Hornets Hype

If the media had its way, the Hornets season would be over.  That way, big markets like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago could get back to winning championships.  Never mind those pesky San Antonio, Orlando, or New Orleans teams that think they can win it all.  But that annoyance aside, New Orleans does have problems.  Nowhere is that more apparent than at the shooting guard position.

The word from Nola.com is Mo Pete is getting the hook next game in favor of Devin Brown.  If we’re really lucky, D-Brown will ultimately be replaced by B-Brown at the 2-guard.  Against Kobe Bryant.  Kobe has started off the season scorching, averaging 35-6-3-3, in about 40 minutes per game, and might have just taken it personally that LRJ was given the MVP last year.  Certainly, Devin won’t be able to stop him.  Neither will Bobby.  Mo is the best physical match against him, so the timing of the switch is suspect.  I’d say put Julian on him, but then who guards Artest?  West.  Then who guards Lamar?  Ugh.  Regardless of what insanity Coach Bryon Scott employs against the Lakers, it won’t work.  Kobe will score at least 40 and the Lakers will win by double-digits.  Count it.  But you know who could dish it right back to Kobe, or any other premier shooting guard?  Allen Iverson.

Kobe has never been able to stop A.I., and the task has usually gone to the other Laker guard.  But forget the Lakers, the bigger question is could Iverson be the answer to the Hornets problems at the 2-guard?  He’s really not happy playing in Memphis off the bench, and ownership is backing the coach, with whom A.I. doesn’t exactly see eye to eye.  And, now, Iverson’s taking a personal leave from the team.  Sounds like things aren’t working out.

So why not go after him?  Yes, I’m talking to you Jeff Bower.  Iverson only makes a touch over $3M per year, for just this year.  I mean, we could trade him for Hilton.  Maybe for both Browns.  Or maybe we could take him and Stackhouse for Mo Pete (sorry Mo).  However that math ultimately works out, it could be done, and reasonably so.

It might drive Byron nuts, but can you imagine the chaos that CP and A.I. would wreak on the Western Conference?  One former MVP and one one-day-to-be MVP attacking from anywhere, anytime, and dishing to Peja (swish), David (swish), or Emeka (slam)?  I definitely think it would be worth pursuing.   And, Mr. Shinn, it’d sure as hell fill any of those empty seats, that’s for sure.

The Hornets with Iverson is a team I’d pay to see.  Well, I already do.  So, it’d be a team I’d be really excited to see.  I don’t think I’d be the only one.  Except for other Western Conference coaches and gms.

Just like that, the power in the West would shift again.  Think about it, Jeff Bower.

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of Marcus Thornton this year.  TT6 calls him Lil’ Buckets, after a night of torrid shooting earlier this preseason, when he seemed to be making it rain buckets.  A second round pick, yes, but not afraid to shoot, and boy can he.  The man has a quick release, a sweet motion, and finds the bottom of the net more than most other cats in Creole.  He gives me that warm kind of feeling inside.

Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images

Tonight, against the Pacers, he got his second start of the preseason.  And it went well.  He had 19 points in 34 minutes of playing time, along with 7 boards, 2 assists, and only 1 turnover, and 2 fouls.  He also had a plus/minus of +5.  Not bad for a rookie.

He started off a bit tentative, and seemed not always confident about where he should be, spacing-wise.  But then a Pacer goaltend gave him a basket, and after that, he seemed to move with a bit more purpose.  He started to find his spots better on the floor, and when his defender wouldn’t give him the room to shoot, he was aggressive going to the basket, and got the calls.  Smart play.

The supposed weakness of his NBA game, defense?  His main opponent, Dahntay Jones, who aside for being known for having parents that can’t spell, is pretty much only known for being rough on CP last year in the playoffs.  (He was jeered and booed by the home crowd, who won’t forgive or forget.)  Jones managed to get a couple open cutters under the basket to make his statline look decent, but had a -14 plus/minus.  His other assignment, Brandon Rush, was 1-4 from the lane.  I can live with both stats.

