Lakers win, Blazers fans resort to eating poo

Well that was interesting. The Blazers most hated imaginary rival just locked up the West. Things have been pretty gravy for the Lakers since the Gasol hijacking. The win tonight has me thinking more about that superstar with enough gravity to pull most basketball discussions his way, Kobe. This has really been an amazingly Mamba-ie year.

First we had the speaking out against management issue. This attention pushed his lovers and haters to once again vocalize how detached from reality they have become. You folks are silly.

Then of course, Gasol came and made everything better. Kobe gets MVP. Lakers get to the Western Conference Finals where they are up against what is perceived not so much as a mere team, but basketball purity descended directly from His sanctum. Luckily for them, one diety seems to have an injured ankle.

There was that non-call on Bones Barry at the end of game four, bringing both justified complaints and entertaining conspiracy rants. Proponents of a Lakers bias in officiating would be wise to consider that Kobe shot 11 total freethrows, in the series. In any event, the Lakers win. Kobe wins. Blazers fans reportedly consider eating poo to remove the unpleasant taste from their mouths. Gross.

Through these most recent developments, of course, has been the story mainstream media outlets are still weary of touching; Kobe's alleged affair with an 18 year old Laker girl (timelined for your convenience at Deadspin).

This year is Kobe personified. Loved as a great player and a winner, absolutely loathed as a perceived jerk. These dual extremes alone don't make Kobe compelling. To me, it is how they have been sprawling out concurrently.

Kobe throws a "trade me" tantrum. Lakers have best record in the West. Kobe gets MVP. Kobe has another sex scandal. Lakers beat the Spurs, win West.

We should know by now this is who Kobe is. This sequence is more than coincidence, it seems like the blueprint for his life. At the very least it serves as his soundtrack. The Lakers could still win the Championship, he could still be Finals MVP, and he could still win Olympic Gold this summer. Thats more hardware in a year than a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame accumulated over an entire career.

As this unfolds, who knows what direction his current scandal will take, what other information will be uncovered. Maybe there is something else lurking around the corner. Most of us will be watching, and most of us will continue to dedicate ourselves to loving or hating. This is Kobe Bryant.

Kobe is MVP, legions of lovers and haters forced to somehow become even more extreme

So Kobe is MVP. You might be expecting an anti-Kobe rant, the typical kind from the Blazer fan that clings to the belief that the Lakers and Portland are some how rivals despite logic that says otherwise. (Always open with a run on sentence, always!) Nope, but I'd imagine you can find a bit of that without looking too hard.

I'm also trying hard to sidestep the whole "who deserves it" debate. I think we can say that little area has been covered and will continue to be bludgeoned to death. Now that I think of it, the angle that the MVP debate is lame has also probably been bludgeoned to death. Anyways, we know the MVP concept itself is purposely vague. If the criteria were operationalized, we really wouldn't need voters or discourse. That would mean a lot less bullshit, for sure, but I assume there are lots of people who like the bullshit. We all are producing and consuming it on some level. That isn't one of my burning interests at the moment.

The first thought that came to me when I learned Kobe won the award was how this would impact his lovers and haters. I've always been impressed with the extemity of the polarization Bryant seems to have. I'm not sure that sentence makes sense, but hang with me.

A lot of his fans can be so overboard and dogmatic with their passion for the guy that they really make it hard for others to appreciate one of the best basketball players in history. That perspective has been disseminated more eloquently than I could ever do here.

But before I criticize those dipshits too much, I should awknowledge that a lot of the problems I have with Bryant fans apply equally to his haters. I was one, probably for years. I am a Blazers fan after all, and we have no shortage of anti-Mambas in this growing demographic. In fact it might even be part of how one Blazer fan judges the real fanhood of another:

Out of style dirty Blazers hat?

Check.

Hates Kobe?

Check.

But the impact of hundreds of conversations focused on Kobe hatred ended up having the same impact on me as having to endure his die hard supporters. The conversations were so repetitive, dogmatic, and baseless that I came to a point where it became impossible for me to hate Kobe Bryant.

The extremity of these two camps is what makes me crazy. Its that disgusted face a Lakers fan gives me when I say Kobe is compelling to me because the same thing that makes him so great keeps him flawed. That disgusted face and the process behind it are often the same when I tell one of his haters the same thing.

Now those in these groups (that are actually just one group, but don't tell them that) have an MVP trophy to deal with. It seems like this will propel them to new extremes I didn't think were possible in the pre-MVP Mamba era. Hopefully this spits a few back towards the middle.

China still loves Houston

I'm over the "fans don't vote for the right people as All-Stars" rant. If the All-Star game is for the fans, its never going to be a meritocracy. I've even let go of the belief that the coaches have some moral obligation to pick those most deserving and thus bring at least some justice to the situation. Of course, if we're submitting to the tyranny of the majority, maybe they should just have the game in China from now on. It's possible.

