Please End the Hypocrisy...

No one should be shocked by the latest allegations stemming from the University of Miami football program. If anyone watched the incredible ESPN documentary "The U", it wasn't difficult to ascertain what the program was all about. But like Ohio State and their recently disgraced ex-football coach Jim Tressel, who was fired on the heels of a scandal that morphed into a scathing indictment of his and the school's clear and persistent lack of ethical scruples, it has become painfully apparent that to run a major college powerhouse, such issues will always take a back seat to the hypocrisy with which the NCAA administers the rules governing big-time college athletics with regards to the student-athletes who are exploited to the max and thus look for compensation elsewhere, outside the rules.

It's OK for rich businessmen to attend games in their luxury corporate suites, pay for the privilege of being a team booster, gain access to the elite players of said school and enjoy all the trappings of being close to a high-level Division I program. It's fine for individual schools to re-align themselves to better exploit the massive TV revenues that are changing the landscape of college sports, whose boundaries are no longer dictated by geography but by big-money television deals. It's justified that coaches at major college campuses rake in millions of dollars in salary and endorsements. The powers that be see no contradiction in selling the likeness of college athletes in the form of jock apparel and video games. Yet these same athletes cannot cash in on their own images and see not one dime of any of the revenue they generate.

This ass-backwards equation makes sense only to those who control the levers of power, akin to Southern slave owners who made enormous sums of generational wealth for their families while those who toiled in the fields got absolutely nothing, some whose families are still mired in poverty to this very day. And the NCAA would love to keep it that way, so long as they can continue to rake in money the players will never benefit from.

And this isn't even the most hypocritical aspect of the situation. One of the defenses that gets thrown around is that revenue-making sports pay for other campus activities that do not, like water polo, swimming, volleyball and archery. So on top of everything else, poor inner-city kids from deprived backgrounds get the insulting pleasure of funding sports for their rich, white suburban undergrad brethren.

The University of Texas recently signed a 20-year, $300 million dollar TV deal with ESPN that will make their sports programs available to cable subscribers all over the country, all on their very own channel. No other team in the Big 12 Conference can compete with the type of exposure, money and influence this contract will buy Texas. The TV deal also includes the rights to televise Texas high school football games. How's that for a potential recruiting tool? Juxtapose these circumstances against the glaring discrepancy of the backgrounds of the student-athletes we are talking about, the majority of whom are poor and black, and you'll understand why the sense of outrage over the Miami accusations is muted here on "Busting Chops".

Texas coach Mac Brown finds religion in the guise of a fat cable TV contract...

The man at the center of the controversy is Nevin Shapiro, an ex-Miami Hurricanes booster who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for his role in a $930 million dollar Ponzi scheme. He lived in a $6.1 million, 6,432-square foot mansion on North Bay Road in Miami Beach overlooking the water and threw parties for players on his $1.6 million dollar yacht. He lavished players with gifts, money, jewelery, prostitutes, free meals at fancy restaurants, and nights of utter debauchery at various Miami strip clubs. One story goes that a Miami player impregnated a stripper during a rendezvous in one of the club's Champagne Rooms. Shapiro then gave money to help fund an abortion without telling the player because according to him, the player probably would have wanted to keep the child.

It's all about "The U", baby!!!

Miami had as an unofficial booster Luther Campbell of the infamous 2 Live Crew rap group, who became known around the Miami campus as "Uncle Luke". Campbell was the money man from the late 80's to early 90's, funneling cash, gifts, and entertainment opportunities to football players. Unlike Shapiro, Campbell was never an official booster of the program and never gave money directly to the school, as opposed to Shapiro, who paid the university $12,000 for the privilege of becoming a booster. Another difference was Campbell was and still is a supporter of football from the grass-roots level, funding pee wee leagues all over the South Florida region. According to various reports, Shapiro was considered nothing but a "jock sniffer" who exchanged money for access and celebrity.

I find this description pretty convenient and self-serving, seeing as he is being painted exclusively as the bad guy in this filthy, sordid affair. The reality is, in a place like Miami, money and flash gets you into places normal people could never access. So his behavior, though extreme, was par for the course. If you don't believe me, just ask Nevin's twin brother, from what is apparently another mother-

Shapiro with a famous Miami celebrity...