Byron Scott isn’t known for playing rookies.  But he’d be absolutely out of his gourd to not play Lil’ Buckets.  A lot.

Well, that should get Google’s attention. Maybe even someone who follows basketball. Apparently, my breakdown of how Chris Paul’s numbers last season gave him one of the most historic point guard seasons ever, and which, incidentally, blew away Steve Nash’s two MVP seasons, is forgotten.  Some people, who don’t believe in small markets, are convinced the Hornets will finish no better than 7th this year, and that CP3 does not even get consideration, let alone a single vote, in the MVP category, though Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant do.  Crazy.  And people wonder why I disappear in the offseason.  People are so fucking ridiculous that they forget what the sport of basketball is and/or are so fucking bored that they just invent stories to keep themselves occupied.  Oooh… Stephon is insane, Rubio won’t come over, C.J. Watson only took a one year deal?!  Whatthefuckever.

Listen.  It’s not rocket science.  If you’ve ever watched basketball, it’s pretty fucking obvious that Chris Paul is a once-in-a-generation talent.  Quick, name the best players in the NBA.  If you didn’t say CP, Kobe, and one other person, then you’re a moron.  Yeah, yeah, freedom of choice, opinion, etc.  All that also includes the freedom to be wrong, to be a moron, and just plain ignorant.  Congratulations.  Sometimes I wish this country was a totalitarian state and they made everyone worship the players who had talent and heart (yeah, I’m talking to you Vince Carter), rather than just those that get the most attention.  At least it’d be a little more honest.

Sorry if I don’t drop to my knees and worship the capitalist propaganda that would make us believe the Knicks deserve a championship when they haven’t even put forth a team that resembles a professional unit since Allan Houston played for them and don’t bask in the glow of yet another Celtics-Lakers matchup when there are are 30 teams in the league with 30 equally laudable fanbases, or for that matter, drool at the mere mention of the “Chosen One”—a.k.a. the Nike whore or whoever makes the sponsors figure will make them the most money (um, Dwayne Wade?).  Call me an elitist, call me a purist, yeah, like those are bad things, but I appreciate the game of basketball.  I’ll follow the talent like Deep Throat said to follow the money.  And the media is complicit.  Already they’re putting it again as Kobe-LRJ for MVP and Celts-Lakeshow for the ring.  Fucking sad.  Unprecedented parity and they mouth the same shit?  Dimemag is one of the few that gets it.  They ask the hard questions.  Steve Nash (no offense, dude, I love your game), and Duncan (ditto) both have two MVPs, and Shaq one?  What the fuck?  Dime thought that weird.  Me too.  But I digress.  Dime also noticed that no one has truly appreciated  CP3’s greatness.  That the rest of the country isn’t onboard makes me want to drop a bunch of downers chased with beer like Hunter S. Thompson and go on a shooting spree.

But why cry over spilt media milk?  That’s just how it is today, money, money, money.  No one cares about the truth or the purity of existence that is exemplified by the beauty of physical perfection, which is exactly what excellence in sports is.  Forget that Chris does things that no one has, probably ever, other than Magic, Johnny Stock, and the Big O.  That’s okay.  People can forget.  And then the season will start.  And then you’ll all remember why they called him the Baby-Faced Assassin, the Grief Merchant, or the guy who could talk about Fight Club.  Call him what you will, or ignore him if you will; I’ll be watching, though, and I’ll call him what he is: a warrior, a winner, and the-real-MVP, and someday soon, an NBA Champion.

And it will happen in New Orleans.  And people will wonder why they don’t know more about him.  They’ll wonder what inane thing they were doing when Chris Paul did ______ because their TV station didn’t carry that game.  You really want to know what “amazing” is?  Just watch CP do his thing.

Until then, pretend that someone else deserves the headlines.  Pretend that some other player should be the league’s MVP.  When the truth is he can do things that no one else can, is a leader like few others, and who will continue to smash records on his way to greatness.  I know where I’ll be when it happens.  Do you?

