Karmic Retribution
The 2003 All Star Game was a freaking embarassment.
If you watched it, you fellated Michael Jordan. You are guilty by association. By watching it, I too fellated Michael Jordan. And I didn't enjoy it one bit.
The whole event was a prolonged Michael Jordan ass kiss. As it was to be Jordan's last ever All Star game, in His final season before His third and only retirement, we were treated to the sight of His balls being polished mercilessly by everyone in the game, around the game, and Mariah Carey. Everything Michael did throughout history - excluding the previous 18 months, of course - was to be glorified and indulged one more time to such a lavish and excessive degree that, if any of us had forgotten how scarily good and frighteningly popular He was, we would never do so again. They had documentaries, they had interviews, they had montages, they had songs, they had a dress represented two of his uniforms on....they had everything.
Unfortunately, there was a slight problem. Jordan wasn't voted in as a starter by the fans. And it's hard to be the most important player on the floor when five other people get there first.
Never mind, though. Into the confusion stepped Allen Iverson. Voted in as one of the starting guards ahead of Jordan, Iverson magnanimously volunteered to give up his starting spot for Jordan, so that He may start the game and take the first 40 shots or so. Tracy McGrady, one of the starting forwards, made an identical gesture a few days later, once again showing sympathy-enducing deferrence to an older man's inferior play. However, the other starting guard, Vince Carter, did not make the same offer, even when pressed to do so.
People turned on Vince Carter. Because he didn't feel the need to give up what was rightfully is, like the others had done before him, he was vitriolically defamed, cursed and besmirched, suddenly deemed "disrespectful" for not giving Jordan something that he didn't earn. (And no, he didn't earn it. Michael Jordan's career up until that point saw him justifiably earn immeasurable fame, fortune and respect aplenty - giving him this starting spot, that he hadn't justifiably earned, would not have changed this.) Not working in Vince's favour was the fact that he had missed most of the year up until that point with injury - in this respect, he too hadn't earn the starting spot. However, Carter had gotten it anyway, because the fans wanted him to have it. But now, they wanted him to give it back. It made no sense, and Vince became a victim, stuck in a position where he could do no right without doing wrong.
Eventually, he relented. A mere matter of minutes before the game, Vince yielded his starting spot to Jordan, whose initial public claims to have not wanted the spot anyway seemed to disappear as he took Vince up on the offer, the same one that he claimed to have previously turned down from Iverson and McGrady. I distinctly remember an interview with Carter just before the game started, in which a pissed-off Vince spoke some clichéd poppycock about how it was the right thing to do to respect the history of the game, and of the "greatest player, probably, to put a pair of basketball shoes on". (Note: quote comes from a time when Vince was still insistent on not giving up his spot.) Had Vince had black eyes, cuts, and a distinct hobble that befitted a kneecapping victim, I wouldn't have been surprised - he didn't look like a man who had made a heartfelt gesture. Yet, regardless of what duress he was under, he made it anyway.
Jordan then came out and shot a Morrison.
Cut to the present day. This year's votes on the All Star Starters are in, and Allen Iverson is one of the starting Eastern Conference guards alongside Dwyane Wade. Vince Carter was third in the fan vote, narrowly missing out on the second guard spot. (Luke Ridnour was fifth, proving once again that this system is still effing stupid.) However, despite his popularity barely waning, Iverson's skill level has started to drop, and he is no longer truly deserving of any award that claims him to be (implied or otherwise) the second best guard in his conference. On the season, Iverson averages only 17.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 5.4 assist and 2.8 turnovers, finally declining like the 33 year old that he is. Several players behind him in the voting, Carter included, are better players than he is now. (Note: Luke Ridnour isn't one of them.) And while the concept of the fan vote is to see the most popular players, not necessarily the best (which incidentally is another damning slant on the whole idea of giving up the spot for Jordan in the first place; the fans clearly didn't want him to start), it shouldn't be.
I want Allen Iverson to give up his starting spot for the better player this year, and the more deserving player over Jordan six years ago, Vince Carter. I realise that it is hypocritical to condemn the idea that Carter was forced to give up his spot in the first place, and then later in the same blog post to infer that Iverson should give up his spot this year to make up for it. And for this, I am sorry. But sometimes, two wrongs do make a right.
(The fan vote system doesn't work, by the way. Yao Ming was an All Star starter way before he deserved to be, and Yi Jianlian and Bruce Bowen came dangerously close to being voted onto the team this year despite never coming close to All Star calibre talent. The NBA All Star game should be to showcase the NBA's best, something which this system does not necessarily do, and therefore it is crap and needs abolishing. But that rant is for another day.)
