Sports are awesome. Basketball is awesome. So are nachos,
they are arguable one of the most awesome things out there. What makes sports
awesome, besides aforementioned nachos, is the narratives of our heroes, the
guys and girls we cheer for. Sometimes we take this hero worship over the top,
but having the ability to attach ourselves to an athlete or a team and live
vicariously through those accomplishments make sports what they are.
Or so I thought, because what makes sports really fun is
rooting against another player or another team. It’s the one time in our
everyday lives where we can take all the ill will and animosity we have towards
someone else, our work, relationships, etc., and direct it onto someone else in
a harmless way. It’s the only part of our lives where it is not only acceptable,
but encouraged, to wish upon the downfall of another person. And since we are
all secretly shitty individuals, we need this in our lives.
The NBA is in the midst of a crisis right now. After
jettisoning one of the all-time scumbags, Donald Sterling, from the sport, the
league suddenly doesn’t have that one person or team that we unanimously all
hate. And that’s a problem, because what’s the point of sports if I can’t wish
horrible things onto others to make myself feel better? Where can I turn to
when I get the urge to yell at my TV that so and so is a snagle-toothed crack whore
that steals from the Salvation Army?
Buckle up, Paul. It's about to be a long article for you
The NBA needs this villain to emerge. And with this blog, we
may be able to find the one worthy of our unnecessary resentment. Let’s take a look
at some of the NBA villains of the past and see who can live up to the
precedents they set.
The So Good They’re Nauseating AKA the LeBron Rule
Look, we as a society are a bunch of fucking haters. Thanks
to Twitter, social media, messages boards, Hot Take TV shows and podcasts, and
drunken basketball blogs such as this one, it’s easier than ever for us as fans
to express our ire towards a player. Usually, the best players in the league
get all the coverage and the praise. After a while, you can’t help but get sick
and tired of the constant dick riding analyst perform on certain players,
and before you know it you’re secretly wishing a snapped femur on that player.
Case in point, LeBron James. Bron’s stint as a “true villain”
was incredibly brief while he was in South Beach. With that said, LeBron almost
never did anything remotely close to treacherous other than publicly disown his
hometown city in favor of chasing rings. While this was a dick move, in the
grand scheme of things it’s a pretty minor offense, especially since he
eventually came back. The real reason why people don’t like LeBron is because
he’s too fucking good.
Like I said, we’re all secretly a bunch of haters. Sure, we love it when our favorite player or
favorite team achieves greatness. But even in our everyday lives, we can’t help
but resent people that are a little too good at stuff. Admit it, you probably
work with someone that is absolutely perfect at their job, a great team player,
and seems like a generally good person. Chances are you’ve imagined brutally
murdering said person a couple of times. And it’s not that you actually hate
that person or want to harm them, you just find it insanely annoying that they
are amazing at their job while you’re still trying to figure out how to work
the damn copier. It’s not your fault, you’re just a hater. It happens.
You're doing it wrong!
The Current Rule:
Uh, duh. LeBron is still the banner carrier for this rule. A
great example was his game 5 explosion against the Bulls. If you’re a casual
basketball fan or a fan of the Cavs, you were probably in awe over his
performance. Meanwhile, the rest of the United States were rolling their eyes
going, “Of course he just effortlessly sprinted 90 feet in three seconds and
jumped 10 feet in the air to block the game winning layup. Of course! What a
dick.”
Pictured: Asshole
LeBron is in a class of his own until Durant comes back and
proves he’s still a force to be reckoned with. But here’s a thought: what if
this happens to Steph Curry? Sure, Steph is a beloved hero right now because he’s
basically the anti-LeBron. But what if Curry becomes just a little too good at basketball? One MVP is cute,
but if he goes on a run where he wins like 3 or 4 in a row? All I’m saying is enjoy
while you can, Steph, because we won’t be able to stand you in three years.
The I’m Great and I Fucking Know It AKA the Kobe Rule
Kobe Bryant had one of the best villain runs in NBA history,
pretty much starting from the moment he walked into the NBA straight out of
high school. People think the anti-Kobe movement began after the Shaq and Kobe
dynasty collapsed in a fashion only Rome can rival. The truth is, Kobe was
always a little hated, even by his own teammates, coaches, and fans. That’s
because since day one, Kobe has always been an unapologetic asshole.