Logical argument is apparently a lost art in today’s culture.  Chris Paul, in Vegas to watch the Hornets’ Summer League team, was asked about Tyson Chandler, and how that trade might indicate that even someone like him could be traded.  His response: “In this league, anything can happen,” Paul told Pro Basketball News. “I can be dealt. It’s possible. It’s possible.”  Courtesy of the Times Picayune.  Notice the gap in the quote?  Who knows what was said in there.  Nonetheless, the resulting headlines in the national media were:

1. Paul says trade ‘possible.’  - Pro Basketball News
2. TRADES: CP3 thinks he could be traded.  - ESPN Insider
3. Chris Paul thinks he could be traded.  – Dimemag.com

Some headlines might be better, if one scours the net?  Right?  Okay.  Let’s take a look around.  The Times Picayune read: “New Orleans Hornets president Hugh Weber says there’s no way Chris Paul will be traded.”  Of course that headline was belied by the additional inclusion of: “the [Hornets] are desperate to dump salaries to avoid having to pay the tax penalty next summer. Due to its financial limitations, New Orleans is the only team in the Southwest Division that has yet to acquire a player through free agency or by a trade to improve its roster this offseason,” and then included the above CP quote, attributing it to Pro Basketball News.  This was followed by the quotes from the Hornets organization that led to its headline, and then absolutely no comment on either.  Way to analyze all the facts before you.

Sports Illustrated got close too.  Their headline?  “Hornets Will Not Trade Chris Paul.”  Good right?  Well, not if immediately followed by this: “Chris Paul told a reporter there’s chance he soon could be traded,” the article then quotes the purported financial/trade situation of the team from the TP (see the above), and then simply added that the Hornets say they won’t trade him, without bothering to include the quotes from any of the Hornets people.  And again, no analysis of the information.

Chris Paul, himself, nauseated by the explosion of articles about his “imminent trade,” used Twitter to tell the world: “Jus for the record too…I’M NOT GOIN ANYWHERE!!! No clue what Chris Thomasson was talkin about, but I didn’t say any of what he was sayin.“  So there it is, the truth.  No matter what was said in a hypothet, this was and is the truth.  CP knows it.  The Hornets basketball organization knows it.  And any serious basketball fan or  journalists, should damn well know it.  Why would the Hornets trade CP?  He’s a once in a generation talent.

Instead of letting it go at that, Pro Basketball News decided to follow up with “Paul Feeling the Pressure.”  Where, Thomasson argued the whole conversation was taped, and that this was what Paul really said.  Allegedly his editors listened to the tape and backed him up.  Okay, but what was the context?  What were the words before, after, and in between?  The reason Paul doesn’t remember it, in my opinion, is because he was talking in general, how the NBA is, how no one’s safe (remember to even qualify for a no-trade clause,  the player must have at least eight years of service time and four with the same team, and must then bargain for one in their contract; to my  knowledge, only Kobe has one).  As Hornets team President, Hugh Weber, said: “I think [Chris] was talking about the nature of the business and the fact that the question was asked the way it was.”  Funny how Thomasson didn’t address that point.  Just become some crafty reporter backs a star player into an awkward answer doesn’t mean his integrity is in place.  To the contrary, manipulating an honest person into giving a random quote that you intend on using as an inflammatory headline proves just the opposite.

Case in point: in supporing Thomasson, notorious Chris Paul-hater, Brett Pollakoff, posted the following article on NBA Fanhouse: “Chris Paul Caught Lying on Twitter?”, in which beyond supporting his fellow “journalist,” Pollakoff called CP a jerk for pretending not to have said what he said, and naive for not understanding the media business.  Right.  Why would Chris think that his opinion on a throwaway hypothet would be a headline?  How naive.  Or maybe it’s indicative of a larger problem; funny how the media always paints it as a player being too foolish to keep his mouth shut rather than the artificial frame of discouse constructed by a willing media agent who cares more about his name in the byline and his next paycheck than even the smallest smigden of self-respect, or dare I say it, the Truth.

