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Insulting the Sweet 16 for the clicks

March 23, 2023

Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe. Fuck you.

Jalen Rose famously says you got to give the people what they want, and the internet wants venom. It’s sustained on negativity. Your goddamn negativity. There’s a Force-Darkside analogy in here somewhere, but I’m not sure where the insult is, so let’s skip it.

You know what kind of slideshow does numbers that make digital media companies salivate like ravenous dogs? Insufferable fanbases. You know what kind of late-afternoon throwaway post with offhand jokes gets Twitter riled up? A negative one. How about a headline predicting an early end to a talented player’s career? Hell fucking yeah. Never mind that he could be good for the game and possibly your team, bury this clown alive.

You see, the thing about going online and saying some shit is I get a paycheck to justify it. I’m just a professional doing a job; it’s nothing personal. I know that’s what the bad guy says to the good guy right before getting his head blown off for committing a personal and very heinous crime. And I’m cool with being the villain.

When nothing matters, the only thing that matters is how you feel, and I have to say, I feel enough to get up every day and keep going. I’m doing pretty well at my job. My columns get clicks, my output is near the top of Deadspin, and I sleep great at night.

A logical person who cares about empathy and journalistic integrity might be appalled to hear me say that, but I’m fine being that guy — taking on the internet, calling out others because I refuse to look inward, quickly aggregating semi-viral moments for a few easy page views, and drinking myself to sleep at night.

What is spiraling debt if money is merely a figment of capitalism? I’ll be at peace when the world ends not with a bang but with the gradual erosion of our ecosystem as the laws of nature strangle out life from this planet, turning us into a science project for a smarter more intelligent species to discover and study.

If you’re (still reading and) saying to yourself, “I thought this guy was supposed to be making fun of the Sweet 16?” It’s coming. Take it easy you fucking hyena. You can click “Next slide” at any point. I have a few more insults to hurl at people who spend their day inhaling hate.

Well, actually, that about sums it up, so now for the part that you’ve all been waiting for: The negativity. My apologies if the following jokes are really bad. I’m literally cranking them out as fast as I can.

It’s nice to see Tom Izzo back in the Sweet 16. I don’t have a punchline. I’m legitimately happy for the Spartans.

This feels like a better opportunity to make fun of Kansas than Kansas State. However, Gradey Dick jokes are cliché, and I don’t want the karma that comes with making fun of a coach with a heart condition considering my current BMI.

I just want to reiterate this for pale white sports figures thinking about whipping their shirts off in front of a camera: It’s only funny if you’re doing it with 100 percent seriousness like Eric Musselman. We want unintentional comedy, not Kirk Cousins and Adam Schefter competing to see who can make people say “Turn it off” the fastest.

This is more for the women’s team. Do Huskie fans actually like Geno Auriemma? If ever there was a guy worthy of the name Gradey Dick, it’s Geno.

Isn’t this the school where Carl Pelini (Bo Pelini’s brother) resigned after allegedly doing cocaine and bong hits with students? (Carl Pelini allegedly admitted via text that “he uses drugs on occasion.”) That’s the most Florida man thing a Florida coach not named Urban Meyer has ever done.

The Rick Barnes jokes really write themselves, and I don’t really feel like writing one, so ask Chat GPT to do it.

The Bruins are actually my pick to win in the one pool I still have a shot to win, so I don’t have the requisite anger toward them to come up with a good joke other than something about how Jaime Jaquez Jr. looks like a knockoff Adam Morrison. Which reminds me, I should’ve made fun of him for that “One Shining Moment” ad in the Gonzaga section. (Although the real person I want to heave barbs at from that commercial is Greg Oden. Portland never forgets.)

I have nothing but envy for all things San Diego — the weather, the fish tacos, the surfing, and the proximity to Tijuana. The only cursory knowledge I have of their hoops team is Kawhi Leonard went there, which gives me an in to add insult to the Clippers’ injuries. So, I guess, load management much?

I absolutely am not touching this. Just like Nick Saban wouldn’t if Bryce Young was in a, umm, predicament, and not some freshman defensive back. But nice try, Satan.

Well, damn, the men’s team doesn’t have an influencer playing point guard, so this is going to take some research, which I absolutely refuse to do for clickbait slideshows. So I’m just going to wait awkwardly until you move on to the next slide.

I need a ruling on how people feel about recruiting violations, of which Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson has committed hundreds. The main gripe I hear about college sports is how unseemly it all is. There’s no end to hush-hush payments, scandals, the exploitation of an unpaid workforce, etc. But do we care anymore? (I don’t care about it, or anything for that matter.)

