Yes, Really, Andrew Bynum Practiced With the Sixers

This Andrew Bynum situation has gone from awesome to bad to hysterical to terrible to depressing to ridiculous to bizarre to on fire to whistling Dixie to Sybil Trelawney to orange juice and back. Today's Andrew Bynum DID HE PRACTICE or DIDN'T HE PRACTICE is the perfect microcosm of just how messed up everything has been. But after the foggiest of initial reports, we actually have an answer.

He practiced. Basketball.

After initially going with a "No Comment," Tony DiLeo confirmed the John Mitchell report from earlier and Collins spoke to reporters before the Miami Heat game.

It wasn't premeditated or anything, either. According to Chris Vito's story, Bynum came up to Doug Collins when the team was about to run a 5-on-5 drill and asked if Collins minded if he play a bit.

WE INTERRUPT THIS STORY FOR THIS CLIP OF ME SQUEALING.

The scrimmage apparently went well. There was some contact and they kept gleefully feeding the ball into Andrew in the post and telling him to shoot. I can't confirm the teams, but Spencer Hawes trying to guard him even at like 10% must've been a treat.

Collins said Bynum looked like a guy who hadn't played basketball in nine months and it gave him "visions of what might have been." Preach, Doug. He also told reporters that Andrew said he had fun out there, which is nice to hear.

Also we had a first-hand report from LB reader PolskiDO who is a student at PCOM -- he overheard Nick Young joking with Dorell Wright for being afraid to shoot the ball due to Andrew's "big ass arm." That's an exclusive report right there.

We'll spend the next few days hoping Andrew's knees don't swell up too bad after playing and that this can become a semi-consistent thing. I have knee lube on hand if need be. They play six games in nine days so any additional practice time will be tough, but maybe after this stretch...

I know the entire universe is against us, but this is making me awfully excited about things again. I have no idea what's going to come in the next few weeks or months, but my Optimism Bone is butt-chugging calcium right now and I can't stop it.