I was interested to see how China would support Yi in the voting this season. Would we see the same dedication that has made Yao a lock since his rookie season? He came in with a lot less hype than Yao, but the analysts told me Yao's support is mainly due to his nationality. This in mind, there is probably a baseline of fame and ability one has to achieve to earn this home-country love. Sorry, Big Dodger.

Yi was a high draft pick, is starting as a rookie, and has been a meaningful contributor. Yet he comes in at just #5 in the Eastern Conference Forward voting. Note that being a highly drafted Chinese player does not guarantee you a spot. You'd have better luck as a Houston Rocket.

The increasingly China-savvy NBA has been making sure to keep the Rockets on as many Chinese televisions as possible since Yao came along. Not surprisingly, team loyalty has grown. Despite the Rockets sucking, Shane Battier is 7th among Western Conference Forwards, with rookie teammate Luis Scola coming in 8th. Take that, Durant.

Tracy McGrady is second amongst Western Conference guards, trailing only Mamba. This puts him ahead of guys like Steve Nash, AI, Baron Davis, and Tony Parker. Of course Yao deservedly leads all Western Conference centers.

Battier and Scola both have more votes than Yi. Sure, this could be attributed to votes outside of China. As far as market size goes, Houston dwarfs Chinese-hating Milwaukie. But China was supposed to wield an enormous axe in this vote. Either the Yao belief that you get on the team if you come from China with any hype has always been wrong, or has recently changed.

Many Chinese fans, like non-Chinese fans, like the players and teams they see the most of. Perhaps this is reason enough to let them watch the good teams, too.

NBA.com: 2008 NBA All-Star Balloting Presented by T-Mobile Second Returns Announced

arguably hating the underdog, and mamba camps.

Kobe gets love

Wow, reading this article sends my head running in several directions at once. Firstly, let me say that I'm not a Kobe fan. I'm not a constant Kobe hater either. The lengths some people go to hate Kobe is surpassed only by the pedestal the Mamba lovers put him on. These two polarized camps are engaged in a battle that is pushing each other farther and farther from center. Maybe this article is just the latest manifestation of this. It's a strange thing to watch play out, and it must seem unbelievably insane to Kobe himself, who is just playing his ass off the best way he knows how.

What first attracted me to the Kobe article though, was that NBA.com's front page link called him "arguably the greatest scorer ever." Hm. I know it's pointless to still bring this up, but its pretty annoying to throw "greatest ever" around. To paraphrase Kipp from Napoleon Dynamite's response to use of the term, like anybody could ever know that.

My newer beef with the Kobe link is the use of "arguably." Another tired tool used by everyone trying to puff someone or something up to levels they know it really doesn't achieve. It does make things easier though, so I may get behind it. Arguably, Dave McMenamin looks like a leprachaun.

I feel an NBA.com rant coming on. I will control myself, because that rant would need its own blogging community (Unlike Fred Hickman, who as described earlier needs only his own blog, basically to explain whats up with those glasses). I know they're the NBA and they have to do what they have to do, but sometimes it's like they are trying to suck with those articles. Blandness acheived and perfected. The Clyde Drexler post game interview of websites. By the way, although I have not yet succumbed, he is putting me at risk for being sucked into Dancing With the Stars by being on there. I'm not real happy about this. In the interests of fairness, NBA.com does have good box scores, stats, and the Arenas blog is there.

Switching topics, I was watching a little Southern Illinois vs. Kansas today. I have Kansas losing in the Finals in my bracket, so I was a big fan of them today. Then I realized every hoops fan fiber in my body was telling me to root for the Salukis during the game. The underdog, the overachiever, the scrapper. To my surprise, having a bracket filled out has been probably been undermining all of this for years. I'm not in any kind of pool with money on the line. Wow, if a meaningless bracket I filled out on yahoo can alter my behavior so much, my integrity as a real fan of the game has officially been compromised. I have nowhere to go with this topic, I just wanted to share my self-disgust. And of course, I'll continue doing the bracket thing.

Here's an article worth your time, Image paranoia is getting the best of the NBA. Ok, so she arguably gets carried away with comparing the current state of the NBA to period immediately after 9/11. Try not to let that discredit the whole article, there's some good points.

"People who believe the NBA is full of thugs will think that way no matter what. The NBA could play Paul Anka at every arena, ban rappers from NBA games, enforce haircuts and short shorts, but that isn't going to stop hip-hop fans from loving the game.

If anything, the NBA's tactics are only heightening the perception that the league is 'full of thugs.'"

yup.

What else happened in the NBA tonight that I could blog about, hmmmmm. Oh yeah, the Blazers won again without Z-Bo. Another point for the Trade Zach Movement.