It’s the Double-B here, fresh off another riveting week of NBA Off-Season Action. Can you believe Ron Mercer, Calbert Chaney and prize-catch Eric Dampier all signed this week! Opening night can’t come soon enough. You know things are bad when you find yourself glued to the ticker to see if Loren Woods finally signed. Speaking of His Woodness, I can’t help but think that Shaq is absolutely reveling in his decision to sign with the Heat—come October he’ll be going through Eastern Conference frontlines like hot urine through a snow bank. Well before I almost turned my attention away from basketball and started to actually watch the CFL, two fantastic events occurred last week that both involved a subject of which I am most familiar: humiliation. The first involves a team on a grand scale, the second is, well, personal. Enjoy.
The Olympic Bling
‘U.S. routs Angola’. Quick, spot the irony! It was only 12 years ago that former Olympic Diplomat Charles Barkley referred to Angola as a nation of "spear-chuckers" before the Dream Team dismantled them. Now, with the U.S. team performing like a eunuch in a bathhouse this story is a reason to celebrate.
While everyone expected much more competitive games this summer, no one predicted that this might be the least likeable team ever—least of which the NBA, who exclusively chose popular jersey-sellers for the team. In fact, the 2004 Dream Team is turning out to be as easy to cheer for as that other American team competing in Iraq. Even U.S. fans are rooting against these guys.
It is a disaster. For starters, take Allen Iverson…please. Four years ago this guy calls a press conference to air a grievance that his coach, current Olympic coach Larry Brown, actually makes him practice. Now he is co-captain. But then Iverson also provided easily the most ill-timed quote ever last week when, rather than waxing on about the Olympic idea of global unity through athletics, he said that the U.S. team needs to approach the Games “like a war”. Nothing like good ol’ war-time rhetoric about crushing desperate have-nots coming from the World’s last Super Power. Nice.
And what happened to Carmelo Anthony? This golden boy is one year removed from gracing the cover of a Wheaties box in Syracuse and now he’s Larry Brown’s biggest headache. Who would have guessed that on a team with Iverson, Marbury, and Odom that Carmelo would turn out to be the Donnie Wahlberg of the group?
Personally, I can’t wait for Team USA to finally get eliminated. And when Richard Jefferson inevitably shoots another 2 for 12 from behind the arc, don’t be surprised to see Tim Duncan jump from The Queen Mary into a dinghy and defect back to the Virgin Islands.
The Greatest Story Ever Deposed
Ahhhh..the personal story. Well move over R. Kelly, there is a new scumbag in Los Angeles! I’m talking about my man Donald Sterling. In case you missed it, the millionaire owner of the “Worst Franchise in History” recently testified about paying for sex with a woman he described as “trash”. It is nice to see that sex crimes are now not the sole domain of NBA players or anyone who has stepped foot in UNLV.
My first reaction to reading this story was not moral outrage, but basketball outrage. You mean to tell me that this pathetic hard-on will fork out $6,000 on a fur coat for a hooker and he can’t manage to resign Quentin Richardson?
But what makes this story so great is the woman herself. See before she had the good fortune to be romanced by Donald, she spent her time canoodling with another upstanding citizen—Mike Tyson. Yes, that Mike Tyson. This woman spent the 8 previous months living at Camp Tyson as Iron Mike’s Geisha. But it gets better. In order to earn this privilege, she had to prove her worth by passing a qualifying fornication exam with one of his bodyguards. I swear this column is writing itself.
My only struggle now is figuring out who I have the least amount of respect for: (a) Donald Sterling, a man who pays for sex with one of Mike Tyson’s sloppy seconds then brags about it to the DA during a public deposition, or (b) the prostitute, who chose to sleep with a bankrupt psychopath then move on to the most notoriously cheap owner in the NBA.
I just can’t wait for next off-season when Donald Sterling has to negotiate with one of his players. I mean, how can you take this guy seriously when he inevitably tells you he doesn’t have enough money? What hitting the Sunset Strip with Michael Irvin this weekend? Taking a trip to Hef’s grotto? Got a date with one of Rick James old scraps? I’m Donald Sterling Bitch!
But I digress. In the end, I just hope David Stern comes down as hard on this piece of trash as he would if he was playing for the Portland Trail Blazers. My suggestion: A week in locked windowless cell watching old Clippers tapes. I can’t think of anything worse.
Well that’s enough revelry in other people’s humiliation…for one week anyway. I just can’t wait until next week, when it looks like I’ll have ample material with the inevitable car-wreck that is Andre Rison joining the Argos. Didn’t Beyonce burn his dog a few years ago? I may not have my facts straight on that one.
Until next time,
- The Blue Baller
The Blue Baller is a lover, fighter, and Toronto-based freelance writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
I ended up in a Coney Island orphanage where I learned to speak from watching Brent Musburger call NBA games. Growing up, my days were then filled with playing basketball. That was until I had my legs broken when a dice game with Lloyd Daniels turned sour. It was then I began to write, mostly articles covering local pick-up games. The elders would pay me for my words with food, mostly cough syrup and cheese.