Something To Get Me Interested In Sports

As always, I have good news and I have bad news (depending on your perspective).

The good news:  I’ve figured out something to get me interested in blogging again.

HOWEVER, It’s really really sportsy.  And possibly a huge waste of time.

Let’s set it up this way:

The LeBron James Betrayal Episode got me thinking about the upcoming NBA season, and how I could not possibly be more cynical about it. For example, these are some of the things I believe about the NBA:

• The playoffs are rigged by the refs.  Therefore, NBA championships mean nothing.  Kinda takes the point out of watching games, doesn’t it?
• The players, almost to a man, don’t care about anything except themselves.
• The owners, almost to a man, don’t care about anything but the money.

And so when the most popular player conceives* and produces an hour-long self-serving TV special just so he can stab his hometown in the back on live TV, and he doesn’t even seem to realize the implications of what he’s doing, there’s something truly noteworthy about that, even when viewed in the cynical context of the regular NBA.  It was like Leborn hadn’t ever considered that his once adoring fans could possibly turn on him, and that to me is amazing.

And turn on him they did, in spectacular fashion.  The world divided itself into frontrunners (those who switched their allegiances with LeBron, and now are Miami Heat fans) and haters (those who now view Lebron as weak and/or disloyal).  Jerseys were burned.  The Cavaliers owner wrote a scathing public personal attack on LeBron, mostly in all-caps.  Everybody had a hot sports opinion on it.  Lebron had become the NBA’s Brett Favre.

This LeBetrayal thing is a story worth following, I thought to myself, if only to see the fun ways the Cavaliers’ fans’ bitterness will manifest itself.  Also, how will LeBron react to being booed in every city?  Will he care?  Will he crumble?  Will he come to regret his decision and how it played out, or is he so far removed from reality that he’ll actually enjoy becoming LeBron the Evil King of Miami?

So I thought about all this, and then I thought, who better to document the NBA’s season of stories than me, a guy who has given up on sports altogether?  There are as many stories as there are players (and coaches and refs and owners and fans), and all of them deserve to be seen in the distant light of cold reality.  I’m not an ex-athlete.  I’m not a member of the media.  I’m not a journalist.  Heck, I’m not even really a fan.  I’m just a guy who knows a little basketball and who has a blog.  If that doesn’t equal “qualified” in this day and age, I’m a woodchuck.

You see, every NBA season is living literature.  You may not have realized that, but it’s true.  There are heroes, villains, falls from grace, redemptions, betrayals, scandals, romances, and yes, even death.  It’s time that someone saw the NBA for what it truly is: A giant cyclical storybook.

Once upon a time, there was a King who loved his rich friends more than his subjects…

*Actually, it was reportedly Jim Gray’s idea, which makes perfect sense.  The lesson:  If Jim Gray suggests you do something that involves him, RUN.