So how did we go from having a completely hypothetical, sure, anyone can be traded, argument to “he soon could be traded”?  Simple.  The almighty dollar.  Today’s it’s all about the scoop.  First in time, first in line.  To get paid, that is.  Alternatively, create a crazy enough headline and just maybe enough people will jump to your site to bump your ad revenue.  What, CP is getting traded (to who)?  What, CP is a jerk (what he’d do)?  Either way, it’s about money.  Should Freedom of the Press even apply to these people?

There was a time when “journalists” researched their sources.  They got corroboration.  Apparently, today, it doesn’t matter.  So they have a tape and tore the quote out of context, guess that makes it okay.  Besides, no one trusts the internet anyway.  So what’s one more stretched truth?  Moreover, who really wants truth in an age when bickering people thrown into awkward situations with suggested responses is “entertainment?”  Reality television is the new gladiatorial games, and like then, the masses now eat it up.  It had occurred to me that sports was the purest form of entertainment left, an honorable exercise where persons are forced to play by the same set of rules and compete, their individual and/or aggregate excellence determining the winner totally removed from any political, personal, religious, or other frame of bias.  Only the media keeps ruining it.

The Truth Is Out There.  Only no one’s looking for it.  Although, apparently, no one misses it.  Maybe we should all be to blame.  We all bury our heads in the sand and accept headlines as truth when all they are is a collection of words carefully crafted by someone with an agenda.  As for me?  I’ll keep thinking for myself.  Chris Paul is going nowhere.  He’s our savior; not just for the Hornets, but for all of New Orleans.  His importance is uncomparable to any other in sports right now.  As we’ve said here over and over, his performance on the floor isn’t just MVP like, it’s historic.  As ticktock6 shared with you all, we just went to the Basketball Hall of Fame.  No Chris Paul there yet.  But someday he will be.  And while I hope it’s in a Hornets jersey, I can’t say that for sure.  Anything’s possible.

So maybe tomorrow’s blogosphere will have headlines of “Even Hornets’ bloggers unsure Chris Paul to remain in New Orleans.”  But as for me, I believe he’ll be here for a long time .  It’s what Chris said, it’s what the GM said, it’s what the team president said.  And it’s what I say.  Make up your own mind.

Addendum 07/20/09 by Ticktock6:

It took me forever to locate this post, which I remember reading back in June, because I originally thought a Celtics blog had done it. Turns out it was a Mavs blog, but it’s a fantastic account and critique of how one basketball “news” outlet put out a Rajon Rondo trade story, lifting out-of-context quotes made in 2007 out of an article and implying that they were recent. The story was then picked up by SI, ESPN, and other major news outlets and reported as fact. This was done without double checking the first story or attempting to put context to the original quotes which they then passed on to the public. And so a whole story about how all the Celtics hate Rondo was manufactured out of nothing and perpetuated all over the internet. Rondo’s agent was pissed, and rightly so. I wanted to post this link as another example of what we’re talking about and to emphasize that we’re not against this because it’s Chris Paul– we’re against bullshit like this in general.

ESPN True Hoop, good stuff.  ESPN headline: “Buzz Kill: Hornets thriftiness costing team?”, not so much.  For those of you that may not know, True Hoop likes to aggregate various media sources and present them all for the reader in one place.  What spurred this headline?  John DeShazier, who wrote in the Times Picayune:

The silence has been deafening, the inactivity telling. All we can figure is that the Hornets didn’t seriously intend to add any meaningful pieces in free agency, that their declaring a willingness to pay the luxury tax if it meant putting together a championship-caliber team was hollow. The franchise seems to have done everything in its power to make sure it doesn’t add payroll this summer. … If the Hornets can’t or won’t do what they have to do to catch the Lakers and to beat the Nuggets, Spurs, Trail Blazers, Jazz and Mavericks, then they shouldn’t sell bluster, knowing full well that fans and players are going to call them on it. The lack of activity wouldn’t be so glaring if the Hornets hadn’t gone out of their way to sell the theory that they’d move boldly, swiftly and effectively to plug their holes. Instead, the teams that really were interested in getting stronger let their wallets do the talking. They roared; the Hornets haven’t yet even mustered a whisper. Their silence if deafening, and their inactivity is telling.”

