Thoughts while recovering from the latest choking-dog hockey disappointment here in the nation's capital …

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

• Bill Parcells said he would be a "hypocrite" if he didn't consider the Saints' offer to coach for a year in Sean Payton's absence. He never really explained what he meant by "hypocrite," but most experts agree that it has something to do with his hilarious yet poignant blog IllCoachAnywhere.joomla.com.

Just the other day, Denver coach George Karl compared new Nugget JaVale McGee (acquired in a trade with Washington for Nene) to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, saying "I think he plays a little bit like Kareem, but he's a defensive Kareem more than an offensive Kareem."

Upon hearing this, I poured a full grande-in-a-venti-cup coffee all over the floor because it seemed like an appropriately absurd reaction to such a ridiculous statement. JaVale McGee is supposed to be comic relief. He's supposed to run the wrong way down the court, sing Adele to himself in his car, and get text messages from his mother about going KILLMODE SQUARED. He's not supposed to be developing his game and getting compared to one of the greatest big men in the history of the game, right?

First they traded JaVale McGee. And we were sad. Then they shut down Andray Blatche. And we were beside ourselves.

Tuesday, just a few days after sending JaVale McGee to Denver, the Washington Wizards announced they were shutting down Andray Blatche for the foreseeable future (likely the rest of the season). This news closes the curtain on the NBA's most devastating duo, Blatche and McGee. (Sure, their partnership was separated by distance, but they were still linked, both psychically and in their rules-and-physics-averse style of play.)

With 43 seconds remaning, the Lakers trailed the Wizards by five on Wednesday. Late in games, coaches need to understand the clock and score in order to determine whether they need a 3-point shot or a quick 2. Last night, the Lakers' staff decided on the quick 2, and they ran a play designed to score quickly enough that it would mean they did not have to foul on defense.

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

• Multiple sources reported that at least 12 of 32 NFL teams contacted Peyton Manning's representatives after he was released by the Colts. Two were misdials meant for Andrew Luck, three were pranks, and six were condolence calls from people who seemed to think that Manning had actually died. Rex Ryan was the twelfth caller, but he just kept repeating the words "chicken wannggggs" in a throaty whisper.
• After the Lakers blew a 21-point lead to the Wizards, reports surfaced that players are concerned over head coach Mike Brown's x-and-o ability to design an offense. "He doesn't seem to understand that the X's and O's are supposed to be on different teams," said a Laker player who asked not to be identified. "And I wish he wouldn't waste every timeout drawing pictures of mascots having sex."
• Derrick Rose's long jumper at the buzzer gave the Bulls a 106-104 win over the Bucks. After the game, Rose was ecstatic. "Coach Thibodeau called a timeout just before," he said, "but he basically spent the whole time drawing penises on the clipboard to try to make us laugh. So I decided I better hit a shot."
• Three more schools punched their tickets to the Dance by winning conference tournaments: Lehigh, LIU Brooklyn, and Montana. Unfortunately, nobody in Montana has been allowed to dance since the governor made it a "communist activity" during the Red Scare, so the team is barred from participating.
• Tournament committee chairman Jeff Hathaway held a teleconference during which he told reporters that Syracuse and Kentucky have the edge as the top two teams in the country. "Thanks, captain obvious," I said to myself, just now, since nobody invited me to the teleconference. In my imagination, all the other reporters laughed and said, "Hey, you're pretty cool, want to hang out at the journalism bar and tell stories?"
• After a decade in exile, Temple is returning to the Big East for the 2012 season. When a school representative swung by to check out the Big East and say hey, he was all like, "whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa … where did all the cool people go?" And UCF was all like, "Hey, you into pogs?" and Temple was like, "Kinda, but still, fuck."
• Lionel Messi became the first player in Champions League history to score five goals in a match as Barcelona crushed Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 in the round of 16. Unfortunately, he has a really long way to go before he can think about breaking Wilt Chamberlain's record of 100 points in a game.
• Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish, a much-hyped Japanese prospect, pitched his first two innings of spring training ball yesterday, giving up two doubles and striking out three in a decent outing. He used every weapon in his seven-pitch repertoire, including the pitch where he throws the ball over the batter's head and then rushes in to tackle him before he can get up, a classic Japanese intimidation move.
• According to Mexican League Baseball officials, Jose Canseco admitted to taking a banned substance and won't play in the league as planned this season. The move was a huge disappointment to Mexican fans, who were hoping to enjoy Canseco's old-school antics before he inevitably said something stupid and was murdered by a cartel.

Here's more evidence that Wizards forward Andray Blatche is just like Tom Brady. (I'VE BEEN SAYING THAT.) This comes to us via Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post. A Twitter user who goes by the handle @LiveyourrrLife spotted Blatche at a District of Columbia DMV this past week. (Steinberg notes that the facility doesn't really look like a District DMV, but let's just go with it for now.) The DMV can be a pretty uncomfortable place, so much respect to Dray for wearing the most comfortable shoes possible.

