Hornets Hype

Last time I checked, Mardi Gras was over yesterday. And yet… and yet… I could not believe my eyes when, at the Hornets/Jazz game last night, I looked up and beheld the Cousin of Chucky, with its slightly less terrifying friends the King and the Jester, lining up for its nightly scooter race. When will the terror end, people? WHEN WILL IT END?

Look at its FACE. You cannot tell me it doesn't mean me harm. I won't believe you.

It’s not just that, deep within my soul, I am afraid of this diabolical creature. I now suspect the Baby is causing us to lose. I think (I could be slightly off on this, but hold on, because the stats are still going to bear me out whether I’m off one or two games or not) the Baby made its first appearance in the Clippers home game on January 13th..

Prior to that, the Hornets had an impressive 14-3 home record, enough to rival top teams in the conference and especially impressive considering they were an under .500 team. Since then? SINCE THEN? 3-6. Oh, Chris Paul is out? I call B.S. Chris Paul was out in late November/early December when the Hornets were winning all those home games. Oh, the schedule is stronger? I call B.S. again. The Hornets have recently lost to the likes of the Bulls and the Sixers at home. They even at one point had lost four in a row, something that hasn’t happened all season.

I hope that little boy was still in possession of his soul when the baby was finished with him... No, seriously, I'm really worried about him. This pic gets bonus points for how friggin EVIL the Jester looks. I hadn't noticed it before because I was focused on the baby but wow.

Here it is on a scooter

Thanks to reader Robbie, who emailed me pics, we now have more photographic evidence of the Baby’s existence. Serious props to him. Photographing the Mardi Gras Baby is akin to catching the Sasquatch on film. Actually, I’m surprised it even shows up on camera…

Dusche Bagel of the Week

It has been suggested to me many a time that I institute a Dusche Bagel of the Week Award. Well, I’m finally doing it. This award shall henceforth be given to the person/team/entity that has pissed me off, through acts of extreme douchery, during a given week.

What is a Dusche Bagel? Some background… earlier this season Rajon Rondo acted like a punk and made some statements about how much better he is than Chris Paul. (These statements have since been statistically debunked. Hell, after the other night, we’re not even sure Rondo is better than Darren Collison.) Some Celtics “superfans” decided to come troll my blog. Most of the garbage I deleted… except this poor unfortunate soul, who unwittingly provided me with entire minutes of laughter and entertainment:

The Original Dusche Bagel

And thus the term Dusche Bagel was born.

The Dusche Bagel of the Week is…. Vince Carter

Vince Carter singlehandedly stole a victory from the Hornets on Monday night, putting up 48 points, the most he has scored in like five years or some garbage. Let me get this straight. Dude is having the worst year of his entire career, missing laughable shots (I mean this quite literally– I was watching a Magic game a couple weeks ago and Vince Carter’s shot selection and gleeful airballings of entire possessions while his teammates grimaced caused me to actually laugh out loud), wearing a stupid NCAA-esque t-shirt under his jersey, and oh yeah, sucking. And then he comes out of nowhere to beat a Hornets team that puts up 70 in the first half, probably playing the best team game it can possibly hope to put together with two starters out, one of them being Chris Paul. He was hitting defended shots, contested shots, stupid shots, shots where he was the only Orlando player to ever touch the ball– the sort of shots that, if he’d been missing, people would’ve been crucifying him over. I bet even Magic fans were like, “What the fuck, Vince Carter.” Like, where have you been the other 40-some games of the year? Where were you in January? Oh, that’s right, going 2-15 in losses to shitty teams. The Vince fans of the internet were all excited, clamoring, frantically typing, “It’s amazing! He’s back! He’s turned the corner!” So, has he? Is he, as everyone raved on a fine recent Tuesday morning, back?

No. He has averaged an underwhelming 14.5 points per game since his big happy outburst. Because Vince Carter is one of those dudes who’s only good when it’s obnoxious to be good. For a look at some of the other douchery in his oeuvre, please click here. Vince Carter, ladies and gentlemen, your dusche bagel of the week.

… after Jeff Bower inexplicably benched David West (15-5) for the entire 4th quarter of a tie game, in which the Hornets leading scorer (CP3) was out having knee surgery and the game’s leading scorer (Thornton, 22 pts) had just fallen hard and gone to the locker room, I might have done something like this first:

Shortly followed by something like this:

Would it have changed the fact that the Hornets blew a game they should’ve won to one of their closest competitors for a playoff spot, because their rookie head coach decided it would be a fun time to teach his longest tenured player and 2-time All Star a lesson? No. But it would have made me feel better.

