Sports Chatter

A lot of interesting things have been happening in the world of sports.. the Lakers made it to the finals, the LeBrons did not.. Rafael Nadal finally lost at the French Open, leaving the door open for Roger Federer to finally win one.. Derrick Rose cheated on his S.A.T.. among many things. So todays' chit chat is going to cover these topics, complete with my random attempts to make everything humorous - hope you enjoy.

Kobe and his band of troopers made it back to the NBA Finals (this despite the countless amount of haters, LeBron dick-riders, Nuggets and Celtics fans, and friends of a woman by the name of Katelyn Faber, who used to work at The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera hotel in Cordillera, Colorado.. who wished it would not happen.. lol). The Nuggets put up a valiant effort - I was legitly concerned earlier on in the series - we were having trouble containing Melo (who is an absolute monster and never gets credit for it), our role players we're playing horribly, and we managed to make a fucking douchebag like The Birdman look good (anyone remember when he missed 1,000,000 dunks in a row in the dunk contest? - youtube it). Still, we fought hard, finally showed some grit (yes, you, Gasol, you fucking pussy), and look as if we may steamroll our way through the finals...

...LeBron, and well, his team of LeBron, did not fare as well. LeBron did it all; shit, he averaged 38-8-8 (the kind of numbers I put up on Nba Live w/ Kobe), hit a sick buzzer-beating, three point-bomb (he had enough highlight-worthy plays in one series to create a fucking career video montage), and was D'ing up like a free safety. Too bad the Cavaliers fucking suck. Seriously, that is the biggest testament to LeBron's greatness - Do you see that squad of srubs Cavaliers management has surrounded him with? Delonte West, Wally Sczerbiak, Daniel Gibson, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Zydrunas Ilgauskas - no superstar has ever done so much with a core group that looks that horrible on paper. Those niggas would have trouble winning games in the D-League without Bron Bron, and yet somehow he willed these bums to the Eastern Conference finals again. LeBron probably wants to bitch-slap Carlos Boozer right about now... (*Sidenote - How does LeBron blatantly get to display bad sportsmanship under the guise of competitive nature and not get lit up by the media for it? If that was Kobe, they wouldn't have been able to shut the fuck up about it - quit giving LeBron a pass, he is just as cocky, and as big of an asshole as any other superstar)

...Don't forget the Magic.. they played the role of an underdog to perfection. Nobody gave them their due, and they shut a lot of people the fuck up. I'm not even going to front I thought they were going to lose to the Celtics - but now they look like legit title contender. It was only a matter of time before the Cavs were exposed for what they are - LeBron, and a squad of D-Leaguers masquerading as professional ball players - and the Magic were the perfect team to do so. Everyone always makes a fuss whenever teams do not play well, play back to back game 7s, and face adversity; they always hype teams up who seem to be crushing competition in the playoffs. That logic is stupid - we smashed everyone last year and look what happened, the Celtics smashed us despite playing a game 7 in every series. Adversity is a good thing, I'm glad the Rockets took us to game 7, it builds character and the players gain valuable experience - Did all you LeBron fans really think the Cavs were doing something special when they swept a Detroit team that had given up on the year mid-season and a Hawks team with a majority of their best players nursing injuries? Orlando was stuck in tough battles, learning playoff basketball and they came out a better team because of it - the Celtics series was the best thing that could've happen to them. They saw how hard the Celtics worked, how scrappy they we're, and in turn learned what it took to win a tough series. I gotta give Dwight Howard some credit too; I still think he's overrated, his post game consists of two moves, jump and dunk, and is nowhere near Shaq at the same age, but he has come up big on the big stage. Talking all that shit about his coach not letting "a dominant player be dominant" put a humongous spotlight on his play for the rest of the postseason and he has backed up his words.

..Enough of the NBA talk though, I'll make my finals prediction later (Hmmm...wonder what team that will fucking be? lol). Rafael Nadal finally lost a match at the French Open. Crazy - Before his recent loss to Robin Soderling (Who?) of all people, he had one 31 straight matches at Roland Garros. He was on a quest for an unprecedented fifth title in a row, and a place as probably the greatest player ever on clay. I thought the man was unbeatable on clay; if anyone had a chance it would be Federer, and history has shown us then even he really had no chance(0-4 against Nadal at Roland Garros the past four years, 27-0 against everyone else). Nadal might even end up as the greatest player ever, not Federer; he's only 22, already has 6 grand slams, and is likely to win plenty more before his career is all said and done. 18-20 grand slams are easily within his reach... but Federer can finally win the slam that has eluded him his entire career, even though it looked as if Nadal was going to have a stranglehold on it for the next 5 years. Still, a win this year loses a siginificant amount of luster because Federer's nemesis has been knocked out of contention. He may never say it, but I know Federer has to be disappointed that the title will not go through Nadal..

