Resolution to All Those Who Don’t Even Care

I am steadfastly sticking by my NBA predictions this time because there’s a chance that I may get all of them right (the winners, mind you, not necessarily the length of each series). And while I’m on the subject of the NBA, I’d like to congratulate Kobe Bryant on his MVP award, even though I’m on record as saying that I don’t particularly like him. (This belies the fact that I own a #8 Lakers jersey, which was coincidentally purchased at the same time as my Chris Paul jersey … both were discounted). I would have voted for Kevin Garnett or the aforementioned Paul, but not for the reasons you’re probably thinking. The Lakers were in the middle of the Western Conference pack until the Pau Gasol trade. It was then and only then that they jumped to the top of the standings. While Bryant is clearly the best player in the league, he wouldn’t have been on a number one seeded team without Gasol. To my way of thinking, this makes Gasol more valuable than Kobe and therefore is reason enough to believe that Bryant got the “well he’s the best player in the league and has never won one so let’s give it to him while we have a legitimate case” award. Just my thoughts … I’m willing to be wrong on this one (although clearly I’m not wrong). Still, a little part of me is glad that Bryant is going to win the NBA title this year and finally have jewelry independent of Shaq’s contributions. I’m starting to grow sick of Shaq’s “I love this team until I’m not on it anymore” routine. He’s becoming more inconsistent than the excuses I used during college … “Again, Chris? Just how many more grandmothers do you have?” So … not good for Shaq … and good for Kobe.

Tennis Update: Justine Henin has retired from professional tennis. While I’m sure that none of you have ever even heard of her, I’ll have you know that she is currently ranked number one in the world. Well, at least she was until about an hour ago (although technically I think she stays there until someone has enough points to pass her). You can now add her to the list of athletes who choose to retire at either the pinnacle of their careers or after a major accomplishment. This list includes Michael Jordan (twice), Barry Sanders, Lennox Lewis, John Elway, Jerome Bettis and others. Let me say once and for all that I completely agree with this philosophy of “going out on top.” And by “completely agree,” I actually mean “couldn’t possibly disagree more.” Maybe it’s my rather un-athletic background (I did, however, play a little JV volleyball in high school), but if I was a successful athlete and some dude was willing to pay me millions of dollars to keep doing it, you’d literally have to drag me out of the stadium and cut the jersey off of me. And then you’d have to tackle me before I ran out onto the field naked.

I’m sure I can speak for all of you, Dear Readers, when I say that I am scintillated by the continued coverage of SpyGate. Never before has closure been so open ended. For those of you unfamiliar with the story (and therefore not part of my demographic and shouldn’t even be reading this to begin with), apparently the Patriots went all American Beauty-voyeurish on their opponents. I understand that it’s against the rules, but I’m not really sure how much this footage would even matter. It’s pretty simple to dissect the irrelevance of the SpyGate tapes using “The Logic Factor.” First of all, every game is shot from thousands of angles and shown in millions of homes across the country, so it’s not like these scenes would be all that hard to acquire anyway. Secondly, filming coaches doesn’t guarantee victory. Even if these tapes did supply useful information, you’d still have to have coaches and players who are talented enough to figure it out and execute the plays. Hand those tapes to my Dolphins and they’d probably only improve to 3 and 13 (which, by the way, is an improvement I’d settle for in a heartbeat). And finally, have you seen the footage that was recovered? Seriously? It’s not as though this is the Zapruder film we’re watching. All you see is a bunch of overweight coaches flapping their arms around for seemingly no reason. It looks more like one of those NutriSystem commercials than something that could win you a Super Bowl (minus the miraculous “after pictures,” of course). Far be it from me to say that every team cheats in one-way or another, but pretty much every team in every sport in every country in the entire world cheats one-way or another, so why should a blip on the radar like this even matter? It doesn’t, and is no worse than stealing signs in baseball or pulling on an opponent’s jersey in basketball.

Once again, “The Logic Factor” (which I reference frequently) proves to be an excellent resource for wading through societies idiotic hang-ups. For the newbies to my concept, allow me to explain: “The Logic Factor” is essentially the same thing as “The O’Reilly Factor” … only with much less spin.