I know the NCAA acts like violations are a no-no, but they don’t really enforce anything of consequence. It’d be nice if the NCAA just came out like Elon Musk and said we’re not going to regulate anything. At least keep it transparent.

The Ivy League, running the free world and the Illuminati since the 1700s. Even though I’m 99 percent certain Princeton isn’t the school with the historic comedy program (newspaper?), I find it funny that people would pay that kind of tuition to learn to write jokes. All it takes to do that is a traumatic upbringing and too much time left to your own devices or in front of a TV.

I’ll just copy and paste this joke from the one I dropped in the work slack because it got a lagging emoji. Princeton playing Creighton aka the first time Blue Jay fans will be on the other side of the superiority complex. The people who will laugh the hardest at that are Nebraska Cornhusker fans, but I’d have to explain that considering Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith had no idea what state or city Creighton is from when CBS quizzed them about the teams they’re analyzing.

I’ll say this about the Longhorns, they better learn to corrupt their morals real quick or else the SEC is going to wash them. Did you see how Alabama handled the Miller situation? Chris Beard would still be stomping around on the sidelines in Austin if conference pride was the only thing that mattered. Hell, Beard is already onto his next SEC overhaul at Ole Miss. Get a clue, UT. You’re not in the Big 12 anymore.

The craziest storylines of the NBA season (so far)

March 20, 2023

The NBA is never drama-free, and there’s a reason the NBA playoffs are one of the few reasons to remain on the toxic hellsite that is Twitter these days. But even for the NBA, this season has been a spectacle worth of Vanderpump Rules. As we inch ever closer to the post-season, here’s a look back at some of the shenanigans we’ve endured so far this season.

Not since Wilt Chamberlain was traded at the 1965 deadline from the Golden State Warriors to the Philadelphia 76ers has there been such a mid-season seismic shift. Durant had requested a trade the last summer, only to come to terms with the Nets when they couldn’t find a team willing to meet their rightfully egregious bounty. But the chaos continued to fester in Brooklyn, led by the enigmatic Kyrie Irving, who Durant followed to Brooklyn in the first place. Irving demanded a trade from the Nets a few weeks from the deadline, which informed Durant to follow suit. The Nets have become the league’s top poverty team, even though the spare parts they got back for Durant and Irving have played well.

What kind of functional team squanders James Harden, Irving, and Durant in their prime? Durant’s move to the Suns shifted the paradigm of Finals favorites in Phoenix’s favor. No superstar is more plug-and-play than Durant. Add him to any team and prepare to enjoy the spoils of his dominance. Players of Durant’s caliber aren’t typically traded like this. But the Nets’ timetable to win now and chaotic mismanagement for the top-down forced Durant to take his prime years seriously and get the hell out of dodge. Now with the Suns, they have become the perennial favorites. Pairing Durant with Devin booker is a cheat code.

After recording personal bests in points (20.2), rebounds (7.0), and assists (3.8) last season, Bridges was arrested in the summer of 2022 for felony domestic violence stemming from an alleged physical altercation with the mother of their two children, whom he purportedly violently beat in front of their kids. It’s an awful story. Bridges ultimately entered a no-contest plea to a single felony domestic violence charge on Nov. 3. He was sentenced to three years of probation without serving any time in jail. Bridges will complete 52 weeks of domestic violence counseling and 52 weeks of parenting classes, perform 100 hours of community service, and undergo weekly narcotics testing.

All that being said, Bridges should never play in the NBA again. There has to be a line the league draws in the sand regarding what kind of character they allow to participate in the NBA. Bridges violently assaulting the mother of his children in front of their children should be that line. When he said in a recent interview that he might be “back in a couple of months,” the NBA should have immediately issued a statement saying, “No, you won’t.” The league and the Hornets need to make this off-season about how they handle the future of Bridges’ career and future cases where one of their players allegedly brutally beats a woman.

On the flip side, how the Brooklyn Nets and the NBA front office handled Irving’s sharing of Black Israelite propaganda on his social media platform was disgusting. Irving took longer than needed to apologize for sharing a video that used quotes from Adolf Hitler to make its case that African Americans are the true descendants of Biblical Israelites. But the laundry list of chores Nets owner Joe Tsai and NBA commissioner Adam Silver forced Irving to do before getting back in the league’s good gracias was disingenuous and pious. Irving deserved to be suspended for a few games for his inability to address the controversy head-on.