If you were ever in a phase in your life where you just
needed to loathe another human being for whatever reason, Kobe was the guy for
you. He was a villain not just for his sometimes astonishingly blatant
arrogance, but he hyped up that role as if he was a WWE bad guy. Kobe
constantly talks trash, taunts fans when he’s on the road, belittles media
members if they ask him dumb questions, and frequently reminds teammates and
opponents that they will never be as great as him. And that’s what really made
Kobe so easy to hate. It’s one thing to be obnoxiously great at something, as
we talked about with LeBron, but it’s another when that person is great AND carries
themselves as if they’re absolutely untouchable. That would piss anyone off. Oh,
and if you think throwing salt at them will take them down a peg, they’ll
likely respond like this:
Current Rule:
Trying to take the mantle of “cranky, abrasive, borderline sociopath”
superstar from Kobe is going to be quite the task. But there is a guy out there
that already has this reputation. And while Westbrook started off on this
trajectory, the fact is he became a cult hero this past season. The player I’m
talking about is none other than Rajon Rondo.
Even when he was playing with the Big Three in Boston, Rondo
earned a reputation for his overwhelming arrogance and his dismissive approach
towards teammates, coaches, fans, and Connect Four opponents. Rondo’s
popularity has especially taken a hit after being traded to the Mavericks and
more or less imploding their season from within. But here’s the thing: In
order to qualify for this title, you need to have the perception of being a
winner. Kobe’s personality can definitely rub people the wrong way, but what
infuriated people even more was the fact that he won and he won A LOT. The only
guy currently in the league with as many rings as Bryant is Tim Duncan, but he’s
the polar opposite of Kobe. Luckily, there are a couple of villains in the NBA
with that championship pedigree. Which leads me to….
The Guy That Gleefully Shits on Your Team’s Hopes and Dreams
AKA The Paul Pierce Rule
It is absolutely no secret that I despise, loathe, hate,
detest, *scrolls through thesaurus* scorn, Paul Pierce. I cannot stand this
guy. Almost everything about him pisses me off beyond belief. And I can trace
the hatred back to one, painful moment:
In the 2008 Finals, Paul Pierce famously went down during
game 1 against the Lakers for some sort of knee injury. He was wheeled out in a
wheelchair (damn), only to jog back out to the court (daaamnnn), and hit a
number of clutch three’s to beat the Lakers in that game (DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT!!!). Clearly I’m still very bitter about this. The Celtics would go on
to win the series, the championship, and Pierce was, rightfully, named Finals
MVP. Despite the Lakers famously self-destructing during game 4, Garnett and
Perkins completely punking Pau Gasol, Kobe throwing up enough bricks to build
Fort Knox, and Boston’s role players playing out of their minds, my frustration
with that series all points back to that one, goddamn game. Ever since that
day, Paul Pierce became public enemy number one.
Here’s thing: Pierce does this ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Of
course I’m talking about the fact that time after time, the Truth has ripped
out a team’s heart by making the big play down the stretch. I’m sure Pierce is
universally hated in Toronto right now and all LeBron fans share a similar ire
towards Pierce. If you have a favorite team in the NBA, chances are Paul Pierce
has broken your heart at least once. And he fucking loves doing this! Besides
maybe Kobe, nobody embraces the villain role like Paul Pierce.
Current Rule:
If a game is close, and you need a guy that doesn’t give a
flying you-know-what to hit a big shot, your guy is
Damian Lillard.
Dame is really popular in Portland and he’s arguably the
most marketable member of the Adidas brand, besides Derrick Rose. But give it
another year or two, and pretty much every fan base outside of Portland will
hate this guy. Feel free to ask a Houston fan how they feel about Dame. Go
ahead, we’ll wait.
