Category Archives: Basketball

Basketball

The Unbearable Lameness of Chris Paul

Yesterday, Barry Petchesky at Deadspin wondered why Chris Paul’s public and prolonged demand to be traded from the New Orleans Hornets was not getting the same amount of “outrage” as LeBron James’ Decision/Hank Scorpio-esque unveiling in Miami. There is a very simple reason: While Chris Paul’s gambit is a total dick move, it is also totally lame.

The NBA free agent frenzy is, for all intents and purposes, over (the fact that Tracy McGrady is the most coveted remaining free agent would indicate so). The weeping and gnashing of teeth over L’Affaire LeBron has subsided, at least until the basketball season begins anew. With football training camps opening within the next week, NFL talk is starting to dominate the sports talk-o-sphere (C).

In other words, there’s no damn reason at all to be hearing from Mr. Paul. But clearly, he saw what LeBron did and stomped his feet and thought, “I shall not be out-douched!”

You could argue that what Chris Paul did was worse than what LeBron did. After all, LeBron’s free agency was anticipated by every human being on the planet for years (at least that’s what ESPN says). As crappily as he handled the whole thing, everyone and his mom (especially your mom) knew he might leave Cleveland. Paul’s demands to be traded, on the other hand, came out of nowhere, and were seemingly motivated by little more than LeBron’s histrionics.

However, while LeBron certainly deserves scorn, Paul only deserves laughter. Because what LeBron did, when he did it and how he did it, was a supremely shitty thing to do. But what Paul idid is just funny.

Coming on the heels of LeBron’s move, Paul’s machinations had the feeling of a shameless attempt to exploit a fad that’s already passed. It’s like releasing a third or fourth lambada movie in 1990. Or rushing into the studio to record a swing album in 2001. Or pretty much the entire Golan-Globus filmography. If LeBron is Rambo, then Paul is Cobra.

The overall lameness of Paul’s move is accentuated by the fact that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. The Hornets had neither the incentive nor the imperative to trade him. Paul couldn’t opt out of his contract. Basically, he had zero power in this situation, but operated as if he was in total control. Depending on your perspective, that either takes an enormous amount of balls or an amazing lack of brains.

Paul seems to realize this now; on Monday, he had meetings with the Hornets, and made statements afterward that indicated he was throwing in the towel. Because when it comes to the offseason, no one wants to be the free agent equivalent of Delta Force 3 or Death Wish 5.

Basketball

LeBron to Cleveland: Drop Dead

lebronnyy.jpgNow that I’ve made my decision to go to the Miami Heat, I have a special message for my fans back in Cleveland: I hate you, every last one of you. Your town was like a noose around my neck, and you and your stupid love and admiration was the tightest loop of all.

How much do I hate you? I strung you along for weeks, letting you think the Cavs were still in the running for my services. I scheduled an hour-long TV special about my decision, to make everyone think “there’s no way he’d do something like that and rip Cleveland’s heart out”. And that’s exactly what I did. Oh man, that was sweet!

Did you think I was actually going to stay? Jesus, are all of you that stupid?! I’ve been counting down the seconds to free agency since the day I was drafted. I’ve been bigger than that town since the day I was born. I said was a Cowboys fan. A Cowboys fan! I wore a fucking Yankees hat to an Indians playoff game against the Yankees. How could I have made my contempt for you dumbasses more obvious, without literally shitting on every single on of you?

You know why I disappeared in the playoffs this year? Because the thought of winning a championship for you people made me gag.

Am I bigger than Miami? Of course I am. If a better situation than Miami comes along, I’ll opt out of this contract so fast you won’t believe it. But at least Miami won’t give a shit when I do. That’s what makes this deal even better for me: I gave up Cleveland–a city that loves its teams even though they break its heart over and over again–for Miami, one of the worst sports towns in America. Oh, irony, you taste so sweet upon my lips!

God, I feel so free! You can’t imagine what this is like. And you will never know what this is like, because you’ll stay in that horrible town of yours until you drop dead of a heart attack or fall into a burning lake or however it is you people end your miserable lives.

This weekend, I’m off to party in South Beach, another place you’ll never be. I’m going to film this entire party on expensive HD cameras, put the best footage on a DVD, and mail copies to every single one of you. Then, I’m gonna send a guy to each of your houses to force you to watch it at gunpoint.

But first, I have to burn all of my Cleveland clothes, and take a shower to wash the stink of Failure-Town off my body.

