2016 NBA FREE AGENCY OJ MAYO BANNED! DWYANE WADE LEAVING MIAMI HEAT? AL JEFFERSON TO INDIANA PACERS!
O.J. Mayo received an at-least-two-year ban from the NBA today, for repeat violations of the leagues anti-drug program. This is not exactly important news for the NBA, because O.J. Mayo is busted and terrible and probably was on a plane to China when the decision was made anyway. However, its an occasion to remember the time back in 2007 when Bill Simmons, then at ESPN, wrote a lot of really amazingly dogwhistly s**t about O.J. Mayo and Kevin Love, then in high school.
The blog post, titled Down with the O.J. Mayo Era, is pegged to the pairs appearance in the McDonalds All-American Game. In it, Simmons labors to draw some, uh, suuuper duuuper dogwhistly-as-h**l contrasts between Mayo, who has a legitimate chance to replace Vince Carter as my least favorite NBA star of all-time (Side note: Who the f**k hates Vince Carter????), and Love, Simmonss new favorite incoming recruit. Its really something! I encourage you to read it. Here are some of my favorite passages.
On the possibility of a rivalry between the two (emphasis added):
The bigger picture: With Mayo joining a loaded USC team and Love playing 20 minutes away for a Final Four team, thats looming as a dynamite rivalry and the most intriguing media subplot for the 2007-08 season. After all, Love represents everything good about basketball (unselfishness, teamwork, professionalism) and Mayo represents everything weve come to despise (showboating, selfishness, over-hype).
Heres the very next part!
If Love were black, this would be a much easier topic to discuss. But hes white. So even though theres a natural inclination to embrace Loves game and disparage Mayos gameyou know, assuming you give a c**p about basketball and care about where its headed as a sporttheres also a natural inclination to hold back because nobody wants to sound like the white media guy supporting the Great White Hope over the Black Superstar Du Jour.
On their relative appeal to various, uh, demographics:
Like it or not, Mayos style of game resonates with a certain demographic, with his final high school dunk symbolizing the divide between traditional fans and the budding generation that was weaned on Slam Magazine and me-first superstars like Stephon Marbury and Vince Carter (neither of whom has played on a 50-win NBA team, by the way). Head over to YouTube and youll find an unedited clip of the dunk that makes Mayo look like an attention-seeking punk, as well as a heavily edited clip of the same dunk that lionizes it. Is it alarming that a 19-year-old kid throwing himself a halfcourt alley-oop in the final minute of a 40-point win, dunking it, tossing the ball into the stands and getting thrown out of his final high school game, then soaking in a standing ovation could be considered a beautiful moment by some people? Probably not. Thats just our culture now. Rappers sing songs with their own names as the chorus. Wannabe celebrities intentionally leak s*x tapes to make themselves famous. Rich teenagers make fools of themselves on My Super Sweet 16" and dont even get that theyre the joke.
(It was nice of him to throw in veiled but instantly recognizable references to notable nonblack attention-seekers Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, there. Of course theyre both women, but, uh, at least theyre not the blacks!)
But the sport of basketball is headed for a crossroads of sorts, personified by the fact that Kobe Bryants recent streak of 50-point games received far more national attention than the incredible Suns-Mavs game two weeks ago.
Hey, who were the two stars involved in that Suns-Mavs game? Notable whites Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki.
Nobody wants to be the next Steve Nash; everyone wants to be the next LeBron James, the next Gilbert Arenas, the next Vince Carter.
Everyone wants to be notable me-first glory-hog LeBron James, quite possibly the best passer and all-around player in NBA history.
Again, its not a black/white thing as much as a philosophical thing
Oh for sure man.
Which brings me back to that McDonalds game. When Mayo bricked the game-winning 3-pointer with five seconds left and soaked in those scattered boos and a few ov-er-ra-ted chants, do you think he was more upset that his team lost, or that he would have been the hero if he made the 3? Call me crazy, but Im going with the latter. Meanwhile, Kevin Loves team came out on top. He finished with 13 points and six rebounds and jump-started at least five-six fast breaks that directly led to layups or dunks. Looking at the stat sheet, youd never guess that he was one of the key guys in the game. But he was. And thats why Im looking forward to the Kevin Love Era and preparing myself to hate everything about the O.J. Mayo Era.
Its not a white thing or a black thing ... its a basketball thing.
Just a coincidence then!
[ESPN]
Source: http://deadspin.com/remember-when-bill-simmons-wrote-a-bunch-of-bullshit-ab-1782967931