What Campbell did over the years he was involved with the Miami football program pales in comparison to the transgressions of Shapiro. The details have been duly researched by the good people at Yahoo Sports and have been vehemently denied by all and sundry. Unfortunately for this merry band of degenerate liars, Mr. Shapiro has kept meticulous records of phone calls, receipts and thousands of photos documenting his life as a high-rolling booster and surrogate pimpmeister to the "impressionable and innocent" (yeah, right) young men who were the recipients of his corrupting largesse.

The corruption involved 72 players, 7 coaches and three support staff members from the years 2002 until 2010, when Shapiro was finally carted off to jail. And don't think he was just doing this because he loved being around impoverished inner-city football players. He was part-owner of a sports management company that signed two first-round NFL picks who just so happened to have attended Miami while Shapiro was there handing out dough like an Italian baker.

Shapiro partying it up with Kellen Winslow, Jr.-

The apotheosis of this institutionalized corruption and greed was uncovered when a photo of university president Donna Shalala surfaced accepting a check from Shapiro for $50,000 at a bowling event. She looked to all the world like a crackhead scrambling on the floor for a hit and coming up trumps, her eyes practically bulging out of her fat, hairy, porcine face. Shapiro was handing out money to anyone involved who would take it, and take it they did.

University of Miami President Donna Shalala accepting the now infamous $50,000 check from Shapiro-

Shapiro also has photos of coaches partying it up. All were either in on the take or knew of it and did nothing, including other university staff and personnel. When SMU received the death penalty for similar infractions, their program, one of the best in the country at the time, never recovered. And that was twenty-four years ago. Miami deserves nothing less, but it will be hit only with forced job resignations and terminations, scholarship reductions and bans from lucrative Bowl appearances for a year or two. Then it will be back to the same ol' bullshit of under-the-table graft, greed and corruption. Because major college football is a B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S, and that business is too lucrative for this type of corruption not to continue to thrive.

It's a business whose currency is all about access, schmoozing, influence pedaling and corruption. It has nothing to do with hard world and sacrifice. That bullshit is sold to the players, the ones who actually do the work and receive no compensation for their efforts from the schools they play for. Far be it for some pasty-white administrator to actually get his hands dirty when it is far easier to make friends and influence people with the whoremongers who grease the wheels of this system to their benefit.

I have a simple solution to all of this, which will absolve these colleges of having to lie about not having the money to pay their big-time athletes. Just let the corruption roll without penalties or infractions. Let the players get paid from whoever wants to pay them, and let these ciphers have access to the players they so desperately crave. And legalize it. The NCAA can then step away from this enormous problem it neither has the competence nor the expertise to combat or control. And the world of Division I college sports will finally breathe in a hypocrisy-free zone that's been mutilated by notions of fake contrition and rules that were meant to be broken.

The $1.6 million dollar yacht that saw so much action-

ASS, baby!!! ASS!!! Get it while you can!!!

The big question remains-why did Nevin Shapiro decide to come forward with all this? Exposing his relationship with the Miami football program will not get him a lighter sentence. He felt the players he helped should have supported him during his troubled times, yet they abandoned him in his time of need. Well, it goes to show you this man learned absolutely nothing during his high-rolling days when he was cavorting with these people. Whores are takers, not givers. They will love you only as long as times are good and they can get something from you.

Any of you out there reading this who have wallowed in the mud of the lowlife know exactly what I'm talking about. Strippers are paid to give you attention in exchange for your loot. Same goes with prostitutes and the type of college athletes Shapiro was sponsoring. You cannot buy their love or affection. What they offer is a good time and access to their presence as long as you're willing to foot the bill.

Shapiro thought playing big man was going to net him a network of influential people who would consider him family when times got rough. This was his big mistake. I don't know what he thought he was paying for, but loyalty was not what he got in exchange. He reminds me of Sam Rothstein from the film "Casino", who spent tons of cash attempting to get some sleazebag loser to love him and it turned his personal life into a living hell. Here is the lesson for all you wanna-be boosters out there who think money buys you love-learn from Nevin Shapiro and save your cash. It will come in handy when you get in trouble, as opposed to the people you attempt to help who will run out on you faster than Deion Sanders doing a 4.2 forty-yard dash while a student at Florida State. And it doesn't get any faster than that, ladies and gents.

Film Recommendation of the Week...

Sweet Smell of Success
Release Date June 27, 1957.
Running Time 1 hour 36 minutes.



The infamous world of talent agents and the entertainers they represent receives a scathing review in this remarkable film about the sleaze that makes this particular world go 'round. Tony Curtis stars as New York City press agent Sydney Falco, whose career depends on getting his clients mentioned positively in J.J. Hunsecker's nationally syndicated gossip column.

Falco is having major problems getting his clients publicity in Hunsecker's column due to a promise he made to Hunsecker (played with magnificent iciness by Burt Lancaster, clearly on top of his game) to break up the relationship Hunsecker's sister is having with an up-and-coming jazz guitarist. The only way to do this is to smear the boyfriend with veiled accusations of recreational drug use that drags in other press agents and a set-up involving an arrest for marijuana.

The slime is everywhere and ensnares everyone involved. Everyone in this film played excellent roles, and the dynamics between Curtis and Lancaster is a performance for the ages. You will not see better acting in any film I've recommended. Check out the Criterion version which includes an extra DVD with added bonus features, you will not regret it.

I Am NOT a Role Model...

Charles Barkley was right all those years ago when he made that Nike commercial stating why he isn't a role model. For every professional athlete that does the right thing, we always get one or two that live down to the expectations we have of them here on "Busting Chops". Unfortunately, these are the ones that get the most publicity for all the wrong reasons. But even in the annals of athletes behaving badly, some stories always have a twist that make even their transgressions out of the ordinary.

Take for example Kendrick Perkins, center for the Oklahoma Thunder. He gets arrested for causing a ruckus at "The Ticket" nightclub in Beaumont, Texas at 2 a.m. Saturday morning. According to witness testimony, he for whatever reason wanted to fight the manager of the club. As he was summarily escorted from said club, he kept on while outside and decided he wanted to fight some of the people who shoved him out, yelling obscenities galore. After some healthy doses of pepper spray, the cops booked him on misdemeanor charges that carry no potential jail time.

First of all, let's be thankful that no one was hurt, because Perkins is the type of guy who is the biggest and strongest dude by far wherever he goes, and it could have gotten ugly. Fifty drunk and high Lilliputians were not going to stop him if he really wanted to let loose and fuck some people up.

Second of all, there is the irony of it all. Perkins was in the area hosting a camp that raises money for his foundation, which helps children learn "life skills". LIFE SKILLS!!! HAHAHA!!! Skills like the ones he displayed while out partying. Someone somewhere has video of this, I know it. These days everyone has a cell phone with video capability, so expect an update on this very soon.

Straight Cash Homey, or I'm OUT!!!

Randy Moss, after his agent declared that his client was in the best shape of his career, decides to file papers for retirement. Apparently he wasn't too thrilled with the lack of offers he was getting, while other receivers like Plaxico Burress and Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson were signed with no problems whatsoever.

There is no denying Moss is/was one of the most talented receivers that ever played the game. You're talking about a cat who was "Mr. Basketball" in high school two years straight while playing alongside Jason Williams, Mr. "White Chocolate" himself. His list of athletic feats are too numerous to list here, and besides it's not the point. No one is denying this guy doesn't have plenty left in the tank. What NFL coaches are loathe to admit is that it's his attitude that's adversely affected their willingness to sign him.

This is nothing new. He was kicked out of his high school during his senior year for participating in a racially-motivated brawl. While on probation he was kicked out of Division-I Florida State for testing positive for marijuana. To avoid losing a year of eligibility, he signed with Division-I AA Marshall, a short ride from his home so he could resume playing football immediately. While at Marshall, the school who was kind enough to give this surly freak of nature a second chance, he did nothing but make friends and influence people. Let's just say that talent aside, no one on campus was sad to see him go to the NFL, where despite his production Moss played for three different teams last year and was as motivated to give it 100% as a tired, old stripper on Tuesday 2-for-1 Lapdance Night.

