Oh, Paul Pierce Christ

My father is a wise man. (That’s not him in the Dickerson jersey.)

He knows things.

About 8 years ago, at the peak of his soothsaying, he predicted the downfall of the National Basketball Association.

Sadly, although several of our favorite sites would try to convince you otherwise, he was right.

I could care less that the players wear dem danggone long shorts now. Or that they sport tattoos. Or shoot people at strip clubs.

The problem is that it’s no longer about the game play, it’s about everything else.

It’s about Paul Pierce’s fake? injury.

It’s about whether Passing Kobe, Shooting Kobe or Sexually-Assualting Kobe will show up.

It’s, somehow, about Bill Russell teaching KG Celtic history.

The problem is that the League cannot accept that it’s no longer the late 80s or early 90s. I mean, Seriously?

And all this hype and desire to return to the “good ol’ days”, in turn, leads to over-aggressive officiating (see the first two games of the Finals), over-paid rookies in hopes of The Next MJ and announcing exchanges that go something like this:

Mike Breen: Paul Pierce is one of the premiere scorers in this league today.

Jeff Van Gundy: Paul Pierce is one of the best Celtics ever to put on a uniform!

Mark Jackson: Paul Pierce is as good as Larry Bird!

Michelle Tafoya: God, I wish Paul Pierce would just impregnated me already!

All joking aside, what has the NBA come to when Paul Pierce is compared to Larry Bird (yes, the comparison was actually made)? I don’t think I need to tell you that, as far as playmaking skills go, Pierce and Bird are not even in the same Garden.

The bottom line is that it’s no longer 1988. Magic and Bird aren’t going at each other (except via commercial in baggy tank tops). And the NBA we grew up with is no more. (sigh)

Thoughts?

This kind of blew me away. I love the originality. You?

Football, in the cold? Commence whining

There is one argument in professional football that draws more whines than any other.

It’s not the validity of preseason games, or even instant reply.

It’s the site of future Super Bowls.

Recently, the league announced that the 2012 version of the world’s biggest game will be played in Indianapolis.

This, apparently, made ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski very upset.

Apparently, Gene would prefer enjoying his complimentary Diet Coke and Chipotle inside a 72-degree climate controlled stadium in Arizona — rather than a 72-degree climate controlled stadium in Indiana.

Note: If you have to write a sidebar defending your completely uncontroversial column, it was probably a waste of space.

In between my involuntary vomiting over the fact that people get paid to write garbage like this, I pulled out the following one-liners and nuggets of wisdom for your enjoyment:

I don’t get it. Playing in a Super Bowl is supposed to be a reward, not a reason to visit your local North Face outlet. And attending a Super Bowl as a fan is supposed to be the experience of a lifetime, a chance to break out multiple bottles of SPF 30….The only things you’ll break out in Indy are space heaters.

–Aren’t the playoffs a “reward” for playing well in the regular season? Because they are frequently held outside. Also, raise your hand if you’ve been to a Super Bowl? Final tally: 0. Editor’s note: Space heaters are not allowed in Lucas Oil Stadium.

That’s another thing. The owners needed four secret votes to decide between Indianapolis, Houston and Glendale. Let’s see: In Houston and Glendale, there’s this orange orb called the sun. In Indianapolis, there’s this white orb called a snowball. What was there to decide?

–(silence)

Maybe the owners owed Colts owner Jim Irsay a favor. Maybe Irsay promised them a cameo in Peyton Manning’s next cell phone commerical. Or maybe Mystery, Alaska, wasn’t available.

–Gene’s notes to self: Don’t forget, three derivatives of the word “own” minimum in this graph. Also, Peyton Manning doing lots of commercials = funny. Lastly, reference funny Netflix movie everyone else saw (and forgot) 10 years ago.

I guess we just don’t see the Super Bowl in the way Gene does (most likely because we don’t walk around gathering free goodies at Media Day). You simpletons don’t see the experience of a lifetime, free of corporate sponsors stealing your seats or endless pageantry (see photo above).

I’ll put it this way for all of our 13-year-old female readers: This column is the girl on “My Super Sweet Sixteen” lobbying daddy for the Range Rover instead of that peasantly Beemer.

But daddy, I want my Super Bowl in Glendallllle.

The Illusion of Parity

Damn, it’s been awhile people.

Had a lot on the (small, plastic) plate…wedding, honeymoon, the usual.

Well, we are back, and with a vengeance. (Usually pointed in a specific direction.) Tonight (as usual), the NBA is drawing the ire of the Cut.

