WNBA Tip-Off 2008! It’s gonna happen! Get excited! Wait… did it happen already? Did anyone get excited?

In a Los Angeles Lakers dominated market, the Los Angeles Sparks obviously have to go the extra mile in order to get anyone interested that might have been potentially interested in the first place.

Awareness of the actual season is a start (yet I’m still unsure whether or not it has started yet) - and local buses in the L.A. area have been rolling around with ads promoting the season.

Featured are Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker, with the spot proclaimed that the former “is back” and the latter “is here” - referring to Leslie’s return from maternity leave and Parker’s impending rookie campaign.

Amazing how pregnancy and maternity leave cause Leslie, the Sparks’ star player, to be out for the season, thus crippling the franchise for a year and netting them the #1 draft pick in Candace Parker.

Formerly, a franchise would usually suffer a catastrophic injury to a star player, a la the San Antonio Spurs with David Robinson during the 1996-97 campaign, to net a future star, a la Tim Duncan. This is obviously an unplanned matter, as the Spurs were ready to compete with The Admiral and had not planned on benefiting like they did.

Sidestep over to the WNBA, where preggers happens. Given a certain level of team loyalty, a player can just succumb to her physiological destiny during say, when a team wants to rebuild, and the process is done and over with in a season.

Where’s the competitive balance in that? This is borderline cheating!

Never fear - male pregnancy is thisclose to taking off! Don’t you fret, Charlotte Bobcats - Jason Richardson is gonna take one for the team.

Pau Gasol eatz teh garlic for pre-game meel and asks Kobe Bryant to smell his bref. NO WAI!!!

You’ve seen one French striker, you’ve seen them all. Moments ago, Nicolas Anelka, a reserve striker for Chelsea biffed the final penalty kick in the Champions League Final to hand over the top prize to Manchester United.

As soon as he stepped into the box, it looked like trouble, although the Frenchman was probably the most offensively gifted player left to take a shot. Eerily reminiscent of the World Cup Final where French striker David Trezeguet, one of the most qualified and dependable to score a goal, was the lone player to miss his mark as Italy beat France after the Zidane incident.

Sure, Didier Drogba got himself red carded out of the game for a bitchslap, but with Wayne Rooney out as well, that was pretty much a wash.

Yes, captain John Terry had his chance to end it, but can you really blame the guy all that much after he saved the game with his head late in extra time?

So once again, it makes sense to go back and place blame on the man who failed in the end. The man known as Le Sulk. For all his potential and talents, Anelka has never truly proved himself. Inversely, he has flat out looked disinterested. If you’re just looking for a paycheck, buddy, go record an instructional video or something. Otherwise, prepare for this world of hurt trying to live in the limelight.

It was to be a storybook ending, Roman Abramovich’s powerhouse taking home the greatest glory possible for a club team, and in his native land at that. Instead, Le Sulk puts up a goose egg.