The Nets, or any team, can choose not to do business with players who say or do things that go against their code of conduct. But the laundry list of goofy “to-do’s” the Nets organization demanded he completes before returning to the floor is too far. It’s a move meant to embarrass Irving, forcing him to bend the knee, not to the group he offended but to the Nets organization. As Shannon Sharpe eloquently said on Undisputed at the time, “I believe they’re trying to rob the man of his dignity,” Sharpe said. “They are trying to make him grovel to get his job back, and I don’t agree with that.”

Things are approaching an apocalyptic level for the Dallas Mavericks. First, they lost Jalen Brunson for nothing last summer because they hired a glorified shoe salesman as their general manager. This summer, they could lose Kyrie Irving and Christian Wood, their second and third-best players, for nothing as unrestricted free agents. If that were to happen, it’s only logical Luka Dončić would be the next star to demand a trade out of town. So the Mavs made a desperate swing at pairing Dončić with a star co-pilot before the deadline, shipping off starting point guard and second-leading scorer Spencer Dinwiddie and glue guy Dorian Finney-Smith, their best perimeter defender. They got back Irving and washed veteran Markieef Morris in return.

Irving has continued his stellar scoring spree with the Mavs, averaging 27.8 PPG, 6.6 APG, and 5.1 RPG. But the Mavs offense has struggled on defense, as they rank 23rd in defensive rating. The offense from out-of-timeouts, on inbounds plays, and at the end of games has been atrocious. Basically, boiling down to Dončić and Irving taking turns heaving near-impossible hero shots at the buzzer. Irving needs to resign this summer with the Mavs for the trade to be worth it. It has been reported he won’t settle for less than $50 million per year. If the Mavs lock into a four or five-year contract at that asking price, just for him to demand a trade next season or the one after, it might be a domino effect the franchise won’t be able to stop, much less slow down.

The Grizzlies’ Ja Morant was recently caught on Instagram Live at a strip club with friends while brandishing a gun. Like many young people, Morant associates carrying a gun with being tough. His actions put himself and those around him in danger. At present, Morant is slated to make a comeback on Monday against the Dallas Mavericks. Initially, the Grizzlies had suspended him for two games, but later they announced that he would sit out at least four games for “conduct detrimental to the team.”. The NBA has decided to include the five games Morant has already missed in his suspension, and he will not receive payment for this time. In a recent interview with Jalen Rose, Morant admitted to entering counseling for his behavior, having recently discharged himself Wednesday.

The recent gun incident wasn’t Morant’s first brush with controversy. Over the past year or so, Morant has been involved in at least four incidents. The first was in January, involving Morant’s entourage and the Indiana Pacers staff, where they claimed after the game someone in Morant’s SUV aimed a red laser at a security guard believed to be a gun. A month later, Morant was accused of allegedly assaulting a teenager and threatening him with a gun during a pick-up game at Morant’s house. Morant needs to learn the responsibilities that come with being one of the faces of the NBA. Millions of impressionable children are watching his every move, including on his social media, and seek to emulate him. While the televised interview came off slick and heavy on the PR, only time will tell if it sticks.

The most maligned and misanthropic NBA franchises of the last 20 years are finally out of the gutter and in the playoff hunt. The Sacramento Kings and New York Knicks mirror each other in many ways. They both spent the better part of the last two decades drowning in bad contracts, worse players, and coaching carousels. But today, it’s a different story. Both have elite All-Star-caliber pick and roll tandem, the Knicks with Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle, Kings with De’Aaron Fox and Domantis Sabonis. Both have mostly built their cores through the draft (Fox, Davion Mitchell, Keegan Murray for the Kings, RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Immanuel Qucikley, and Quentin Grimes for the Knicks). Both have old-school coaches with imperfect playoff track records but have shown an ability to evolve (Mike Brown and Tom Thibodeau). And both have insanely loyal and knowledgable fanbases desperate for a winning team to root for.

When their fanbases are activated, Madison Square Garden and Golden 1 Center are two of the toughest places to play, giving their respective teams an elite home-court advantage, with the fans acting as the sixth man. The Kings have the best offense in the NBA while sitting third in the West. The Knicks have the fifth-best offensive rating and are in fifth place in the East. Each team has a complimentary mix of veterans (Harrison Barnes, Kevin Huerrter for the Kings, Josh Hart, and Isiah Hartenstein for the Knicks) and young players.

Neither team has a bonafide superstar, but with Fox number one in clutch points, directly followed by Brunson at number two, plus two MVP candidates in Randle and Sabonis, the future is very bright. The pressure is now on in a good way, not to dig themselves out of the muck of the bottom standings but to get out of the first round and ride their feel-good storylines to a deep playoff run.

