from Bill Simmons
Grantland article 2 days ago...
The G-Baby Award for Most Depressing Sports Funeral
The violent, grisly, emotionally scarring and unexpectedly abrupt death of Playoff Rondo ranks right up there with the end of Furious 7 for me. I loved Playoff Rondo almost as much as I loved National TV Rondo. Those two guys represented everything I love and hate about sports all wrapped into the same perplexing package — the audacity of someone telling us during most regular-season games, Even though you paid to see me, and even though I make eight figures a year, you’re not getting my best tonight, coupled with the brilliance of someone who could say, There are real stakes tonight, so you’re getting my A-game, and by the way, I’m gonna be awesome.
I would love to know how my wife handled it if we were to go out for dinner once a week for four weeks, and every time, I wouldn’t say that much and would act weird but make just enough jokes to make the dinner passable … only every time we went out with another couple, I’d be hilarious and gregarious and charismatic and keep telling everyone, “You’re with Double-Date Simmons tonight!!!!!” You know what would happen? She’d dump Double Date Simmons and Regular Season Simmons. Only in sports can you pull off the idea of Playoff Rondo. And now it’s dead. R.I.P
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/th...our-continues/
AND THEN THERE IS THIS:
The Comedy Central Not Locking Up John Oliver Award for Biggest Mistake
Dallas gambled (AND ruined their bench AND wasted a first-round pick) by flagrantly violating the “You can get away with one head case, just don’t give him someone to hang out with” rule by teaming up Monta Ellis and Rondo. And even worse, they never considered things like, “Should we be worried that Rick Carlisle is a control freak who wants constant ball movement and Rondo loves to dominate the ball and control everything?” and “Should we be worried that Rondo can’t get to the line, can’t make free throws and can’t shoot 3s even though we’re in the pace-and-space/3s-and-free-throws era?” What a quietly devastating trade for them. Now they’re getting swept and have a future built around a winding-it-down Dirk, Chandler Parsons, cap space, Carlisle and Cubes. Yikes. And even worse, this whole thing led to Sad Dirk! I hate Sad Dirk!
The Roger Goodell Award for Biggest Hypocrite
Me. For everything in the previous paragraph. See, I absolutely LOVED the Rondo trade for Dallas and thought he was a semi-shell of himself in Boston only because he was playing possum. I haven’t misfired like that since … oh, wait, I’m wrong all the time. On the bright side, we finally got to watch an NBA star carry himself in playoff games with the exact same enthusiasm as a divorced dad ringing the doorbell of his ex-wife’s house.1 And even better, I just won a Roger Goodell Award!
The Scott Mitchell Award for Biggest Loser
Rondo lost between $30 million and $40 million this summer with that Mavericks fiasco. On the bright side, drunk Lakers fans and drunk Knicks fans everywhere are texting their friends, “Dp you think we csn get Ronddo at a bigf disconyt?”