It doesn’t matter if Dame is 1 for 31 throughout the whole
game, if he’s playing against your team and its a close game in the final
seconds, this is the last guy you want to see with the ball in his hands. He
already has a number of game winners under his belt, but it’s not just the
shots, it’s the attitude. When Paul Pierce recently hit the game winner against
Atlanta, he was asked if he called bank. Absolutely oozing with swag, he
replied, “I called game.” Dame has already perfected this with his
Terminator-esque "Dame Face". It’s the perfect combination of contempt, arrogance,
swagger, and fuck-your-mother-ness. Mark my words, people throughout the nation
will learn to hate this look, if they don’t already.
The Hang On, That Guy Is Secretly Really Dirty AKA the
D-Wade Rule
This is really the John Stockton Rule, but Wade has taken it
to a whole new level considering John never actually brutally hurt someone
during a game.
I think a lot of us had a similar revelation a few years ago
where we stopped and thought to ourselves, “You know what, D-Wade
is kind of an asshole!” It wasn’t always this way. When Wade came into the
league, he was the bright-smiled kid that managed to shine despite battling for
Rookie of the Year with LeBron and Melo. He played a breathtakingly hard style
that demonstrated a complete disregard for his own body. And it was awesome!
Until we started to notice that he also had no regard for anyone else’s body.
And that’s when we all took a step back and realized that
his acrobatic And Ones usually began as reckless drives where he would fly through
the lane with his leg extended to deliver a Mortal Kombat style kick to
somebody’s dick.
LeBron: "Finish him!"
Once the façade crumbled, then we started to see the whole picture. Then we realized: D-Wade is secretly one of the greatest villains in NBA history. The devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he didn’t exist, and Wade was pretty much Keyser Soze for a large portion of his career.
LeBron: "Finish him!"
Once the façade crumbled, then we started to see the whole picture. Then we realized: D-Wade is secretly one of the greatest villains in NBA history. The devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he didn’t exist, and Wade was pretty much Keyser Soze for a large portion of his career.
Current Rule:
When you qualify as this type of villain, the point is that
it shouldn’t be obvious. It usually applies to the last person you would
expect, until you notice it, and then have that “Hold on, that makes complete
sense” revelation. These aren’t the Kendrick Perkins of the world, these are
the guys that usually end up in a scuffle and walk away with their hands up in
complete innocence. Thanks to the playoffs, we may have found that snake: Mike
Dunleavy Jr. While hearing that the Chicago Bulls got into a scuffle with some
team is about as surprising as hearing Kim Kardashian has a new nude pic
online, it’s pretty surprising when it involves this guy:
Dunleavy found himself in the headlines after getting body
checked by Team Fuck It member Giannis Antetokounmpo (if you don’t know what TeamFuck It is, you clearly haven’t been down since day one. Get some education, bandwagoner).
Now, Giannis is maybe the most benevolent player in the NBA, so people raised
an eyebrow when he decided he was in the Stanley Cup playoffs rather than the
NBA playoffs. After some research, it turns out that Dunlevey is, to quote Eric
Cartman, a sneaky butthole. Provoking Giannis wasn’t enough,
though, because Mike felt the need to terrorize the entire Bucks team before the Greek Freak finally had
enough. It’s impressive that Dunleavy has been able to keep this kind of play
under wraps for so long considering he’s played 13 YEARS! The most amazing
thing is he qualifies for the next stipulation.
The White Guy AKA The Christian Laettner Rule
The NBA and NFL are literally the only two professions in
the world where being a white guy is not ideal, especially in the NBA. Just for
fun, let’s rank the greatest white players ever:
1)
Larry Bird (duh)
2)
Jerry West (the NBA Logo and 3rd best
shooting guard ever, depending who you ask)
3)
John Stockton (Immortalized in a drunk writer’s
basketball blog. Also all-time leader in steals AND assists)
4)
John Havlicek (I mean, come on, HE STOLE THEBALL!!!)
5)
Bill Walton (As short as his prime was, it was
better than 98% of other player’s entire career)
6)
Jason Williams (Because I fucking said so!)
Being white in basketball is almost as rough as being black in
everyday life (that’s hyperbole for you lit majors). White guys are easy to hate
in basketball and that’s really a shame because it’s 2015 and we should start
acting like grown ups. Granted I’ve literally spent hours writing about how
awesome it is to hate people soooo maybe we should move along?
