Deep thoughts, cheap shots & bon mots

Enthusiastic applause here for the Warriors’ extending the contract of Jerry West. It shows that Joe Lacob isn’t afraid to have some creative turmoil in his front office. West, in talent evaluation, gives the Warriors a wise voice from outside the game’s new stat-crazed community.

One of West’s jobs is to answer truthfully when Lacob asks him, “Logo, how do you think our coach is doing?” This is probably why one former Warriors coach referred to West as “the golf clown.”

Give it up, folks, for Paul George, who answered the question, “How can the NBA, an innocent bystander in the domestic-abuse controversy, looking more and more enlightened in comparison with the NFL, manage to shoot itself in the penis?”

George’s tweet implied that Janay Rice was the instigator and that Ray Rice’s crime was in his poor selection of a future wife: “Homie made a bad choice.” In apologizing via Twitter, George mysteriously lapsed into a different language that experts have identified as “English.”

Dennis Allen is on the clock. If the Raiders don’t rally, and lose to the Dolphins in London and have to make the long trip home 0-4, Allen might not be flying coach, if you know what I mean.

Therefore, unless Darren McFadden rips off some impressive gains early Sunday, look for a quick entrance by Latavius Murray.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in an opinion piece in Time magazine, defends former Hawks owner Bruce Levenson, saying Levenson was merely trying to increase business by appealing to diverse groups. Even if you believe Kareem is leaning too far on the side of forgiveness, he is becoming a voice of reason in the sports world and is nobody’s pawn.

The NBA had secret racial quotas in the ’60s. I once asked Wilt Chamberlain if that bothered him. He said, “You have to understand, the owners were small businessmen trying to keep their league alive. It wasn’t racism; to them, it was economics.”

Now that we’re all on the domestic-violence beat, it will be interesting to follow the cases involving NBA washout Greg Oden and suspended Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon. With Mixon, there is video, not yet released to the public. These two might have eclipsed Ray Rice in the voting for Punch of the Year.

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said of Carolina quarterback Cam Newton, “He knows how to articulate himself.” Newton’s ability to break himself up into segments united by joints helps him twist out of a lot of sacks.

Oden should have stuck with his previous hobby, stilllife photography.