Even Donovan Mitchell couldn’t believe he was not a New York Knick. After weeks of tense negotiations between the Knicks and the Jazz, executive Danny Ainge seemed annoyed with Knicks Executive Vice President William “World Wide Wes” Wesley’s presence in the front row of the Jazz and Mavericks’ first-round playoff series last season. Ainge decided to dash the Knicks’ hopes of trading for a hometown hero, sending Mitchell to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Oddly enough, that wasn’t Ainge’s most controversial move last summer. That would be the King’s ransom he got for his other former star, Rudy Gobert, from the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Jazz received Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Leandro Bolmaro, Walker Kessler (No. 22 pick in 2022 Draft), Jarred Vanderbilt, and Minnesota’s 2023, 2025, 2027, and 2029 first-round picks plus a 2026 pick swap. That’s five years of draft control the TWolves handed over to the Jazz for a player who seemed an odd fit alongside TWolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns.

But the rest of the league cared way less for how Gobert would fit with his new team, because the trade had wider ramifications for the trade market. The trade created a stalemate among teams looking to trade, as Gobert’s ridiculous trade return inflated the perceived with of players deemed better than Gobert. Teams with disgruntled stars like the Nets with Kevin Durant or the Spurs with Jakob Poeltl. Gobert’s return was a package better suited for a team acquiring Durant. The impasse wouldn’t be broken until Irving, a damaged asset with plenty of baggage, was traded for way less than he would have been two years ago by the Nets to the Mavericks. Once Irving was traded, the market was reset, and other dominos fell, leading to the wildest deadline in modern NBA history. But for a moment, it felt like Danny Ainge’s highway robbery might have broken the NBA’s trade machine.

For those who watched LeBron James score his first points against the Sacramento Kings during his first NBA game on Oct. 30, 2003, breaking the scoring record this season was extra sweet. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record felt like one of the few unbreakable NBA records. In a Tuesday night game against the Oklahoma City Thunder in early February, James needed 36 points to break Jabbar’s record. In a stunning performance, he dominated the game with a remarkable 16-point third quarter, culminating in a beautiful jumper with only 10.9 seconds remaining. This propelled him to a career total of 38,388 points, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s decades-long record. He already held the record for most total points scored in the NBA playoffs with 7,631 points.

For a ceremony commemorating the occasion, the game was briefly halted for approximately 10 minutes, during which members of James’ family, including his mother, wife, three children, and even Jabbar, stepped onto the court to share the moment with James. As celebs, former teammates, and Lakers greats watched from the stands, James made history as the league’s all-time leader in points. Despite playing 224 minutes less than Abdul-Jabbar did at the same stage of their respective careers, James scored 530 more points than the former Lakers star did. He also benefited from the three-point shot, a scoring method Jabbar did not have in his arsenal. After the NBA introduced the three-point line in 1979, Abdul-Jabbar made just a single three-pointer in his 20-year career. In contrast, James has scored 17.5% of his points from beyond the arc, increasing his attempts as he ages. This season he’s averaging a staggering 29.5 PPG at 38 years old. It took Abdul-Jabbar 1,560 games over 20 years to tally 38,387 career points. James looks to have at least another three years left in him. The record he sets when he finally hangs it up could be truly insurmountable.

It seems like yesterday Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, and Paul George had united in Oklahoma City of all places. The “big three” was a bust before George demanded a trade to the Clippers right after signing an extension with OKC. Then came the Chris Paul-led underdogs, paired with a bunch of wily vets and youngsters Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort. Only Dort and SGA remain two years later, but they are both integral parts of the cornerstone rebuild Sam Presti devised after squandering having three MVPs simultaneously (Westbrook, Durant, and James Harden). Presti selected Josh Giddey, Tre Mann, Jalen Williams, Jaylin Williams, Isaiah Joe, and Chet Holmgren with a record number of draft picks.

When Holmgren injured his foot during an exhibition before pre-season, this season looked like it would be a guaranteed tank job for projected number one pick, Victor Wembanyama. SGA and his young cohorts had other plans. The Thunder are currently two games under .500 and in 10th place, good enough for the Play-In Tournament. This season they are third in pace, 10th in defensive rating, and 14th in offensive rating. Not bad for only year three of the rebuild. The emergence of SGA as a superstar this season has accelerated the rebuild and forced Presti’s hand from committing another egregious tank job. Presti still has an absurd number of draft picks over the next five years and will eventually use them to outbid anyone for the next star that demands a trade out. When he does, the Thunder could be positioned for the best run to a championship in their franchise’s young career. Now it’s time for the OKC Thunder’s band of merry pranksters to shock the world this postseason with a playoff birth.

So, what was this Ja Morant suspension all about?

