Yesterday brought the bad news that Will Arnett, known to his fans as Arrested Development’s G.O.B., is being replaced by Val Kilmer as the voice for KITT in the Knight Rider TV movie. The movie has the potential to turn into a series, so the casting change is particularly disappointing.

Nevertheless, the reason for the switch does provide something of a silver lining: Arnett can’t take the role because KITT is a Ford and Arnett the official voice of GMC trucks. (General Motors wasn’t cool with this sort of swinging.)

Now, I can’t be the only sports fan who feels a little dumb when the truck commercials come on. This is who they think I am? Apparently, my demographic supplements its manhood with oversized chrome and lives in a world of barren landscapes and construction sites. It’s a world populated by white men (and a token brother or two) with deep voices, broad backs, and narrow waists–a bentback mountain of overwhelming but unsexed masculinity; a David Brooks salt-of-the-earth mash-up of Hoosiers, the Born in the USA tour, and your local professional linebacking corps. In this world, if your car breaks down a few miles from the Field of Dreams, NFL Hall of Famer Howie Long swings by and gives you a ride. If you just happen to have a few steel beams and concrete slabs with you, don’t worry: Howie’s machine can handle it!

For an amusing spoof of tough guy truck ads, check out the Simpsons’ Canyonero commercial.

But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to enjoy these commercials now that I can picture G.O.B. booming the offscreen narration. Imagine the feckless George Oscar Bleuth Segwaying into the studio in a $4,000 suit and ruining a recording by accidentally releasing a dove from his trenchcoat, its manic flapping into the microphone sending sound engineers scrambling to remove their headphones. Imagine the surprise appearance of Franklin, diversifying at least the ad’s studio cast, and making Don Imus look like a model of restraint.

Truck commercials just got a whole lot cooler.

Twin Cities newspaper the Star-Tribune is reporting that Latrell Sprewell is in fresh financial trouble. Just months removed from the seizure of his yacht, the former NBA star is poised to lose his suburban Milwaukee home as well, thanks to his inability to make mortgage payments. Of course, the the Tubes are abuzz with jokes about Sprewell’s famous “I’ve got to feed my kids,” line–his justification for turning down a 3-year, $21 million contract that he deemed insufficient. (Spree’s agent also said that $5 million a season was a level beneath which [Sprewell] would not stoop or kneel.”)

The amazing and sad thing is that Sprewell’s career earnings from basketball alone have topped $96 million. Granted, his strangling of current Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo meant that he’s never caught on as a product endorser, but he still had other business ventures, including the Washington-state based Sprewell Racing.

I’m reminded of a quote from the currently incarcerated Keon Clark (drug possession, driving on suspended license, etc.), who retired at the relatively young age of 29 and turned down overtures from multiple NBA teams:

“People don’t understand, if you can’t live the rest of your life off one year in the NBA, you can’t live off 21.”

A YouTube tribute to Spree as the self-proclaimed American Dream. He sure was fun to watch:

Warning: video’s lyrics contain some NSFW language

Thanks to Nick for the tip.

Now it’s time for some shameless self-promotion. In case you don’t live in Seattle or haven’t heard, I got the cover story in this week’s Seattle Weekly. Click on the mini-cover below to read it:

As always, should you be inclined, leave a comment (at the Weekly site) and/or use the e-mail the article to a friend feature, so the wonderful folks at the Weekly can see how wonderful I am, too.

My good friend Jason “Reidster” Reid and I also made a video trailer for the article:

And finally, a version of my blog post on Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels ran in the print edition as well.

As the Sonics learned with the arrival of each game in January, you can’t call a timeout on a season spiraling out of control. And as Wally Szczerbiak learned with 15.1 seconds left in last night’s game, you can’t call a timeout when your team doesn’t have any. Channel Z’s error cost the team a technical foul and a shot at winning the game–they were down only one to the Phoenix Suns and had the ball when he made it. They ended up losing 103-99.

Wally’s gaffe obscured a solid effort by the Supes, who kept pace with the Suns from buzzer to buzzer (it helped that small forward extraordinaire Shawn Marion had departed and Shaquille O’Neal not yet arrived–and let’s not forget that it was the also-traded Marcus Banks who killed the Sonics in the teams’ first meeting this year).

Notable performances:

-It looks like Weezy is back to his early season form, knocking out a 22 and 15 double-double in a dunk happy battle with Amare Stoudemire (and the rest of the Phoenix front line). This is his 5th double-double in the last six games–and it’s worth noting that the Supes have won four of those.

-Earl Watson brought a little Steve Lavin-era UCLA flavor with a between the legs, no look pass to Chris Wilcox for the fast break dunk.

-While struggling mightily from the floor, Johan Petro continued to provide energy and shot-blocking off the bench, grabbing seven boards and erasing three shots in 22 minutes.

-Jeff Green hit another three-pointer, making him 4-25 on triples for the season, but 3 for his last 4. Sure, it could be just random statistical variation, but it’d be nice to think that all his work on his shot is paying off.

-Despite a bad night shooting, Kevin Durant had a solid fourth quarter, scoring five consecutive points to get the Supes back into striking distance and showing off his emerging defensive prowess in harassing Steve Nash into a key fourth quarter turnover.