This is what America sees when they think of Moss-not the spectacular athleticism, not the catches and the touchdowns, but the type of epic buffoonery that someone recorded and immediately uploaded to Youtube. If this is his legacy, it will go down as one of the stupidest comments ever caught on video, akin to the "Practice? We're talkin' about practice?" diatribe by another supremely talented athlete who also played himself out of his chosen profession, Allen Iverson-




Streetball Antics Gone Too Far...
Everyone knows Michael Beasley, the former number 2 NBA draft pick, had issues galore before he entered the league. He has a camp of enablers who only see him as a meal ticket, from irresponsible coaches to his close relatives who constantly made excuses for his idiotic behavior, which stem back to the first grade (when he actually attended school). He's been busted for marijuana more times than Cheech and Chong and went through 6 different high schools in I-don't-know-how-many different states. Judging from this clip, it's also apparent he doesn't have the temperament to deal with the type of inner-city hecklers that live for moments like this-



Message to cats like Beasley-there are plenty of pro-am leagues around the country that do not have the same environment as places like the Dyckman Tournament in Upper Manhattan. The crowd, as you can see from the video (shot in glorious high definition) doesn't respect the court. They are on top of the players like an avalanche of sheer antagonism. They smoke weed and drink cheap malt liquor before, during and after the games and are hostile as hell. Some are local drug dealers, others just your basic run-of-the-mill ghetto thugs. The rest are just assholes who come out to ruin the game for participants and spectators alike. Imagine one of Michael Vick's dog fighting extravaganzas and you'll get a sense of the environment at parks like Dyckman-

*Disclaimer-the language in this video is offensive, moreso than what you'd find here on this blog. We do not in any way, shape or form condone the use of such language, which absolutely crosses the line. But I feel this type of rude behavior needs to be exposed for the world to see, so people know the level of abuse these players have to put up with for the sake of 'reppin the game in the 'hood. This is the thanks they get-

I have to say the heckler got the better of Beasley, but I'm glad Michael retaliated. Now everyone in the 'hood knows this anonymous, loud-mouth heckler got exactly what he deserved. He'll never be able to live that one down, and there won't be one person who won't remind him of the time he got his grill mushed by an NBA player.

Still in all, not a good idea on Beasley's part. But would anyone expect any less from this pot-smoking, tattooed, underachieving cartoon character?

Carlos Zambrano Implodes...

This cat isn't running on fumes, he's running on empty big-time. After signing a mega-deal worth $91.5 million dollars in 2007, he's been a pathetic shell of his former self. My personal opinion is, like what we witnessed at the 2010 Tour de France from Lance Armstrong, after a while the steroids stop working. And no, it's not the testing protocols instituted by MLB that has become a deterrent. An amateur PED expert administering a half-assed steroid regimen can get his client to test clean for those tests, which are announced so far in advance you'd have to be a Category-5 moron like Manny Ramirez to fail one, much less two.

So, after giving up FIVE homers to the Atlanta Braves the other day (which begs the question-why didn't the manager pull Zambrano out of the game in the first place?) he then goes after Chipper Jones not once, but twice with pitches close enough to shave a coconut. He did this to purposely get thrown out of the game, because we all know Zambrano is a class act all the way. After he gets ejected and while his team is still playing, he cleans out his locker and leaves the ballpark, announcing later that he is retiring from baseball.

So not only does he quit on his team while out on the mound, he then proceeds to quit on them before the game even ends. Excellent. This has all the markings of uncontrollable 'roid rage. No, it's not his infamous temperament, as is always brought up whenever any Latin player or idiot manager like the soon-to-be-fired Ozzie Guillen goes ballistic. Venezuela, aside from President Hugo Chavez and his fits of lunacy, is known primarily for two other things-gang violence/street crime and for the ease in which steroids can be procured without a prescription at any local pharmacy. And their baseball academies (run and administered by Major League Baseball, by the way) are absolutely marinating in PED's. Zambrano is a product of this environment, so his latest antics speak to his obvious ongoing use. the problem is he can't get anyone out anymore, and he is getting paid top-notch money as if he still can.

