The Dord of Darien

Shut up, stupid

In case you haven’t heard, LeBron James recently announced — in a big, hour-long ESPN special, no less — that he’s leaving the Cleveland Somethings and signing instead with the Miami Heat. My reaction, like the reaction of all thinking organisms, was: okay. Athletes do become free agents, gang. They do sign with other teams.

A lot of other people — presumably those people who give two shits about the Cleveland Somethings, and perhaps give even sufficient shits to know what the team’s actually called, which I do not — had a more emotional reaction. They were pissed to see a big superstar leave their team, because it means the end (for the near future, anyhow) of whatever small amount of competitiveness they had, and it means a lot less media exposure. They’re upset because it personally impacts them.

And then there’s a third group of people that reacted like complete retards and yelled and screamed about what a slap in the fase this was to them, even though it doesn’t really involve them at all.

I’ll leave is as an exercise for the reader to determine which category Bill Simmons falls into. But to give you a hint — because, hey, No Child Left Behind, amirite? — I’ll walk you through the wall of sheer crazy that’s pouring out of his mouth today, in his article uselessly entitled:

Welcome to the All-LeBron sound-off

Which he will begin by sounding off about Roger Clemens. But that’s fine. We’ll get to that. First things first, though; I’ve noticed the byline announces that this article was written by the estimable "William J. Simmons," which I’m going to assume is the name Bill uses when he wants to sound like he really means business. Maybe also the name he uses when he’s planning to go light on the Karate Kid references, since he’s oddly silent on that subject today.

Five thoughts and then we’ll turn it over to my readers, because honestly, they did a better job of summing up last night’s LeBacle than I ever could:

"LeBacle" is kind of terrible, but we’ll let it slide, since I admire the ambition involved in trying to come up with a joke that isn’t just "LeBrongate." Also because I find it much more amusing that Simmons does my job for me and comes right out and admits that blog comments and reader mail snippets do a better job of reporting on sports than he does.

Not that this surprises me. Good lord no. Blog comments and reader mail are two elements of a very large pool of things that are better at reporting on sports than Bill Simmons, which pool also includes greeting cards, gerbils, and antique wall clocks, though, notably, not Roy S. Johnson. No, the only thing that surprises me is that, while Bill has apparently noticed this, ESPN has not. But, then, they haven’t noticed that John Kruk is the worst analyst in the history of analysis, either.

1. One of my first ESPN.com columns was titled, "Is Clemens the Antichrist?"

Not only did Bill Simmons write that article, he also went on to brag about it years later. This tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Bill Simmons. Well, this and that bit about how even he knows that random internet people are better sportswriters than he is.

It covered how my relationship changed with Roger Clemens as a Red Sox fan — in five years, he went from my favorite baseball player to my least favorite athlete in any sport — and how the turning point happened in 1996, when Clemens signed with Toronto and showed no remorse at the ensuing news conference.

Weird, turgid way of saying "I was mad when Clemens left the Red Sox." And the first clause doesn’t make any sense. Would somebody at ESPN please get Bill Simmons an editor?

I still remember seeing that Blue Jays cap squeezed on his fat stupid face for 45 solid minutes, waiting for him to throw Red Sox fans a bone, waiting for him to say anything that would make me think, "Regardless of how this turned out, the past 12 years meant something to me," or "Just know that this happened because of Boston’s front office, not their great fans." He only threw us a couple of canned comments, the same way someone would throw table scraps to a dog. I remember how angry it made me. I remember wanting to whip my remote control through the television, then realizing that I couldn’t afford a new one. I remember taking down my autographed photo of Clemens’ 20th strikeout against Seattle and sticking it in a closet. I remember thinking that I would never like sports quite as much ever again.

Bill, seriously: you’re an idiot. Roger Clemens is an athlete, not a politician. He’s not a practiced public speaker with a large speechwriting team. And you know what? He was pretty pissed at the Red Sox right about then, since, if you’ll recall, the Red Sox just kind of cut him, with GM Dan Duquette making a pissant remark about how Clemens — who would pitch eleven more seasons — was in the "twilight of his career." All he gave you was "canned moments?" Okay, sure. And twelve years of some of the best pitching in all the history of baseball. You utter moron.

Also, Bill, you have some serious anger issues. What is your problem with remote controls, anyhow?

That notwithstanding, my favourite thing about this paragraph is these two lines:

"I still remember seeing that Blue Jays cap squeezed on his fat stupid face for 45 solid minutes, waiting for him to throw Red Sox fans a bone…"

"He only threw us a couple of canned comments, the same way someone would throw table scraps to a dog."

Metaphors aren’t your greatest strength, are they, Bill. You should probably start reading this shit over before you send it for publication.

So when Clemens went to Toronto, got in shape, won two straight Cy Youngs and forced a trade to the Yankees, really, a column called "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" became inevitable as soon as I found a bigger forum to write it.

