Truthiness Hurts

On Friday May 6th Bill Simmons over at espn.com prophetically wrote:
Which reminds me, if Kobe doesn't completely eviscerate Bell in Game 7, everyone on the planet is banned from making any more Kobe-MJ comparisons. We all know that MJ would have dropped 55 on Bell, shut down Nash on the other end and disemboweled D'Antoni for good measure. Kobe, if you're going to steal MJ's fist clench/shake from Game 1 of the 1998 Finals without asking, you need to take this all the way. You cannot lose Game 7. You can't. Even if you're playing 4-on-5 and Jax keeps refusing to play Vujacic.

Now Simmons lives in a world of truthiness. He's a sports fan that happens to be a great writer. I wouldn't say that Simmons exactly throws out facts and predictions that are well accourate but they have a "truthiness" to them. They seem plausible. However this quote was more than his usual truthiness, they were dead on. Not only did Kobe lose Game 7, his team got demolished. Kobe, in the second half, was sulked, barely shot, didn't drive the ball to the hoop and scored one point in the second half. Let me repeat that, one point on three shots in the second half of a game 7. Thats not MJ. That's not even an MVP. When a raging ego-maniac comes face to face to with his limitations the result is ugly. The question is why would any player want to go to LA to play with Kobe now?

Meanwhile in a parallel universe known as the Eastern Conference, the Cavs met the Combine System known as the Detroit Pistons on Sunday. The analogy is actually pretty dead on. The Combine is an open system that threshes and harvests its target. The Pistons are a heartless machine that notices and exploits the weakness of whatever it encounters. The Cavs with soft perimeter defense and inconsistent supporting cast are barely an obstacle in the Pistons path to capture their second NBA title in three years. Nothing will stop them.


A few random comments: the loss of Zambrano to the NYMets is the biggest injury to date in MLB land I would argue. The Mets were looking to run away with the East before losing two starters. I expect a trade in the works. Brett Favre is thinking about maybe playing beyond next year? Its not even worthy of a rant but I hope the Packers fans put a stop to this since the Packers' front office obviously can't. Mark Shapiro should get punched in the arm for each hit Brandon Phillips gets. Phillips was given away for peanuts while the spot that Phillips would have had is hitting around .200.