March 17, 2023

Ja Morant will be back on the court next week at some point. Which is good…maybe? One gets the sense that no one around him is really looking out for him, including his employer. But the NBA has a lot of money invested in him, so they need to rehab his image but do so quickly so he can get back on the court and remind everyone why he’s the future face of the league. Because that’s what the league wanted not so long ago. And it also makes one wonder what exactly went on here.

Morant was away from the Memphis Grizzlies after appearing on Instagram Live from a strip club with a gun. The NBA couldn’t, or wouldn’t, determine if it was his or if he had it on official NBA grounds, and fair enough. Maybe it wasn’t, and it would be hard to prove it was and he had it on the plane or in the locker room without evidence or someone credible saying so. It was an extreme showcase of poor judgment, That we can say for sure. Anything else? What exactly are they saying? Because it sure feels like Morant was suspended for scaring white people.

It was only a couple days after Morant was reportedly receiving counseling in Florida for…something before he was reinstated. But that’s not how counseling works. That takes a lot of time. And now he’s doing interviews on ESPN. And returning to the Grizzlies in a few days. Certainly the matter of his counseling should be kept private, but again, only a couple of days? Was that just lip service? Because it kind of feels like it.

Morant has a big interview with ESPN’s Jalen Rose. Makes sense, Rose had a soliloquy about Morant when his video first went viral, and also faced a similar situation in college when he was caught in something that had the masses horrified but in reality, he was just hanging out somewhere with a friend. Rose, in some ways, is the perfect person to talk to Morant, having been through similar experiences. But when you put it on camera for ESPN, who is in bed with the NBA, it’s hard to take it completely at face value. Was this a partner of the NBA doing a solid for the league and trying to cleanse the image of one of its biggest stars on the quick?

This isn’t to excuse Morant’s behavior or actions in the past year. But he’s hardly the first young person to suddenly be inundated with fame and money and struggle to know how that changes things. He is accused of beating up a teenager at his house. (According to the Washington Post, Morant told police he acted in self-defense. “I swung first,” he told detectives.)

Patrick Kane, around the same age, allegedly beat up an elderly cab driver. (He pleaded not guilty to felony robbery and misdemeanor counts of theft and criminal mischief, but eventually pleaded guilty to a noncriminal charge of disorderly conduct.) People decided to find the latter cute and the indiscretion of a young kid, or at worst fodder for opposing fans but nothing else. Morant’s actions make him an unsavable thug to some. What’s the difference I wonder?

Morant isn’t the first person to keep the wrong company out of loyalty. Most of us will never know, but it must be impossibly hard to come to the realization that you have much more to lose than someone close to you when that person isn’t respecting that fact, especially when you think you’re helping. And it wouldn’t be fair to try and speculate on what the Grizzlies were referring to when they said Morant needed time away to deal with things. But how would any possible answer be dealt with in a manner of days?

Morant is one of many who has to grow up in front of all of us, and for some, that looks very different than what the paying audience for the NBA knows. Remember when Miley Cyrus was annoying everyone years ago? That was something that would usually go on in a dormitory somewhere, but instead, it went on in front of cameras and on social media, so everyone had a thought/panic attack over it. It scared parents with children who were worried that their kids might have the same phase (they will). Morant’s may be more menacing to outsiders, but it’s the same genus.

It seems Morant was guilty of presenting bad optics. The NBA knows who’s buying the tickets and who is funding the ads. And while what Morant has been accused of lately is bad, what’s worse is that it scares the utter shit out of those people. The NBA had to look to be doing something. So that’s what it did, look like it was doing something. What that was…who can say?

Thierry Henry is thirst for the USMNT

Interesting nugget slipping out of France last night:

On the one hand, it’s not totally above board that the FFF is asking Henry to be the head coach of the women’s team a few months before the World Cup. Henry has no experience in the women’s game, and it feels like he was a name they thought could calm the seas after their recent hiccups. Would that solve the problems French football has amongst its women’s team? Almost certainly not, but Henry would be a big shiny name that might get some people to ask fewer questions about it.

As for the second part…ehhhhhhhh. Henry is at least familiar with the American game, because he did coach Montreal FC for…one season. And it was during the pandemic season. So, kind of, not really the normal American season. His time at Monaco was an absolute disaster. He was an assistant for Belgium…under Roberto Martinez, who just happens to be one of the biggest, fraudulent morons in the international game (you’re about to find out, Portugal). So…it kind of feels like his candidacy for the USMNT head coaching job isn’t all that different than the one for the French women’s team. A big name with a glorious playing history that only the truly in the know will ask serious questions about but will seem like a big get to everyone else. And no one listens to those of us in the know.