I always say if you're going to go down, go down in flames. Zambrano, if it's true he did retire, did the Cubs a tremendous favor. One because he sucks. Two because one of the unforgivable sins in the archaic and stupid baseball book of unwritten rules states clearly that you never give up on your team, which Carlos did not once, but twice in the span of one inning. Good-bye, asshole. And good riddance. America, next time one of these athletes lets you down, watch this commercial and put your sorry-ass life into perspective-

Babe of the Week for August 12, 2011 is...

Cat Osterman!!!

Believe me when I say that the best looking young women in the United States play college sports. Not only are many of them beautiful, but they are also smart and athletic. Who in their right mind would waste time chasing some stupid, jive-ass ghetto hoe with the IQ of a paint brush who's been sexually active since the age of 12 when you can go out with a lovely, talented thoroughbred?

Ghetto hoes are all alike. You meet a pretty one and chances are she's wistfully waiting for some thugged-out loser boyfriend to get out of prison so they can resume their going-nowhere-fast relationship. And when he gets out he'll be dripping with all types of venereal diseases and Hepatitis A through Z. Don't believe the lies, either. Every prisoner that does time in a maximum security prison either fucks or gets fucked by other dudes, no exception. And when they get out the first thing they do is give those diseases to their girlfriends, and if you're stupid enough to mess with these types of broads, you'll catch something too. Know what else is funny? I've spoken to a couple of these losers and they've always been puzzled at their boyfriend's sudden predilection for anal sex after spending time in the joint. Gee, I wonder where they could have picked THAT up from?

So why not look somewhere else? Plenty of healthy, farm-fresh young ladies out there who are strong as oxen and live a clean life. Cat Osterman fits the bill. She is a beautiful and accomplished college athlete and stands at a whopping 6' 2". If that's too much woman for you, there are shorter ones out there. But be careful-they're liable to fuck you up if you get out of pocket with that ol' bullshit.

The Houston native broke many college records while playing at the University of Texas girls' softball team as a pitcher from 2002-2006. The most important thing was that she loooked mahvelous doing it, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!! She helped the USA women's softball team capture gold in 2004 and silver in 2008. If I were to get married, it would be to someone like this. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes beautiful women like Cat Osterman. Yes, indeed.

"We Shall Overcome" an obnoxious sense of entitlement...

*Editor's Note-this entry was dated soon after the incident transpired. Having finished writing it today, it now appears as a late entry and not an edited, back-dated version.

Let me get this out of the way NOW-in no way did I want to comment on this issue. There are three topics that are just too polarizing to debate in a civil manner-race, politics and religion. All three cause people to lose their otherwise sane minds, and then it turns into right wing vs. left wing, liberal vs. bigot, asshole vs. douchebag. Once you voice a particular stance on any of these particular issues you are labeled for the rest of your life.

To categorize someone because of a particular belief is beyond ignorant, but that is what discourse in this country has devolved into. This particular incident, and the mock outrage it has stirred up, speaks volumes about the level of stupidity on both sides of the issue. Was what occurred driven by race, abuse of power, or a sense of entitlement on both sides?

The answer isn't the point.

When Harvard Professor and eminent Black Studies scholar Henry Louis Gates was arrested in his own home for "disorderly conduct", he was not invoking the voices of those who have been truly oppressed in this country when he yelled from his porch, "This is what happens to a black man in America!!". He was not asking to join hands in some Freedom March over the trampling of anyone's civil rights. He was invoking an obnoxious sense of entitlement that comes from arrogance, stemming from an inflated sense of self-importance. He was not invoking the call to justice of the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement. He was invoking the voice of Eazy-E, the now-deceased rapper who was one of the founding fathers of the un-civil rights movement called "Gangsta Rap".


Gates' tone was all about "Fuck Da Police", NWA's seminal hit, where the members of the rap group serenade the LAPD with verses of venom and disrespect never heard before, which is exactly how Gates dealt with the situation. Now there is a third player in this whole drama, the neighbor who called the alleged break-in to the police. This moron doesn't know the difference between a couple of no-good thugs and the Harvard professor who lives next door?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the events that transpired, here is the short of it. Gates had arrived from a trip to China and found his front door jammed. He and his driver forced their way in, and while this was going on someone called the cops about a possible break-in. When the cops arrived, Gates apparently did not appreciate the tone of the officer in question, Sgt. James Crowley, who then overreacted and arrested him. Granted, there isn't much street crime in such an affluent neighborhood (Cambridge, Mass. isn't exactly the birthplace of the Crips and Bloods) but the arrest was what any right-minded person would call a waste of taxpayer's money. Gates was arrested, processed and had his mug shot taken, capturing for posterity the pathetic and ridiculous lack of judgment displayed by this officer. Gates isn't exactly the Pablo Escobar of the academic world, and he should have known better.

