Shak Shock and Kobe

I think its about time I revisited that all important topic of sports. Every so often overseas I see something shocking on a website, Heath Ledgers death I must say was an unwelcome reminder of my own mortality, and for the record if I should die, please don't say I died living my dream. Travel has never been my dream, I have always dreamed of being a plantation owner wearing white suits everywhere and talking in a Foghorn-Leghorn voice.
That said, yesterday when logging on to NBA.com to check out how Kobe and Pau Gasol were faring and whether the greatest player since Jordan would make his ascension I noticed in the interminably slow load time, one of the first images to load was an ad 'Buy Shaq's Jersey' and I thought, there must be some mistake that's pheonix sun's colours.
And then I realised another big trade had gone down. But this one made no sense. No sense at all I tell you. Pheonix have a world class center in Amare Stoudemire, and when I learnt what they had used to buy Shaq (Shawn Marion) I was baffled even more. Pheonix were the run and gun team of the NBA. Why trade a player as versatile as Scottie Pippen for the big deisel? 6 years ago you would just about have traded your entire roster for Shaq, and Heat's perspective is a little easier to understand as Dwayne Wade is the clear future and the ageing list pretty much removed any chance of them returning for another Championship without a shake up.
But Pheonix had one of the leagues best line ups and Shaq just seems a misfit.
Except when you look at the bigger picture.
You have the Lakers finally running and challenging Pheonix for leadership of the west, suddenly they get Pau Gasol in a major trade and they look that much more menacing than before. I don't expect anyone to remember or care, but I am right behind Kobe this season to get MVP which I think he has been overlooked for in the past not because I disagree that a star on a losing team is no as valuable as a star on a winning team (who may have to share the spotlight more) but that as the star on a losing team I would gauruntee that no other player would probably ever gauruntee you make the playoffs, and be able to singlehandedly push pheonix suns out to seven games.
So Pheonix reacted, at the start of the season it looked like the favorites to hold up the trophy at the end of the year was pheonix, but with the emergence of the Celtic big three that suddenly took a dampening as the Celtics clicked early. Then Kobe with Fisher and Bynum started to take off, and then the Gasol trade and blam, suddenly we sit amongst the year that may forever be known as 'The ring chaser year' Boston needed a win because they have had a post bird slump that was starting to look like a curse. Pheonix needed to win because they have been contenders for such a long time that its starting to get boring, especially considering the 80 game season. To have it all collapse year after year in the playoffs would leave me with a bitter taste in the mouth knowing the window is slowly closing.
And then the Lakers need to win because Kobe says so, if not he was going to tear apart the San Andreas fault line himself and just ship LA to the eastern conference.
At any rate, we live in interesting times. And boy am I sick of Lebron, as the least interesting person in the League.
Lebron is the US's Yao Ming, as in celebrated as some kind of God having not achieved anything yet. That is anything beyond being drafted at number 1 and I admit an Eastern Conference Champions Trophy. But no MVP, no finals MVP, no slam dunk win, no nothing just the highest wage and higher expectations.
He is a great player, but if there is one player not chasing a ring it is Lebron, when he gets to his 12th season and demands a trade, I will shed no tears for Lebron. The man that thinks he is good enough to bench the other 4 players and just charge on to the championship by himself.
Increasingly I am for Jordan's philosophy of 'earned' over 'entitlement' infact entitlement only really relates to the successful Hindu Caste system. But Lebron can give up some money and share the spotlight a bit, or he can keep playing to sell his ugly arse shoes (that will probably never outsell a pair of Jordans) and talk about becoming the richest man in the world. Not going to happen when you are buying Cannondale and not Wal-mart.
For me, Lebron represents something though that drives me crazy everywhere: speculation. Nike was not nothing, but lets say only significant before Jordan came along, and certainly not a player in basketball. Jordan was pick number 3 after being overlooked for big men, and then having an explosive run, put on some clown shoes that in a combination of early marketing and geniune genius made Air Jordans possibly the most significant shoe in history.
And season after season they led the way and are still one of the worlds biggest selling shoes. And in the meantime Jordan (with help from scottie Pippen and later dennis rodman) racked up 6 championships, 5 MVPs, and the second highest scoring record in history as well as the best single season in history.
And then speculation kicked in, you land on the next michael jordan, your brand too may be propelled to the top. And if there was ever a clearcut favorite to be the next Michael Jordan, it was Lebron James. Kobe snuck into the league, by being drafted straight out of highschool and being taken at 13th pick, he jumped the gun and bought himself space to develop. But Lebron nike locked down, showered in money and now desperately need him to pay dividends, and every year he gets older, and from nike's perspective remember he doesn't need to hoist one championship trophy but 7 Lebron is looking like he will crash and burn. There's no shame in that, Charles Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Pistol Pete some of the best players of all time never got to the championships, and its understandable, while it is inevitable there will be a champion every year there is just too much opportunity for things to go astray.
There is shame though in tattoing your marketing slogans all over your body, across Lebron's back is 'Chosen One' the moniker given to him if you believe them by Slam Magazine, and this notion of devine ascendancy is making 'chosen' as true for Lebron as histories greatest winners the jews.
Down one leg is written 'witness' to coincide with Nike's 2008 campaign 'the world will witness' but somehow I doubt it. Straight up at the Olympics Lebron will have to play alongside the best player in the League Kobe, and moreover he will be playing on the worlds best team, so unless Lebron kills all his teammates, or changes his nationality to bolivian and beats the US I sincerely doubt the world will witness anything particularly spectacular. The next slogan may be 'pray for me' and if he gets that tattoo I think Lebron can be crowned 'least cool' player in the NBA ever.
But enough of that tyrade against Lebron, I would be called a hater, but in the end, Lebron is crazy good at basketball, and like Jordan has a physique that was made to play, if only he could ditch all the marketing bullshit and play, he might even become cooler than Bogut.
That said, Lebron and Yao are probably not contenders. The three way collision of Celtics, Pheonix and Lakers is what is interesting now, and they aren't the only contenders, but their club management is the hungriest, you can't write off Mavericks, Detroit, Orlando or the Hornets.
At anyrate it is good to be in a country were I can watch Basketball on TV, if only I was in a country that I could play basketball on the street.