This seems like as good a time as any to post this again. Keep on your toes, people. Or just swaddle them in wool. Whatever.

Some headlines write themselves, and then those headlines also write the blog posts that they are attached to. This is one of those headlines, and this is one of those blog posts.

This all comes to us, as most of these things do, from the Washington Post, whose reporters continue to bravely carry on from the front lines of Wizardry. Nick Young crashed a wedding in Phoenix this weekend.

Young was "wandering through the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in a leather jacket, baseball cap, flip-flops and socks" when he came across the ceremony. Members of the wedding party recognized Young, and he was invited in. The DJ then announced his presence and he gave an impromptu toast. "I just said, ‘Congratulations to the bride and groom,’ I didn’t know nobody," Young said. "I went in there and gave a speech. I was a wedding crasher. Will Ferrell. I didn’t have nothing else to do."

Since they have completely mastered the whole "being on a basketball team" thing, some members of the mighty 6-22 Washington Wizards have decided to branch out in their professional lives. They have become love doctors.

Shelvin Mack, Jordan Crawford, and Trevor Booker took some time out from stenciling Jared Sullinger's name onto a locker room stall to give Sarah Kogod of NBC Washington some tips on how to make this a very special Valentine's Day.

Will Jeremy Hit the Wall?

You could say cheering for the Washington Wizards requires a sense of humor this season. If this is true, it means Grantland contributor, semiregular B.S. Report guest, and longtime/long-suffering Wizards fan Joe House is basically the basketball fan version of the second season of Chappelle's Show.

Che Guevara. Lech Walesa. Abbie Hoffman. What do these men have in common? They were all, in their own ways, revolutionaries. Now we can add Washington Wizards center and undisputed people's champion JaVale McGee to that esteemed list.

What did McGee do now? Oh, not much, just completely changed the way we will look at team defense forever. Just some normal Monday-night stuff.

Apparently. We're going to go a little The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance here and print the legend, because the legend is so good you should make it the new bedtime story that you tell your kids. In fact, I don't even want to know if this is true or not; that's how bad I want to believe it.

January is winding down, which means it's time for one of The Triangle's favorite features — Quotes of the Month. As you might recall, the boss requested we revive this one, which we were happy to do, because this month Flip Saunders said: “Booing is not going to help somebody play better," so it's great to have an opportunity to point that out.

Yes, OK, perhaps we're a little heavy on Wizards quotes this month. In our defense, they were terrible.

Thanks to our Grantland interns who put this post (and the last one!) together. We'll remind you about this next month, so Friends of Grantland can submit their own entries ... and make our lives easier.

If you've been wondering why it's been almost two days since I published anything on the Washington Wizards and specifically their two fearless leaders, Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee, there's a very simple explanation. I've been working on a TNT pilot called Blatche & McGee. It's about two crusading D.C. cops by day, shot blockers by night. I'm hoping to draw Dennis Franz out of retirement to play their frazzled boss.

Another reason for the lack of updates is that the Wizards managed to not lose Wednesday night, getting a nice 17-point home win over the Bobcats. However, we'd be remiss if we didn't check in on the latest with our two favorite D.C. dudes.

Andray Blatche got blocked five (FIVE) times by Tyrus Thomas on Wednesday. This caused Bobcats coach Paul Silas to compare Thomas to Herman Cain (I can't even ... ) and the home Wiz crowd to boo Blatche, no doubt making him feel like the shortest 6-foot-11 dude ever. Still, shout-out to his double-double, which helped the Wizards get the W.

Any week JaVale McGee merely takes a weird passive-aggressive dig at his general manager (on the decision to fire Flip Saunders and replace him with interim boss Randy Wittman: "That's Ernie's opinion, and I'm going to let it be Ernie's opinion") is a quiet week for the big man.

McGee was no doubt thrilled, then, to see this little anecdote pop up in the Washington Examiner this week: The last time the Wizards had an interim coach (like Wittman is now), it was Ed Tapscott, who held down the bench in 2008-09. During one game that season, Tapscott yanked McGee from the court, prompting the center's mom, who was in attendance, to shout, "Don't worry baby. He'll be gone next year."

Tune in next week ...

Mr. Unseld, Mr. Chenier, members of the Gheorghe Muresan Fan Club, distinguished Bullets-Feverists, and fellow hoops-masochists:

The State of the Washington Professional Basketball Team is ... weird.

Weird even for a franchise that, over the past 30 days, inserted itself into the national sports consciousness with a highly effective combination of tone deafness and diabolically poor play (no citation necessary).

It's weird because the past week contained more than a couple green shoots.

Starting January 16, the Almost-Bullets played five games in eight nights, beating one of the top three teams in the league, hanging in until the end against a top-five team, and really, genuinely competing in two of the other three. Upon further review, this might not be the very worst team in the history of the NBA — just one that belongs somewhere in the top 20.