So, I guess it’s a good thing they don’t let me go to press conferences.

I have to go. I’m, literally, an incoherent ball of rage right now. ^%$@#I*YFGSDFHJSG&$#TRA^TRDS

The Hornets May Have Won the Battle But Lost the War– a post on the Dime blog about the Hornets salary moves. With input from me, Hornets 247, and At the Hive. Oh, and Bonus!Ranty Comments by me, I guess. Sorry about that. This is one of my very favorite topics for ranting, as you well know. But props to Dime. Noticed how they went and actually asked Hornets media & blogs. Amazing concept, that.

New Orleans rookie Marcus Thornton seizing the moment– According to the TP, there are rumors (which he denies) that Marcus Thornton told some kids at LSU over the summer he’d be starting by midseason. Ha. I said so too. Guess we’re both right.

Buckets doesn’t make the Rookie Team — kinda lame but not surprising. He’s averaging 9.7 pts-2 rebs on 43% shooting in 19 minutes, way less than the minutes some of those kids are getting to put up their numbers. I wasn’t that impressed with either Flynn or Curry (ugh, watch me say that and he goes off on us tonight, haha). I mean, you can’t really argue with any of the rookies who made it, but I will say it’s too bad Byron Scott hurt Thornton’s chances by not playing him early. I wonder, though, if it’s harder to make a team like this as a pure scorer– even a very efficient one– when you’re not putting up significant numbers in any other categories. All those point guards have numbers in the assists column too. Marcus’ stats per 36 are 18.2 pts-3.7 rebs– some of those other kids already play 36 and aren’t close to that.

But! He’s #5 in the NBA.com Rookie Rankings this week! — Go figure.

This column from Mark Monteith at SI.com fails so hard at containing real facts (especially Okafor versus Chandler) and following a chronological timeline of what actually went down that it made me weep tears of pure sarcasm. Or wait, is that not possible? Try to spot the two places he  contradicts himself. Let’s make it a fun game!

In case you turned off the game, the Hornets bench went on a 28-16 run in the fourth quarter and managed to close the gap to 9 points in the last minute, before finally losing to the Lakers 110-99. There’s about a minute left. The Hornets foul. I thought nothing of it– it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. It’s under ten, you have timeouts, things can happen. We’ve already seen one game this year (the Dallas overtime win) where it did happen. Clock runs down. Hornets foul again. There’s 4 seconds left and they have the ball. It wasn’t really until then that I notice the crowd is booing. CST does a close-up on the Hornets bench, and it’s Posey (you might have known he’d be behind something like this) and Armstrong hollering at the rookies to go, go, go. Collison throws up a shot that doesn’t make it, game ends.

What’s the fuss? Apparently the Lakers fans have some sort of taco promotion if they score over 100 and hold their opponent to less than 100. It wouldn’t  have annoyed me so much if I hadn’t seen fans of two other teams, the Raptors and the Blazers, complaining on Twitter earlier in the night about the exact same thing: fans who cheer at the wrong times because they want free food. We’ve got one of those food promotions too, for Popeyes, only luckily ours is fairly new and people don’t usually make a huge deal over it. I think it’s tacky.

You wanna mess with the rooks? You gotta go through me.

But then I check Twitter and see several people in my feed making fun of the Hornets bench for trying, and man, that got me fired up. “If they had played that hard the whole game they wouldn’t have been down 20!” “Lakers fans shouldn’t be embarrassed because they cheer louder for tacos than the game– the Hornets should be embarrassed for losing!” “The Hornets are poor sports for not rolling over!” (I made sure to bookmark that one for days when I need a good laugh.) Etc. One of these people was an ESPN writer, which is kind of inexplicable to me.

You people did notice that this wasn’t exactly the lineup that lost the game? The Hornets had three guards out there under 6-4, and were playing 6-9 Darius Songaila at center. I mean, that’s not exactly an NBA lineup. That’s serious small ball, and they were pushing the pace.

