Open Question

Call me a sucker but I really love the LeBron/Kobe puppet commercials. I think they’re hilarious and probably the best example of NBA-related marketing since Mars Blackmon declared “It’s gotta be the shoes!”

My question, however, is if people perceive an actual rivalry among the two superstars. Unquestionably, they’re the two best players in the NBA, but are they really rivals? They’ve never played against one another in an NBA Finals or competed for a scoring title. One could argue that, maybe, they fight for the annual MVP trophy but Kobe and LeBron have only finished 1-2 in the voting once (last year) and it wasn’t even close enough to say that the vote was split along the rivalry’s fault lines.

A rivalry requires either a true, mutual hatred –– think Knicks/Bulls or Knicks/Heat –– or a competitive environment with an extremely big payoff, akin to Larry Bird’s rivalry with Magic Johnson. I don’t get the sense that Kobe and LeBron hate eachother and, as we already know, they’ve only played a handful of entertaining but ultimately meaningless regular season games since LeBron entered the NBA in 2003.

My sense is that the puppet commercial is great fun…but someone might want to tell that to ESPN since they seem to market the twice-annual Lakers-Cavs games in a disingenuous way.

Thoughts?

Really?

I was flipping the channels yesterday and I swear ESPN had some sort of 3 hour special analyzing the NFL schedule. THE FUCKING SCHEDULE. Really? You can stretch that kind of analysis out to cover what are already known facts followed by unknowns of quality opponents. Ughh..... This might be a new low point in trying to find programming....

A Rant That MJ Might be Proud Of

Ok first off I want to give a disclaimer to this rant. I am neither a Yankees or Bosox fan. I like neither of the teams and feel that they spend too much money trying to acheive superior status and they could be throwing the money where it is actually deserved. I feel that the front offices of both the Yankees and Red Sox resemble the Jackson Pollackesque explosion that comes out of my colon after a night of spicy Thai food.

I am a Reds fan through and through and wish that Pete Rose would run for the governor of Colorado so that he would allow sports betting in the casinos here.

Back to the rant...I just read an article by Jayson Stark that is once again Red Sox bias and makes absolutely no logical sense. Which is very common for the people at ESPN.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=3967746

He discusses how the Bosox did a better job in the offseason by not spending 423 million dollars on a variety of players but spent far less money on "veteran" players who have spent alot of time on the DL but have alot of experience.

First case in point is Takashi Saito. He has a partially torn ligament in his throwing arm but did not decide to get Tommy John surgery. Stark seems to think that Saito will get back to the way he pitched in his prime...um the dude has a torn ligament in his throwing arm. One of two things will happen, he will pitch in pain all season and suck it up, or he will totally tear the ligament and be gone within the first couple of months. There is no way that a guy with a partially torn ligament can bounce back to his best. That is like saying that Christopher Reeve was going to be in charge of the Justice League right after his accident on the horse.

Second case that he brings up is John Smoltz. Now I have to admit that I am a huge fan of Smoltzy. He is an incredible competitor and a HOF pitcher. He is also going to be 42 years old and he just had shoulder surgery that I had hard time coming back from at the age of 28. Even without the fact that he had shoulder surgery, he is still in the twilight of his career. Stark uses his postseason record to give credence to what an amazing rotation the Bosox now have. Smoltz has been awesome in the postseason but the 12 of his 15 wins were 10 years ago before he has his first Tommy John surgery. His last win was in 2005 which was 4 years ago. The funny thing is that Stark uses the fact that Andy Petitte has not won a game in 4 years as a negative but doesn't seem to mention it about Smoltz.

Third point. Rocco Baldelli. He has some weird ailment that has baffled even the med students at Wash U and is weirder than the "parasite" that Jason Giambi had a couple of years ago. Stark is giving us the impression that Baldelli will bounce back and be a good backup to JD Drew. Now JD Drew is another one of those commonly injured players ala Ken Griffey Jr. Drew has averaged 110 games started over his career. So should we assume that a really injured will be a good back up for another really injured player.

This is one of the most fecking myopic illogical biased article that I have seen. How can a "journalist" use an argument against a player that he uses for another player. It just baffles me. I knew that ESPN (Simmons, Gammons, et al) were butt buddies with the Red Sox but this is pretty crazy.