Text messages from press row ...

If odds-on favorite Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics is the NBA’s most valuable player again this season, the 2004 MVP would become the 12th player in league history to win the award more than once. . . .

None of the others is named Shaquille O’Neal. . . .

Garnett also would become the fifth player to win the award multiple times during an era in which O’Neal proclaimed himself the “most dominant ever” but was the MVP only once -- in 2000, his first championship season with the Lakers. . . .

The others: Michael Jordan (1996 and 1998), Karl Malone (1997 and 1999), Tim Duncan (2002 and 2003) and Steve Nash (2005 and 2006). . . .

Jordan, who won the award five times, already was a three-time winner by the time O’Neal arrived on the scene as an Orlando Magic rookie in 1992. . . .

Few things in life are more certain than a Clippers defeat at Salt Lake City, where Donald Sterling’s crew has won only once in its last 40 games heading into tonight’s game against the Utah Jazz. . . .

In the NFL, Mike Woicik is the Lord of the Rings. . . .

Woicik, who is the New England Patriots’ strength and conditioning coach after serving in the same capacity with the Troy Aikman-era Dallas Cowboys, is believed to be the only person in NFL history to win six Super Bowl rings. . . .

Linebacker and defensive end Charles Haley won five Super Bowl rings with the Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, the most by a player. . . .

The Patriots, who will play host to Sunday’s AFC championship game against the San Diego Chargers, have not lost a home playoff game since Dec. 31, 1978, when Earl Campbell and the Houston Oilers stampeded them. . . .

Tom Brady was not quite 17 months old at the time. . . .

All-Pro linebacker Mike Vrabel, who lines up occasionally as an eligible receiver for the Patriots, has caught 10 passes in his career, all for touchdowns. . . .

One more reason Brett Favre is happy to be playing at home Sunday: The Green Bay Packers quarterback is 0-9 in Texas Stadium, where the NFC title game would have been played if the New York Giants hadn’t upset the Cowboys. . . .

BTW, why is Lawrence Taylor’s former team still called the New York football Giants when the New York baseball Giants left town 50 years ago? . . .

Tiger Woods has never played in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, whose past winners include Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Phil Mickelson. . . .

Lindsay Davenport won’t match this feat: Margaret Smith Court of Australia, in the year after giving birth to her first child, won three of tennis’ four Grand Slam tournaments in 1973, losing only at the French Open. . . .

Joy Fawcett, arguably the greatest defender in the history of women’s soccer, won an Olympic gold medal in 1996 after giving birth to daughter Katelyn Rose in 1994, won a world championship in 1999 and an Olympic silver medal in 2000 after giving birth to daughter Carli Jean in 1997 and won another Olympic gold medal in 2004 after giving birth to daughter Madilyn Rae in 2001. . . .

No wonder she’s considered the ultimate soccer mom. . . .

After Canadian winger Willie O’Ree broke the NHL color barrier 50 years ago tonight, then played in 44 more games with the Boston Bruins, the NHL didn’t employ another black player until 17 seasons later. . . .

The Bruins, who called on O’Ree 11 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, integrated their roster a year before the Boston Red Sox. . . .

Snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, competing in next week’s Winter X Games, is only the fourth woman to be featured on the cover of ESPN the Magazine, following the lead of Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams and Marion Jones. . . .

Total prize money at this year’s Winter X Games, by the way, will exceed $1 million for the first time, organizers say. . . .

Ken Bob Saxton of Huntington Beach will run the Surf City Marathon without shoes Feb. 3 in Huntington Beach, leading his “Running Barefoot for Mobility Team” in an effort to raise funds for the Irvine-based Free Wheelchair Mission. . . .

Judging by Thursday’s abrupt midseason resignation of Pepperdine basketball Coach Vance Walberg, everything is not fine at the ‘dine. . . .

Noting Terry Bradshaw’s condemnation of the bye-week vacation of the Cowboys’ Tony Romo with Jessica Simpson -- “I never would have done that” -- USA Today’s Michael Hiestand writes, “Duh. Simpson wasn’t even alive during most of Bradshaw’s NFL career.”

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