27 Apr 2012
Trap of the Day: Metta World Peace
There’s no debating the undeniable flop culture in modern-day professional sports. Sooner or later, the Academy Awards may want to consider divvying out an Oscar or two to the fabulous acting on display in the sports world. Across the board you have soccer studs taking dives drawing penalty kicks, baseball batters pretending they were hit by a pitch drawing a free base, and NBA hoopers’ flailing arms fouling out key players in important games. It’s deceitful to both fans and referees trying to keep the game clean and fair. It’s tough to give anyone the benefit of the doubt anymore—acting is now fully engrained in gamesmanship and if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.
When Oklahoma City Thunder’s James Harden hit the floor the other day in a matchup versus the Los Angeles Lakers, I was casually monitoring the game with a household of basketball fans. We all collectively groaned and instantaneously accused Harden of flopping after seeing him fall lifeless on the court after an emphatic Laker bucket. That being said, I’d like to apologize to Mr. Harden, because after taking a second look at the replay, we all saw that Harden was in fact victimized by one of most malicious and violent elbows I’ve ever seen in my life (that includes all the mixed martial arts fights I’ve seen, even this one).
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16 Mar 2012
Trap of the Day: NBA Trade Deadline
Image via Associated Press.
The past 24 hours have been an absolute whirlwind of basketball hysteria—my head is still spinning this morning. Due to the NBA Lockout shifting the season’s schedule around, yesterday was the first day in basketball history that the March Madness mens tournament tipped off the same morning as the closing hours of the NBA trade deadline. Multi-tasking the highlights and box scores of NCAA hoops while absorbing all the breaking trade updates in the NBA was an example of information overload at its finest. Can we just declare this day a holiday already? Paging: President Obama.
If you happened to be solely locked in on all the March Madness action, here is what you may have missed while NBA franchises were frenetically wheeling and dealing (check out the full recap for yourself with the NBA Trade Deadline Trap).
The NBA lost two of its highest paid coaches—you can now find them in the sports section of the unemployment line. The New York Knicks head coach Mike D’Antoni resigned (a.k.a. QUIT), jumping ship on the Big Apple’s most prized franchise along with his $6 million paycheck. As expected, there is plenty of speculation circulating the web that D’Antoni was in fact forced out. The Portland Trailblazers followed suit, axing the fourth highest paid coach ($5mill), Nate McMillan. As a Blazer fan, I was crushed by the news, but the general feel around the city is that this had to be the final episode of McMillan’s seven-year soap opera in the Rose City.
McMillan’s departure was just one aspect of owner Paul Allen’s housecleaning. The Blazers parted ways with multiple fan-favorite players in a matter of hours. And the Blazers weren’t the only ones making moves.
The Los Angeles Lakers snagged the point guard they’ve been searching for, while saying goodbye to a legend. No, they didn’t get Derron Williams. While teams like the Celtics and Jazz chose to stand pat, teams like the Warriors, Bucks, and Nuggets were all active, hoping to improve their roster lineups as the season begins to wind down.
Last but certainly not least, if you haven’t been following the Dwight Howard saga, you certainly need to click [here] [here] and [here] and perhaps even [here]. Let’s just say LeBron James’ “Decision“ PR stunt is not looking so bad after what Howard has done to bewilder his Orlando Magic fan base.
The sports world is reacting inside the NBA Trade Deadline Trap. Step inside and bonk heads with the rest of us.
-Geoff 