As I finished watching Kobe wrap up a 2-point first half against the Spurs, one of my biggest complaints about the NBA solidified in a box score right before my eyes – the illusion of parity.

It’s insane to me that this year’s playoffs have garnered some of the NBA’s highest television ratings ever.

Take a look at the last four teams standing: Boston, Detroit, L.A., San Antonio.

Would you have put your money down on any other four teams when the playoffs began? Sure the Hornets, Hawks and Cavs had nice runs that were more than mildly entertaining. But let’s get real – the last 5 years in the NBA have been owned by a select few – San Antonio, Detroit and Los Angeles. All of which are still standing with just one round to go.

With these three exceptions, any one team can be the toast of the town (and media) one season, and completely out of the public eye the next. (See: Phoenix Suns)

The Chicago Bulls are the most recent victim of this roller coaster ride. Two seasons ago, Chicago was the team rising quickly to the top of the Eastern Conference. A collection of young talent that could finally threaten the Piston’s stranglehold.

Yesterday, the Bulls won the rights to the first pick in the 2009 draft after finishing with a 33-49 record and missing the playoffs.

So goes life in the League.

In October, every fan has hope her team can make it rain confetti come June.

Luckily for Stern and Co., a good chunk is still clinging to this false hope right through April. Just ask New Orleans.

The NBA…and its hypocrisy

About the 16-second mark…KG, getting frustrated that the Celtics are overrated.

Is this no longer a suspension?

Can Amare appeal the Suns’ exit last year?

Oh yea, and Commissioner David Stern was at the game. So I doubt he missed it.

we don’t need no stinkin’ press pass – pt. 4

Some day soon, a book will come out entirely centered around the journalistic phenomenon we now call blogging. Specifically sports blogging. It won’t be written by a blogger, but some Ph.D. at a liberal arts school. The book will analyze all the ways in which this new form of media has effected “traditional sports reporting” and how the landscape of event coverage has changed forever. One of the chapters in this book will be an expansion of this article (or at least the beginning of it), published in the New York Times on Monday, April 21. The chapter will center around access, and who deserves what amount. But before all that happens, we wanted to address this issue in a five-part series. We will view the access question from the perspective of all the major parties involved: owners, players, reporters, bloggers, and we’ll end on Monday with the most important perspective of them all — the fan’s.

Part 4 – The Bloggers

Listen, just because I didn’t land an internship with the Backwoods Ledger out of college, doesn’t mean I can’t give the people what they want.

The popularity of sites like Deadspin and The Big Lead has shown that sports fans don’t have to turn to their local paper for day-old box scores. Fans can get stories the big dogs are afraid to print, and they can get them immediately.

The writing is a bit too snarky, you say? Check out Free Darko — a downright insightful NBA blog. Coverage too varied for your particular taste? Storming the Floor will make you crave March Madness seeding. Even if you just want a good laugh, FireJoeMorgan is there for you.

Bloggers have it all.

So with all these great prosers — why shouldn’t bloggers be allowed in professional locker rooms?

We do more investigative reporting than newspaper reporters, anyway. Beat writers get the quotes/stories/interviews they want by coddling their sources for years. Every story they break that has even the slightest negative connotation has 5 anonymous sources.

Bloggy don’t play that.

If someone has dirt, we discuss it. Remember when Harold Reynolds (by far the best talking head on Baseball Tonight) got the boot from the World Wide Leader? Without blogs, you would never have heard anything about it. You just tune in one night, and bam, he’s gone.

Newspaper reporters have cultivated this horrendous image of bloggers to use to their advantage. As long as the uneducated, prim and proper public associates bloggers with stoned slackers, they’ll have a hard time getting respect.

Now a few of us have made the transition smoothly. In one of the few crossovers from blog to mass media, True Hoop, an NBA blog authored by Henry Abbott, was snatched up by espn.com.

And according to Henry, his sport has one of the most forward-thinking (yet most basic) approaches to bloggers in the locker room:

The only place I have ever been treated any differently because of my medium is in Mark Cuban’s Bizarro-land. But I know of no other place in the NBA where a serious blogger, who has been around for a while, would be expected to be treated as a second-class citizen.

I think the NBA did the perfect thing. From what I understand, they didn’t tell the teams they have to credential any set number of bloggers or anything. They said there can be no special ban of bloggers, and they have to go into the mix with everybody else.

That makes perfect sense to me. You look at how much space you have, you look at all the credential requests you have, and you make some hard decisions, based on stuff like who’s professional, who has influence, who has audience, and all the rest.

People who read blogs don’t think it’s hard to figure out which bloggers belong there and which ones don’t.

Henry sums it up perfectly.

All we want is to be treated like every other writer. Take away that giant-ass credential from the Sun-Times and those 30 years slaving away on agate in Richmond, Ind., and who would draw the bigger readership?

I guess I’ll let the Web (and newspaper layoffs) answer that one.

we don’t need no stinkin’ press pass – pt. 2

Some day soon, a book will come out entirely centered around the journalistic phenomenon we now call blogging. Specifically sports blogging. It won’t be written by a blogger, but some Ph.D. at a liberal arts school. The book will analyze all the ways in which this new form of media has effected “traditional sports reporting” and how the landscape of event coverage has changed forever. One of the chapters in this book will be an expansion of this article (or at least the beginning of it), published in the New York Times on Monday, April 21. The chapter will center around access, and who deserves what amount. But before all that happens, we want to address this issue in a five-part series starting today. We will view the access question from the perspective of all the major parties involved: owners, players, reporters, bloggers, and we’ll end on Monday with the most important perspective of them all — the fan’s.

PART 2 — THE PLAYERS

Today’s perspective is that of the player. And after much Fynal Cut editorial board discussion, it was decided this particular segment could not be done from the first-person point of view. Here’s why:

As far as being opinionated on the media (whether it be traditional reporters or bloggers), we’ve separated professional athletes into two camps:

One group (in the extreme minority) write their own blogs. These range from the ungodly annoying to the extremely insightful and entertaining. It’s fairly obvious that some athletes (cough, Schilling, cough) do this with the specific intent of avoiding media contact. It’s direct contact with the fan. Cut out the middle man.

On the other hand, some, like Gilbert Arenas, probably just do it for fun — which feels pretty damn good to say.

The player blog has even spun off into a news topic of its own — friend of the Cut Ryan Corazza now writes specifically about athlete’s blogs for ESPN the Mag.

The other 98%, which would be most players in most leagues, could care less who gets credentialed to be in the locker room. As long as they aren’t bothered.

Few athletes actually open up to these individuals anyway, so why would they care for which publication these pests write?

I could see a few potential problems developing out of bloggers being allowed in the locker room.

The first is something like this happening, which would be horrific to bloggers everywhere.

The first time a player complains about a writer — who later turns out to be a blogger (gasp!) — would signal the end of the basement dwellers in the locker room. Ideally, bloggers shouldn’t be subject to different treatment than the regular reporters. But the fact of the matter is, bloggers in the locker room will be a disruption at first.

The reporters will question whether the bloggers should be there. The bloggers will have an air of confidence in thinking they will soon be replacing the beat reporters. And the athlete will be thrown out of his comfort zone and complain to the media relations person.

In the end, the athlete will be fine with bloggers in the stadium, on the team plane, in the shower locker room…until they get annoyed. Which is going to make it extremely difficult for bloggers to do their jobs.

We can only hope players like Gil will try and talk some sense into their fellow players.

But what do you have to say about…THIS!?

For a good majority of this week, the focus of my conversations with BabyJ has been the ridiculousness of the NBA MVP coverage. It’s come up a scary number of times.

Today, a major media outlet (that we enjoy greatly) gave its take on the shitstorm.

We battled the depression with Onion clips like this and this.

I would say everyone’s pretty used to critiques on the media. But in one week, it couldn’t get any worse, right?

Holy. Christ.

This is ESPN’s new investigatory journalism?

A sick twist of Candid Camera, 60 Minutes and everything on Telemundo?

At least it involved some serious discussion first (sarcasm included free).

I imagine the “roundtable discussion” they frequently show on the program went something like this:

Main douchy reporter: OK guys, I’ve spent the last 14 years getting the Dominican authorities to release this document. I’ve done some things we must never speak of…Anyway, so we get Miguel Tejada to come into this fake interview. We’ll chat about — oh I don’t know — his background or something to distract him. Then BAM — I bust out this! (pulls out birth certificate)

Subsequent douchy reporters: Excellent!…Super!…Pulitzer, here we come!…

Why is this news? So he lied about his age. He was poor kid coming to a new country, I’m sure no one in a similar situation would ever think of doing such a thing.

Plus, he’s 2 freakin’ years older. 2! It’s not like he’s 50.

It appears your local Channel 5 “gotcha!” brand of journalism has spread to the Leader.