The Arrest Report (click to enlarge)-

Gates is also to blame. He is an academic, and lives an incredibly comfortable life in which he never gets into such confrontations. He doesn't live in a neighborhood where there is rampant street crime and cries from the community of police harassment. So why would he make this a racial issue? Sense of entitlement, that's why. The revered Harvard professor had no business getting testy with police officers. When approached by the Fuzz, you answer their questions regardless of their attitude, especially if you were doing nothing wrong. After 5-10 minutes, they will then leave you alone and go about their day. If provoked with attitude, then whatever happens is YOUR fault. People who live in the 'hood know this. Gates apparently does not.

Obama tried to interject with comments about how the police reacted, which then got the Cambridge Police Department upset. He then tried to calm things by having a "Beer Summit" in which he and both parties sat down at pub near the Harvard campus for some suds and conversation, what he referred to as "a teachable moment". The only thing this taught anyone is despite Gates' reputation and standing in the community, this will stop a police officer with a chip on his shoulder from making his life miserable, simply because in Cambridge there is nothing better to do.

The Infamous Mug Shot-

Then again, even more disgraceful was the incident involving a Boston police officer shortly after the incident. An officer Barrett of the Boston Police Department sent an email to someone calling Professor Gates a "banana-eating jungle bunny". I didn't know you were supposed to feed bunnies bananas. I thought they ate carrots. This goes to show you that however the incident was perceived, we still have racist crap like this from the very people who get payed with public tax dollars to defend us.

The NBA Lockout...

The NBA Lockout is of interest to me only by how it affects the New York Knicks. The Knicks need a defensive-minded center (Tyson Chandler of the Dallas Mavericks comes to mind) and a point guard that is not running on fumes. Chauncey Billups has been playing like an embalmed corpse for the last couple of seasons. He doesn't have what it takes to run a fast break or an effective pick-and-roll. Not anymore. The Knicks should have cut their losses and sent him packing, but they picked up his option for this coming year at a whopping $14.2 million. They also need a point guard who can pass AND create his own shot. Only Chris Paul or Deron Williams can fill this role. They won't get any of these players because they probably won't have the cap space, and the owners are to blame.

The most successful teams in the NBA are being held hostage by a group of owners who want to turn the NBA into a league of indentured servitude. They want players to stop conspiring to go to one specific team and they want to control free agent movement. Lesser-performing teams who struggle to pull in revenue are willing to take the league down and drown it in mediocrity with an inflexible hard cap. This is about as anti-capitalist as you can get. These very same owners, who made their wealth in the so-called "free market", now want to institute a type of economic policy that ensures profit margins for franchises that suck.

Player rep Derrick Fisher with union chief Billy Hunter-

As far as franchises losing money, here is how it really goes-if a team payed it's operating costs and salaries and pulled in a certain percentage as profit last year, and that percentage goes down a bit the next year (still pulling a profit, but not like the year before) they can claim they lost money. This is Bullshit Economic 101. What these owners want is protection from their own bad decisions to still rake in profits regardless of how they go about putting their teams together. Case in point-the Los Angeles Clippers. This is a franchise that has swallowed up more high first round picks than just about any other team in the last 25 years and have never built a championship-caliber team. That's because owner Donald Sterling is about the worst owner in all of sports.

Real Estate mogual and LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling-

Sterling's antics have been well-documented. He heckles his own players from the stands, refuses to modernize their facilities and has the reputation of being a cheapskate and a racist at his real job, that of real estate owner/developer.This year Blake Griffin, the 2011 NBA Rookie of the Year, is in the unenviable position of playing for this pathetic franchise. He probably won't re-sign with them once his contract is up, and I don't blame him.