Basketball

LeBron James and the Beginning of the End

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lebron.jpgLeBron James’ one-hour ESPN special–THE DECISION–marks a sea change in sports, media, and sports media. And none of these changes are good.

I struggled to think of something snotty or sarcastic to write about this event, but the more I wracked my brain, the more I came back to this simple fact: This is not funny at all. This is deeply, deeply fucked up.

Yes, LeBron is donating advertising proceeds for this thing to The Boys and Girls Clubs (how much of the total proceeds remains to be seen). But that just sugarcoats what this really is: An enormous figure in a certain field buying a glorified infomercial on the number one news outlet for that field. ESPN is supposed to be a news organization, and this pretty much destroys any objectivity and credibility they have.

It’s certainly not the first time ESPN has kowtowed before a huge star in a certain sport. They cover each agonizing Brett Favre retirement saga with unquestioning reverence. Despite whispers that Tiger Woods might not be the best guy in the world, ESPN never had any tough questions for him until his personal problems became un-ignorable.

Such glossing-over and looking the other way is unremarkable in sports media. There’s always been an undercurrent of Hero Worship amongst sports reporters, and most of them would rather keep locker room access than lose it by asking pointed questions. But to actually allow an athlete to, for all intents and purposes, buy time on your network to erect a monument to himself? That brings this to a whole other, creepy level.

LeBron has chosen ESPN to be the stage for this exclusive show, which makes sense, since he’s been their lead story every single day since the NBA Finals ended. But what kind of favor does that buy? What happens when a news network becomes so invested in a certain person that person can not fail and can not be made to look bad? If you took a peek at FOX News between the years of 2000 and 2008, you might have an idea.

And yes, of course, the stakes are much, much lower for anything LeBron will do with his life than the things that FOX News covers on a daily basis. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think you can see parallels, no?

What is the purpose of this event? The purpose of this event is to be an event. THE DECISION has nothing to do with the NBA, or basketball, or even sports, really. It is just another spectacle in the never-ending summer blockbuster that is LeBron James. He’s not a competitor–he’s a conglomerate. There are many athletes in many sports about whom you could say the same, but LeBron is the ne plus ultra.

There’s always been something unseemly about LeBron James the Public Figure, something unapproachable and removed from mere humanity, right down to his nickname: King James. What is his biggest ad campaign? We Are All Witnesses. There is no interaction between LeBron and the rest of the world. We must simply stand back and watch what he does, because we could never hope to touch his regal garments.

Even when he gets goofy, it’s weirdly insular. Like the ads from a few years ago, where he played different members of a fictional LeBron family. It’s still LeBron playing with himself. Only LeBron is good enough to be with LeBron.

Whoever LeBron signs with, this special will be a celebration of nothing but himself. We’ll get the obligatory soft-focus interview, with softball questions about how tough this all must be for him. Slo-mo shots of LeBron throwing the chalk dust in the air (ironically, in front of adoring crowds he will, in all likelihood, now turn his back on). And then he’ll hand the rose to some lucky team, and ESPN will get to EXCLUSIVELY dissect the move and what it means for the NBA–while never mentioning the fact that the NBA is a joke for allowing this grotesque spectacle to happen.

And for what? So a “legend” can feel more legendary. So a guy who received $90 million from Nike before he bounced a single professional dribble can extend his brand to that 0.0001% portion of the globe that doesn’t know him already. All from an athlete who has said lots of things about marketing over the years (like how he wants to be the world’s first billion dollar athlete), but precious little about winning anything.

This is the worst part of all of this: The sport’s highest-profile player has zero interest in winning anything. The whole point of sports is that everyone playing is trying their best to win. If you don’t have that, what do you have? LeBron is not a basketball player. He’s a multimedia superstar who plays basketball. He would be doing the same thing if he played baseball or lacrosse or was a professional pillow fighter. Winning doesn’t matter to him because in his universe, he has already won.

I don’t care how humble LeBron’s origins are. This is as bad as if Donald Trump bought an hour of prime time to eat diamonds (which I guess is what The Apprentice is, in a way).

THE DECISION gross and decadent and monstrous and just plain wrong. I can imagine ancient Roman gladiators deciding who they would kill in the arena with such trumped up pomp and ceremony. It makes me ashamed to be a sports fan, and a little ashamed to be an American.

This is definitely an Alien vs. Predator situation: No matter who wins, we lose.