Welcome back. Before we jump in deep, a few words on James Harden, who I believe is getting screwed hard, and who I fully support in this mess. Question: When did the NBA-world become so pro-billionaire? Is that something that’s always been a part of the DNA and I just woke up to realize it? The amount of shit-bagging this week on James Harden, who I get is not your favorite player, is absolutely ridiculous.
Newsflash, everyone. James Harden is not passionate about basketball. Get over it.
And if you’re anything but a die hard Sixers fan you shouldn’t care. I mean, you can care I guess but you shouldn’t care-care the way most media lords care and complain about James Harden as if he was the worst human being since Cain slaughtered Abel.
I’m going to say it again, James Harden is simply not passionate about his job. He has other interests. Clubbing. Touring China. He’s like a playwright moonlighting in Hollywood to make a quick dollar between manuscripts. He’s got other passions on his mind, a wider agenda, and basketball is just one cog in the wheel.
Unless you’re a 76ers fan who lives and breathes 76ers basketball, what right do you have to tell a grown man, James Harden, that he should be more passionate about his job. This is a man who was lied to by his boss, who all signs show manipulated James Harden into taking less money for a future contract that never appeared. Imagine if your boss offered you a job after the fourth earning’s quarter, or whatever it’s called; imagine if you were told you were going to get a promotion next year, and then you just weren’t.
James Harden kept his side of the deal, played basketball, and got screwed, and now everyone in the NBA-land is reacting like James Harden is the bad guy? Say what you will about him as a player but miss me with the personal take downs of Harden as a human being. He’s a professional basketball player who barely likes to roll out of bed in the morn who got screwed out of his money. Put yourself in his size 14 Nike’s, America. How many of you are actually jumping out of bed to go to work everyday?
Another thing, Harden’s boss, Daryl Morey, works directly under Josh Harris, the billionaire owner of the 76ers who started an investment firm during the 90s. In what other venue of life do sane people look at what Wall Street billionaires do and give them the benefit of the doubt? Daryl Morey, the billionaire’s right hand man screwed over his employee, and almost everyone is mad at the employee? I don’t get it. What is it about (some) NBA fans that blinds them to corporate greed?
These are just two, of thousands of quotes you can pull from reputable media sources, said out in broad day light about James Harden this past week. (Hint: you can hear them for yourself in one of the podcasts below)
“If you’re making over 35 mill you’re not allowed to be disrespected.”
Rude but okay.
“Just play basketball.”
Just play basketball? You mean like not have an opinion? That sounds a lot like Laura Ingraham’s famous “shut up and dribble” quote that angered everyone back in 2018. You know, the Fox News one. People are straight goofy when it comes to the NBA.
Now that Doris Burke has been named the top dog of the ABC / ESPN broadcast I wanted to speak on something that I have been holding in for a while about her way of calling games.
First and foremost, big huge enormous congrats to Doris Burke. As the first female to be taking the reigns of the top broadcast chair at ABC/ESPN, this is hugely important in all the ways that it’s always hella awesome for women to do things that men have for one reason or another always done. So this post is two things at once, pro feminist but kinda also just a little tad anti-Doris Burke.
And here’s why. Because as much as I LOVE me some Doris Burke from time to time — the passion alone is enough to turn a thief honest, her vanilla approach to calling basketball games does kinda rub me the wrong way — it’s not the best look when it comes to, I don’t know, reality. Authenticity?
Don’t get me wrong, Doris is a poet when it comes to calling wild plays and telling inspiring stories. The best. If Russell Westbrook reverse dunks and scores on an explosive alley oop, there’s no one else I want to hear call it. But she can also be a little too, I don’t know, tie-it-all-up-with-a-ribbon like a pretty little present on Christmas morning.
She can be like overly sugared water, but not the good kind, but the kind that you already feel has too much sugar in it, and then someone throws in another packet of sugar, the stuff they have on the tables at IHOP, and then makes you drink it in front of them the way a bully would. I’m not saying Doris Burke is a 3rd grade bully, at least not on purpose. She’s really-really-really nice. But like almost too nice, you know? Not everything is a perfect wrapped present on Christmas morning with a perfect pink ribbon, but in Doris Land it is. It’s like she was raised on way too many Meg Ryan movies or something, or her life is perfect like a rainbow, because if it’s not I don’t understand how you train your mind to be so pure and uncynical.
Doris Burke could watch a player slam his head on the backboard, see his brains splatter in front of her, and cut to commercial off the perfect little made for TV zinger that makes a show of how the player had to make a lot of sacrifices to get to the top.
The reason Doris has been selected to lead the broadcast along with Mike Breen, another turd who seems to never have watched anything but Disney movies growing up, is because, well, ABC and ESPN belong to Disney, and well, there’s definitely something to Disney that likes to keep things, shall we say, cheerful? Sanitized? Corporate?
Just saying, what the world needs now is Doris Burke to talk about James Harden. Doris would know exactly what to say to make James feel better, to remind the public that James Harden is innocent, that he has been fleeced by his greedy Wall Street bosses.
Here’s another quote for you from Doris Burke: “The referees are working with the ball boys to clean the guts up off the backboard now, folks. It’s a devastating show of courage by the ball boys, some of whom are so young they have barley graduated high school.”
Thanks, Doris. Love,
BBF
Stuff that inspired moi this week: