The infantile squabbling between Shaq and Kobe pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the NBA. There is no bigger player’s league in professional sports. If your team’s star happens to dislike the coach, then you better damn well believe that coach is going to eventually be fired. I remember seeing Rasheed Wallace play like he didn’t give a shit for Portland, while being among the highest paid players in the league. Then when he got traded to a contender in Detroit, Bill Walton and the other boobs announcing NBA games lavished him with praise. It was nauseating.

Obviously, there are plenty of hardcore NBA fans who love the sport and I’m glad they enjoy the games. I don’t miss watching them at all.

In football, baseball, and hockey, the scoring is the exciting part. HOW the point, goal, etc. was scored is secondary.

In today’s basketball, style is paramount. No matter how cool it looks, though, it’s still just 2 points. You can do the super cool dunk 25 more times but it doesn’t make you a winner.

Even the NBA players view the regular season as sort of a joke. Many of them loaf through those games at half speed. And, far too often, the NBA players themselves are more off putting than anything else. Many of them are grossly overpaid, clueless prima-donnas who take what they have for granted & don’t care about anything but themselves & their contracts. One high profile NBA player famously told the press several years ago that wins & losses “are just another statistic”. If the players don’t even care who wins NBA games why should I?

The league lost me after Bird, Magic, & MJ retired.Their replacements, on the whole, are nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats. If there weren’t an NBA season this year, I’m not sure I’d even notice.

Poor performance is school does not make one a thug.

Have you ever left St. Louis? Bobby was routinely vilified in many circles as being an animal. As being a beast to deal with. Even in Indiana…there were people lined up to take shots at him.
Of course…he is still doing quite well with the speaking engagements (and donating it to charity as well as his grandchildren’s education).

Hmmm…maybe all the police blotter reports he has made? Maybe the issues he had in school? Maybe the people he associates with?
As Charles Barkley routinely says…”gotta’ be smart about who you run with.”

Now “Hipster”…how smart do you look/sound? LOL!

“I doubt you have any experience with it outside of watching it on a tv or movie screen.”

This (above all else) illustrates how new you are to HBT. Otherwise, you would know that I was actually married to an Indian Women (1/2 Commanche & 1/2 Kiowa). I was immersed in their culture.
I am talking dancing in pow wow’s in Oklahoma type stuff.
You should also know that my lifelong best friend (since our bantam league football days at age 7)…is a black Man. He also knows how I feel on this particular subject. He has no problems whatsoever with it as he fully realizes (if I am nothing else)…I am genuine.
When the word is tossed around irresponsibly it does a disservice to those that are victims of racism.
That sums it up.

As far as hipsters go, I laugh everytime I see someone with a skull cap and a grizzly Adams beard in the middle of July on a 90 degree day with skinny Jeans on that are prolly as uncomfortable as F$@€
I drink PBR too nerd, but I pay $15 for 30, you’re not sweet cause you pay $6 for one can, you candy a$$ pos.

I was on here yesterday when Craig was doing one of his vendetta things against a San Francisco writer that talked about the Giants winning without saber discipline. Craig noted correctly that the Giants did in fact have a department and that they were instrumental in the acquisition of many of the WS winning players. But he went on to extol how magical sabermetrics are in baseball, and the readers piled on the San Francisco writer like old west townspeople trying to string up the people arrested and in jail without a trial.

When I posted I was slammed.

And every single argument is the same as the arguments based here in the comment section for years – it’s always about 1) personality or image (including a statement a baseball person made) or 2) on one sided metrics (“he” never won a World Series so how good can he be).

If you read the comments here there is little discussion of rudimentary baseball fundmantals – can batters move runners up, doesthe OF hit the cut-off man, is the cut-off man in position and is his teammate watching the runners and yell to him which base to throw to when he gets the ball (as his back is to the infield), is the pitcher changing speeds and working around the plate, is the batter setting the pitcher up, is the pitcher setting the batter up, is the catcher calling a good game, is the pitcher in sync with what the manager and pitching coach are trying to do in bribng along each pitcher on the staff…..and on and on. Instead the comments are on WAR (this years glamour stat which replaced OPS which replaced OBP which replaced BA) and on and on.

I initially cam on here hoping to talk baseball in the comment section. Very few want to. One guy told me that there were hundreds of publications that talked that crap, they wanted to talk about other things regarding baseball. Well, you are correct – it’s not just hardballTalk – it’s the entire way this people have been looking at baseball in ALL publications since Billy Bean came into view and told us all how important OPS was (which Branch Rickey started using in the 1930′s).

Teams that play intelligent baseball have been winning in the playoffs and Wold Series for years no over teams with superior talent that are one-sided and haven’t stretched their individual games to contribute to the teams game. It’s a pity what’s happened to MLB. But this is a generation that loves the NBA players dissing one another like WWF guys promoting their next match. Professional sports as we once knew them are dying and are being replaced by carnival barkers – and the information explosion combined with American’s looking for the glitz as opposed to respecting hard work is making it happen.

When I was younger, playing catch with my dad, I was Ripken, Griffey, Big Hurt, Manny, and Bonds.

My 4 year old is Adam Jones. I hope it continues.