Here’s a list of the NBA’s all-time top 50 players by Slam magazine. It’s easy to quibble and there are one or two obvious howlers (Dennis Rodman but not Bill Walton or Pete Maravich?) but overall, it’s a better list than I expected. Dissent welcome.
As of Wednesday night, the “aftershow” part of Artie Lange’s hideous/spectacular performance on the debut of Joe Buck’s new HBO talk show was still here. Elsewhere, all traces of Lange’s appearance have apparently been removed from the Internet by, what, nervous HBO lawyers? An embarrassed Buck or someone on the show’s staff? I thought HBO was all edgy and stuff. I thought raw public attention was a good thing in show business. Whatever.
Most of the blogosphere predictably hates Buck and is semi-defending Lange, but I thought Lange was mostly on the wrong side of the line between bitingly funny and merely obnoxious. I don’t buy the, “You invite Lange on, what do you expect?” argument because I’ve heard him on “Fresh Air,” on NPR, when he was thoughtful, self-deprecating and not at all beligerent or profane.
I’m not particularly a Buck fan, but didn’t think he did badly considering, and even got some solid shots in (Lange puts both feet up on the coffee table- Buck: “What, are you getting a pap smear?).
I wrote something the other day about the Bill Simmons’ piece on Kobe, mentioning that it was a good piece although Simmons reached at times. One of the ways he reached is elucidated well here by the excellent public-affairs blogger Matt Yglesias, who also happens to be an NBA fan. Simmons says Kobe is similar to Michael Jordan “statistically and stylistically,” but the difference is he doesn’t “command a room,” like MJ, whom he compared to “a cross between Dr.J and Sinatra.”
Except that they’re not that similar statistically. As Yglesias’ numbers show, Kobe is simply not a real efficient offensive player, whereas Jordan is the most efficient perimeter player who ever lived. It reminds me of the Kobe-Lebron debate, which is conducted as if people haven’t noticed that Lebron is not only a better passer, playmaker, rebounder and teammate, but scores more than Kobe and shoots less. Hello?
Here’s an excellent take on the Letterman-Palin dustup by Slate’s terrific Dahlia Lithwick. It’s also an interesting look at the origins of all the “There’s no way a [Jew/woman/Democrat/Republican/homosexual/meat-eater/Jehovah’s witness/etc.] could get away with saying that,” stuff that plagues the public debate on most everything. I admit thinking that sort of thing all the time, and it’s not always, on its face, wrong.
Example: There’s no question that a white male lawyer who made the white male equivalent of Sotomayor’s now-famous “wise Latina woman” comment would thereby eliminate himself forever from consideration for a Supreme Court nomination, or certainly from consideration by a Democratic President. Sotomayor defenders who say the statement was taken out of context, or is rendered moot by her case record, are missing the point. The statement, by itself, would be career suicide for a white male, regardless of context, even if his case record establishes he’s the greatest legal thinker who ever lived.
Having said that, so what? I’m not sure what good it does to say that, what it has to do with anything, certainly what it has to do with whether Sotomayor should be on the SCOTUS. It’s like hardcore pro-choice people saying if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. Maybe. So? The issue is whether or not that would be a good thing.
Lightning round:
Buster Onley with an interesting survey of usage-damage to bullpens.
On the legal implications of online poker.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed that, at mid-career, Pedro Feliz has completely changed his approach to hitting.
Great rumor. Not gonna happen.
Because it’s almost Father’s Day: Michael Lewis, of Moneyball fame, on the Today Show talking about his current book about Dads.
From the “How you like me now?” dept: The very last pick in the NFL draft, aka Mr. Irrelevant, is about to sign a three-year, $1.2 million contract.
And we’re out. Tomorrow: something live from the Big 33 game, which I fervently hope isn’t as soul-crushingly dull and tedious as it was a year ago.
