Over the past, oh, month or so, I've mostly talked about comics and my own writing. People always say, write about what you know, and I know those things. Also, video games. I know video games (note, I didn't say 'I know about video games.' I know them. On a personal and intimate level). But this is the first time that I'll be touching on sports.
When I was a lad, I was a devoted follower of several professional sports teams. Namely, the Chicago Bulls, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Cubs and...well, those were really the only sports I followed, so that's about it. I'll still watch just about any NFL game that's on, but will only watch baseball if it's a Cubs game (even though I live in Southeast, WI, we still get WGN, the Chicago network that plays a number of games), but the NBA has fallen to the wayside. Why?
Before I answer that, let me just say this: LeBron James is a perfect example of why I don't follow professional basketball. In the 90s, while the Bulls were building a pair of mini-dynasties around Michael Jordan, the game still seemed to be about just that, the game. Now, it's about a bunch of whiny little brats who surround themselves with entourages (any NFL athlete can tell ya, be careful of who you include in your posse) made up of people only looking for handouts but somehow still hold sway over the player. LBJ is this to the extreme. He allowed his ego (the guy is a good player, don't get me wrong) to be so stroked by the people he surrounded himself with, these guys could tell him to do whatever they wanted.
Now, I come from Wisconsin, so I'm no stranger to a professional athlete tying up headlines in the news for weeks and months about if/where they'll play next season (yes, Favre, you actually get a reference. Don't let it go to your head), but what LBJ has done here is, beyond question, a shame and a blemish to the sport 'King' James claims to love. If he had, say, quietly announced that he wants to win a championship ring and that Cleveland, as much as he loves his home area, cannot support that endeavor, and just said that he's going to play for Miami next year, that'd be that. Instead, he draws it out, parades the fact that he's interviewing a bunch of organizations (a process, many have said, was unprofessional) in front of his hometown crowd, and then, in an hourlong show on ESPN, announces that he's leaving.
I don't think I'm making my point nearly as succintly as I'd like (see, I have the good graces to admit that), so I'm just going to leave it here: I don't know the terms of the deal he has made with the Miami Heat, but the next time he becomes a free agent, I hope he has matured to the point where he can ditch the Yes Men and the Puppet Masters and gracefully announce (if he's still got the goods to not just be traded off like a broken down piece of furniture) where he's going. A man should have more tact than that, and as a role model, he needs to be better than this.
Project Zero fun fact #3: For a brief period when coming up with twists to make the story more compelling, Rain was going to be revealed to be transgendered. This was abandoned because the editing needed to make this twist work was mindblowing.
Buy Project Zero: Bulletproof from Smashwords (also available on the iPad's iBook store):http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/10007
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