It's good to be Joakim

Now that the playoffs are over for Chicago, Joakim Noah's got some time on his hands. Unfortunately for him, some paparazzi decided to spy on his vacation in St. Barts and wound up selling the photos of him swimming with a topless girl to TMZ. (Link may not be safe for work, although boobs are semi-censored.) The website makes it seem like Noah's supposed to be in a darkened room crying for a month since his team lost. These guys have a right to a life, and Noah certainly seems to be enjoying his.

The word from ESPN has been that former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville is likely to wind up doing some commentary for them this year while waiting to likely get back into coaching next season. Not sure how the announcement he'll be working for a website called BusterSports.com ties in with that. I'm tying to imagine a scenario where someone could have predicted at last year's SEC media days that within nine months Phil Fulmer's main spring activity would be grand marshal of the Mule Day parade, Tuberville would be working for BusterSports.com, and Gene Chizik would be an SEC head coach after a two win season. Haven't come up with one yet. What a weird year this has been.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday featured a profile of a Russian who openly admits he's trying to rig professional women's tennis matches so he can win by betting on them. The gist of it for him is that the penalty in Russia for fixing a match is around six grand, so as long as he'll make more than that who cares if he gets caught. It's no shock that guys like this exist, and tennis is the perfect sport for someone to throw a match and not have it be easily provable. It is stunning that he's being so blase about his attempts to rig matches that he's confessing openly to placing bets and approaching players while at the tournament in Charleston this year. If someone doesn't revoke this guy's travel visa and/or arrest him the next time he comes to the USA, something's seriously wrong here.

One day someone's going to explain to me how it helps TV networks to put stars of their shows in the stands at sporting events they clearly have no interest in attending. Check out Craig Sager's insightful conversation with Kyra Sedgwick from TNT's show The Closer during game five of Lakers-Rockets. Did that in any way make you more ikely to want to watch her program? I remember when CBS put Tom Wopat and John Schneider in the stands at the Final Four a decade ago to promote their upcoming Dukes of Hazzard reunion movie. That was a perfect demographic fit - I'll bet it killed in the ratings!

Speaking of movies, the word came down yesterday that Kevin Smith is going to make a new one. The man behind Clerks and Chasing Amy will now team up with Mitch Albom to make a movie based on the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody!" Seeing as Zevon is one of my favorite artists ever and I enjoy almost everything Smith's done, I will definitely be checking this out whenever it shows up in theaters. If you've never heard the song, doing so now will be a good way to start your weekend. I will, believe it or not, be covering NASCAR's All-Star race in Charlotte today and tomorrow. See you back here Monday.