With a title and premise like this, it’s unnecessary to
write an introduction. I’m just gonna let my hate flow.
5. Clint Capela
Okay, so before I plunge deep into this list, let me be
clear about one commonality with each player on this list: the better they are,
the more likely I hate them. Take Clint Capela, who used to be a late-round nobody
drafted by the Rockets. Early in his career, I didn’t dislike him. I had no
reason to. In fact, I kind of liked him because I delighted in laughing at him
when he would snatch an offensive rebound against my beloved Warriors, miss the
putback, and then inevitably brick the subsequent free throws when he shot less
than 40% from the charity line.
But he’s gotten better over the years. A lot better. Earlier
this season, his stats looked like All-Star material. But I can’t stand Capela
because he’s basically a volleyball player playing basketball. On offense, his
only two talents are crashing the offensive boards with his size and length and
rolling or hanging around the basket for alley-oops. Capela is basically an
oversized pogo stick with long arms adept at grabbing a ball in mid-air and
throwing it through a hoop when it is spoonfed to him by players who have honed
far superior basketball skills than him. As a 5’8 has-been with average athletic
ability at best, I find it deplorable to watch a player like Capela with his
uncanny combination of size, strength, agility, and speed excel at a simplistic
skill that is akin to the soaring slam dunks I can throw down on my toddler’s goddamn
fucking toy basketball hoop.
And one last note on Capela: it looks like he got shit on by
a pigeon with a nacho cheese diet. It’s a bad look, guy. Bad look. Makes you look stupid. (Oh wait, you probably are.)
4. Chris Paul
I liked Chris Paul back when he was a clutch playmaker
willing an overmatched New Orleans Hornets team to playoff victories, but I’ve
hated this motherfucker ever since he joined the Clippers. Although I’ve never
personally met him, he strikes me as an arrogant prick. The Lob City Clippers
were a splendid team to hate because they carried themselves with such a
palpable sense of superiority and entitlement even though those dickbags never
won a fucking thing; Chris Paul seemed to be at the very center of that.
Although the man known as CP3 will deservingly go down as one of the greatest
point guards of all-time, his gruff, general-like command of a game sucks the
joy out of a basketball game like a hardwood black hole—and now he’s teamed up
with The Human Cheap Code to incessantly whine at refs when their passion for
flopping doesn’t result in free throws.
I deeply respect Paul as a fierce, gritty, and wily
competitor of the highest degree, but
I can’t stand him. I can’t stand any player who holds himself with such a sense
of entitlement.
3. LeBron James
Speaking of entitled divas, here’s LeBron James on cue for
my list.
Until the past two seasons, LeBron was at the apex of my
list of most hated players—and for good reason; he was the unquestioned leader
of the team that was the Warriors greatest rival. And, in front of reporters
and cameras, he has viscerally bent over and sucked his own dick when he said
(in the 2015 NBA Finals): “I’m the best player in the world.” (which was true
at the time), or, late last year when he reflected on the improbable 2016 NBA
Finals victory when he said, “That one right there made me the
greatest player of all time.” I just can’t stand people—let alone athletes—with
such titanic hubris. I’ve always admired superstars who held themselves in a
more humble fashion. (I see you, Barry Sanders!)
Here
in the San Francisco Bay Area, LeBron’s (a.k.a. LeQueen) 2016 Halloween party
with all its petty references to the Warriors’ Final’s collapse is the stuff of
legend. And now look at how he has helped to further ruin the Los Angeles
Lakers franchise. In terms of NBA vulture capitalists, LeBron has no peer. He
sucked what he needed out of the Miami Heat franchise and left for Cleveland once
he concluded he had a better chance to win championships there, and then once their salary cap got fucked by signing
role players he demanded for his team to big-time contracts (I see you, J.R.
Smith and Tristan Thompson), the self-anointed king said, peace, I’m out, and bailed for the Lakers. Even his letter
announcing his return to Ohio was drenched with the kind of hallowed, inflated
self-importance that is bred within a once-in-a-generation basketball phenom who
has basically gotten whatever he has wanted since he was a teenager.
LeBron’s
eight straight trips to the Finals is
impressive. It’s a marathon-like achievement, but after moving to the Western
Conference for one measly season and failing to lead his team to the playoffs,
I’ve got to admit, that made me very,
very happy. Despite his gaudy career stats, this self-absorbed motherfucker
will never touch Jordan’s superior greatness. (And to that debate all I gotta
say for checkmate is: Michael Jordan would have never fucking allowed
a 32-year-old role player like Jason Terry outplay him in a playoff series, let
alone in the fucking NBA Finals!—and
let alone when LeBron was in his physical prime.)