..Derrick Rose cheated on his S.A.T... Really? Who gives a fuck? If you believe that pro prospects in basketball and football don't get perks, monetary and otherwise, you are fucking oblivious. Shit, LeBron did it, OJ Mayo did it, Jesus Shuttlesworth refused it (that is why He Got Game was such a great movie, it has an element of realness - elite prospects would be getting money thrown at them from every which way, and have butt-naked big titty bitches laid up in bed on their college visits begging to get fucked; I sincerely believe that is how it is - Why you think Stephon Marbury is so fucked up?). Academic misconduct by athletes has been going on for years, and the new wave of one-and-done players, like Rose and Mayo, will only add fuel to the fire. These guys see college as just a pit stop before superstardom, they have no reason to even go to class their last semester in school. Everything in our society caters to the ability of an athlete - admission standards are lower for athletes compared to regular students at almost every major university in the United States not named Notre Dame (And you wonder why they suck at football.. And how did fucking A.I.'s ghetto, ignorant ass get to go to Georgetown over numerous more qualified candidates?). If your a nigga and you are strong, can run fast, jump high - nobody gives a fuck how intelligent you are. They want the money, and the attention that great athletes bring to their universities - they use the black athlete and throw their duty as educators out the window. It's fucked up because niggas are not given the incentive to study as well as they play sports. They know they can do whatever they want and not have to deal with the consequences because everyone is fascinated by their athletic ability. If this is the system we use, then what is all the fucking hoopla about everytime allegations surface about a famous athlete's misconduct? We want these guys to act this way, in fact we fucking encourage it - if we want them to start honing their minds with the same dedication as they hone their bodies, then we need a fucking overhaul of the whole system. If not, then everyone just needs to shut the fuck up..

..and I'm out, next time I'll give ya'll my Nba Finals preview.

Sports Chatter

Allow me to re-introduce myself..! lol.

I'm back, I know it has been a minute. I was so busy catching up on school work that I procrastinated on all semester, preparing for graduation, graduating, celebrating(a little too much), moving out, moving on...etc, that I didn't really have the time to sit down and write like I want to. Now, I'm in Liberia for the summer - plotting my next move, working, studying for the LSAT, and mooching off my folks (c'mon, you know you all did it at some point). I've got nothing but time on my hands to search for inspiration and get my creative juices flowing - so on to the post..

I used to want to be a sports journalist - the next Michael Wilbon - until I realized to be successful it required more harassing, annoying, and pissing people off than I was willing to do (I've got this disdain for media types in general, definitely wasn't my cup of tea). However, my fascination with sports has not diminished at all. I probably spend more of my day looking up stats and reading sports articles than I do anything else (if you ask my girl she'll probably tell you that I spend more time on espn.com than I do with her..lol). This blog would be incomplete if it did not encompass my sports' obsession, so 'Sports Chatter' is my first foray into sports blogging - sports geeks should enjoy..

The NBA Playoffs has been dominating the sports circuit for the past month or so, with the prevailing topic of discussion being the anticipation of a dream finals matchup between Kobe and LeBron. David Stern is salivating over it, all fans (besides Nuggets and Magic fans) want it, and the media is begging for it. There is the vitamin water ads, the MVPuppet commercials, the countless atricles online and sports shows debating who's the better player.. really in the past couple weeks, I guarantee even if you hated basketball and avoided it like it was the bubonic plague you still have managed to see something pitting Kobe Bryant versus LeBron James.. and that brings me to the question.. Who is the better player?

Ultimately it's a matter of opinion, and if you ask any of the niggas who hang around me they will probably say my opinion is biased. So with that being said.. YES, I am a Kobe dick rider, and proud of it. If I was a white woman working at a hotel in Colorado and Kobe came in I would've willingly let him rape me, lol. At least I can admit it, some of my boys meat-ride LeBron so hard it borders on the fine line between heterosexuality and homosexuality, yet they claim to be just casual fans (Yes, you PJ....naah sike, you my nigga). I still feel like I can objectively debate the merits of the arguments for each player, so here goes..

