss responded by aggressively mooning him.

What Was At Stake

Faith in each team’s current construction as they move forward. Stan Van Gundy’s comments after his team’s 100-84 loss against Charlotte on Tuesday had a strange sense of both reason and reservation. "Our guys are satisfied that we came in with the third-best record in the East and the fifth-best record in the league," Van Gundy said. "They're satisfied with that. I don't think there's any push to be better or any push to be great. If there is, it doesn't show up in games."

"This is who we are. Whether we change that or not, I don't know."

In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.

• Sources indicate that Peyton Manning, released by the Colts on Wednesday, is planning to pick a new team within the week. "Have you totally ruled out evil coaches who would sign you just to bury you on the bench and demean you in front of your peers?" asked Bill Belichick. "Have you totally ruled out a coach who made a few bad impulse purchases and can only pay you in gumballs?" asked Rex Ryan. "Same question, but with butter," said Andy Reid.

You crazy for this one, Danny! Yeah, it's early March, Danny Ainge is putting on his clown makeup and emotionally tying up the Big 3 (+ 1) in some warehouse and making them choose which one gets to survive. That must mean it's Silly Season, a.k.a. NBA Trade Deadline Time. We've only got until March 15 for some team to do something very, very stupid. Let's see which franchises are trying to commit competitive suicide!

The NBA All-Star Weekend took me back to my freshman year in high school. When you arrive on campus, you think you're the man. You dominated junior high, you had a killer summer at camp, and you've officially come into your own. The braces are off, you've just started doing pushups at night, you held a girl's hand at the movies once, mom started letting you shop for yourself at Marshalls, and all signs point toward a growth spurt.

But much like the experience of being a freshman in high school, the reality of my serf-like position at the bottom of the All-Star Weekend feudal system became quite clear within minutes of settling in at my hotel in Orlando. By the end of my first week of high school, I understood that the rest of the year would entail athletes and older guys looking over me without acknowledging my presence, girls my age acting completely disinterested, and older girls sitting around, hating on the younger girls.

At first, I was bummed out, mainly because I'm an only child and used to getting at least some form of attention. But as the weekend progressed, I realized my insignificance could actually be a blessing in disguise. In this sea of NBA players, NBA insiders, wannabe NBA insiders, celebrities, and wannabe celebrities, here I was, almost invisible.

My various badges and passes got me close to most of the action but not too close. I could always see what was going on, but my invisibility cloak had its limits. Too close, and my cover is blown and next thing I know, Gym Class Heroes and Jesse Jackson are giving me swirlies in the bathroom between second and third period. There was always a buffer zone of lameness that separated me from the beautiful people, but at the same time, if they had the ability to actually notice me, they would have been thoroughly creeped out by me, staring at them, jotting down notes, always dying of laughter.

My beat for the weekend was to always be around, keeping my head on a swivel, noticing when hilarity ensued, watching as celebrities interacted, and most importantly, guessing what they were talking about, based on who they were and their mannerisms. This sounds like an easy task, but at an event like the NBA All-Star Weekend, it can cause a serious case of carpal tunnel. The observations are seemingly endless.

So here we go.

As I sat on a plane to Orlando, having successfully drooled all over my Club Tril T-shirt, the realization that I was en route to NBA All-Star weekend finally slapped me in the face.

In the past, I've handled events as exciting, unpredictable, and slightly dangerous as this by going with the flow, not overthinking anything, never making plans, and, most importantly, always saying yes. But something about this weekend led to a change of heart. I thought that with just a few hours of planning, arts and crafts, phone calls, rush-order eBay purchases, and carefully crafted chants and heckles, I could really leave a mark on this All-Star weekend. Also, after embarrassing myself as the only press member at the Knicks game who tried to catch a shirt from the T-shirt cannon, I fully understood that it could easily be my last. There's no time to hold back.

In the past two weeks, the Miami Heat have looked like the team that many have thought (and feared) they might become since LeBron James announced the intention to take his talents to South Beach. Miami has won each of its past seven games by double digits, and it has filled those wins with enough highlights to last an entire season. The Heat have been so dominant that after a Tuesday-night game in which they scored 120 points and won by 12, coach Erik Spoelstra felt the need to apologize for their performance. They have looked like nothing if not the best team in basketball, and for most of this run, maybe the best team in years. On Thursday night, still armed with two of the five best players in the world, that team is set to face the Knicks in the most anticipated game of this season. And somehow, among all the Linsanity, the Heat are an afterthought.