(After LeBron, there's a pretty steep difference for me in degree of hatred for my top 2 guys of 2019.)
2. Russell Westbrook
Russ—as I prefer to call him—has steadily risen up this list
ever since Kevin Durant left the Thunder because it has afforded him ample opportunities
to demonstrate his teenage-level of maturity. I used to love Westbrook’s game. I
still partly respect it. Russ is the Ultimate Warrior of the National
Basketball Association—running into the ring at full speed, pure energy incarnate
as though he’s tugging on the ropes like he was struck by a thunderbolt from
Zeus himself. And the analogy doesn’t stop there. When I was a kid—an aesthetic
simpleton, basically—I loved the Ultimate Warrior. But as an adult, I’m
slightly embarrassed for my past love of the Warrior. His game inside the ring largely
consisted of him running into the ropes, clotheslining his opponent left and
right, then peppering in an occasional body slam followed by a gorilla-like
thumping of his chest before he would finish his opponent with the Gorilla
Press. The Warrior had little actual wrestling skill. He was all flash,
muscles, and brute strength.
For me, Westbrook is analogous on the hardwood floor. Since
he entered the league, I don’t feel like he’s vastly improved his game; sure, he’s
refined his ability to pad his stat sheet with rebounds and assists, but I
don’t think he truly makes his supporting cast better like true great players
of this game, like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, or LeBron James. And here’s what
I truly loathe about Westbrook: he’s one of the most physically talented
basketball players we will ever see.
His explosive first step, elite speed, his astounding leaping ability. Russell
Westbrook is a fucking force of nature—but he’s a dumb player. Never
consistently figured out how to read a defense. Never developed his mind to
conquer this game when he had every physical gift to. Since he came into the
NBA, he’s only known how to go full-raging-often-out-of-control speed to the
rim with average to below-average finishing at the cup, despite all his
remarkable physical ability. And his “Next question” responses to members of his hometown media is downright immature.
Childish. Believe it or not, Westbrook is thirty years of age, a father of
three children, but he comports himself in postgame interviews with the
maturity of a second-rate JV high school player.
No wonder the Thunder will never fucking win a championship as long as this dumbshit bully is
their 1st or 2nd best player. And mark my words, they
never will as long as he’s pulling his dumbshit act.
1. James Harden
Although The Beard is not nearly as obnoxious as Russell
Westbrook in my book, the main reason this fool tops my list is because of the
way he plays the game. If every NBA team had a player who offensively played
like Harden, I would not watch basketball. Like most non-Rockets basketball
fans, I think James Harden masterfully exploits the rules like few players
before him to earn a parade of cheap foul shots. Harden is like that
motherfucker down at the arcade (in the olden days) who mastered how to use Ryu
or Ken in Street Fighter II to throw a never-ending stream of fireballs which
was impenetrably defended with a Dragon Punch. It was a ruthless, efficient game
strategy much like Harden’s endless amount of dribbling at the top of the
circle that converts into either a drive to the basket, a step-back three, or
rising up and initiating contact
while making a shooting motion in order to earn a weak-ass foul shot
opportunity. I’m not denying that he’s a great offensive player, but I feel
like those fouls he initiates with the softest brush is an all-time lame way of
scoring in this game.
To boot, the other thing that annoys me about Harden is how
weak he is when another player dares to physically push back on him. Like
LeQueen, Harden—who’s built like an H-back—has no trouble bulling into and
pushing off on his opponents on his way to the basket, but the second this
motherfucker gets flicked in his beard he gets all prissy or up in arms and
whining for a call.
I just can’t stand this motherfucker. (To his credit, since
his bullshit flopping antics in Game 1 of their 2019 playoff matchup with the
Warriors, Harden has played the right way and he’s straight up balled.)
Honorable Mention:
Kyrie Irving: I love his game—his handle (the league's best), the way he plays angles, his astounding tough-shot making, but he’s so fucking goddamn egotistical it’s disgusting to listen to many of his interviews. This motherfucker talks and holds himself like Kobe (a five-time champion) when his major career accomplishment thus far consists of playing a lethal Robin to LeBron’s Batman in the 2016 Finals.
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