Son of a South Beach: The Development of the Hate for Lebron & Lebron/MJ Myths Dispelled

It's quite the feeling to root for a player that your entire social network hates, aside from a few people. But that's the feeling I had as I watched the NBA Finals the past couple years. The Heat defended their NBA crown Thursday night by winning a thrilling seven-game series against the San Antonio Spurs, their toughest opponent in the past two years.

All the while, every move, every breath, every bowel movement taken by Lebron James was analyzed by everyone. The media who need something to write about. The fans who hate him for one reason or another. About 99 percent of my Facebook/Twitter peeps were rooting against him and/or the Heat.

Why the Hate?

They cite many reasons for their hate. Let's start from the beginning:

1. The Decision - Lebron teasing what team he was going to led ESPN to help create a prime-time special that was as highly watched as a non-sporting sports event could be. Jim Gray asked Lebron a bunch of nonsense questions before King James announced that he was taking his talents to South Beach. And with that statement, he drew the ire of basically every fan base but the Miami Heat. I'm not so convinced that Bulls fans would have a different perspective of this event had he said he was joining the Bulls, who would likely be hoisting their second title in third years if he joined them.

The glitz and glamour of the Decision aside, what no one mentions is the amount of money Lebron raised for charity through this event: $2M for the Boys & Girls Club. A friend of mine says Lebron could have donated his own money, but that's $2M more than most of us have donated to that. A charitable act like that is still a charitable act.

2. Championship Guarantees - Not even a day later, Lebron made the famous "not 5, not 6, not 7..." championship guarantee. This was preceded by a celebration of Wade, Bosh and James joining forces that resembled a wrestling event more than an NBA team coming together in July. This brash prediction seemed a bit much and only added more fuel to the fire to the bandwagon haters (yes, anyone that has hated the Heat since 2011 is a bandwagon hater). I didn't care for this prediction either way - this definitely added to the hate.

3. Bulls/Heat - Eastern Conference Finals - This is when I saw the hate first-hand as I lived in the Chicago burb of Oak Forest at the time and realized how bad it would be for the future. I went out to my local bar for the first game, a game in which the Bulls romped the Heat and led to extreme overconfidence with many of my friends (you know who you are). The next four games were won by the Heat. I went out for a couple more games for the series, including the clincher in which the Heat came back from double digits down in the last half of the fourth quarter to take the Eastern Conference crown. All the while, cries of the refs favoring the Heat were seen all over. Only the true fan boys blame the refs for losses - as every team gets calls here and there that are ignored when they benefit their team but stressed when they don't.

4. Mavs beat Heat - I was in Vegas for several of the 2011 NBA Finals games (random fact, I can remember starting my Twitter account during this series). The most interesting thing about following the series was how many people all of a sudden treated a Heat loss as if the Bulls were the ones who beat them. Nope - it was the Mavs, led by an unconscious Dirk Nowitzki, the man who was truly destined for the title in this particular year. As Game 6 closed, many Bulls fans celebrated the Mavs victory as if it was their own, which puzzled me. 

5. The Crowning A Year Later - In the 2011-12 Finals, the Thunder won game one on their home court but failed to win another game (just like the Bulls). The rest of the series was owned by the Heat, including a title-clinching romp. I don't recall anyone outside of me in my friend base that was happy that this Lebron title-less story was over and done with.

There's probably a few things in between that I'm missing, but you get the point/timeline.

The Jordan Rules: Unraveling the Myth

Now, a year later, the Heat add a title to their resume and people hate the Heat more than ever. Which brings me to my next topic, a topic that I swore I'd never address again as recently as last year when comparisons between Jordan and Kobe were made constantly. 

Last year, now that Lebron had a title under his belt, the topic of Michael Jordan was brought up as a comparison point as to who whether Lebron is better than him. 

Let me tell you how ridiculous the comparison is:

(1) We're comparing how Lebron is now to how Jordan finished, not where Jordan was at this point in his career. Lebron has just completed his 10th NBA season and won his second title. Jordan had three titles after 10 seasons. While Jordan was 32 entering his 11th season and on the precipice of winning the last three of his titles, Lebron will still be under 30 and has a chance to win as many as Jordan did. But is that really the argument? If he wins as many or more titles than Jordan, would Jordan fans really concede that Lebron is better? By the time Lebron turns 34, he may have as many titles as Jordan.