Two of those guys were rookies. Three of them were under the age of 23. Four of them have been in the league three years or less. Darren Collison is a rookie. Marcus Thornton is a rookie, who was 0-4 in the first three quarters, and is fighting for a spot in the starting lineup, while trying hard to get out of a three game shooting slump. Bobby Brown, who didn’t meet a three ball 4 seconds into the shot clock he didn’t like all evening, has to prove he shouldn’t be glued to the bench forever when Chris Paul gets back. Julian Wright is playing to get back in the rotation. Darius Songaila was trying because he is a bench vet who always tries. They’re playing for minutes. They’re playing for their careers.

It’s embarrassing the Hornets bench tried to erase a lead?

I’m sorry, have we met? I’m Ticktock6, I’m a Hornets fan. I was sitting in the stands all forty-eight minutes of a 58 point home playoff blowout, for which I did not receive free food. A blowout in which a bunch of veteran bench players managed to turn a thirty point deficit into almost a sixty point hole by completely giving up. That’s embarrassing. The point of this isn’t to get into a game of  “who’s a better fan,” but some people last night on Twitter were trying to tell me the meaning of embarrassing.

You know what? I don’t play basketball. I wasn’t on the floor in LA last night. The bottom line is, I don’t have to live with giving up at the end of a blowout. The five guys on the floor do.

I’m sorry, did I miss something?

A screenshot of ESPN's front page last November

I thought Chris Paul hated Byron Scott. I thought this had been established. Like, mainstream established. I mean, I saw it on ESPN. They’ve been mentioning something about it every third day since last November. But then I get up and here are all these articles saying he’s terribly upset over Scott’s firing.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE, PEOPLE?

Previously, on Lifestyles of a Small Market Team With a Top 5 Star Who Everyone Thinks Is Being Wasted In a Small City and Oh My God It’s So Horrible How Dare They Want a Star? Who Do They Think They Are, New York? … Bill Simmons went to a Clippers game in November 2008 and wrote his usual sports humor column. I’ll excerpt the relevant parts:

“The way players walk toward the bench after a timeout. (Goes one of three ways: “I’m interested to hear coach’s thoughts,” “I look forward to sitting down” or “Great, I get to listen to this bonehead again.”) How fast someone jumps up when the coach calls for them as a sub. (If they jump up fast, that means they’re totally in the game; if they jump up slow, that means they were either daydreaming about that night’s sexual conquest or imagining he’s punching the coach in the face.) Whether they listen or don’t listen in the huddle. The body language of the coach himself. And the telltale sign … what happens when a top player gets called over by coach when someone is shooting free throws.This can unfold one of three ways:

A. Player runs over respectfully and seems genuinely interested in the coach’s wisdom. Watch what happens when Popovich calls over Duncan or Parker in a Spurs game. Total respect. They look like someone jogging over to a police officer.

B. Player jogs over, doesn’t seem totally interested, but doesn’t want to seem like a jerk either. This usually sums up 75 percent of the league.

C. Player does a double-take and his head kicks back briefly (like he’s thinking, “Really, I have to talk to this guy again???”). He saunters over disdainfully. When he reaches the coach, he makes eye contact for the first two seconds, then starts subconsciously pulling away (first with his eyes, then with his body leaning back toward the coach), and at about the six-second mark, he just starts walking back toward the court whether the coach is finished talking or not. Everything about the exchange says, “I’ve just had it with this freaking guy.”

I mistakenly believed that Chris Paul and Scott had an “A” relationship but in the second half of Monday’s game, it was revealed that they were a “C.” At least right now. Translation: I am no longer sold on the 2009 Hornets.”

Basically, Simmons thought the Hornets as a team were in trouble– which turned out to be true– way back in the beginning of last season. I am back and forth on this. He went to one game, didn’t talk to any of the players, and just looked at body language. As a bench-watcher myself, I get that. I sit close enough to the Hornets bench (I’m not saying I sit low down, but I do sit on that end of the arena) that I can see who interacts with who, but unlike Bill Simmons, I see them for 41+ games a year. What he neglected to mention in his column, for instance, is that the game in question was at Staples Center back when the Clippers were abysmal and the Hornets were expected to contend in the Western Conference. The Hornets ended up winning that game, but they were down by around ten points for a big chunk of it, and understandably pissed about it. Simmons skipped over that part. That Byron Scott, by the end, had maybe lost David West and some of the Hornets is true. But it seems he never lost Chris Paul.