I wanted to respond by posting on ESPN, something I rarely do, but wasn’t sure if I had an account there, so here’s my retort that would have been posted there:

John DeShazier is one of the least-credible and exaggerated sportswriters in New Orleans.  The fact is, the Hornets as of today, have significantly higher payrolls than the teams he mentions: Denver, San Antonio, Portland, Utah, and Dallas, as well as Cleveland and Orlando.  Only Boston and LAL seem to be outspending the Hornets.  New Orleans simply is standing by the team they’ve put together, which wasn’t healthy last year, and is putting trust in their draft picks.  Considering they like to have 14 guys on the roster, they only have one more slot to fill.  To suggest inactivity is always a negative is foolish.  They easily could have hosted a firesale this summer.  To their credit, they’ve realized the mistake made with Chandler last year and are trying to keep a winner together.  It makes me sad that this joker somehow makes an ESPN headline.  New Orleans is not “penny-pinching” by any stretch of the imagination.

Feel free to double check my numbers on HoopsHype.com.  I mark New Orleans at $78M, with others at: Denver $72M, San Antonio $76M, Portland $48M, Utah $73M, Dallas $69M, Cleveland $77M, and Orlando $77M (with Boston at $79M and LAL at $84M).  The fact that the national media spreads its usual ignorance by using a local sportswriter defies all reason and only perpetuates the complex feeling of persecution that New Orleanians often endure.  Maybe we should stop blaming the national media if the TP writers have no clue.   Or maybe the TP should hire a fucking basketball person and the rest of the country should wake up.  This isn’t some kind of transcendantal realization, it’s a few minutes of research.

That’s all right.  No problem.  They can all suck it when Chris Paul is eating everyone’s souls next year and the media flip-flops more than Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky.  This team gets it now.  They know their time is now.  They want vengeance.  And CP, the Grief Merchant, will deliver it.

According to the Associated Press, the NBA Salary Cap has been set at $58.68 million, about $1 million less than last year’s Cap.  The NBA Luxury Tax also dropped, by about $2 million, to $69.92 million.  The midlevel exception has been set at $5.85 million.  The new Cap and Tax went into effect at 12:01 a.m. today, allowing the real free agency period to begin.  Will the real Jeff Bower please stand up?

As of today, the Hornets are committed to 11 players, for $77,575,998.  Yikes.  Expect them to sign three more, and if both draftees, they come cheap, and whoever else (Marks?), cheap too.  But that’s still a $1 tax per dollar over the limit, which means Georgie is paying $8 mil out of pocket, plus loses out on certain revenue sharing.  As of today.

Probably a lot of you that read this site enjoy Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie.  I do.  Big fan of The Basketball Jones, too.  But I caught a video they posted the other day, “Where Amazing Caucasian Happens,” a parody of Kanye West’s alleged-song, “Amazing.”  Honestly, I get that it’s a joke.  But beyond that, I think it bothered me.  The very premise that whites are worse athletes than blacks is ingrained deeper than this parody, and obviously is the thing upon which it relied.

To begin with, it is an outdated paradigm: whites-blacks.  The NBA, like America itself, is a multicultural thing, with a growing number of foreign players.  How do they fit in?  What about mixed heritage players?  I mean, seriously, there are few blacks in America as richly dark as persons born in Africa today, and few whites in America as pale as Swedes.  But why even get caught up in distinction?  Does it matter?  I don’t think so.

When Kobe broke out as a star, he emerged from a League that had a thug-like reputation.  What made him stand out wasn’t the color of his skin.  It was being brought up in an upper-middle class, suburban neighborhood, being well educated, and traveling the world at a young age; despite not going to college, he’s probably been better schooled than a lot of athletes who went to college.   I mean, contrast that to the out of court college experiences of Jason Williams, who got kicked out of one of the most prestigious college sports teams in the country for repeated violations of the drug policy, i.e., he liked the Weed.  So he jumped straight to the NBA with amazing raw physical talent, made highlight passes left and right, and talked with that Southern-ghetto accent.  Oh yeah, and he was white.  Yet his nickname, “White Chocolate.”  I don’t think I have to explain the correlation.  Both of these players inverted the extreme stereotypes that people have of certain races, and showed that it was a person’s actions that mattered most, and that anyone, of any race, if put in the right or wrong situation, could exemplify the best or worst of any attribute, race be damned.

