Allen Iverson has become one of the most controversial players in the NBA.  In the 1996 NBA Draft, Iverson was the number one pick for the Philadelphia 76ers and he was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in that same year.  Iverson also won the All-Star MVP award in 2001 and 2005.  But his track record hasn’t been as strong as it was before.

All the awards Iverson made got to his head a little bit.  He started missing team practices during the 2002 NBA Playoffs.  At the time, the 76ers coach was Larry Brown.  At a press conference, Iverson stated “We’re sitting here, and I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we’re talking about practice.”  He then ranted about the situation further and mentioned the word “practice” about 25 times.  The video of this interview became a viral hit.

Iverson was later traded to the Denver Nuggets and then to the Detroit Pistons.  In April 2009, Iverson did not play much for the Detroit Pistons because of a back injury and Iverson said that he’d rather retire than be benched.  It was uncertain where Iverson would land next because he had not helped the Pistons win any games and his back was injured.

A couple of days ago, Iverson’s future career was made clear through a Twitter tweet.  Above is a picture of that tweet.  Iverson will now be playing for the Memphis Grizzlies.  Iverson will make $3.5 million this year when playing for the Grizzlies.

Daniel Goncalves is a guy that leaves in New Jersey that is the first to be charged with stealing a domain name and reselling it.  Goncalves stole P2P.com and sold it on eBay.  The buyer was Los Angeles Clippers basketball player Mark Madsen, who played ball at Stanford University.

Goncalves somehow got a hold of the password and shifted ownership to himself.  Then he resold the domain name on eBay to Madsen, who was unaware that the domain name was stolen.  Goncalves was arrested on Thursday for felony charges that include unlawful taking or deception, computer theft, and identity theft.  Each of the 3 counts could carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Police estimated that the P2P.com domain name is worth about $200,000 based on the popularity of file sharing.  Madsen paid $111,000 for the domain name.  But Marc Ostrofsky, one of the legitimate owners of the P2P.com domain name said that his company spent 30 months and $500,000 trying to get back the domain name.  They plan to file a civil lawsuit against Goncalves and his brother, Madsen, and GoDaddy.com.  Ostrofsky said that GoDaddy was slow at responding to the theft.

[via AP]

NBA Orlando Magic basketball player Dwight “Superman” Howard is best well known for wearing a Superman costume during the NBA 2008 slam dunk competition. The video of him dunking with the costume has well over 2 million views on YouTube. Over the weekend, the Orlando Magic knocked the Boston Celtics out of the Playoffs.

During a post-game interview, Howard had to thank several thousand people. This includes God and over 60,000 followers on Twitter. Other NBA players that have Twitter accounts include Steve Nash, Shaq, Jalen Rose, Rashad McCants, Brian Cardinal, Troy Murphy, Jason Richardson, etc. Tech-savvy Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has an account, but found himself getting in trouble with the NBA for dissing a ref during a game on Twitter.

Below is the video of Dwight Howard dunking:

Dallas Mavericks owner and Chairman of HDNet Mark Cuban made the mistake of calling Kenyon Martin a thug and/or a punk.  This incident occurred on Monday night’s Game 4 of the Dallas Mavericks vs. Denver Nuggets.  Cuban and Kenyon’s mother confronted each other when the referee made a mistake causing Denver to beat Dallas 106-105.  This gave Denver a 3-0 series lead.

Cuban was furious.  He yelled at the people at the scorer’s table and then headed down the hall away from the court.  The mother of Denver Nuggets player Kenyon Martin was near the base of that area.  A fan started calling the Nuggets thugs while Cuban was walking out and then Cuban chimed in.  He directly told Martin’s mother “that includes your son!”  Martin’s agent believes that Cuban actually said “your son is a punk.”

Late last night, Mark Cuban issued an apology to Martin on his blog where he wrote:
“When the series comes back to Dallas, your family, and the family of other Nuggets players are welcome to stay in my suite, with my family. Its amazing how tempers mellow when real people talk to each other and realize that its still just a game. If that isn’t acceptable, I’m happy to provide a suite, free of charge to them as well and place whatever security is needed to make them feel comfortable.”

Recently Cuban was charged $25,000 for writing his opinion on Twitter about what he thinks of the referees..

On March 27, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 by the NBA for writing his opinion on Twitter. He sent out two messages on two messages in particular about the handling of a game by the referees. Cuban was upset that the referees did not call a technical foul on Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith for taunting Antoine Wright of the Dallas Mavericks.
The first message was: “how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground ?”
The second message was: “scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call – last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue.”

After finding out about the fine that did not stop Cuban from tweeting about the situation. He wrote:
“just found out got fined25k by nba. nice,” and then followed it up with a quip, “can’t say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does.”

Courtney Love is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Hole and was married to Kurt Cobain before he committed suicide. Love also has a Twitter account and she used it to complain about conflicts that she has with clothing designer Dawn Simorangkir. Simorangkir is suing Love for defamation.

[via LAT]

Charlie Villanueva plays basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks and he has something in common with fellow NBA player Shaquille O’Neal.  Both him and Shaq are utterly obsessed with Twitter.  Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles has a problem with Villanueva’s Twitter addiction.

During a critical game Villanueva was caught sending out tweets from his mobile phone during half-time against the Boston Celtics this past Sunday.

“We made a point to Charlie and the team that it’s nothing we ever want to happen again,” stated Skiles after practice on Tuesday. “You know, [we] don’t want to blow it out of proportion. But anything that gives the impression that we’re not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business.”

Villanueva’s username on Twitter is CV31, which stands for his initials and jersey number.  Villanueva’s latest tweet is a link to a picture of his 2004 championship ring using Twitpic.

“In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We’re playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up,” tweeted Villanueva during the half.  He did step it up and made 19 points by the second half and helped win the game.

“The halftime twitt actually motivated me,” added Villanueva in another tweet. “That’s why I did it, plus of course to keep you guys in the loop of some live action.”

Skiles is a former basketball player himself.  He played up until about 1996.

[via ESPN]