D'awwwwww. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Maybe it's that he missed 21 shots on Thursday, including a potential game-winner at the end of the fourth quarter. Maybe it's that he just watched Nate Robinson go bonkers over the final 20 minutes and make fun of his pal Steve. Maybe it's that he's bummed that the 13-game winning streak is over. Maybe it's because he can't shake the feeling that the new season of "Arrested Development" won't live up to the initial run and all the subsequent hype. (Been there, bro.)

Whatever it is, one thing is clear: Like another New York sports superstar before him, Carmelo Anthony has a sad. And I'd like for you to tell me why.

Best caption wins a fresh box of Kleenex. (Not really.) Good luck.

In our last adventure: DeAndre Jordan just finished the second season of "Girls," and he isn't letting anything get anywhere near his ears. (Also, based on the lion's share of Thursday's comments, it is apparently important to reiterate that Create-a-Caption is A Home For Jokes, not A Place Where I Am Actually Quoting NBA Players Complaining About Things.)

You've got less than a second to try to make an 85-footer that'll draw your Golden State Warriors within a point of the Oklahoma City Thunder after one quarter, Jarrett Jack. No time to think — just heave.

Well, OK, maybe you should have taken a little time to think about how hard you were heaving, because this didn't work. Next time, just take the force you applied here, and divide it by 1 million. Should be in the ballpark then.

[Also: Devastating injury likely ends Kobe Bryant's season, puts career in peril | Photos]

After Thursday's game, which the Thunder won 116-97 on the strength of a monster outing from Kevin Durant (32 points on 16 shots, 10 rebounds, eight assists and three steals in 34 1/2 minutes) and a big night from sixth man Kevin Martin (23 points on 8 for 10 shooting, 4 for 5 from 3-point range, three assists and one very big putback slam, some of Jack's Twitter followers asked him what exactly was going on with that off-target bomb:

For pure absurdity, it's tough to beat an ongoing squabble between two role players over a celebration that involves pretending to put on a championship belt. This is why we love the slow-cooked beef between New York Knicks forward Steve Novak, who's been doing the "Discount Double-Check" made famous by Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers for the past couple of seasons, and Chicago Bulls guard Nate Robinson, who decided to commandeer the belt-strapping as a taunt during a Bulls win back in January.

After that game, Novak said Robinson's imitation "warms my heart," and that he hoped "when Little Nathan grows up [...] his dreams come true and he can be just like me." Nate, not surprisingly, didn't take too kindly to this, calling Novak a "clown" on Twitter and extending the bit by calling Novak his "favorite player in the whole wide world" during an NBA TV interview.

Things have remained quiet on the Discount Double-Check front for the last few months ... but the feud roared back with a vengeance when the Bulls and Knicks met for the final time this regular season at the United Center on Thursday. With the clock running down in the third quarter and the Bulls in the midst of a 13-3 run, Robinson got a pass in the corner from Richard Hamilton and lofted a shot over the closeout of — you guessed it — Novak:

[Also: Feds say multiple NFL, NBA players ensnared in $18M investment scheme]

Oh, snap. Ya burnt, Steve Novak. So burnt.

Ted Leonsis sits courtside during a Wizards-Cavaliers game. (G Fiume/Getty Images)Before the Washington Wizards organization celebrated the 35th anniversary of the then-Bullets' 1978 NBA championship run this past weekend, the Washington Post published a feature by Dave Sheinin on that often overlooked title team. Sheinin opened the feature with an anecdote about the 1978 Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, which longtime Bullets/Wiz owner Abe Pollin had hoisted with fans in D.C.'s Dulles Airport after the win, but which had apparently gone missing when Ted Leonsis bought the team in June 2010:

But then, finally, there was a breakthrough. Someone recalled someone else saying sometime awhile back that Smokey Bowie, the late building manager/head engineer/jack-of-all-trades who had been with the franchise since the old Capital Centre days until passing away a few years ago, had at some point taken it home with him for safekeeping. And sure enough, a carload of team employees dispatched to Bowie’s old house found the trophy — scuffed up, tarnished and dented — at the bottom of a closet.

The story of the hidden trophy — which was then reportedly cleaned up, restored and returned to the Verizon Center, where it's now prominently displayed near the arena's main entrance — sounded too good to be true. That's because it's not true, according to Bowie's family and Irene Pollin, Abe Pollin's widow, who is still part-owner of the Wizards.

