~30~ i don’t care where lebron james decides to play basketball

I don’t care where Lebron James decides to play basketball next year.

But everybody else seems to.

Okay, so this is sort of a gimme, since dedicated readers know, generally speaking, that I don’t care much about the NBA (including the exceptionally lengthy playoffs). But this Lebron James stuff is madness!

Some sample headlines from a regular ol’ Google search:

Cleveland fans greet, plead with Lebron James (NY Daily News)

James wield unprecedented power, takes Knicks for a ride (Seattle Post Intelligencer)

Betty White wants Lebron James to stay in Cleveland (Wall Street Journal)

Free agent Lebron James finally joins Twitter! (AP)

No comment from James, teaching kids skillziziz at summer camp (Plain Dealer)

But seriously, I mean, I was almost thankful that ESPN was showing the Nathan’s Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest for 15-20 minutes on Sunday so I didn’t have to hear about Lebron James’ bowel movements. (Although, speaking of bowel movements, that hot dog eating contest was really gross.)

What do you think? Do you care? Or has the media coverage pushed you over the edge at this point?

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~11~ i don’t care about the NBA playoffs

I don’t care about the NBA playoffs.

Apparently these started this weekend. Who knew? I sure didn’t.

More generally, I don’t care about the National Basketball Association. Not anymore, anyway. I used to, when I was a kid, and the Knicks were decent. My friend Meredith and her Dad would invite me to exciting home games that I would care about, played at Madison Square Garden. (Sidenote: I don’t care about sports venues that have nonsensical names, for example Madison Square Garden, which is on 7th Avenue, is the shape of an oval, and has no horticulture to speak of.)

Now, I realize this leaves me exposed to criticisms of being a fair-weather fan, but I can assure you, if the Knicks were good right now, and they were in the playoffs, I still wouldn’t care that much. This may come as some surprise to friends of mine who know that I do care about some professional sports quite a lot. For instance, I care a great deal about [American] football. Indeed, my Sundays are often ruined by a bad performance by the NY [Football] Giants, of whom I am a lifelong fan. My mom refused to cook dinner on Sundays when the Giants sucked. Which they did, a lot, in my youth. So, we ate pizza.

I digress.

What I don’t care about, is a Kobe-Lebron matchup this year. I can even say with some confidence that I wouldn’t recognize Lebron James on the street. I mean, I might, but probably because of groupies and the impeccable sense of style that tends to come along with major basketball fame (witness Michael Jordan). In fact, I might just think he was a very tall African American man who happened to like to hang out with large bodyguard-like men and paparazzi.

I just think basketball has become all about inordinately large men in singular displays of ridiculous athleticism — it doesn’t feel like a team sport anymore, which is what I think I used to love about it.

Does anyone else hear me on this one?

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~4~ i don’t care about tiger woods’ return to golf

I don’t care about Tiger Woods’ return to golf.

There. I said it.

Golf didn’t interest me before, and it certainly doesn’t now. Golf is NOT FUN TO WATCH. It’s a bunch of predominantly old, white guys (Tiger and the occasional random other Asian excluded) walking around manicured greens looking simultaneously self-satisfied and like they need a drink. Occasionally, they swing a club and hit a very tiny ball in the general direction of a hole. (No wonder Tiger had sex addiction problems. Balls in holes? Anyway.)

Where’s the sport in this sport? The most exciting thing about golf was Tiger’s celebratory fist pump when he hit a good shot – a gesture that has taken on a whole other meaning.

Plus, I asked today whether or not there was a dominant player during the time that Tiger was gone, and learned that Tiger’s “hiatus” from golf was during a period when there wasn’t even much golf anyway, because it was winter. Apparently you can’t play golf in the wintertime. So basically it’s like everyone celebrating my return to the toilet after I hadn’t pooped in three days.

I mean, c’mon people. Do you really care?

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