- I officially became an NBA bandwagon-jumper a few months ago. It had slowly been happening over the last couple years, and when I purchased a pair of Oklahoma City Thunder shorts this spring, the transformation was complete (I have a strict rule of not wearing other teams' apparel besides your own, unless it's TCU at the College World Series as a joke- although now that I think about it, I have some Kansas City Royals shirts that I've received free at games that sometimes get worn as undershirts or basketball shirts- so maybe it's not that strict of a rule.) So anyway, now I just cheer for random teams that I enjoy watching (New Orleans in '08, OKC the last two years, among others) and cheer for drama, exciting matchups, and the Lakers to lose. And there will be plenty of drama coming out of South Beach now. Go ahead and pencil in a Miami-Lakers game on Christmas Day right now.
- Mario Chalmers now has the easiest point guard job in arguably the history of the NBA. His responsibilities now include 1) dribble the ball across half-court; 2) hand it off to either LeBron or D-Wade; and 3) go stand in the corner and wait for a possible kick-out that probably isn't coming. I know this isn't a real stat, but I bet this year he sets a record for least amount of time handling the ball for a starting point guard. Probably like 6-8% or so.
- Also Chalmers-related: the golf course I work at hosts his annual fundraiser golf tournament every year. Just the thought that there is even the slightest chance that LeBron or Bosh or D-Wade would make the journey to Lawrence to play in this tourney makes me squeal like a 12-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. (Completely unrelated tangent: back when Good Ol' Roy still coached at KU, he used to have his tournament at our course as well, since he is BFF with the guy who runs the country club side of our 36 holes. Michael Jordan used to play in the tournament (Roy was an assistant at Carolina when MJ played there) and so, rather than pay the entry fee to get in the tournament every year, he just bought a membership. And even though he hasn't been here since like 2002, MJ is still a paying member of our golf course. Fuck it would be awesome to throw that kind of money around. What a baller. End unrelated tangent.)
- Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert's comments. Just......wow. Como se dice 'classy guy'?
- Along those lines: Cleveland is going to riot when LeBron comes to town this year. Make no mistake: they are going to FUCKING. RIOT. Like Los Angeles after the Rodney King trial riots. Within 10 minutes of the announcement last night, there were people in the streets lighting LeBron jerseys on fire. I cannot imagine the scene when Miami comes and plays there in a few months. It's gonna be like the book of Revelations. Especially with the owner of the Cavs throwing entire cans of gasoline on the fire. This is my excited face.
- Similar to how I started liking Tiger more after he became an international villain, I love LeBron even more after this spectacle, now that he's a bad guy on the level of Scarface or Razor Ramon. It just makes me laugh how angry columnists and fans got over this whole situation. It makes no sense to complain how much coverage ESPN paid toward LeBron's free agency. News flash, people who fill up my home page with Facebook status updates with nonsensical rants against ESPN: TV stations are going to spend time on what people care about. It's the same thing as Favre's will he/won't he retire every summer. If people just stopped caring, then ESPN would stop covering it. But when 100 million people go online and google search 'LeBron free agency' every day, guess what? That's what they're going to talk about. And yeah, having an hour long special to announce your decision is prima donna-esque, borderline egomaniacal. But you know what isn't? Raising 2.5 million dollars for the Boys & Girls Club by donating the proceeds from said special. Besides, it's not like people didn't want to watch that decision being made live. I know I was on the edge of my seat. Maybe I've just calmed down in the last few years once my teams started winning championships and Phil started winning majors.....but damn, listening to people idiotically rant against athletes and sports for majorly flawed reasons is hilarious to me now.
I'm gonna stop there, since I just bitched about how fans rant online about sports by....ranting online about sports fans. Like Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, I turned into the very thing I set out to destroy.
Happy Friday and go Heat! South Beach, what up!
***************
{Update: right after I posted this, I read Simmons' Twitter and he compared last night to this youtube clip, which is absolutely effing PERFECT. You can't make a better comparison than that. It's everything I now love about LeBron, Bosh, and Wade. Miami should start introducing their starting lineup with the nWo music blaring, as those three play air guitar, stroke their imaginary title belts (no homo), and trash talk into a microphone, as the crowd boos and throws shit at them. And by the way, Mario Chalmers would definitely be the Vincent of nWo in this scenario.}
