Odd Years: The Spurs, NBA, and Our Strange Times: Farewell to Bones: "Mangos Don't Do That, Manu."

The Spurs have announced they will sign Roger Mason Jr. to a two year, $7.5 million dollar contract. Mason, entering his 5th season in the league, is a 6-5 defensive-minded guard who averaged 9.1 points per game with the Wizards last season in Gilbert Arenas's absence, and shot 40 percent from 3-point "land." He sounds like a good Spur, and he doesn't tie up a lot of cap space.

But with this addition comes a far greater loss for the Spurs--a loss that can't be quantified by statistics. That's not to say that Brent Barry's on-court contribution won't be missed. But what we're really losing (to the Houston Rockets. Brent Barry signed with them as a free agent this week) is--and I'll defend this point--the funniest active player in the NBA. Seriously. Gilbert Arenas is funny; Shaq is funny...but for my money, Brent "Bones" Barry is the most funniest of them all.

The main evidence of this I have observed in the form of post game interview quotes. A recent jewel came after Tim Duncan hit his 3-pointer to send Game 1 of this year's Spurs - Suns playoff series into a second overtime: "It's about time he did something like that," deadpanned Barry.

Then after game 5 against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, Barry responded to the NBA's admission that a foul should have been called on his last second shot attempt that could have tied the game: “That’s awesome because Doc Brown is waiting for me outside, and we’re going to get in the DeLorean and fire up the flux capacitor and we’re going to go back and shoot a couple of free throws.”

Brent Barry is also responsible for nicknaming Manu Ginobili "El Contusion."

He's also responsible for a series of surprisingly well-produced short musical parodies starring other Spurs players this season. They were part of an entire evening of entertainment that he volunteered to produce and emcee for this year's "Spurs Tux n' Tennies" fundraiser event for the Spurs Foundation. He was injured at the time and obviously had plenty of free time and energy to pour into this endeavor. The highlights included Robert Horry spinning around a hillside as Maria in a perfect, if slightly disturbing, send-up of The Sound of Music; the same can be said of Bruce Bowen in a shot-by-shot recreation of that famous Flashdance scene. Manu Ginobili dolled up as Evita Peron and lip-synched "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," and Matt Bonner continued the gender-bending trend as Little Orphan Annie. Actually Tony Parker was the only player that I recall assuming a male character, as Danny in a Grease spoof (Eva took some time off from her serious acting work to play Sandy).

Unfortunately these videos haven't been formally released on the net anywhere. A handheld video of the screen at the event was up for a while on someone's blog, but has since been removed. So for now you'll have to take my word for it: pretty funny.

In the stead of those clips, I'll post a few H-E-B commercials featuring Brent doing some funny stuff with Tim, Bruce and Manu. If you live in San Antonio you have probably had your fill of these spots already, but I think they are way way better than local grocery store commercials staring atheletes have any right to be.