See, The Black Mamba, is the definition of beauty on the basketball court. Bryant's work ethic, intensity, myriad of moves, impeccable fundamentals, and exceptional footwork is what seperates him from LeBron James and every other basketball player on the planet. I would argue that you could rank his footwork up at the top in terms of the best of all time. He has grown into an incredibly cerebral player, no longer just relying on his athleticism. However you want it, Kobe can give it to you. You can't resort to fouling him because he's wet from the charity stripe (Sidenote.. *Wet- lingo my boys and I use to describe just about anything.. a silky smooth J, how drunk we are - "Damn niggas was WET last night!", the degree of a female's arousal.. you get the point). To top it off, Kobe has the mentality of a mass murderer - he is Charles Manson on the basketball court. That killer instinct combined with his skills make him such a dangerous basketball player, ask just about anyone in the league who they fear most in games that matter and the answer would overwhelmingly be Bryant. He is as close to a lockdown defender as you'll get in an age of pro basketball defined by rules changes to boost offense (Even though surprisingly I think his defense is a little overrated - he roams too often, doesn't collect that many steals, and has a tendency to disrespect his man.. it's like c'mon Kobe these niggas are in the NBA, they can hit an open 12-footer. He's lockdown, but nowhere near lockdown in an M.J. or Scottie sense, or an Artest sense for that matter). Kobe's only weaknesses are himself and his sometimes questionable shot selection. His shot selection I can live with, I blame it on overconfidence; he attempts difficult shots because he feels he can make them (which a lot of the time he can), fact is though, that kind of shot selection isn't always conducive to efficiency on the basketball court. I can't live with his attitude; his attitude is what holds him back and gives credence to the arguments of his detractors. He has quit on his teammates, can become disengaged in any given game, and is quite frankly, universally recognized as an asshole.

Now on to LeBron. He is the only nigga who could tattoo "The Chosen One" on his body, and it literally be legit. It's as if God sat around one day and was like "Im bored, I'm going to create the prototypical basketball player - Jordan was an asshole, anyway". He is huge, strong, and fast as shit. Seriously, the man is probably 6'9" 270 pounds, and basket to basket with the ball in his hands might be fastest guy in the league. His athleticism is just fucking ridiculous - there is no way to even describe it, he's just a beast. Combine that with an incredible feel for the game, excellent court vision, unlimited range, and a love for the team concept and you've got the basketball Jesus. The man can play all five positions on the floor, defend all of them - and do it WELL. Everyone thinks I hate LeBron but I really don't (he is going to be better than Kobe to the point that it won't be an argument anymore, it's not a matter of if but when). He dominates games like we haven't seen since Shaq was in his prime. The easiest way to get a bucket is a dunk or layup, and LeBron can get to the hoop pretty much whenever he wants, making LeBron an incredibly efficient basketball player - Kobe doesn't have that luxury. However, I see it as a gift and a curse. LeBron gets so many easy buckets because of his athleticism that I think it is hindering the development of his overall offensive repertoire. While as when Kobe can't slash to the hoop to get easy buckets, he can kill you with his post game and the mid-range, LeBron can't do that.. and don't even get me started on the free throws (I just feel like for a player of his caliber it is inexcusable to shoot less than 80% from the free throw line..he missed five free throws in the fourth quarter of the last game, five! In a hotly contested game you can pretty much guarantee he'll start to brick them from the line, soon your going to start seeing Hack-A-Bron, you heard it here first). His offensive skill set is still somewhat in it's rudimentary stages.. his footwork definitely could use some development. His killer instinct is somewhat lacking in comparison to Kobe also - while LeBron treats games as if he is doing his own skit show, Kobe has the face of a gladiator in the coliseum. LeBron is by leaps and bounds a better teammate though, and can give you a lot more on the court than Kobe. He is a constant triple double threat, and will probably be the only player to even come close to Oscar Robertson's incredible feat of averaging a triple double for a whole season.

What the argument boils down to is the beauty or the beast, and in my case I've got to take the beauty. While you can attribute a lot of LeBron's skills to sheer athletic ability, the same cannot be said for Kobe. One game, One shot, One series.. in every hypothetical sense I'm taking Kobe over LeBron. But that's just me, the argument for LeBron is just as credible, and eventually at the end of his career we will be asking who is better Jordan or Bron Bron? ..but right now, The Black Mamba is still the king of the jungle.

What do you think? Check out this article, great in-depth piece, a couple of bloggers debating the arguments for each - http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-40-80/The-State-of-the-Great-Debate--Kobe-vs--LeBron-2009.html.