(2) No matter the titles, Jordan fans will say that MJ > Lebron...but then why does it always come up as an argument point - that MJ has more titles than Lebron? The total titles is just an excuse. Lebron could win 8 and it wouldn't matter with many fans - Jordan would be better.

(3) Jordan didn't need to join forces with a team. This argument makes me laugh the most. The myth of Jordan, as everyone has built, states that Jordan would have never joined forces with other superstars (a la James) to win a title.

Do you know the players that were drafted or acquired by the Bulls in the Jordan years (the pre-title years and the second title runs included)? Here are the best ones (there were some duds in between, but enough hits to help Jordan)

• 1987 - Horace Grant drafted, Scottie Pippen acquired in the draft. The Pippen trade might be the biggest fleecing in an NBA trade in our lifetimes (traded for Olden Polynice). Grant was a starter on the first three title teams.
• 1989 - Another starter for the championships was drafted: B.J. Armstrong. Not a superstar, but a sufficient player that helped Jordan.
• 1990 - Toni Kukoc, a key contributor to the second set of titles
• 1995 - Dennis Rodman acquired in a trade for Will Purdue

In the entire title run, there wasn't a time where Jordan was playing without at least one Hall of Famer. 1991 through 1993, he had Pippen; 1996-98 he had Pippen and Rodman.

Now....do you know the best signings and draft picks the Cavaliers made since James was drafted there in 2003?

Check out this murderer's row of draft picks since 2003 for the Cavs

The best player to be drafted by the Cavs between James and 2010? That's a tough call. Do you go Daniel Gibson (7.8 points/game for his career), who is best known by his feminine "Boobie"? Or is it J.J. Hickson? What I was totally unaware of before looking at this draft list was that the Cavs drafted the newly-famous Danny Green, who was only with them for 2009-10 and played sparingly, going to the Spurs the next year.

Free agent/trade-wise, James played with some stars who were waaaaaay past their primes. Ben Wallace & Shaq were among the stars who had faded long before they joined forces with a young Lebron. Mo Williams was about as prime of a star as Lebron had in his time in Cleveland.

If Lebron wanted to win a title, he had no choice but to join forces with other superstars - no superstars were going to the Cavaliers, and they certainly were drafting anyone that helped Lebron in the slightest. NBA history has shown that you need Hall of Famers around you to win titles. Lebron wasn't going to win it with this consistent rag-tag bunch of misfits. Yes, there were years of getting the 1 or 2 seed, but that was a testament to how great Lebron was and had little to do with the players around him.

Now you're telling me that Jordan wouldn't have left the Bulls if he was in the same situation - terrible talent evaluation and free agent acquisitions - with his drive to win and further market his Jordan brand? Jordan may say he would have never left, that he would have never wanted to play with the guys who he competed against, but that's only with the benefit of hindsight - he would have left in a heartbeat if he didn't think Pippen and company could help win him a title (and let's not forget that guy Phil too). If the roles were reversed, James would have never had to leave his original team, as he would have had a competent front office that made moves to help surround him with the parts necessary to win a title. And yes, I believe Jordan would have left the Bulls if Jerry Krause was unable to put the necessary players (including a Hall of Famer in Pippen) in place.

Haters Gonna Hate

The one thing I have learned to accept for the most part is that most people I'm close to will never appreciate Lebron as much as they should, for many of the reasons mentioned above. The arguments of hating him get tiresome - if you want to hate him for his whining and flopping, I'm way more ok with that than any other reason mentioned above (he has no reason to complain or flop).

But if you're going to hate him for a Decision, surely not Lebron's finest hour, 60 minutes erred in judgment (you've never had a Decision or erred in judgment like that, Yeah...), which mind you, helped donate $2M in charity, get over it. It happened three years ago.

The best part of being freed from the Lebron/Heat hate that people around me have is that I've been able to enjoy the best NBA player do his thing without wasting energy to hate something/someone. Why can't we just enjoy things these days, enjoy immense talents like Lebron, a once-in-a-lifetime talent, without having an element of hate?

