For the past several weeks, I’ve written these posts as a series of short thoughts instead of one coherent column. I admit that it’s a much lazier form of writing, but hopefully you’ve been entertained by it anyway.
1. I wrote a column last week making fun of Pitchfork’s writing style. I hope it wasn’t in bad taste or anything – I even added a disclaimer admitting that I know that Pitchfork’s writers are far better than I’ll ever be.
When I re-read it, I noticed a certain level of hypocrisy in the fact that I praised the hilarious blog Kissing Suzy Kolber even though in the past I’ve written that I’m firmly against the blogosphere’s hatred of Bill Simmons and Peter King. I feel as though some clarification is necessary.
KSK’s funniest writer is Drew Magary, and the way he skewers Simmons and King is so funny that I can’t help but laugh even though I like Simmons and King a lot. Magary’s writing style can best be described as highbrow vulgarity – his witty satire is wrapped in a thick layer of [expletive] jokes. In a way, his style is a lot like South Park’s. You’ll either love it or hate it. When South Park satirizes some aspect of society, they usually take some trivial flaw and create a caricaturized version that we can laugh at. I never got the feeling that anything South Park did was mean-spirited, and most of the time the show is brilliant (in fact, we’re approaching the point where The Simpsons vs. South Park could become a legitimate debate. I’d still go with The Simpsons, but South Park’s quality this decade comes close to how The Simpsons owned the ‘90s.)
Is it hypocritical to like Magary, Simmons and King? I don’t think so. I know that some of Magary’s edgier material can elicit a cringe (much like South Park), but he is in my view the funniest sportswriter working right now. He creates a caricature of Simmons and King and runs with it. I think that there are lesser talents that take gratuitous shots at Simmons and King and I’m not really a fan of that. THAT’S RIGHT, I’M VAGUELY CALLING OUT A STRAW MAN! RESPECT ME!
2 . 2. Rome is Burning is a damn good TV show and 30 for 30 is overrated. There, I said it.
It’s easy but misleading to lump Rome in with the rest of the sports media personalities who come off as bombastic without saying very much. Rome actually takes interesting, original angles on a lot of issues and his show is definitely worth watching on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about 30 for 30. Allen Iverson is one of my favorite basketball players ever and the Knicks-Pacers rivalry was a cornerstone of my childhood sports fandom. I assumed this meant that the documentaries about those two would be incredible. I found myself instead staring at the clock and waiting for them to end. They aren’t awful or anything, it’s just that they’re kind of boring. I watched another 30 for 30 about a subject which I thought seemed interesting but didn’t have a big role in my life in case I was biased by already knowing a good amount about Iverson and Pacers-Knicks. The documentary I picked (the one about the USFL) was pretty boring too. The movies are all well made and everything, but they feel kind of like someone reading a term paper out loud.
3. More mainstream sports media talk: the NFL Network’s analyst team is deeper than any other network’s. Deion Sanders is as good as Cris Collinsworth, and Michael Irvin, Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk are all just below those two. Even Warren Sapp and Steve Mariucci are pretty good.
I always liked Fox’s NFL broadcast better than CBS’s. My friends and I were talking about this and it turns out that if you’re an AFC fan, you prefer CBS and if you’re an NFC fan you prefer Fox. I assumed I’d be able to separate my love for the Cowboys from an objective appraisal of broadcast quality, but apparently not.
4. I 4. I watched the Super Bowl in a Steelers bar downtown. The whole trip was obviously more expensive than just staying home and watching, but the atmosphere when they played “Black and Yellow” during the commercial break right after Pittsburgh made it 28-25 was worth the price of admission.
5. 5. Football Outsiders had a great article about how Ben Roethlisberger is not as clutch as we think he is. As always, their logic is impeccable and the article is worth a read if you have the time.
I don’t think Roethlisberger’s stock should fall too far, however. At this stage in their respective careers, I believe that Manning, Brady, Brees, Rodgers and Roethlisberger are all more or less the same.
