Tom v. Sportsguy

Over at Cleveland '64 Tom is none too kind to Sportsguy's analysis of LeBron. I'll second being tired of his LA columns, and I know I am just getting a dose of the medicine the rest of the world probably felt that they were stuck with when he wrote about Boston. But here is the thing: LA sports fans suck. Boston sports fans don't. And everyone on the planet has had enough of his Clippers slurping, whereas any time the Red Sox or Patriots are on national television, ratings are high.

That said, is there anyone right now who cannot wait for Steve Nash to carry the Suns to a game seven win over the Lakers to take that series? Is there anyone who, after all of the talk that Kobe deserves the MVP, and this series proves as much, (See my take on Kobe here) cannot wait to see Nash win series MVP? (From all of the talk, I am just assuming that these rounds have an MVP trophy.)

Oh -- and to address one of Sportsguy's preferred tics -- is there anyone else who is tired of him presenting his argument against MVP with arguments like this one (I am paraphrasing something he has written at least two or three times now): Any one who kinows anything about basketball knows that there are only two serious MVP candidates, Kobe, Lebron, (and maybe Nowitzki). Sorry. Lots and lots of people who know lots and lots about basketball are going to vote Nash MVP. We can dispute that decision. We can argue that Kobe or Lebron or Nowitzki (who, the more I think about it, may be the most deserving) warrants the award more. But let's not privilege your own position in such a way that it dismisses the knowledge of others out of hand ona debate that ultimately, you are losing. This year the MVP race is so close because there are at least four or five guys who were both outstanding players and who also brought their teams to hegihts that no one else expected. Who, inj sum, defined the idea of MVP as most of us understand it. On my ballot, Kobe is no higher than fourth, behind Nowitzki, Nash, and Lebron, probably in that order. I guess that means I know nothing about basketball. Yet something tells me that my ballot will look remarkably like that of the professionals who actually do vote for the award. All of his self-professed expertise aside, Sportsguy does not, to my knowledge, get one of those votes. I guess it must be true that genius really is not appreciated in its own time. Or else maybe, just maybe, there are lots of folks who write about the NBA, know something about it, and are respected enough to get those votes. Just maybe.

Oh -- and to add onto something Tom addresses. Forget about whether or not Lebron's beard is good or bad. Who cares? Why do men suddenly decide that it is ok to judge other men's fashion in analyzing sports? Only in the world of professional athletics is something like Johnny Damon's hair or Lebron's beard remotely unconventional and worthy of discussion. And certainly, after mentioning it, is it seriously warranted in a column to the extent that Sportsguy raises it? Mindboggling. It almost makes me pine for the days when at least once a column Sportsguy would make the absolutely inexplicable reference to a "salad fork sticking out of [player X's] back." Why the hell is a salad fork sticking out of his back? If the reference is to "stick a fork in him to test if he's done," why a salad fork? It would be a meat fork, right? One of those big, two-prong carving forks? In any case, this bugged me for about two years until presumably someone told him that he had used that reference in 275 straight columns.