This isn't a knock on Allen Iverson, whose initial 2003 gesture seemed sincere and genuine, and who isn't to blame for the fans voting him in over other, better players. But the NBA owes Vince Carter something, and this would be a fine time to give him it. Iverson doesn't personally owe Carter anything, and as such he will have done nothing wrong if he starts the game as chosen. Like Vince before him, Iverson has no obligation to give up what is rightfully his, and it is rightfuly his, even if it shouldn't be. But the entire NBA World owes Vince Carter an apology, as well as an All Star start, and Allen Iverson can make this happen. As hypocritical as it may be for me to want to see someone else give up their spot, Vince Carter deserves some justice, no matter how much you dislike him.
Please do this, AI. We'll be brothers for life if you do. I'll never let anyone defoul you again. No one. No one will disrespect this thing of ours. La Cosa Nostra. Me and you. Ride or die.
Let's do this.
If you watched it, you fellated Michael Jordan. You are guilty by association. By watching it, I too fellated Michael Jordan. And I didn't enjoy it one bit.
The whole event was a prolonged Michael Jordan ass kiss. As it was to be Jordan's last ever All Star game, in His final season before His third and only retirement, we were treated to the sight of His balls being polished mercilessly by everyone in the game, around the game, and Mariah Carey. Everything Michael did throughout history - excluding the previous 18 months, of course - was to be glorified and indulged one more time to such a lavish and excessive degree that, if any of us had forgotten how scarily good and frighteningly popular He was, we would never do so again. They had documentaries, they had interviews, they had montages, they had songs, they had a dress represented two of his uniforms on....they had everything.
Unfortunately, there was a slight problem. Jordan wasn't voted in as a starter by the fans. And it's hard to be the most important player on the floor when five other people get there first.
Never mind, though. Into the confusion stepped Allen Iverson. Voted in as one of the starting guards ahead of Jordan, Iverson magnanimously volunteered to give up his starting spot for Jordan, so that He may start the game and take the first 40 shots or so. Tracy McGrady, one of the starting forwards, made an identical gesture a few days later, once again showing sympathy-enducing deferrence to an older man's inferior play. However, the other starting guard, Vince Carter, did not make the same offer, even when pressed to do so.
People turned on Vince Carter. Because he didn't feel the need to give up what was rightfully is, like the others had done before him, he was vitriolically defamed, cursed and besmirched, suddenly deemed "disrespectful" for not giving Jordan something that he didn't earn. (And no, he didn't earn it. Michael Jordan's career up until that point saw him justifiably earn immeasurable fame, fortune and respect aplenty - giving him this starting spot, that he hadn't justifiably earned, would not have changed this.) Not working in Vince's favour was the fact that he had missed most of the year up until that point with injury - in this respect, he too hadn't earn the starting spot. However, Carter had gotten it anyway, because the fans wanted him to have it. But now, they wanted him to give it back. It made no sense, and Vince became a victim, stuck in a position where he could do no right without doing wrong.
Eventually, he relented. A mere matter of minutes before the game, Vince yielded his starting spot to Jordan, whose initial public claims to have not wanted the spot anyway seemed to disappear as he took Vince up on the offer, the same one that he claimed to have previously turned down from Iverson and McGrady. I distinctly remember an interview with Carter just before the game started, in which a pissed-off Vince spoke some clichéd poppycock about how it was the right thing to do to respect the history of the game, and of the "greatest player, probably, to put a pair of basketball shoes on". (Note: quote comes from a time when Vince was still insistent on not giving up his spot.) Had Vince had black eyes, cuts, and a distinct hobble that befitted a kneecapping victim, I wouldn't have been surprised - he didn't look like a man who had made a heartfelt gesture. Yet, regardless of what duress he was under, he made it anyway.
Jordan then came out and shot a Morrison.
Cut to the present day. This year's votes on the All Star Starters are in, and Allen Iverson is one of the starting Eastern Conference guards alongside Dwyane Wade. Vince Carter was third in the fan vote, narrowly missing out on the second guard spot. (Luke Ridnour was fifth, proving once again that this system is still effing stupid.) However, despite his popularity barely waning, Iverson's skill level has started to drop, and he is no longer truly deserving of any award that claims him to be (implied or otherwise) the second best guard in his conference. On the season, Iverson averages only 17.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 5.4 assist and 2.8 turnovers, finally declining like the 33 year old that he is. Several players behind him in the voting, Carter included, are better players than he is now. (Note: Luke Ridnour isn't one of them.) And while the concept of the fan vote is to see the most popular players, not necessarily the best (which incidentally is another damning slant on the whole idea of giving up the spot for Jordan in the first place; the fans clearly didn't want him to start), it shouldn't be.