Clemens’ first year with Toronto was the best of his career, hands-down. But his second year? Par for the course (for Clemens, I mean, who was incredible). So despite Bill’s ignorant implication that Clemens was fat and lazy on the Red Sox, the data says otherwise. Also, Clemens didn’t force a trade to the Yankees — he originally planned to, but changed his mind. The Jays traded him anyhow. You see how sports work, Bill?

I hated that guy as much as you could hate a professional athlete without things getting creepy.

You hated him more than that, Bill. But isn’t this the All-LeBron sound off? I know I read that somewhere. You think maybe you could stop complaining about Roger Clemens for a while?

What LeBron did to Cleveland last night was worse. Much worse.

No, it was the same. Much same. He left as a free agent and signed with another team.

It’s one thing to leave. I get it. You’re 25. You don’t know any better. You’re tired of carrying mediocre teams. You want help. You want the luxury of not having to play a remarkable game every single night for eight straight months. You want to live in South Beach. You want to play with your buddies. I get it. I get it.

No, Bill, you don’t get it. You demonstrate that when you say that LeBron doesn’t know any better. In the weird world inside Bill Simmons’ head, change is just bad in and of itself, and athletes should be motivated primarily by their fear of change. Fuck winning — that’s not what you’re here for, LeBron! It’s your job to get out there and maintain the goddamn status quo.

It’s funny; it seems like just the other week that I was carping at Andy Dolan for writing that Derrek Lee is staying with the Cubs because he doesn’t want to win, which is, in Andy’s eyes, a terrible thing. And now here comes Bill Stupid saying the exact opposite — that athletes should stick with shitty teams and forget about winning. Aren’t we supposed to think this is admirable, Bill? The Somethings offered more money than the Heat! LeBron James clearly cares about winning more than he cares about his paycheque. And into this mess wades good ol’ Buffalo Bill, angry just for the sake of anger, telling us that athletes shouldn’t care about winning.

But turning that decision into a one-hour special, pretending that it hadn’t been decided weeks ago, using a charity as your cover-up and ramming a pitchfork in Cleveland’s back like you were at the end of a Friday the 13th movie and Cleveland was Jason … there just had to be a better way.

All I said was that he didn’t make any Karate Kid references. I didn’t say there were no tortured pop-culture metaphors in here at all. And did you know that Jason has never been killed with a pitchfork? It’s usually either "stabbed with his own machete" or "drowned," but has never been a pitchfork. So anybody who expected Bill to be right about anything ever is probably pretty sorely disappointed right now.

I blame the people around him. I blame the lack of a father figure in his life. I blame us for feeding his narcissism to the point that he referred to himself in the third person five times in 45 minutes. I blame local and national writers (including myself) for apparently not doing a good enough job explaining to athletes like LeBron what sports mean to us, and how it IS a marriage, for better and worse, and that we’re much more attached to these players and teams than they realize. I blame David Stern for not throwing his body in front of that show. I blame everyone.

I mostly just blame Bill Simmons, who promulgates this idiotic idea about sports being "a marriage" and such. Also I blame ESPN for putting its logo on these screeds, so people who don’t know any better will just assume this shit has anything to do with reality, since it’s endorsed by the "worldwide leader in sports."

Sports are not a marriage. In particular, athlete contracts are not a marriage. They have a built-in expiration, and, when that time comes, there’s no guarantee of a renewal.

Back in the old days of baseball, before free agency was instituted (in 1975 — the National League was a hundred years old by then), there was a situation like Bill apparently thinks there still is. Players were stuck with one team forever, unless the ownership wanted to get rid of them. That was terrible for the players (it’s much of the reason why why great players like Ernie Banks and Ted Williams never won a World Series — they were handcuffed to teams that weren’t any good), and it was also terrible for the sport, since it led to long, boring dynasties. Bill Simmons wants that back because it offends his head when players change teams.

We are already fools for caring about athletes considerably more than they care about us.

We’re not all fools, Bill. Just you.

For LeBron not to understand what he was doing — or even worse, not to care — made me quickly turn off the television, find my kids, give them their nightly bath and try to forget the sports atrocity that I had just witnessed.

This article is having the same effect on me. Though I’m going to skip the "bathe the kids" step on account of no kids. And I’m going to skip the "write turgid prose" step on account of I have some sense of perspective.

He just couldn’t have handled it worse. Never in my life can I remember someone swinging from likable to unlikable that quickly.

He could have had his agent announce it in the middle of the Finals. In fact, he could have announced it right in the middle of game four of the Finals, in some lame attempt to overshadow another team’s accomplishments. But he wouldn’t do that. Only a complete asshole would do a thing like that!

Sports are supposed to be fun, and eventually, this will become fun — for everyone but people in Cleveland — because we finally have a Yankees of basketball.