Have fun wasting your energy with hate. I'll continue to enjoy one of the best ever without all of the stress and hate that accompanies your viewing of Lebron and the Heat.

(If you've read this far, I should note that I'm not a Heat fan, but a fan of Lebron - but I guess you'll associate it all the same, so no worry).

Facing the Heat: Why Refs are the Wrong Focus for Miami's Success

The Miami Heat are a day removed from going up 2-1 in their series against the Chicago Bulls, but it has nothing to do with the skill level of the Heat. At least that's what many in my social network would like you to believe.

• "I guess it's the Bulls versus the Heat/refs"
• "The Bulls are playing 5 on 8"
  

Those are a couple of quotes I came across (among many) since the Bulls/Heat series started. It's all the same complaints recycled from the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, when the Heat downed the Bulls in 5 games to reach the NBA Finals.

Blaming the refs is the easiest and laziest argument that a fan can make. It works as the perfect defense mechanism when your team loses - I saw this first hand when my boys lost the Super Bowl to the Ravens. Many Niners fans put a big chunk of the blame on the striped shirts for not calling a defensive hold against the Ravens on the Niners' last offensive play in the red zone (a fourth down) when San Fran was down by 5 late in the game.

What those fans failed to mention was the thorough beat-down that the Niners got in the first half that put them in a huge hole. They fail to mention the way Jacoby Jones and others tore apart their secondary and special teams units - the match-ups that ultimately failed the Niners. Just like a basketball game, there will be calls that go against an NFL team, even on the highest stage of the game. That doesn't mean that the referees caused the team to lose. The Niners' chances should have never hinged on a judgement call from the zebras - they shot themselves in the foot too often early on to blame officials for a non-call, which didn't even guarantee them a victory (they still would have needed to score a touchdown, which they failed to do on the previous three plays from the same yard line in the red zone).

The same goes for the bitching that many Bulls fans have done when their team loses to the Heat. They'll call Lebron a whiner (they call him much worse than this, but I have to limit my use of the female dog reference to one mention per paragraph). They'll say that the refs have it in for the Heat and want to see them win the title again.

If the NBA was as rigged as everyone would like you to believe, do you really believe there would have been NBA Finals match-ups like the Spurs/Pistons, Spurs/Nets (or Spurs/anyone), Lakers/Magic? The Spurs are one of the least attractive great teams in NBA history (were never good for ratings), yet in the past 10 years have made the Finals three times (winning all three appearances in 2003, 2005, 2007 in addition to their 1999 appearance). Unless you're an NBA junkie or a fan of one of those teams, I doubt you gave serious thought to watching any of the series mentioned above. And the ratings for those series (particularly the Spurs' ones) prove you likely didn't tune in. If it's all about ratings and money, then the rigging theory doesn't make sense in those situations.

The Heat are not winning because of the refs. They're winning because they're a great team - they did go 66-16 in the regular season after all, outscoring their opponents by an average of 8 points per game. They didn't win 27 straight games this year because the striped shirts assisted them. They had that streak because they were dominant on both ends of the ball, outscoring their opponents by a 105-93 margin during their historic streak.

Speaking of history, Lebron had one of the quietest historical seasons in NBA history this year, shooting an unreal 56.5% from the field, 40.5% from three-point territory (both career highs by far), while averaging nearly 27 points, 8 rebounds (career high set this year) & 7 assists per game. He has improved his field goal percentage every season since the 2006-07 season while continuing to maintain his stellar stats across the board in every other category.

The above facts are not the result of the refs handing them wins, but because of amazing talent and a core who's had the chance to gel together for the past 3 years to become the best team in the league.

Yes, there are times when it gets annoying to see Lebron pout when he doesn't get a call, but let's not act like this is a trait exclusive to the Heat. Whenever I watch Noah or Boozer foul a guy, immediate looks of disgust almost always accompany the whistle and the calling of their number for a personal foul. There's probably at least one or two guys on every team in the league that have the "you gotta be kidding me!" look when they get called for a foul. But when it's your guy complaining, Joe Fan, who blindly supports anything the team does, will see the call the same way as the complaining player and completely neglects the hypocritical nature of their complaints. So yeah, the bitching about Lebron pouting seems silly.

