jack’s musings

So the big news yesterday was that Ron Artest is likely heading to the Houston Rockets.  However Yao Ming decides to let fly with this gem: “Hopefully, [Artest isn’t] fighting anymore and going after a guy in the stands.”  Ok Yao, that was indavisable to do that publicly.  However what was more inavisable was Artest’s response:

I understand what Yao said, but I’m still ghetto.  That’s not going to change. I’m never going to change my culture. Yao has played with a lot of black players, but I don’t think he’s ever played with a black player that really represents his culture as much as I represent my culture. Once Yao Ming gets to know me, he’ll understand what I’m about.  If you go back to the brawl, that’s a culture issue right there.  Somebody was disrespecting me, so he’s got to understand where I’m coming from. People that know me know that Ron Artest never changed.

Not only is it pretty apparent that Artest hasn’t learned anything, he did his best to reinforce negative black stereotypes!  Let the deathwatch begin.

I’m always stunned at how blindingly stupid some professional athletes can be.  These people are living out the dreams of millions and making millions in the process, and all one has to do to avoid derailing the gravy train is to maintain only the most basic and rudimentary American behavioral standards.  If you can accomplish this one goal, you can at least be guaranteed that your playing career will be judged by your on-field performance as opposed to your off-field shenanigans.  Perhaps this is why I find Travis Henry’s latest drug violation particularly moronic, but I think there’s a little more to this than just a failed drug-test.  I think Travis should be  carved into the Mount Rushmore of professional athlete fuck-ups.

The classic example typical example these days of the fuck-up athlete is the Vick family.  Older brother Michael of course has recently filed for bankruptcy protection  after effectively destroying his career through a dog-fighting ring.  Say what you will about the fairness (or lake thereof) of his punishment, but if I only had to “not run a dog-fighting ring” to maintain my continuous stream of absurdly high income, then I think I’d manage to find a new hobby.  (And let’s not forget about little brother Marcus!)

That all being said, I think the new poster boy should now and forever be Travis Henry.  Henry came out of the University of Tennessee in the 2001 draft and was a part of the Vols’ 1998 national championship team.  He’s bounced around several teams and was recently released by the Denver Broncos  after the team basically gave a vote of no-confidence to his commitment.  Henry however is also famous for having fathered nine children with nine different women.  OK, so if he’s rolling 9×9, he’s probably pretty reliant on that massive paycheck from the NFL and is likely getting pretty desperate for a new paying gig.  (Especially when he’s dropping bad checks in Tennessee.) However Henry decided in 2007 to resume a healthy hippy lettuce habit and failed an NFL drug test during an unprecedented era of drug paranoia in professional sports.  Many thought that this would have been the end of the road for a colossally boneheaded athlete, but he somehow managed to beat the rap by going with the unprecedented “Uh, it was second-hand smoke!” defense.  While even O.J. Simpson might have thought that defense was ridiculous, the NFL actually bought it and dismissed the failed test.

If I’m Travis and I just dodged a mortar blast of a bullet, I’m probably going to try and keep a couple ZIP codes in-between me and the nearest hemp rope, but 9×9 decided to fire one up again and has failed another drug test for marijuana.  Let’s just pause and allow that blinding stupidity to sink in.  I’ll wait.  I feel a slow clap is in order.  Adios Travis.  Thanks for playing, and drive home safely.

I’m assuming this story is going to be all over ESPN and the talk radio circuit tomorrow (or later today depending on your perspective) so I figured I’d take a crack at it now. If you didn’t click on the link, the Houston Astros’ starting-turned-bullpen pitcher Shawn Chacon apparently jumped Ed Wade by strangling him and tossing him to the ground after a verbal altercation. Yikes.

I know when a team is in a free-fall, chemistry issues tend to come up. I’ve seen players get into fights with managers, but has anyone ever heard of an instance in which a player decided to practice judo on a GM? Chacon is currently signed to a one-year $2 million contract with the ’stros, and I’m willing to bet he’ll never pitch again the majors given his poor performance and tendency to pile-drive GMs. As a friend of mine once said, “This is more fucked than a box full of hangers.” We’ll see what happens in the coming days.