Dear Bill,
You already have a Yankees of basketball. They are called the Los Angeles Lakers, and they just recently won their sixteenth championship after beating the Boston Celtics — the Red Sox of basketball — in Game 7 of the Finals.

But I will never, ever, not in a million years, understand why it had to play out that way. If LeBron James is the future of sports, then I shudder for the future.

My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. — Simmons 42:5-6

2. One silver lining for LeBron: No other professional athlete in any team sport could have generated the interest that he generated last night. No baseball player, no football player, no basketball player, no hockey player. He truly is the King … of something.

Holy shit, I forgot this was a numbered list. That was all one thought? Don’t worry — all the rest of them are sound bites. We’ll make it through this yet.

And I’m pretty sure that if Derek Jeter called a press conference to announce his upcoming trade to the Red Sox, it would generate more interest than this, Bill. Actually, come to think of it, didn’t the news of Tiger Woods’ affair generate a whole shitload more interest than this?

3. I posted this clip on Twitter last night, but it’s worth posting again: the 1996 Bash on the Beach. I won’t even tell you the context (a reader will explain in a few paragraphs). Just watch what happened, listen to the announcers and choke on the irony.

It’s not clear exactly what Bill’s on about now, but I think he’s comparing LeBron’s signing with the Heat to Hulk Hogan’s betrayal of the WCW. Which, of course, led the WCW to its golden age — interest in the league was never even close to as high as it was during the WCW vs. NWO storyline. It was the best thing that ever happened to the league.

Good work, Bill. You’ve made yourself an airtight case.

4. Michael Jordan would have wanted to kick Dwyane Wade’s butt every spring, not play with him. This should be mentioned every day for the rest of LeBron’s career. It’s also the kryptonite for any "Some day we’ll remember LeBron James as the best basketball player ever" argument. We will not. Jordan and Russell were the greatest players of all time. Neither of them would have made the choice that LeBron did. That should tell you something.

Michael Jordan played for a Bulls team that was stocked with talent. This was a team that had the ability to win, season after season. So, no, Bill, Michael Jordan would not have left the Bulls because he wanted to win. He didn’t need to. Do you get it, Bill? Oh, also, the Bulls paid him what was at the time a record-high salary, and gave him shitloads of special concessions and privileges and treated him like a king. There’s a book about that that you should probably read if you’re going to talk about what a saint Michael Jordan was.

As for Bill Russell, well, he played in the fifties and sixties for a team that won the championship eleven times in his thirteen years. So also: lacking a need to go to a better team in order to win. Even assuming that the NBA had a robust free agent market fifty years ago, which I don’t know whether or not it did. And I’m going to bet you don’t either, Bill.

5. Sports shouldn’t mean this much.

Seriously, Bill, you’re a lunatic. You’re the only one who gets so angry about press conferences that he feels the need to demolish electronics. So don’t get haughty and presume to lecture me about how sports shouldn’t mean this much — not when you’re the one blowing everything out of proportion.

I promise more thoughts later in the month.

I fully expect it will take you the majority of the month to sqeeze any more thoughts out of that crippled old thinker of yours.

See, there’s an incredible basketball story here that really has no precedent: Only when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant played together in 2001 and 2002, after Kobe had ascended to top-three status and Shaq hadn’t drifted out of that group yet, have two of the best three NBA players played on the same team.

What? There’s no fucking way you can isolate a "best three" players. That’s completely arbitrary. What if we just look at teams with recognised top-tier talent? Future Hall of Famers, you know? What about Bill Russell and Bob Cousy on those old Celtics teams? Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen? Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish? If you stop cherry-picking for ten goddamn seconds, Bill, it… actually takes a little bit of the awesomeness out of the story, huh. So… don’t do that, I guess.

I have no idea how Miami will fill out the team, or whether you can win a championship by being so good offensively that defense, rebounding and role players don’t matter. We’re about to find out.

In theory, I guarantee you can. Role players never matter except in that you can’t afford to fill the whole team with superstars. As for defense? Well, if your offense is so unstoppable that you instantly sink a three-pointer every single time you gain possession, you’re going to win every game as long as you don’t foul yourselves out of business. That’s really pretty basic, Bill.

I am not ready to think about it yet.

No fooling.

After this, Bill just posts mailbag bullshit to fill out the article, which is okay, since, as he himself mentions at the beginning, it’s actually better than anything he has to say. They’re even better at being outraged and lacking in perspective, as with the very first letter, which reads: "I think this is the first time in history one man managed to destroy an entire city by himself. Even the Enola Gay had a flight crew."

Think about that, Bill. Your article is more insipid and brainless than a guy who compares free agency with the murder by nuclear bomb of a hundred thousand people.

At least that guy, who is from Ohio and presumably a Somethings fan, can make a claim to being in group 2.

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July 9th, 2010 Posted by Darien | Bullshit, Games | one comment