And it's funny that of all teams, Bulls fans will complain about the star treatment that Lebron gets when a half NBA generation ago, they were witnesses to Air Jordan, who got his fair share of calls in his favor (his last shot with the Bulls when he pushed off on Byron Russell was the perfect example - if Lebron did that, Bulls fans would scream "Bullshit!")

Your team gets calls too. You're just pretending it doesn't happen.

I'm not saying that the Heat don't get any calls in their favor - they do. But I don't believe they get any more or less calls in their favor than most teams in the league, although many of you reading this might wholeheartedly disagree. It's hard to remove fandom with the judgement of other teams and referees. But to think there's a conspiracy theory every time your team loses to a great team who you think is getting hundreds more favorable calls than your team, that's just your fandom talking. Watch a random game of any sport involving two teams you don't care anything about, and you'll see that the bad calls go both ways and usually balance out in the long run.

And think about how many times your team gets breaks from referees. Oh wait, you can't, because they never make calls in your team's favor. I bet you can name 20 instances of refs being against your team before you can name a situation where a call benefited your team. You're way more likely to remember the times that an external force outside of your players (the refs) supposedly caused your team to lose than you are to remember when the refs may have made a big call in your favor to aid a victory. When your team wins, you attribute your team's win to their immense skill, not because they had a beneficial call or set of calls in a game. When your team loses, it's because the refs screwed them over. You can't have it both ways.

I fully expect the Heat to close this series out - if not in 5 games, then probably 6. And I also fully expect that the refs will be the root blame of the Bulls defeat, not the Heat's players, who have shot 60% & 50% in their past two games against a tough Bulls defense. Even without some defensive stoppers like Deng & Hinrich, the Bulls' defense is still a top-notch unit, making the Heat's hot shooting even more impressive.

Give some credit where credit is due. The Heat are good - damn good. I know you hate them, which is probably another reason why you might say the refs are favoring them. For the next set of games, try going 5 or 10 minutes without saying the word "referee" and instead focus on the players making the plays - I bet you can't.

The Heat will get a call here and there that goes in their favor, but it won't be the reason they win the series. They'll win it because they're better. Simple as that. 

B List - Stupidest Sports Arguments (List 9)

I still plan on writing about the new NCAA playoff format and how it's going to cause more problems than it creates.

For now, I will mention it among six other sports arguments that I consider to be among the stupidest. This will likely have a slight Chicago lean, as I have listened to many an argument about sports from friends and strangers alike.

Here's the list of arguments that I consider to be among the most pointless.

7.  Tebow - There's no way to have a reasonable debate on Tim Tebow. He's such a polarizing sports figure that you may as well discuss your stance on abortion, gun rights and gay marriage and be more productive in talking. His critics (such as myself and anyone who likes their quarterbacks to be accurate and good) will never convince his fans (who love what he stands for and his ability to win close games) that he sucks, and his fans will never convince his critics that he is the greatest quarterback of all time. I'm convinced that ranking systems like NFL Networks Top 100 players (ranked him 95th best player in the league) and NFL Films (ranking him the 7th best Heisman winner in NFL history - a ranking that was to measure the career accomplishments of Heisman winners) were just to grab attention and ratings. Anyone who thinks Tebow has accomplished more in his short career (one in which he hasn't started a complete season) than Earl Campbell (8th) and Marcus Allen (9th) is smoking the kind of crack I'd like to smoke if I was into that sort of thing.

6. Comparing Michael Jordan to anyone - There are way too many times people want to compare the best players of the day to MJ. I discussed this in a blog almost two months ago with Kobe and how he and Lebron are often brought up by people who want to discuss today's players with the best of all time. No reasonable person would argue that these guys are better than MJ. Many times, this argument, at least from my observations, is usually addressed by the folks who are so hard for MJ that they can't wait to bring his name up anytime Kobe or LeBron does something good. "Kobe's good, but he's no MJ" or pictures of MJ flaunting his rings asking LeBron about his rings are just a few of the examples that pop up when people want to remind the world that MJ is the best. I don't think we need these comments/pictures posted on FB all the time to know that MJ is better than both of them. Let it go.

