All About Hype
ESPN made a movie, starring Tom Berenger as the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant. Normally, I wouldn't plug their programming like this, but I'm just worried that it hasn't been publicized enough, and people might not know to tune in tonight to watch it... After all, there've been at least two commercial breaks in the last three months that didn't include a Junction Boys promo...
On a vaguely related note, I tuned in for a little of the LeBron James hype-o-rama the other night. For those who don't follow hoops, James is a seventeen-year-old high-school senior who is the presumptive first pick in next year's NBA draft. Some analysts claim that he would've been the first pick in the last NBA draft, as a junior in high school. Unfortunately for the hype machine, he plays for a high school in Akron, where not a lot of people get to see him. To compensate, they arranged a game with perennial hoop factory Oak Hill, televised on ESPN2 with a sort of Dream Team of bad announcing, including both Dick Vitale and Bill Walton.
I feel faintly guilty for watching any of this game, and thus indirectly contributing to the sea of hype, but I was sort of curious to see what sort of game James had to justify all the attention. It's a little hard to really say-- the kid looked pretty damn good (31 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists) as his team won big, but at the end of the day, he was playing with high school kids, and against high school kids. How would he do jumping straight to the NBA? I have no idea. (Nor do I much care, actually-- I really don't follow the NBA). He does seem pretty level-headed for a seventeen-year-old, and the fact that he's not at a school like Oak Hill, but chose to stay in Ohio and play with his childhood friends is probably a good sign.
The really striking thing (and the thing that made me stop watching at halftime) was the announcing, which was pretty disgusting. The three commentators talked endlessly about James, and the idea of going pro early, and the pros and cons of going to college, and where James ranks compared to other early departures, and what he's like as a person, and what his family is like, and what sort of shoe deal he can expect to get in the near futures, and pretty much anything and everything having to do with LeBron James. What they didn't talk about was, well, anything to do with the other nine guys on the court. I doubt very much that Vitale or Walton could even name another player who was in that game.
Last I checked, fellas, basketball is still a team game. Share the wealth, fer Chrissakes.
Posted at 8:51 AM | link | follow-ups |