Blake Griffin-Clipper for life?

But if the owners have their way, Griffin will somehow be stuck there, unable to move to a team of his choice. So a team that really wants to build a winner will lose out on his prodigious skills (a once-in-a-generation talent similar to the late, great Len Bias) and his movements will be constricted. The owners want to make it so that the most lucrative contracts players can sign will be with the teams they want to leave. Elitist economic terrorism at it's worst.

The one thing I do agree with is that long-term contracts should be restricted to three years maximum. For every Kobe Bryant, who, despite his personality issues is one of the fiercest competitors in the game while also being it's highest paid player, you have way too many others who purposely under-perform because they're lazy and/or they stopped caring the second the signed that lucrative max contract. We cannot have teams held hostage by guys like Stephon Marbury or Gilbert Arenas, whose insane contracts seriously imperiled the teams they were playing for. Those types of bad contracts hinder the forward progress of a team, and without the ability to extricate themselves from them it hurts a franchise for years to come. That is not fair.

Hoochies love franchise killers, as long as their contracts are guaranteed-

Revenue sharing is another anti-capitalist proposition the owners want to initiate. Owners who cannot put a winning product on the court through sheer incompetence want to share in the TV revenues of more successful teams like the Lakers and the Knicks.Baseball has a version of revenue sharing that also doesn't work. It's supposed to make smaller market teams more competitive because it infuses their franchises with money that should go to sign players. Funny thing is, the owners wind up pocketing the cash and do not utilize the funds to better their product.

What the league really needs is contraction. Get rid of teams that cannot pull in a fanbase or have a history of losing year-in and year-out and either move them to markets that can support them or shut them down. The Toronto Raptors, the New Orleans Hornets, the Sacramento Kings, the Charlotte Bobcats, the New Jersey Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves all fit this description.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, not knowing when this lockout will end-

New Jersey struggled to fill its' arena when they had one of the best and most exiting teams out there a few years ago with Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd, so what will change when the move to Brooklyn when they are currently one of the worst teams in the NBA?

Contraction will increase competition for on-court employment, and maybe players will take their chosen profession more seriously when the alternative would be dodging heated coinage chucked from the cheap seats in places like Istanbul and the Ukraine, where many games are played in high school gymnasiums and the fans are about as friendly as a bunch of drunken skinhead louts at a Neo-Nazi rally. Or like a friend of mine who went to play overseas in Holland and management decided to motivate him by shutting off his utilities for two weeks straight despite the fact that his housing bills were part of his contract. Nice, eh?

Finally, let us not forget that it's the games that matter, not the owners and certainly not any one individual player. This was painfully evident when Lebron James came up so monumentally small in this year's NBA Finals. When Dwight Howard is forced to play with a team that was practically dismantled for no apparent reason (a crew that went to the NBA Finals a few years ago), why should he be stuck there for the duration of his career?

Instead of building on the momentum they had going, Orlando decided to sign bums like Vince Carter, also-rans like Gilbert Arenas, journeymen underachievers like Jason Richardson and out-of-work bozos like Jason "White Chocolate" Williams. That is just bad management, and they should rightfully suffer the economic consequences for such incompetence.

What about you, Mr. Hunter? You know anything? Didn't think so...

But the owners have another idea. Take money from more successful franchises, lock players up in small-market, mediocre teams and let the owners divvy up money from revenue sharing directly into their pockets as opposed to using those funds for player development. This type of self-inflicted parity will make the games even worse to watch than they are right now. The owners are thinking that fans will show up and watch regardless, but I got news for them-they may get what they want in the end, but if a franchise like the New York Knicks are not at liberty to build a winner however they can, the league and the game itself will suffer for it.

How boring is parity? Just watch college basketball, where individual talent and imagination has given way to hyper-athletic weight room freaks who just so happen to play a little ball on the side. When was the last time anyone sat and watched a college basketball game to watch a coach implement his system? Only twice, when coaches like Paul Westhead and Jerry Tarkanian had teams that would run every single one of their opponents out of the gym.

A Domed Stadium in NYC...

