Flak Magazine: Kick Out the Sports! 01.19.04

NBA.com rang in the New Year by becoming the first US major league sports website to host blogs. Give the league credit for recruiting writers who fulfill at least one major requirement for bloggers: lots of time on their hands. On the roster of bloggers are rehabbing motorcycle crash victim Jay Williams of the Chicago Bulls, recently fired Orlando Magic coach Doc Rivers, retired WNBA player Rebecca Lobo, and two TV third bananas. The NBA.com blog also features journalists from Israel, Spain and the Philippines, who — if they were American — probably would be castigated on the media website Romenesko for their shocking breach of ethics.

Alas, blame the league for blowing the second requirement for bloggers (at least the good ones, anyway): something to say. The disclaimer on the NBA.com blog says the league doesn't edit its posts. But you're not going to find the wit and venom of the best blogs, nor real inside-the-league dirt. Presumably, the league was not going to hire someone who would upset its house, so the blog is as threatening as a corporate Intranet newsletter. ("I told the boss what a great tie he was wearing today!")

This is what passes for witty and incendiary on the NBA.com blog. This sarcastic, I think, entry is from Victor Williams, who plays the best friend on "King of Queens."

...Well, back in the eighties, if Pau Gasol, Andrei Kirilenko, Zach Randolph, LeBron James or Carmello Anthony had drummed up the courage to step on the court with me, I would've kicked all their asses!

See, the NBA — unlike Intranet corporate newsletters — allows its writers to use words like "asses."

That's right, I said it. I would've sent them home crying to their mamas, wishing they'd never seen a baller like me. Granted they would've been three years old and I would've been...fourteen, but that's not the point!

The point is, these youngsters gotta learn to respect their elders. You can't be steppin' in as a first, second or third year player actin' like you're entitled to 'All-Star' status."

One wonders if Kevin James delivers this sort of lecture if someone starts demanding star treatment on the "King of Queens" set.

The rest of the bloggers aren't bad; they're just bland. What the site needs is fewer opinions on the Stephon Marbury trade and more revelations about the deepest, truest, dirtiest feelings of those connected with pro basketball.

For example, Rivers — obviously angling for another coaching chance — is not going to give us what we want: bitter rants about how he got screwed in Orlando. It would be worth checking the NBA.com blog hourly if Rivers did stuff like refer to Magic star Tracy McGrady as "That rat bastard who got me fired," and obsessively detail the team's continued losing like this:

Magic lose again. That rat bastard who got me fired had 30 points, rest of team had 33. Punk. Hey, Tracy McGrady, I was Coach of the Year before you got there! What does that tell you? Rat bastard.

Or maybe what the NBA blogs need is more unhinged personalities, guys like Indiana Pacers hothead Ron Artest, suspended 12 games last season for flagrant fouls on players, TV equipment and common decency. His blog would have to be arranged like a cheesy, yet evil, LiveJournal:

Mood: extremely pissed. Music: The voices in my head. Message: The GM said something to me again about taking meds. Fuck him.

Or maybe what the NBA.com blog needs is something from staff you never hear from, like Jerome Kersey, who is the management-appointed, and apparently player-ignored, mentor for the notoriously non-law-abiding Portland Trail Blazers:

Guess what! For the first time in six months, a player stopped by! I was so excited! My chance to guide a young, troubled person to a bright future! But it was just Qyntel Woods, wondering if I knew who was supposed to refill the Gatorade. Sigh. Back to "Minesweeper."

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.