Here’s the bottom line.  We do studies and track data and make all these distinctions by race.  But what is “race”?  Why are Hispanics not Caucasians?  They developed from Spaniards, like early Americans were French or American.  Are people in Spain today not “white”?  What even is “black”?  Not that long ago, in a famous case here in Louisiana, a woman discovered she was legally black because she was 1/36 black.  Not sure if that law is still on the books.  But think of it, how “mixed” people are considered to belong to whatever race the minority distinction in their blood inheres.  It’s more latent racism, that only “pure” members of the race count.  Crazy.

My point?  It’s irrelevant.  I try never to think of or even acknowledge race.  Sure, the guy standing in the third row with the pale skin.  The black lady walking past George Shinn’s seats.  There’s no shame in describing someone’s appearance, just like there’s no problem acknowledging the color of a person’s eyes.  But as if it means anything?  Nope.  It’s all how you are educated, how you choose to develop, and how you carry yourself.  For those of us that pretend these things are inherently related, it’s just lazy correlation.  As a convenient side-bonus, it enables people to forget the real and more complicated problems: unequal education, low wages vs. out-of-control inflation, and lack of health care coverage.

But that’s just me.  Yeah, I get this video was a joke.  But it’s also an implicit acknowledgment of how we perceive race relations.  I just think that time will erase all such artificial distinctions.  But who wants to wait that long?  Sorry.  Now back to your regularly scheduled NBA-blog.

We all got played.  Have you ever seen a good Lebron Raymone James (“LRJ”) shot and turned to a friend, and just said, “Witness, dude.  Witness.”  Have you called him the “Chosen One?”  How about “King James”?  (I prefer Viscount James, but I disgress.)  Well, you got played.  In politics, business, and law, masters of language work hard to control the language, because when you control the words people use, you limit the choices available to those people.

A quick example.  Politicians love the term “Tax Relief” when they’re for tax cuts.  Why?  Because “relief” implies a malady which needs a cure.  How could anyone be against curing the tax “ills” of America?  Boom.  The language does exist to oppose that.  But if you re-frame the argument in terms of fiscal responsibility, and dispute the very use of the term, “relief” as loaded and avoiding the real issues inherent to taxation you can argue effectively by supplying a new language for the discourse.  Advertising does it all the time by using trademarks.  Product X has the new “SafeClean” system.  1) The company brags that no other product has it, which is crazy, because the “it” is a trademark, thus no one else can have it; and 2) people just accept that this product is actually “safe” because it has that word in the product description, which, technically doesn’t mean shit, it’s a name.  But people don’t look beyond the product name and how it’s packaged and are fooled.  My basketball point?  LRJ and his people are exactly those kinds of masters of language and we’ve all been clowned.
 

Art by Andre Moore

Bron-Bron tattoos himself with all his monikers and his publicity people put them out there, as ubiquitous as air and as often appearing as a bad Craig Seger suit: every time.  Then Nike puts it out there.  Then Vitamin Water puts it out there.  But what’s really unforgivable is that the national media does it.  This should be no different than when the news media was excoriated for using the term “Maverick” to describe John McCain, when his camp was the one to invent the term, and which was largely misleading because he voted with President Bush 90% of the time.  (Can you imagine if so-called objective pundits had said “Yes We Can” cover Obama’s campaign?  It was his slogan, so to have incorporated that language into anything other than the description of that slogan would have been ridiculous.)  My point here is that sportswriters should never use the terms “Witness,” “Chosen One,” or the like  in their articles.