I’ve wrote about this before, but I think that there are too many good quarterbacks in the NFL now to say that there is one who is the best. Manning and Brady have the pedigree, but they no longer have the ability to buy time by getting away from a pass rush. Brees and Rodgers, at this point in their careers, are more explosive than Brady and Manning but each of them still makes too many dumb throws (Rodgers had three multi-INT games this year and Brees threw 22 picks). Roethlisberger has the athletic ability to make plays that the other four top quarterbacks simply can’t – the best example of which is the huge play in Baltimore when he escaped the Terrell Suggs sack. Roethlisberger is also more durable than the others in some respects. For example, a few big hits forced Rodgers into an awful game two weeks ago in Chicago (another multi-INT, no TD game for him). On the other hand, Roethlisberger seemed to play better as the slugfest versus Baltimore went on.
These five quarterbacks have different strengths and weaknesses and I’m indifferent between the five of them. It’s possible that Rodgers leaves everyone in the dust over the next few years, but I sincerely doubt it.
6 . 6. Finally, some basketball thoughts.
a. Kevin Garnett’s antics have made the Celtics more unlikable than everyone except the Heat. I used to like KG a lot (both in Minnesota and his first few seasons in Boston) but he’s so over the top with his fake tough guy routine that I can’t help but root against him at this point.
b. John Hollinger made a great case for why LeBron James should be MVP this year and I agree 100%. I don’t like what he did to Cleveland, and I was hoping we could give the award this year to Derrick Rose or Kevin Durant. Unfortunately, LeBron is having another monster season and, assuming the rest of the season plays out the way the first 50+ games did, he should get his third straight MVP.
c. Speaking of Rose and Durant, I couldn’t be happier that those two guys could be the face of the NBA for the next ten years. They are two of the top six players in the league and they carry themselves in a way that other superstars (KG, LeBron, Carmelo) do not.
d. I kind of like Kobe Bryant now. I’ve spent the last ten years rooting passionately against the guy but the unlikely emergence of Miami and Boston as villains has taken the edge off of my dislike of Kobe. Plus, he consistently provides some of the funniest quotes in the league. For example:
Reporter: Kobe, what do you think of the Andrew Bynum rumors?
Kobe: We discuss all kinds of rumors now. We were just talking about UFOs, actually.
It wouldn’t be all that funny if you were expecting him to make a joke OR if he said it with a phony smile in an attempt to endear himself to the media. Instead, he delivered it in a deadpan voice and with a glare that basically said “that’s a dumb [expletive] question.”
Kobe’s big problem used to be phoniness. He used to try so hard to be as universally loved as Jordan. I think he’s ditched that act, for the most part. If the Lakers make it past the Spurs and play the Celtics in the Finals, I’ll (grudgingly) pull for Boston just because I don’t want to give the morons who make the “Kobe > Jordan” argument any more ammunition.
e. For some reason, the Spurs remain completely underrated. Most basketball fans and ESPN analysts will still pick the Lakers over the Spurs to win the West even though San Antonio is running away with the conference right now. I feel like a Spurs-Celtics Finals is easily the most likely outcome at this point in the season.
f. I’ve been a Mavericks fan for nearly three years now (since my favorite player, Jason Kidd, got traded to them). The Nets are moving to Brooklyn soon and are probably going to change their uniforms and team name. I always thought I’d remain a fan of the new franchise, but I don’t really know if I want to anymore. New location, new name, new uniforms = no connection to the team I’ve spent the last 15 years rooting for.
I fully expect that within five years, the appeal of playing in a new arena in Brooklyn with Prokhorov and Jay-Z will draw some superstars to come play for the new team. Someday soon, they will be competitive and have a good fan base. Unfortunately, I won’t have any connection to that team. The Nets of my childhood will be dead and gone, and we won’t even be ironically cool like the Seattle Supersonics since nobody besides me and three of my friends ever cared about the Nets anyway. I can’t blame them for leaving, though I wish that they had tried moving to Newark as soon as that arena was built (the Meadowlands is an awful place to play sports since there’s no readily available public transportation there).
I already have the Dallas connection going with the Cowboys and I could see myself adopting the Mavericks once my actual favorite team ceases to exist.
g. Did you notice that I formatted this article in the manner of a Peter King “10 Things I Think I Think”? I just went meta! (note: after posting this, it looks like the numbers are cut off because the synergy between Blogger and Microsoft Word sucks. A few words look like they are cut off as well, but it's usually just "I" or "the" or something easy to figure out. Sorry for the ugliness. Aesthetics is everything.)
I won’t be writing regularly during the NFL offseason except for the occasional post about hipsterdom. Thanks to everyone for reading, and I’ll see you in September. Unless Roger Goodell ruins everything.