For his part, when this Simmons thing took off like wildfire through the articles and blogs, Chris Paul even came right out and told the media it wasn’t true. “I would think me and coach might have one of the best relationships out of the entire NBA. I guess people got to have something to talk about. Maybe he should come to a game. Let’s talk. If I had a problem with coach, I’d say it. I guess he comes to one game, and he can figure it out.” But of course, no mainstream media outlets ran with that story. It stayed buried halfway back in the sports pages of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Let’s be crystal clear here. My issue is not that Bill Simmons wrote an opinion column. My issue is that every mainstream media outlet and their mother, brother, and sister ran with it. “Sources say Chris Paul and Byron Scott are not seeing eye to eye.” “Reports are that Byron Scott has lost Chris Paul.” “Amid reports of conflict between Byron Scott and his star player…” Etc. It was in the Daily Dime. It was in the NBA Rumors section of every site. It was thrown in as a little parenthetical aside in articles about the Hornets losing games. My problem with it then is still my problem with it today: Bill Simmons is a guy who writes a humorous internet column. What he is not … is a source.

It’s also the selectivity of the headlines and news items that pisses me off. Simmons’ column was about the Hornets team chemistry as a whole, and it asked the question of whether they were tuning out their coach. I didn’t think it was true at the time– that was very early in the season, and the team would make a few more good runs before the season ended in rescinded trade drama, injuries, and a devastating playoff loss. Plus for every instance of the Hornets not looking like they liked each other, I had 41+ instances, personally witnessed, that told me they did. But most of the reports that pushed along Simmons’ observation and misrepresented it as fact, like a bizarre game of media telephone, weren’t worried about the rest of the Hornets team chemistry. Instead they saw the words “CHRIS PAUL” and “BYRON SCOTT’ and salivated, like wolves lunging for scraps of meat.

And here’s, really, why I’m such a big supporter of fan blogs, social media, and beat writers. In this age of the internet, when firsthand information about every team, observed by people who actually watch the games, is right here in my blogroll and my twitter feed, why should I trust these national aggregators of “news” and “rumors”, citing their “sources”, to tell me what I should believe? I haven’t included ESPN, with the exception of True Hoop, as a daily read since spring of 2008. To me, they’re a dinosaur. Don’t even get me started on the Associated Press, which will quote a blog or a Twitter account and not even put a link to it. Me, I want a trail of hypertext leading back to my source. Scratch that, I don’t just want it– I demand it.

And so today you will see the same mainstream media giants, whose team preview for the 2009-10 Hornets probably included a snippet about “if the Hornets can overcome the rumblings of friction between Chris Paul and Byron Scott,”  pound out columns. How could the Hornets do this to Chris Paul, fire the coach who was his best friend and father figure without telling him? How can a franchise be so small-time and clueless? Not a single one of them will mention how wrong they were about any of this.

Dolla dolla bills, y’all.

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.

There are two unalienable truths in the world of Hornets Hype: 1) James Posey is amazing, and 2) Tracy McGrady sucks. Rare indeed is the gossip item in which we get the two in practically the same paragraph.

Spotted at TAO Nightclub, James Posey of the New Orleans Hornets. The NBA pro was with twelve guys and girls celebrating a friend’s birthday. Tequila was a favorite at the table and the basketball player even bought a bottle of champagne for a group of girls on the dance floor.

Also seen at TAO with friends was Houston Rocket Tracy McGrady. The shooting guard was extremely friendly to all and stuck to water throughout the night.

Original post here.

I guess not everyone is epic enough to have champagne and bacon for breakfast… And no, the fact that he was allegedly nice did not succeed in distracting us from our hate. By nature this blog cannot bring itself to trust someone who goes clubbing in Vegas without drinking…

I missed this post from Minnesota T-Wolves blog Canis Hoopus when it came out a couple days after the draft, but I’m going to link to it anyway because it’s a great rant. It’s about the national media’s treatment of the Ricky Rubio circus, particularly the rampant use of “unnamed sources” and cliches about Minnesota and the organization.

What does this have to do with the Hornets? Well, you know we’re interested in critiquing the failings of the mainstream media on this blog. But all his points are particularly relevant to one of our favorite causes– taking writers/sports personalities to task (sarcastically) for their sloppy research on New Orleans and the franchise’s situation here. Amazingly, I read an article even last week that stated the Hornets might be forced to trade Tyson Chandler because they can’t put butts in the seats (despite factual evidence that pops up at the top of a simple Google search — which anyone could have performed in 30 seconds– stating that the Hornets were actually 8th out of 30 teams in percentage of butts in seats this season).

So, it’s interesting to read about other maligned small-market franchises’ struggle with the same crap.

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!