I want Allen Iverson to give up his starting spot for the better player this year, and the more deserving player over Jordan six years ago, Vince Carter. I realise that it is hypocritical to condemn the idea that Carter was forced to give up his spot in the first place, and then later in the same blog post to infer that Iverson should give up his spot this year to make up for it. And for this, I am sorry. But sometimes, two wrongs do make a right.
(The fan vote system doesn't work, by the way. Yao Ming was an All Star starter way before he deserved to be, and Yi Jianlian and Bruce Bowen came dangerously close to being voted onto the team this year despite never coming close to All Star calibre talent. The NBA All Star game should be to showcase the NBA's best, something which this system does not necessarily do, and therefore it is crap and needs abolishing. But that rant is for another day.)
This isn't a knock on Allen Iverson, whose initial 2003 gesture seemed sincere and genuine, and who isn't to blame for the fans voting him in over other, better players. But the NBA owes Vince Carter something, and this would be a fine time to give him it. Iverson doesn't personally owe Carter anything, and as such he will have done nothing wrong if he starts the game as chosen. Like Vince before him, Iverson has no obligation to give up what is rightfully his, and it is rightfuly his, even if it shouldn't be. But the entire NBA World owes Vince Carter an apology, as well as an All Star start, and Allen Iverson can make this happen. As hypocritical as it may be for me to want to see someone else give up their spot, Vince Carter deserves some justice, no matter how much you dislike him.
Please do this, AI. We'll be brothers for life if you do. I'll never let anyone defoul you again. No one. No one will disrespect this thing of ours. La Cosa Nostra. Me and you. Ride or die.
Let's do this.
Labels: Adam Morrison, Allen Iverson, Bruce Bowen, Dwyane Wade, Luke Ridnour, Things That Annoy Me, Things We Should Totally Petition For, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian
posted by Sham at
3:29 AM
5 Comments:
Now, Michael Jordan is the reason I got into basketball. I watched his game, studied him, rooted for him, memorized useless numbers related to him, and have always defended him whenever I think someone's being an ass and not giving him his due for what he contributed to this great sport. Yet I wanted to punch out the lights of Kornheiser, Wilbon and every other ESPN asshole who kept saying, day after day, "the fans want to see Jordan start! Vince Carter should step aside!" If the fans wanted him to start, they would have voted for him instead of Vince. Plain and simple. People aren't so stupid that they'd give their support to Carter's name on the ballot, snub Jordan, while thinking "Man, I hope that Jordan gets enough votes to start!" But sportswriters are truly whiny, petulant babies, especially when it comes to their exhibition games for some reason(witness their collective childish reaction to a tie in MLB's ASG the year before) and they just wouldn't let this one go. It was obnoxious and bush league, and did no favors to Jordan because it kept underscoring that people didn't vote for him.
Re: Jordan taking Carter up on the offer when he reportedly turned down AI and T-Mac. From what I remember, the locker room conversation was supposedly Vince begging Jordan to just accept the damn starting spot because otherwise it would be Carter who got shat on for it, and Tar Heels have to look out for one another. AI was there insisting that MJ "just do it" as well. At least that was the story that leaked at the time, if the situation's been clarified since then I wouldn't know.
If that's what was reported, then yeah I did miss that, but I also don't believe it for a moment. I believe fully that Carter finally volunteered after extreme duress, and was not handcuffed to a chair or had his family kidnapped or anything, but I doubt Jordan's reluctance was anything but melodrama. He came out and took the first 35 shots. He knew what he was doing.
Despite the hilarity of pretty much every post you guys have made, this probably is the best I've read. The All Star voting is an absolute joke (for reasons unbeknownst to Chinese speakers), and VC has generally deserved a spot, popularity or statistically. Hopefully at least the league will have the sense of deservedly putting VC as a backup on the squad.
We needed a victim for the crucification for 2003, and VC happened to do the right thing (and incidentally crucified), and Jordan proceeded to unleash his primadonna ego, 33% of which actually went through the hoop.
i agree that game was bulls**t, but it doesn't change that vince did not play at an all-star level that year, or several of the other years that he was voted in.
in fact, i think vince shouldn't be playing in any games. he should have been banned from the NBA for life after he admitted to not playing his hardest his last few years in Toronto. in an industry where people sign guaranteed contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, there needs to be some accountability, and vince clearly did not live up to his contractual obligations.
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