Nonetheless, we get stuff like this, allowing the “Chosen One” metaphor to get out of control:

It changes the way we think of him, makes you want to proclaim, “He is ‘The One,’” as when Neo came back to life and made the bullets stop in “The Matrix.” From now on, anything and everything seems possible with LeBron. – J.A. Adande, ESPN.

Now to be clear, no beef against J.A., I like his work.  But really?  Does this mean LRJ is going to start shooting all his shots from the opposite baseline just because he can?  Don’t hold your breath.  LRJ is no messiah, just a good baller.  Maybe he should just start with free throws.

Here’s another one:

As if once wasn’t enough, the Orlando Magic were forced to watch LeBron James’ amazing buzzer-beater all day yesterday.  The Magic were witnesses all right. Again. And again. And again. – AP Report, Boston Herald.

Seriously, do journalists work for Nike?  It’s crazy.  We need to think about this, seriously.  The Big Nickname himself, Shaq, has more names than he knows what to do with, but they’re not nearly as self-promoting.  The Big Aristotle: trying to show he’s a thinker, not just a dumb giant.  It means something.  The Big Cactus: just a joke on the former nickname.  Dwayne Wade?  Shaq called him Flash to his Superman.  Okay, Superman’s a little self-involved, but it’s also not selling anything.  How about Kobe?  Black Mamba.  First of all, everyone made fun of it before it finally stuck.  Second, it’s supposed to be a metaphor.  He strikes fast and he’s deadly.  Fine.

But consider also that Lebron and his billionaire-minded camp manufactured his names before even playing a single NBA game!  At least the guys above earned their names.  To further prove my point, compare “Chosen One” to the “Great One” in hockey, Wayne Gretzky.  Gretz won eight consecutive MVPs and had more assists than any other player had points when he retired (in hockey points are a combination of both goals and assists).  Yet, again, LRJ had the audacity to call himself “great” before he even played a game?  Fuck, he could’ve ended up being Darko, there was no way to know.  The whole thing is ludicrous.

The worst part? LRJ doesn’t even encourage you to think.  He’s just the “Chosen One.”  The “King.”  No metaphor.  Just accept that he’s the shit straight up.  And as opposed to the inclusiveness of Michael Jordan–who, incidentally, didn’t need all these names because he let his play talk for him–whose corporate slogan was “Be Like Mike,” and invited us all to dream, all to share in his greatness, LRJ doesn’t want you near him.  Instead, you can just sit back and “Witness” his glory.  Sorry.  Other than in the context of linguistic discourse like this, or maybe just plain sarcasm, I won’t be using those phrases.

Lebron might score 50 tonight or hit another buzzer beater.  But it won’t change the fact that he’s a self-aggrandizing, arrogant man-boy who truly believes the world is Lebron-centric.  Fuck that.  We all have a choice over the words we use.  So don’t let someone else, anyone else, put those words in your mouth.  And national media?  Please, think a bit before you succumb to the lazy cliches that make you just another mouthpieces for LRJ’s self-perpetuating myth.

UPDATE 5/25/09: The Orlando Sentinel is on board!

I get it. Teams alleged tanked ends of seasons to get the #1 pick.  They made a lottery to counter.  Yeah, that’s really stopped teams.  Remember the term “tankapalooza” from the last few years?  Riley scouting college games instead of coaching?  Right.  No impact whatsoever.  Worst idea ever.  Beyond that, since 1990, only 4 teams with the League’s worst record have won the lottery, and teams with the second worst record have won it just 2 times.  So who’s really being rewarded?  Teams that don’t deserve it.  It’s total bullshit. 

The Lottery is a joke and an embarrassment to the League.  I think the only reason that they keep it in place is so Stern can laugh at the conspiracy rumors.  Which, speaking of, may be more than rumors.   Ewing anyone?  Duncan?  Rose?  Right.

So, anyone know who’s been given the #1 pick this year?  My money’s on either OKC or Memphis.  Stern wants the former to succeed and the latter’s already been screwed by the lottery enough that even Stern might feel bad.  But that’s just me.

Discuss.