The Fynal Say: Josh Levin

Here at the Cut, we always like to bring you fresh content.

At least when it doesn’t get in the way of our real jobs. Or playing Wii. Or drinking.

But other than that, we always want to give you as many perspectives from as many people as possible. That being said, I’m proud to introduce a new FynalCut feature – The Fynal Say.

And boy, have we started off with a bang for our inaugural piece.

Josh Levin, an associate editor at Slate, was kind enough to be our first. If you don’t read Slate, you’re probably leading an aimless life, destined to die young. If you do, join us we discuss insanely tall basketball players, John Kruk’s hair and Coach K on the scoreboard at a Wizards game…

—Let’s start off insanely broad. What’s the biggest flaw in the way we cover sports right now? Or, in what facet is sports media most in need of improvement?

I’m not sure this quite answers your question, but one problem the sports media has to face these days is that athletes really don’t have any need to talk to the press these days. Back in the day, a newspaper story or a Sports Illustrated profile was a big deal. People got to know their heroes through the papers and magazines, so star athletes had a strong incentive to talk to the press. Now, everyone gets their news from TV and the Web. LeBron James can get famous and rich by doing commercials and hosting the ESPYs without ever talking to a newspaper reporter. Also, guys like Barry Bonds and Curt Schilling use the Web to bypass the media and take their messages straight to the fans. There will always be great stories in sports, and there will always be plenty of fascinating people to write about, but it’s probably never been harder for writers to get an unguarded look at a superstar at the top of his game — maybe I’m forgetting something, but I can’t remember reading any great profiles of Tiger Woods or LeBron or Kobe Bryant recently.* Of course, it’s possible to write a great, insightful piece about an athlete without getting any access — see Pat Jordan’s hilarious incisive takedown of Jose Canseco on Deadspin — but it’s a lot harder.

*There was a pretty stellar profile of Kobe in Esquire awhile back, but the pouty image Bryant portrayed just furthers Levin’s assessment.

—”Freshness” is a big key in journalism these days, what with the invention of and complete/utter dominance by the Internet. It seems as though maybe this hinders creative, well thought-out stories because they aren’t “first on the scene.” How do you balance Web freshness, with also being the first to have a particular story.

Stealin’ the Lucky Charms…

Yesterday, on April Fool’s Day, Tooch graced you with his impeccable memory and wove a tale of Crystal Pepsi and inappropriate facial hair.

Today, he’s back. And with a real NBA playoff preview.

Let’s begin with the tricycle race that is the Eastern Conference playoff competition.

Led by the stud-heavy Celtics, the East boasts just a few teams (Boston, Detroit and Orlando) that have any remote chance of winning a championship.

 

Cleveland, Washington, Toronto and Philadelphia have all locked up their spots, but none boast enough star power to compete with those power players – or a single Western Conference playoff team for that matter.

 

One E.C. team to keep an eye out for – besides the Celtics – will be the Wizards. Gilbert Arenas has been medically cleared to play and could return to the team any day now. Let’s just hope he doesn’t commit suicide the minute he’s sent to the bench. The Wizards, when they are completely healthy, are a dangerous team and maybe, just maybe, could slip past the Celtics. (Just don’t count on it though.)

In the end, I – like the rest of the NBA-watching world – will be absolutely shocked if the Celtics don’t cruise to an NBA Finals appearance. Kevin Garnett is at the top of his game right now, Ray Allen is relatively healthy, and even “Big Baby” Glenn Davis is contributing. One of the only things working against Boston is the incredible amount of pressure on the team to return the city to the glory it enjoyed in the 80s. I’m going to go out on a limb here though, and predict that that pressure will send the Celtics the way of their Boston brethren Patriots this year.

 

You read that right. In what I’m sure will be a shocking pick to all of you, I’m going with the San Antonio Spurs to reign as champions yet again this season. The Spurs have won eight straight games now and, as usual, are getting huge contributions from their role players (Jacque Vaughn, anyone?).

New Orleans is having a fantastic season as well and boasts this year’s regular season MVP in Chris Paul, but nobody – and I mean nobody – can compete with the postseason experience of the Spurs. Give credit to the rest of the Western Conference though, which has played an absolutely incredible season. Look no further than the Golden State Warriors, who – with a 45-29 record – have NOT even locked up a playoff spot. That’s just how damn good the West is.

Snoop Dogg, rejoice – the West Coast is undoubtedly on top this year, and it looks like they mean business.