5. Old champs vs. new champs - Media and public folks do this a lot. How would (current champ) do against (some old great team), with most of the folks who are on the elderly side of the debate usually arguing for the latter. The most recent example of this was Kobe being asked if he thought this current collection of Olympians could beat the Dream Team in a game, with Kobe answering affirmatively. Did everyone expect Kobe to say, "No, you know what, I think we'd get killed." It's not in Kobe's DNA to admit that he can't do something, even if his heart of hearts believed that his current squad would have no chance. In one game, sure, this collection of guys may be able to win, but the Dream Team, whose player composition included all but one Hall of Famer, would likely win most matchups. But you know what? You can't possibly know what would happen because it can never happen. Therefore, these type of arguments are deemed pointless in my eyes.

4. Best running back ever - I've heard this many times argued among friends and on TV alike. There's only a few names that I would even consider being reasonable to discuss in the equation - including Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith, OJ Simpson, Earl Campbell, and of course Walter Payton. Living in Chicago, the most common debate I heard was Payton being the best, with a few of my Dallas friends arguing Emmitt's case. It may not be the worst argument in sports, but with the way I've heard it argued, it usually turns into an ugly conversation. Perhaps that's more of a reflection of my friends arguing it than the argument itself. Since I am not old enough to have seen (or remember) many of these guys play, I can only go by statistics to say who was the best. And I don't think that's fair to the debate. I've always contended that Jim Brown was the best ever. Take a look at his stats and accomplishments if you get the chance to understand why I would think this. I'd rather not get into this argument, so I'm going to stop now.

3. BCS - For most of its existence, people have denounced the BCS as a crappy way to crown a college champion. The truth is - there is no perfect way to do this. Since there are many conferences and there's no way that teams can play completely balanced schedules, there will always have to be a human element involved with deciding who should be considered for the right to be champion (or at least play for the championship). The system that preceded the BCS was straight up voting, with many seasons in NCAA history ending without the two best regular season teams facing each other based on how the Bowl system would place teams into specific Bowls. Instead, the winner was voted on in polls before the BCS. At least with the BCS, you have almost always had two of the top 2-4 teams in the nation playing for the national championship. This new 4-team playoff is going to cause more problems than it will solve and will likely become one of its own top 2-3 dumb sports arguments out there. Whenever a selection process is used to decide who will make a playoff (as this playoff will be), you will hear about at least 2-3 teams a year (if not more) who got screwed out of a chance to play.

2. NCAA Tourney snubs - Speaking of NCAA and selection committees, one of the dumbest arguments I hear on a yearly basis is the teams who were left out of the NCAA March Madness tourney. Every year, a big part of ESPN and CBS broadcasts on Selection Sunday is devoted to the teams who barely squeaked in and the teams who just missed the tourney. Cases are made for each team who didn't make it (teams who are roughly 18-12 and lost in the second round of their conference tourney) as if they were leaving out the best team in the nation. It's gotten so bad with the tourney that they've even expanded the tourney several times in our lifetimes and people still complain about the last team who didn't make it. If you can't convince people that you are not one of the best teams in the nation when you have an 18-12 record and you don't win an automatic bid, you can't complain when you leave your team's postseason fate in the hands of a committee. The screams for the last team in are bad with the NCAA tourney - imagine how bad it will be when football gets around to their 4-team playoff.

1. All Star snubs - And the grand champion for stupid debates for me is All Star snubs. And this is by far the stupidest for me. While baseball is fresh in my mind, this also applies for the other sports who host an annual All-Star game. However, the bickering over baseball All Stars is probably the loudest (and definitely the most annoying). Even with expanding rosters, you could always find an idiot who says "My guy should have made it". Yeah, he could/should have, but who cares? In some ways, I'd rather have my guy rest for 3-4 days than go to a glorified exhibition game that most fans (at least the ones I know) don't care who wins. Even with the White Sox making a run towards the postseason, I have given little thought to the fact that they would be travelling for Game 1 of the World Series if they were lucky enough to make it that far because a collection of AL players lost 8-0 the other day. The new rule of adding a World Series stipulation to the game inspired the slogan "This Time, It Counts" from Fox for the longest time, inspiring even more annoying banter among people who say their guy should have made it and been able to help their league out in what should be a meaningless All-Star game. The emotion that is wasted when one gets sad or angry about their guy being left off a roster should instead be used to cheer that player on after the All-Star break ends. At the end of the day, the All Star game is an exhibition, whether the MLB's WS stipulation tells you or not.

