As the title suggests, we have a three-prong attack this morning.
First, let’s talk LeBron.
By now, you’ve heard that he left Amway Arena Saturday night after his Cleveland Cavaliers were bounced from the NBA Eastern Conference Finals by the upstart (and highly entertaining) Orlando Magic without shaking hands with his opponents or addressing the media.
“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them,” James told the New York Times Sunday after the team returned to Cleveland. “I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor.”
Sorry. Doesn’t wash with me.
I know I’m going to come off as a grouchy media guy here, but LeBron James has to be better than that. He has to walk up to Dwight Howard and shake his hand, even as confetti falls around him. He has to put on a suit and sit at the podium and answer questions after the loss.
Why?
Because he’s a superstar. Because his poster is on our kids’ walls and we want them to learn sportsmanship. Because, if we’re really serious about considering him to be the greatest player of all time, he has to be as classy off the court as is is dominant on it.
Because, 50 years from now, when people read the story of what happened in Game 6 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals, it won’t contain a quote from arguably the most important player of his generation.
Because if we have to watch him star in commercial after commercial, whether it’s the LeBrons or the puppets or just him sipping a Sprite, he should have to step in front of a microphone when he’s not selling something. Anybody can talk to the media when they’re winning. It takes a man to do it when he’s disappointed.
I don’t want to come off as not liking the man. In fact, I hold him up as what’s right about the NBA these days. He’s a well-spoken young man who’s generous with his time off the court. He’s a family man who’s close to his mother and, by all accounts, dotes on his two small children.
And I think he’s well on his way to surpassing Jordan as the best the game’s ever seen.
No, I’m not hating on him.
But I am disappointed.
College Baseball Gone Wild
You might have missed these two bizarre instances from this weekend’s NCAA Baseball Regionals:
1. Texas beats Boston College 3-2 in 25 innings on Saturday night/Sunday morning. The game featured Texas closer Austin Wood pitching 13 innings, including 12.1 innings of no hit ball while fanning 14. He threw 169 pitches – after tossing 30 the night before.
It lasted seven hours and three minutes.
Geez.
2. I was flipping through the channels yesterday when I stopped on ESPNU to see how Florida State and Ohio State was going. IT WAS 32-0 IN THE FIFTH INNING!!!
Oh my.
The Seminoles went on to squeak by, 37-6. FSU has 38 hits and 15 doubles in the win.
God bless aluminum bats.
Nadal flames out in Paris
I was playing tennis, rather than watching it, on Sunday morning when the biggest upset of the year went down at the French Open.
Rafael Nadal had his 31-match winning streak broken in Paris at the hands of Robin Soderling, ranked somewhere around 20th in the world.
Soderling’s no scrub, but when you consider that the world’s No. 1 player whipped him on dirt 6-0, 6-1 just a few weeks ago, this was a bit of a shocker.
Kind of makes that article I saw in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Nadal was “unbeatable” a little silly.
Has anyone else noticed that, all of a sudden, everything we see in the world of sports has to be the greatest ever? Even my praise of Lebron qualifies, though I can back that up with video-game-like playoff numbers if you want.
Nadal is a beast on clay. He’s the best in the world on the crushed brick today. But is he the best ever?
Bjorn Borg was pretty good. He also won four French Opens in a row, like Nadal has done.
How good would the Swede have been if he had space age rackets and access to the modern training and dietary methods Nadal uses to fuel his seemingly endless supply of energy?
I don’t know.
Neither do you.
June 2, 2009 at 12:22 pm |
Coach John Wooden discusses sportsmanship
June 4, 2009 at 9:13 pm |
I believe if you have both Borg and Nadal in their prime with the same equipment, Borg wins.
Borg could generate huge topspin with wood, and with today’s rackets Nadal would be hitting every ball above his shoulders. Give both of them wood, where the power would be much less, Borg would outsteady Nadal.
For me, Borg, not Nadal, is the best of all time on clay.