I was talking with a friend the other day about overseas professional soccer and how the bad teams get bumped down to a lower league. At least the Sonics are starting to look like a team that shouldn’t be bumped down.

The D-League ain’t big enough to hold Gelly

Whither Mickael Gelabale? Why, Boise, of course–with the Sonics’ D-League affiliate, the Stampede. Sent down to make room for the Supes’ current crop of overwhelming guards and swingmen, he’s been having his way with the lesser competition, most recently going 10-12 from the floor and hitting the game winning jumper in a defeat of the Anaheim Arsenal.

That he was unable to crack the Sonics’ anemic rotation at the age of 24 does not bode well for his career prospects, but Gelabale’s showed signs, in his short time with the Stampede, of turning a corner. Particularly encouraging are his numbers from long range (45.5% from three in the small sampling thus far). Last year, Gelabale ranked as the NBA’s best finisher around the basket, believe it or not. (Perhaps his success was a result of his remarkable physical fitness.) This year with the Supes the slight Frenchman was less dominant in the paint and also struggled with his jumper–the latter most likely the reason he was sent down. Thus, it’s good to see him knocking them down in Boise. Here’s hoping we’ll see him and Sene back in Seattle before long.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Stampede lineup is stacked with players of interest to hoop historians and local fans–Randy Livingston, who was robbed of stardom by multiple knee injuries that erased his trademark vertical jump; Cory Violette, formerly of Gonzaga; and Roberto Bergersen, the Decatur High Alum who, if I recall correctly that their schools were in the same classification at the time, battled Federal Way star and future lottery pick Michael Dickerson in what had to be considered a heyday for South Sound basketball.

Perhaps he was avenging his hometown of Kansas City’s 1985 loss of the Kings franchise to Sacramento (we could all sympathize with that), but whatever his motivation, Earl Watson played one of the best games of his career last night, getting his first ever triple double (23 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists) in leading the Supes to a 105-92 victory over a lackadaisical Kings squad.

Besides The Earl’s magic, Johan Petro flaunted his emerging confidence and offensive game in abusing Mikki Moore throughout the second half, even driving to his left on a couple of occasions. (He nevertheless tried to finish with his right.) As Calabro and Snapper noted, at this point, Petro looks to be the most promising of the trio of seven-footers (Petro, Swift, Sene) the Supes drafted in the mid-oughts. And “Sacre Bleu!” is among my favorite Calabro catchphrases of all time. If I had DVR, I’d rewind time and again just to hear him say it.

Don’t look now, but the Sonics have now won four of their last five. Sacre Bleu!

If there’s an NBA team that most resembles the Sonics, it is unfortunately not our immediately Southern neighbors, the similarly youthful Portland Trailblazers, whose front office has spent the last several years running circles around ours. Nor is it the fellow bottom-dwelling Miami Heat, who at least have a championship to show for their current train wreck. Nor is it the tragic Memphis Grizzlies, who would have been booted from a fantasy league for collusion after their last trade. No, the team that most resembles ours is the Minnesota Timberwolves, that sad bunch in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Like us, Wolves fans have been beaten senseless by a senseless front office. While Wally Walker (with some help from Rick Sund) signed Jim McIlvaine, traded Shawn Kemp for Vin Baker, and drafted Robert Swift over Al Jefferson, Kevin McHale signed Joe Smith to an illegal contract that cost his team $3.5 million and five 1st-round draft picks. For this and other mishaps, McHale’s been pilloried across the land, most memorably by “The Sports Guy” Bill Simmons in his hilarious Atrocious GM Summit.

Since True Hoop published an e-mail from a fan who got booted from Key Arena for voicing his displeasure to a luxury-boxed Clay Bennett the other day, I figured it was time to share some similar stories I received from a deep Minnesota source who was not eager to go on the record. So consider these accounts unsubstantiated:

1) There’s an unwritten directive within the Wolves organization to crack down on fans carrying anti-McHale signs. If a fan is found with such a sign, not only is it confiscated, but the fan is kicked out. By contrast, a fan who brought a sign mocking Ruben Patterson (a convicted sex offender) with the following text “Ruben the rapist Patterson” was allowed to stay, because, as Celebrity Jeopardy’s Sean Connery has taught us, the terms “the rapist” and “therapist” are easily confused, so the fan may have intended the latter. “The space between them was small enough,” according to the Wolves.

2) Just to give a sense of McHale’s skills as a talent scout, there’s this tale of one of his former first-round picks: Ndudi Ebi was selected by the Timberwolves in the first round of the 2003 draft. While Ebi didn’t stick around the league, he did manage to lose badly in a game of one-on-one to a 6′2″ Target Center security guard.

Somebody sign that security guard!

There you have it, Sonics fans. Misery loves company, so I hope it helps to know that you’re not alone.

“Watch with Kristin” at E! Online is reporting that Ron Howard and MItch Hurwitz, producers of that apotheosis of TV comedy, Arrested development, have begun contacting cast members to gauge their interest in making a movie based on the show. While nothing is guaranteed, this is wonderful news.

Did somebody say *wonder*?