New York City just witnessed a stadium building boom not seen anywhere else in the United States. We have the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Citi Field in Queens for those pathetic Mets and, oddly enough, the new football stadium that houses the Jets and Giants, built in New Jersey of all fucking places. Yes, we now have three shrines to athletic greatness that yell out to fans-"Bring me your bloated, your flatulent, your hapless, doofy football/baseball-loving asswipes and I will entertain thee".

That's three gargantuan concrete/steel behemoths to house our professional teams, built in the span of only a couple of years. Even Madison square Garden is undergoing a multi-jillion dollar face-lift that is sure to raise ticket prices even higher than when Carmelo Anthony was signed to a ridiculous $65 million dollar contract extension. Ticket prices were summarily raised a whopping 50% practically from one day to the next, with no forewarning whatsoever. This happened courtesy of James Dolan, the cocksucking, crack smoking tool bag who had MSG, the Knicks and the Rangers fall into his incompetent lap because of his father's cable empire. Way to earn yours, motherfucker.

Despite the cost of these shiny new palaces, not one is equipped with a dome. This may not matter to the causal numb nut sports fanatic who doesn't mind tailgating while the winds of Jersey whip around at 45 miles an hour and the temperature doesn't rise about 20 below during football season, but it should. A dome isn't necessary to keep fans warm while they drink overpriced beer and belch and fart to their heart's content in stadium seats that can barely hold their corpulent, Hitchcockian whale carcasses, but it is necessary as a revenue producer in this modern age of sports.

The Einsteins who designed these monuments to the steroid freaks who play professional baseball and football didn't consider once that New York City, the greatest city in the world, will be unable to host a college basketball Final Four or any other such sporting spectacle. When was the last time a Superbowl was played outdoors? Yes, there are plans in the works to have one in the Jersey stadium very soon, but the people who sponsor these orgies of corporate excess want three things-

1) Amenities like sky boxes and private restaurants so they won't have to subject themselves to mingling with the yeoman slobs who occupy the cheap seats. Who would want to rub elbows with a bunch of ill-mannered working class losers? C'mon, man, this is America!!! Get with the fucking program!!!

2) Corporate sponsors want these events to be held in as big an arena as possible to sell as many tickets as possible, despite the fact that when you host a basketball tournament in a domed stadium, 90% of the seats are so bad you might as well watch the game from the fucking Moon. Some seats are so far away from the action you couldn't tell who was playing with a Hubble telescope.

3) Warmth. Football is a man's sport played by men in all weather conditions. The corporate bitch-asses who write off their weekend bacchanals on their expense accounts want none of this. They want to watch football in an indoor, temperature-controlled sarcophagus with all the amenities of home, with the exception of the wife and kids. You can't have a cocaine and hooker Superbowl party with Blanche screaming at you to watch the fucking meatloaf before it burns.

New York City is the perfect place to host such festivals of avarice, greed and gratuitous gluttony. Plenty of fancy hotels, an eclectic nightlife, prostitutes galore and more importantly, plenty of dark alleys to vomit and shit on yourself in public after a night of binge drinking. A sports fans' dream come true.

This costume won't work if he was outside freezing-

New York City could have done themselves a favor by having a multi-purpose stadium built in Queens so the Jets and Giants can play in the city they are named after. I believe we are the only sports town that has half its' professional sports teams playing outside it's jurisdiction. Mayor Bloomberg fucked up big-time. If lack of cash was the issue, he should have taken the money out of the public school budget and given it to the dickwads who fucked this project up.

Chicks dig the long ball, especially indoors!!!

The days of trying (and failing miserably) to educate lazy, shiftless, illiterate baboons are over. You want to see what a real-life "Planet of the Apes" looks like up close? Don't go to the movies, and don't go to the zoo. Just pass by Taft High School in the Bronx. The only difference between the students who attend that gang-infested shithole and real apes is that apes are more intelligent and better behaved.

Let's put that money to better use, like feeding it to corporate fat cats who deserve the best we can provide them, which in this case should be a publicly financed domed stadium. They deserve it, and so does the great city of New York, especially in these harsh economic times with so many assholes out of work. We really should be providing more for the corporate elites to make sure their comfort level never stoops to unacceptable levels. We owe them that much. The rest of us can do what we always do and just watch our teams on television-that's if we can afford cable TV by the time this happens.