Though I have to wonder if Chacon said,”Wadey, tell me how the floor tastes!” before he decided to go Greco-Roman on him. (I’m hoping that joke never gets old.)

One of the strange things I picked up during my time in Nashville was an affinity for hockey. Don’t get me wrong, I still have no idea what’s going on other than the vague idea that some guys on skates are trying to get some black thing into a net thing using sticks. However I certainly appreciate it more than I did before Nashville. That all being said, I’m greatly concerned about the news of ESPN’s mullet-wearing, gaudy suit sporting (not pictured), and no-doubt Camaro driving Barry Melrose becoming the new coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

On the hockey level, a quick glance at Melrose’s Wikipedia page reveals that he hasn’t coached since the 1994-1995 season. Before that, he only coached in the NHL starting with the 1992-1993 season. To those counting, that’s a grand total of 3 seasons of NHL coaching experience followed by 13 seasons of being an analyst for ESPN. I may not know much about hockey, but it doesn’t take Brian Bellows (NSFW Language) to tell you that that’s a bad idea. (For the record, I desperately need his jersey.)

More importantly, at a media level Barry has been the proverbial “mourner desperately swinging a shovel preventing a rabid group of undertakers from putting the final nail in the coffin” of hockey since the recent lock out. (Proverbialness not guaranteed.) As far as I can tell, he was the only Hockey analyst that ESPN even had. So where the hell do they go from here? Unless they can lure Don Cherry and his unbeatably-ridiculous-so-don’t-even-try collection of suits away from the CBC, then I fear that hockey will become Canada’s soccer.

I’m sure most folks have read the accounts of Javon Walker being found unconcsious, robbed, and with a caved-in dome on the Las Vegas strip. (Yes, that Javon Walker.) Javon had earlier been in a Las Vegas club spraying 15 large worth of Dom Perignon over a crowd, and the immediate thought by most was that he pissed off some posse that was also in the club. However the immediate question is, where was Javon’s entourage? Why was he found alone one the strip at 6 in the morning? It’s being reported today that Javon explained:

I was just back at my room, and at about 5:30 in the morning, I got a knock at the door. I opened it, and three guys with guns were there. They cracked me in the head a few times, knocking me unconscious. They then robbed me of everything I had; my watch, money, everything. Somehow they got me to a car and dropped me off in the street. That’s what happened.

At first glance I thought, “Wow, this guy was just the victim of a planned robbery.” But after pausing for a second to think about the implications of this statement, I quickly came to the realization that he’s probably stretching the truth a bit.
Let’s think about this for a second. Firstly, who opens a hotel door at 5:30 in the morning to anyone? And more importantly, who opens the door to a bunch of menacing looking dudes? It certainly wasn’t housekeeping coming in at 5:30 in the morning. Let’s assume for a second that Javon didn’t look out the peep-hole and just blindly opened the door. These dudes beat him up, take his gear, and haul him out to their car. Now let’s pause here for a second. Firstly, what criminal kidnaps a dude to dump him on a street after knocking him unconcious and then taking all his gear? You’ve got everything already. However more important that all of these little hiccups, this was in THE BELLAGIO. That’s right, that Bellagio. Assuming these dudes could even get up to Javon’s suite, don’t you think there would have been some footage of this supposed kidnapping? I’m willing to bet every square foot of that casino has around 9 cameras trained on it, so I’d be a bit surprised that a bunch of dudes hauling a body through the floor of a casino would go unnoticed. Did they dress him up “Weekend at Bernie’s” style and just haul him through the floor? Did they stuff him in a duffle bag and drag him through the casino? Did they bake him in a cake and wheel him out? Essentially, I argue it’s IMPOSSIBLE to drag a body through a casino without looking suspicious.

So Javon, what actually happened?

