Showing posts with label NBA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBA. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Television's nitwit in the woodpile


It's always 1959 somewhere and this week, that would be Bristol, Conn.

At the testosterone-fueled home of
ESPN, boys will be boys, sports will be sports and Harvard-educated Chinese-American basketball players will be "Chinks," as this account in the Long Island Press demonstrates:
So after the Knicks disappointing loss to the 7-23 Hornets, an offensive headline appeared on ESPN’s mobile site that read “Chink In The Armor.”

It was the first loss the Knicks suffered since coach Mike D’Antoni inserted Jeremy Lin into the starting rotation.

The headline went up with a story just after 2 a.m. on Saturday and was on the site for nearly 40 minutes.

But fans and other readers caught site of the headline and the reaction led to ESPN issuing this apology:

“Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET. We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.”
ON WHAT PLANET would someone think he could get away with that? Would think it was even clever? Would be so dumb as to not realize that -- in this context -- the usually benign phrase "chink in the armor" is anything but?

On what planet?

On this planet:

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

I predict tomorrow's Post



I'm not much of a psychic friend, but I think I can predict the cover of tomorrow's New York Post, given the National Enquirer's spilling of the beans about the racy stuff inside Joe McGinniss' new tell-all biography on bodacious tea-party babe Sarah Palin.

Here's what the Miami Herald has come up with thus far:

A new book about tea party darling Sarah Palin has a salacious revelation about her sex life involving a well-known Miami sports star.

According to The National Enquirer, which obtained an advance copy of a book about Palin by investigative writer Joe McGinniss — Palin and former Miami Heat player Glen Rice had a one-night tryst back in 1987.

At the time, the former Alaska governor, now 47, was single, just out of college and working as a sports reporter at Anchorage TV station KTUU.

Rice, 44, who lives in Coral Gables, was a promising junior basketball player at the University of Michigan.

Their encounter occurred while Rice was in Anchorage attending a basketball tournament and Palin apparently covered the event. Months later, in 1988, Palin eloped with her high school sweetheart Todd Palin. The two are still married.

Quoting from the book, the tabloid said that at the time, the 23-year-old Palin had a “fetish” about black men.

WHO THE HELL needs to pay for The Playboy Channel when we have saucy, smokin' hot right-wing firebrands and a lifetime of Blazing Saddles jokes floating around our heads?

Film at 11. Then again, maybe not.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Head-case nation


I wish to associate myself with Mitch Albom's remarks in the
Detroit Free Press:
Note to journalism students. When we celebrate investigative reporting, it's for issues like war crimes, nursing home scandals or police corruption. It's not to report that LeBron James has opened a Twitter account.

But that was a "major" headline Wednesday. And James' first Tweet was Hello World, the Real King James is in the Building "Finally."

Honestly, who calls himself "King"?

Which brings me back to the man himself, who, after a few years of relative humility, now seems, at 25, to be stepping onto some assumed throne atop the world, like that "Airbender" kid, as if the rest of the planet naturally should step aside.

Excuse me if I turn my back. I no longer care less where LeBron James plays. I'm sick of the whole story. The number of supposedly respectable people tripping over themselves to hand him $100 million should make all of them and many of us ashamed.

In a country where people are out of work or out in the streets, LeBron's basketball home was never important. But spilling money on his head is downright insulting.

(snip)

Still, the final cherry on this ego sundae is the televised event tonight, an hour-long ESPN special at 9 o'clock (an hour?) in which James will announce who wins the right to wrap its money around his arrogance.

Only in America could we keep inventing reality TV that fantastically outshames the previous low mark. A prime-time event? To announce a free-agent signing? And don't point out that some proceeds go to charity. You want to give to charity, quietly write a check. Don't get a network to do it for you so it gets to pump its shows and you get to shower yourself in international coverage -- while calling it philanthropy.

The NBA has embarrassed itself here. The media have embarrassed themselves. And a guy who calls himself "King" may be beyond embarrassment, which is truly embarrassing.

Friday, January 01, 2010

Return of the Washington Bullets


Word on the grapevine is that the National Basketball Association is going to a new championship format this year.

Best-of-seven drive-by shootings.

I jest. I think.

FORTUNATELY for The Associated Press, however, its writers and editors don't have to make any of this s*** up. Because they couldn't.
Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton reportedly drew guns on each other during a locker-room argument over a gambling debt.

Law enforcement is investigating the presence of weapons in the locker room, and the league is not taking action now.

The Wizards said Friday they are cooperating with authorities and the NBA and “take this situation and the ongoing investigation very seriously.” The team had no further comment.

Arenas, a three-time All Star, tweeted Friday about the developments.

“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE. ... Media is too funny,” he wrote.

About 2½ hours later, his tweet was more straightforward: “i understand this is serious..but if u ever met me you know i dont do serious things im a goof ball this story today dont sound goofy to me.”
The investigation into possible firearms in the locker room at the Verizon Center revealed the alleged Dec. 21 dispute between Arenas and Crittenton, Yahoo! Sports reported Friday, citing unidentified sources.
IS THERE anymore reason for any sports fan to take the NBA seriously? It's Rollerball with hoops and nets. It's a work-release program for athletically inclined offenders.

It's where college pimp-daddies send their top-flight talent when they've wrung all the cash they can out of "students" who write sentences like "i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE."

Oh, it's also a sign of cultural apocalypse. But that's not important now, is it?