Now, there’s an entire documentary dedicated to the hatred
directed towards Christian Laettner. After watching that documentary, I came to
the conclusion that, yes, I would have absolutely hated him if I wasn’t three
years old when he was in college. Duke version of Lattener actually
covered every aspect on this list so far: He was so good it was nauseating; He
was good and he fucking knew it; he loved shitting on your team’s hopes and
dreams; and he was (not so) secretly dirty. But here’s the lesson I took away
from that documentary: Christian Laettner was really resented because he was
white.
Now this is just what I took away from it, I’m not at all
saying that this was the intent of the director or producers. But let’s be
real, if he was black and played at North Carolina, he would have been at least tolerable.
The fact that he was white and played at Duke made his already unlikeable
qualities like A MILLION times more unlikeable.
Current Rule:
There’s two guys that fits this criteria and both played for
Duke: The aforementioned Dunleavy and JJ Redick. Now I’ve honestly never heard
a bad thing about JJ as a person, and considering the skepticism surrounding
him when he was drafted, he’s had a hell of a career. And when you think of White
Guys in the NBA, JJ is the first person that comes to mind. Does JJ really
deserve being treated as a villain? Not really, but his run at Duke planted
that seed a long time ago, and if you hate Redick it’s probably because you
couldn’t stand him while he was a Duke. Maybe we should change this to the Duke
rule.
The Scrub That Is Obnoxiously Overconfident AKA the Sasha
Vujacic Rule
I love the Lakers, but even I couldn’t stomach Vujacic
during his run in LA. Just his mere precense managed to piss people off. That’s
borderline impressive all on its own. When you get to the root of it, though,
it becomes obvious that Sasha was disdained because he considered himself the
absolute shit.
We discussed earlier how easy it is to become frustrated
with someone that’s really, really good at something. We also talked about
those same people that are really good at something and carry themselves as if
they were a God, which turns our frustration into resentment. But then there’s
the people that are not that good at something, yet they conduct themselves as
if they are the greatest person to ever do anything, and this results in well-deserved
hatred. And look, Sasha was a valuable component in Kobe and Pau’s Finals
run. I’m not taking that away from him. But come on. Do you really need to
bitch out refs because you were expecting superstar calls? Do you really have to grow your hair out and constantly brush it out of your face like a douchebag? Do you really have to
have a nickname as obnoxious as “The Machine” and then REFER TO YOURSELF AS
THAT WHILE SPEAKING IN THE THIRD PERSON?!?
The Machine, ladies and gentlemen
When you come off the bench for a championship team, or any
team really, your job is simple: Shut up, know your role, shut up again, and
stay the hell out of the superstar’s way. That’s it.
Current Rule:
Calling Austin Rivers a villain is kind of a stretch
considering he’s more of a punch line than anything else. But make no mistake,
there’s plenty of resentment behind every shot people take him. It doesn’t help
that Austin was definitely on his way out of the league before his father, Doc,
traded for him and gave him a roster spot backing up Chris Paul. Now, this
alone pissed people off. After all, I’m sure we all know someone who worked
very hard in their company only to get passed over for a promotion in favor of
the boss’ kid. It’s messed up, but it happens all the time, hence why we can’t
stand it. In Austin’s case though, it’s the fact that he carries himself as if
he deserves that roster spot.
"No, dependable veteran player, I'm clearly better than you. Sit down"
To be fair, the playoffs has breathed a new life in Rivers
that probably saved his career. He’s had a number of games where he’s come up
big and has looked like a dependable rotation player. However, Rivers plays
like he’s one of the best players in the league, when more times than not he
looks like Russell Westbrook if Westbrook just blew a .37 on a Breathalyzer.
Swagger is cool, confidence is great, and arrogance can be tolerated if you can back it up. When you can’t, however, it’s time to tone it down and just play.
Photos, videos, and other shit you don't care about courtesy of:
Swagger is cool, confidence is great, and arrogance can be tolerated if you can back it up. When you can’t, however, it’s time to tone it down and just play.
Photos, videos, and other shit you don't care about courtesy of:
