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• Yesterday I blogged a little about Kobe Bryant. To the many Bryant fans who reached out convinced that I had been excessively negative: Ask fans of any celebrity ... if the people "going after" your hero are using evidence-based analysis and a measured tone, there is nothing to worry about. My mild criticism (blended with a ton of praise!) fell far short of people on the Laker payroll like Phil Jackson and Tex Winter have said in print. What I wrote may not make you happy, but it's par for the course. Not everything said about every international media superstar is positive, and that's OK. That doesn't mean anyone's out to get you.
• On the other hand ... there is an undeniable joy in a well-written negative review.
  

• Tom Knott of The Washington Times: "Judging from his selective trip down memory lane with Mike Jones of The Washington Times, Gilbert Arenas has returned to his old, mercurial, otherworldly self. As it turns out, he holds the organization accountable for his protracted stay on the shelf. He says he needed to be protected from himself, if not bound in the parachute he was training with two summers ago, and ordered to stop overdoing it. But he says no one in the organization had the inclination to do so, perhaps because of a need to sell tickets, and so he became a victim. That could be one version of the truth. It could be equally true that Arenas was going into the opt-out year of his contract and the organization was looking to keep him happy.

Reuters has been reporting on the possibility that billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov might infuse the Nets with the capital they need to become a presence in Brooklyn. A spokesman for Prokhorov's Onexim investment vehicle confirmed on Thursday it had been approached to participate in building the Nets' long-awaited arena in Brooklyn and was preparing an offer. A spokesman for the Nets had no immediate comment, while officials with the National Basketball Association could not be reached. The Nets are owned by developer Bruce Ratner. Prokhorov is considering issuing a bond worth $700 million through Onexim to help fund the project, one source close to the deal said. Is it real? Is the NBA really about to welcome an "oligarch" into the ownership club?

Eurobasket is really heating up. In a few hours France -- the undefeated team starring the remarkable Tony Parker -- will meet Spain, which is everyone's presumed favorite in this game and the tournament.  The Painted Area's Jay Aych writes: After sleepwalking through the start of the tourney, Spain has turned up the heat the last two games, looking like the España we expected, while the undefeated French squad has been steady from the start, buoyed by its exceptional defense. Spain underachieved for the first four games and only earned the #4 seed, so France has to face them two rounds earlier than they would have liked. For Spain, it's a role reversal from the 2004 Olympics, when they went 5-0 in group play but had to play a talented but underachieving Team USA in the quarterfinals and lost.