From Sheinin's follow-up/correction/mea culpa in Thursday's Post:

Lalalalalalala. (Noah Graham/NBA/Getty Images)

I know, DeAndre Jordan. Your Los Angeles Clippers go out and set a franchise record for wins — 52 and counting, after Wednesday's 111-95 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves — and win a division title for the first time in franchise history, and all we can talk about is A) how shaky it all seems and B) how the Los Angeles Lakers, who you just beat by 14 and swept 4-0 this season, are trying to fight their way to an eighth seed. I hear you — it's totally unfair.

My suggestion: Make an even deeper run in this year's playoffs than you did last year, which will show everyone that you're for real and without-a-doubt more relevant than your fellow Staples Center tenants. That should get the conversation appropriately directed toward you guys ... for about five seconds, before we go back to talking about Kobe, Dwight, D'Antoni and Pau.

Best caption wins earplugs, which have to be more effective than your fingers. Good luck.

In our last adventure: I mean, it worked out OK this time, but still, you should say no when Greg Stiemsma asks if you want to see his "gum trick."

Jay-Z checks in with his top ghostwriter. (Jennifer Pottheiser/NBA/Getty Images)

After Jay-Z announced the creation of Roc Nation Sports in partnership with the powerful Creative Artists Agency and the signing of New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano last week, it seemed only a matter of time until the legendary rapper would have to address the prospective conflict between his new venture and his role as a part-owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. Since NBA rules preclude individuals affiliated with player representation companies from having ownership stakes with NBA teams, something would have to give ... and it began to Tuesday afternoon, when Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has begun the process of selling off his Nets shares so that he could extend Roc Nation Sports' reach into professional basketball.

Since that report, lots of folks have decided to resume making little jokes about the relatively small size of the stake Jay's selling, which was famously revealed to be "a scant one-fifteenth of one percent" by the New York Times last August and has since been revealed to be worth around $350,000. That's still more of an NBA team than I own, so I will take no shots at Hova, but others haven't felt as charitable (or, perhaps, just own way more of an NBA team than I do), and this — in addition to people criticizing Jay and his wife, Beyoncé, for their recent trip to Cuba — led to the multiplatinum recording artist getting all steamed, recording an angry missive and releasing it through his Life + Times website.

In the track, titled "Open Letter," he vents over a beat produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz (clearly forsaking his New York Knicks family to work with the Nets part-owner) about, well, a bunch of stuff, including the response to his reported Nets divestment. You can listen to "Open Letter" after the jump — please be aware, though, that it includes not-suitable-for-work language, so maybe plug the headphones in and keep it away from the kiddies.

There's long been a difference of opinion among basketball folks on whether a coach whose team has a 3-point lead in the closing seconds of a game should instruct his players to intentionally foul the opposition, sending them to the line for two free throws, rather than play standard defense and try to prevent a potential game-tying shot. Lots of smart people have written about this, and while conclusions drawn from the research and decisions made about its practical applications have varied, one thing seems clear: If you're going to foul, you should probably make sure you don't let the person you foul actually attempt the potential game-tying 3-pointer.

So, y'know, back to the drawing board, Milwaukee Bucks coach Jim Boylan and swingman Marquis Daniels:

[Also: Top recruits say they would beat Michael Jordan one-on-one in his prime]

Whoops.

Metta World Peace can't believe he made that mistake. (Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

Metta World Peace surprised us all after Tuesday's win over the New Orleans Hornets when he explained his remarkably fast recovery from left knee surgery by saying he was able to come back so quickly because he is "too sexy for [his] cat." (That anything MWP says or does surprises us is our bad at this point, really.)

[Also: NBA-bound Michael Carter-Williams: I can go No. 1 overall]

After a day full of head-scratching as to what the heck he was talking about — and another Los Angeles Lakers victory, this time over the Portland Trail Blazers, thanks largely to a season-high 47 points from leader Kobe Bryant — World Peace took to Twitter to set the record straight about his weird interview:

#confessions I thought the song was "I'm too sexy for my Cat" it's "I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt".My goodness How did I screw this up?

— Metta World Peace (@MettaWorldPeace) April 11, 2013

Well, that certainly clears that up.