{"id":563,"date":"2010-07-08T15:17:36","date_gmt":"2010-07-08T20:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=563"},"modified":"2010-07-08T16:25:44","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T21:25:44","slug":"utterly-fascinating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"Utterly Fascinating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of ways one could describe the last 10 days in the NBA.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><u>Overblown<\/u> &#8211; Rafa Nadal just won another Wimbledon title, giving him 8 Grand Slams (3 more than Federer at this point in his career).\u00a0\u00a0Major League Baseball just hit its halway point with interesting races all over the place and a whole lot of trade deadline fodder.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Oh, and\u00a0the world&#8217;s largest sporting event which only takes place every four years is going to crown a first-time champion on Sunday, as undoubtably the two greatest footballing countries to never win the World Cup will play for it all.\u00a0 And, the NBA?\u00a0 They haven&#8217;t played a single game (unless you count the meaningless one-on-one Summer League battles between Gerald Henderson and Gordon Hayward), yet they have completely dominated every national sports medium in the United States.\u00a0 So, yes, you could call it overblown.<\/li>\n<li><u>New School<\/u> &#8211; We are now two decades into the <em>Real World <\/em>World.\u00a0 Everything is instantaneous.\u00a0 This is just the most recent, largest example of the changing landscape of the world, as seen through the media.<\/li>\n<li><u>Narcissistic<\/u> &#8211; LeBron James has a one-hour special on ESPN tonight to announce his &#8220;decision.&#8221;\u00a0 Chris Bosh is producing a documentary of his life over the past month.<\/li>\n<li><u>Intrusive<\/u> &#8211; Somehow Dwyane Wade&#8217;s custody battle over his children has been the driving factor in the rumor mill&#8217;s most recent opinions on where he will sign.<\/li>\n<li><u>Irresponsible<\/u> &#8211; From a journalistic standpoint, have you ever seen less responsibility?\u00a0 ESPN.com has basically become TMZ.\u00a0 What even distinguishes a &#8220;story&#8221; from a &#8220;rumor,&#8221; at this point?\u00a0 Chris Broussard (who I like very much, as a journalist, and I don&#8217;t fault him in the least) is basically that popular girl in middle school who finds out who likes who and is then telling everyone she knows.<\/li>\n<li><u>Embarrassing<\/u> &#8211; I heard Mike Francesca make a good point.\u00a0 Other than Barack Obama, is there anyone in the world that could demand one hour of prime time television in 24 hours?\u00a0 Anyone?\u00a0 And, what does that say about our culture that it is the President of the United States and a 25-year old athlete?\u00a0 I&#8217;m not saying, I&#8217;m just saying&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><u>Ridiculous<\/u> &#8211; It&#8217;s kind of a circus.\u00a0 There are a handful of <em>players<\/em> making personnel decisions that are going to dictate the NBA landscape for the next 15 years.\u00a0 The National Basketball Association has become a schoolyard pick-up game, with everyone choosing sides.\u00a0 They might as well shoot for teams, at this point.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But, with all of these very descriptive, apt adjectives, there is one that stands above it all, for me:\u00a0 <em>fascinating<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, I have been utterly fascinated with how this whole thing is playing out.\u00a0 I read the gossip\/I mean NBA page on ESPN.com every hour or so.\u00a0 I have played with that little <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/nba\/features\/freeagentslotmachine\">free agent slot machine <\/a>thing endlessly for the better part of a week now.\u00a0 And, yes, however absurd it may be (though, I found it a little less so considering the charitable spin put on it), I plan to watch <em>The Decision <\/em>tonight on ESPN to find out where LeBron James is going to sign.\u00a0 And, yes, right now, I&#8217;m that guy that makes fun of the middle school gossip queens, but secretly cannot get enough of what they have to say about whom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Couple Random Thoughts About James&#8217;s Decision<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How awful would it\u00a0be if he went on national TV for an hour only to tell Cleveland he was leaving?\u00a0 That&#8217;s why I have to put Cleveland at the top right now.<\/li>\n<li>And, I honestly think it&#8217;s probably down to a three-team race.\u00a0 ESPN is reporting that it&#8217;s probably going to be Miami to join Bosh and Wade, so I guess they are in play.<\/li>\n<li>And, the only other team that I can possibly see him announcing on ESPN is the Knicks, especially considering Bosh is signed, sealed, and delivered to Miami.\u00a0 If he was going to the Nets or Bulls, he would have taken Bosh with him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But, then again, who knows?\u00a0 Personally, I am rooting for him to stay in Cleveland.\u00a0 Well, that is unless he wants to go to the Clippers and take LA away from that fraud named Kobe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a lot of ways one could describe the last 10 days in the NBA. Overblown &#8211; Rafa Nadal just won another Wimbledon title, giving him 8 Grand Slams (3 more than Federer at this point in his career).\u00a0\u00a0Major &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=563\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[1048,602],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-2010-nba-free-agency","tag-lebron-james"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}