It would appear that the Chicago Bears have continued self-policing their roster by releasing RB Cedric Benson after his DUI bust this past weekend.  Observers will note that he picked up a boating DUI in the spring, and that Benson was clearly just continuing his life goal of getting a DUI in every type of motorized vehicle.  I was hoping to see him get liquored up and strap himself to one of of those fan/go-kart/hang-glider things, but it looks like the Bears stopped this potentially incredible streak before it could ever get off the ground.  I guess they’ll have to find someone else to run into a pile of dudes and fall down.  I wonder if anyone will ever draft a RB with dreads out of Texas ever again?

I noticed a couple of days ago that Bronco’s quarterback and Vanderbilt alum Jay Cutler was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. It’s also been reported that his condition affected his performance in 2007. However I don’t believe either of these revelations. This is clearly an attempt by Cutler’s camp to make the QB seem mortal. He’s actually such a good quarterback that the league couldn’t possibly comprehend his greatness should he willfully compete at full strength. He and his posse are well aware that should a quarterback show up and throw a touchdown pass on every snap, every other team in the league would likely disband. As a response to his greatness and his growing exhaustion with his daily struggle to appear like a normal person, they concocted this little “diabetic” story. Sure he had a lot of incomplete passes and interceptions last year, but you have to understand, Jay cutler doesn’t miss passes, he decides the receiver isn’t worthy and places the ball in a place where he knows he won’t catch it. This could even be a pass right in the numbers. He’s just keeping down so the league doesn’t fold. This whole “diabetic” thing is clearly just a cover to help him appear like a regular person. Now he doesn’t have to try so hard every day to appear fallible.

I made a tirade a few weeks ago about how much I dislike the “one-and-done” aspects of college basketball, and I wrote that I thought the rule made a mockery of the collegiate process. However while I certainly dislike the rule, I certainly don’t think the current “student-athlete” academic experience is one ripe with the pursuit of knowledge. Take University of Buffalo point guard Andy Robinson who tried to get someone to write a paper for him by posting this ad on Facebook:

I am paying anybody who have read the book ‘there are no children here’ by Alex Kotlowitz $30-40 which in some classes you have to read at UB (even more money if you have to read the book a little more!!) to write a 3-4 page paper, on a couple questions which was assigned.

That’s right, he placed this ad on Facebook, a service designed to allow the world to see your posts. The blinding stupidity of Robinson posting an ad on Facebook to assist in cheating is only rivaled by his command of the English language. He’s has been done suspended indefinately from team.

Um, is that TO in the background of a porno?

So I’m sure most folks are well aware that Knicks “coach” Isiah Thomas is finally out. Well, technically he hasn’t been fired per se. He’s been reassinged to another “roll” in the organization in which he’s banned from contacting current players. I’d argue in fact that this assignment is in fact worse that being fired, as now he has to go through another public shaming even after he did his best to shame himself season after season while coaching the Knicks. With the assumption that Thomas’ career in the NBA is over, let’s recap some highlights of his glorious career in the Association.

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- He, and his Piston teammates, walked off the floor with 7.9 seconds remaining on the clock at the end of an Eastern Conference finals game against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in 1991. (They also refused to shake hands with the Bulls after the game!)

- Publicly blamed a rookie Michael Jordan for not giving him the rock enough in the 1985 All-Star Game.

- Lost the Knicks $11.6 million in a sexual harassmant lawsuit in 2006.

- Led the Knicks to four straight 49+ loss seasons. Interestingly enough, the team recorded a season of 33-49 in the 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 seasons, and they locked in a record of 23-59 in the 2005-2006 and 2007-2008 seasons. Do I detect an emerging pattern of awful? AND they did this All with the 2nd highest payroll in the NBA at 88,877,161 in the 2007-2008 season. (Most of that money went to Stephon Marbury.)

- Allegedly blackmailed by that same Stephon Marbury because he felt he wasn’t receiving enough PT.

Adios Isiah!