Spark the Net (NBA) 5/11/09

You know the drill, five statements taken from five NBA star's Wikipedia entries. You guess the hoopster.

1. * has cited Pearl_Jam as his favorite band and befriended them in the mid 1990s. During their No Code Tour, on September 26, 1996, he briefly came onstage to the excitement of the crowd and gave frontman Eddie Vedder a piggyback ride. * later received a Walkman carved with Vedder's initials and containing the concert recording. He has since cited this as one his most thrilling experiences and claimed, "If it wasn't for Pearl Jam, my life would be a hell of a lot less fulfilling." Not long after, * also gave his unworn #69 Lakers jersey to Eddie Vedder.

2. During his career, his nicknames were "The Stormin' Mormon, "The Deathstick", "Missionary Impossible", the "Mormon Mantis", the "Praying Mantis" and "Siggi" (during his time in the German national basketball team).

3. Offered * a 3-year, $21 million contract extension, substantially less than what his then-current contract paid him. Insulted, he publicly vented his outrage, declaring, "I have a family to feed." He declined the extension, and, having once more drawn the ire of fans and sports media, had the worst season of his career in the final year of his contract.

4. During his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls, he was subject to criticism for applying for a job at Circuit City, just to get an employee discount.

5. However, when Shaquille O'Neal was asked to make an assessment about the three prominent shooting guards he had played with, he made an analogy to The Godfather, comparing Dwyane Wade with Michael Corleone, Kobe Bryant with Sonny Corleone, and * with Fredo Corleone, the weakest of the Corleone brothers.

Spark the Net

Here is a little game. Below you will find five factoids taken directly from five celebrity Wikipedia pages. Your job is to guess who the mystery people are.

1. "Claimed he hired and sent prostitutes to opponents' hotel rooms the night before a game in an attempt to tire them out, and that at his peak, he spent thousands of dollars a day on narcotics."

2. "Remains as friends with fellow Wild & Crazy kid Omar Gooding, and served as a character witness in Gooding's 1995 gun possession trial. The two currently share a vacation home near Las Vegas where they host an annual Wild & Crazy Kids reunion party, complete with Dizzy Bat Home Run Derby."

3. "Insisted they return to their hotel, saying , 'I forgot something. We've got to go back!' When the limo returned, he ran to his room, grabbed the TV while it was plugged in, threw it out the window and into the pool. He then jumped back into the limousine, sighing 'I nearly forgot.'

4. "During a court hearing, he once called a female prosecutor a 'sperm donor.'"

5. "Common themes in his songs are: 'A deep sense of isolation and an equal desire for connection. A yearning for home - and at the same time, the allure of greater freedom. The good, the bad and the ugly about a crazy little thing called love.'