It's About Time, Assholes

The NBA owners and players have finally reached a tentative agreement and that means there will be professional basketball this season. After weeks of hearing about the "nuclear winter" and the hopelessness that had swallowed the never ending talks between the asshole owners and even bigger asshole players, everything was solved. Yes, after close to 5 months of 18 hour days spent behind closed doors discussing God knows what, everything was wrapped up neatly early this past Saturday morning. Did the two sides finally meet in the middle? Were Derek Fisher's debating skills too much for David Stern's crew to bear? Did they finally get sick of ordering Chinese food every night? Most likely, it was none of those thing that resulted in the lockout coming to a glorious close: they finally came to their senses and realized they're all losing money. The players have missed one paycheck and were soon to miss another, and without the coveted Christmas games being played the NBA would lose their marquee day to shine. As I've said here before, Stern talks tough about pulling the plug on the entire season, and taking his ball and going home if his boys didn't play fair. But as we suspected it was all bull shit. Essentially, the two sides were playing a game of chicken as some of America waited impatiently. With the recent law suit the players brought against the owners, everyone came to their senses and said "ya know what? Let's go back to making ridiculous amounts of money again? Who are we kidding?".

What's really striking about this whole fiasco is the response of the players. Their tweets show that this wasn't the players raging against the machine. Half of them didn't even know what they were arguing about. Take this gem from labor expert LeBron James:

"Man I just got up not to long ago and see we have a deal! I feel like my kids on X-mas day! So juiced!! Excited for the fans that stayed patient with us! #NBAlove,"

Besides his ignorance of the difference between to and too, this doesn't seem like the response of someone who has been battling over complex economic issues for months. How about noted scholar Oklahoma City Thunder swingman James Harden? What was his take on the two sides finally coming to an agreement? He seems like an intelligent dude:


"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. I feel like I just got drafted again."

Ok, so none of these guys could give two shits about BRI or revenue sharing, they just know they missed a paycheck and they want to play ball again. I guess that's something we could all relate to. No matter what the reasoning was for the two sides coming together, I'm just happy that I can stop pretending I care about NCAA basketball or hockey and get back to some NBA basketball this Christmas. Greedy assholes.

Derek Fisher is an Asshole and Other Insights on the Lockout

Fuck Derek Fisher. Fuck him good. I'm not going to get into a philosophical argument on the merits of the NBA economic system, and how ridiculously unfair it may or may not be. All I know is the NBA season is just about cancelled. Nobody really cares, outside of myself and a handful of other people in this country, but it's looking like there will be no NBA season this year all because one group of millionaires can't agree on exactly how they want to split up millions of dollars with another group of millionaires. And that sucks.

The Knicks were actually a half way decent team last year. Not great, but a million times better than the D-league team level embarrassment that was trotted out for the beginning of this century. There was a little bit of hope that maybe we'd have a fun team to watch for the next couple of years, or at least until Amare Stoudemire's knees exploded and Carmelo Anthony got tired of losing to the Heat. But now we won't get to see the Knicks or any NBA team run around in shorts this year. Your NBA season is gone, America. All because these dickheads are so detached from reality that they've deluded themselves into thinking that their lives are anything but the ideal life for anybody. If you could go back in time and find any of these assholes as they shot jumpshots outside their housing project buildings or dusty middle of fucking no where basketball hoops that they would one day be running around playing that game they love for millions of dollars, I don't think one of them would say "I just hope we're given our fair share of the BRI. It's only right". They would do the normal thing for a person who grew up in abject poverty. Jump at the chance to play a game AS A CAREER. I think most people would play in the NBA FOR FREE. The tradeoff for being that one in a million lucky son of a bitch that gets to play professional sports is you keep your mouth shut and do as you're told. This isn't about what's right and wrong and fair or unfair. You're an NBA player. Be grateful, fucko. So Fuck Derek Fisher, Fuck Billy Hunter, Fuck the army of money hungry agents who would trade their grandmother for a bigger percentage of jersey profits. Fuck David Stern and the rest of his army of snake owners. Fuck those idiot players who stand behind Derek Fisher after every 28 hour negotiating session, the cavalcade of scrubs like Mo Evans, Etan Thomas and Rasual Butler. Fuck the Red Rocket, Matt Bonner and his red hair and awkward jump shot. Fuck all of you, assholes. May the NBA ban all of you for life and force you to do something else with your life, you ungrateful wastes of athletic ability and God given talent. Eat a dick.

The Lonely NBA Fan

And so it begins. You might be surprised to hear that the NBA has been in the midst of a lockout all summer, but after another Monday of useless discussions, David Stern has officially cancelled the first 2 weeks of the season. Unlike with the NFL,no tears will be shed for a potential lost NBA season, in fact I don't think anyone really cares at all right now. Maybe this will change a little when the baseball playoffs are done (although most people will probably care little for the Cardinals Rangers Series anyway) and the NFL and College Football have run their course. So maybe next Spring someone will care about the missing NBA. But then, pitchers and catchers will report and March Madness gets going. So yeah, nobody cares about the NBA cancelling games. Except me and like a few thousand other dudes and probably Bill Simmons. The loneliest sports fans alive. We are the 1%.

The NFL is now officially America's sport. You could infer that just from the round the clock coverage of the NFL lockout during the summer months that consisted mainly of Roger Goodell and various players walking around Midtown in suits. Contrast that with the NBA's lockout that has been getting the last 2 minutes of Sportscenter right after the professional lacrosse and Premiere League Soccer highlights. Derek Fisher and Billy Hunter mutter something on their way to their Escalades about no progress being made again, we're not going to budge, blah blah and that's it. Chris Berman and NFL Game day come on and all is right with the world. Except for the handful of die hard NBA fans like myself who spend their hard earned money on League pass so they can watch December games between the Hornets and the Raptors. It's not too late to learn the Ice Hockey rules, I guess. The NBA is the Khloe Kardashians of the sports fan world (using an analogy that all NBA players should be very familiar with); it gets to hang around with the other more popular and attractive sports, maybe are good for a laugh or two when the others are busy but nobody will miss it when it's not around, and it is uninteresting to everyone but black men in their 20s and thirties(keeping up with this analogy, Kim is of course the NFL and Courtney is the baseball playoffs). It's tough being an NBA fan. We're not going to have protests in the street, the majority of us will probably just sit at home and play NBA 2k12 instead, unlocking past Jordan classic games or simulating an actual NBA season.

As I've mentioned before the biggest problem for David Stern (and one that the NFL didn't have to worry about with it's work stoppage) is the potential loss of fans. The league was in a free fall financially to begin with, the majority of teams playing before disinterested half empty arenas, and this could be the final straw for those others who are on the fence. Millionaires arguing over percentages of profits won't endear themselves to the ordinary fan any more than corn rows and long white t's on the bench did. Except for us, the 1%, the hoops obsessed idiots who watch Hardwood Classics on NBA TV even though they know the outcome or sit through MSG's "March to the Finals" nonsense replays of the 94 Knicks season just to get their jones fixed. Nobody will be crying any tears for us or the extraordinarily wealthy owners and players. So what exactly is icing anyway?