Kobe vs. MJ - The Retirement of the Comparison

In his own air

Kobe Bryant has a stomach ailment that may cause him to miss the Lakers Game 6 versus the Nuggets. Naturally, this leads many people to pull out the MJ card.

What is the MJ card you may ask? It's the card used by media and fans alike to constantly and incessantly compare basketball players to Michael Jordan, the best player of our generation, and arguably, the best player to ever play the game.

As many people remember, Jordan battled the stomach flu in Game 5 of the NBA Finals against the Jazz, leading the Bulls to a 90-88 victory by pouring in 38 points despite the ailments. You won't hear many arguments from me if you want to call that Jordan's best game given the circumstances.

I don't know the degree of stomach ailment that Bryant has, but it's bad enough where his status is in doubt for the game. I do know that while Kobe Bryant does have the same drive to win as MJ does, he is not Jordan.

Kobe (and his game) may be sick, but he is no MJ

Nobody is, so please, everyone - stop comparing people to Jordan. Something about sports (or perhaps just human nature) lends itself to the "need to compare". I don't mind comparisons, but the ones to MJ are over-done.

Anyone remember the name Harold Miner from the Miami Heat? He was dubbed "Baby Jordan" in the early '90s.

Over the years, the names of people dubbed "The Next Jordan" would turn onto the basketball highway only to veer off the road before the first exit. And it's not that these players (another one that comes to mind is Vince Carter) actually sucked. It's just that these players had no chance at all of ever living up to that title.

(And please, please, please don't compare Lebron to MJ. It's not even the lack of rings argument that bothers me with that, although keep in mind that MJ didn't win his first title until he was 28 and Lebron is only 27 at the moment. Lebron is more like Magic Johnson in his game play than he is to Michael Jordan)

The closest anyone in this generation has come to His Airness is Kobe Bryant. There's plenty to compare between the two:

- Championship rings: MJ 6; Kobe 5
- Finals MVPs: MJ 6; Kobe 2
- Scoring List rank: MJ 3rd; Kobe 5th (just over three thousand behind - about 1.5 seasons away from passing him).
- Common Coach in their primes: Phil Jackson
- # of HOF teammates that each won 2+ championship with: MJ - 2 (Pippen & Rodman); Kobe - 2 (Shaq & Gasol)

While there may be many things to compare between the two, the comparisons of who is a better player should just be left on the shelf. I know we want to do it with players all the time, but let's retire the Jordan comparisons, please?

And let's not Favre this retirement by contemplating it and then eventually coming back to it. And no, I don't mean a Michael Jordan retirement either. To make it official, let's throw this comparison a retirement party and buy it some retirement gifts.

Ok, you get the point. Let's never compare anyone to Jordan ever again. There will never be another one. In about 10-15 years, people will still be doing it, so then maybe my 40-year-old self will have to re-post this to remind people to stop it.

Critique of Whitney Houston Coverage:The Story Not Told

At this time last week, what were your thoughts of Whitney Houston?

Assuming you were in the camp that didn't ignore her problems and thought she wasted away her early successes as a singer on drug use...flash forward a day later - are you still thinking those same thoughts?

Maybe I'm just not connected to people's conversations about musicians and pop culture all that much or I'm watching/reading the wrong coverage, but everything I've heard about Whitney Houston before she died was nothing at all like the thoughts that are coming out now.

When someone with her recent problems passes on, the conversation changes from her being a talent that withered away amid substance abuse issues to forgetting about the problems altogether and just focusing on her career and positive things in life.

With my dad off of work and his habit of watching those Hollywood-heavy shows like Extra and Inside Edition on the boob tube, I could not count how many times I heard a news segment begin with "Annnnd IIIIIIIIIIeeeeeeeIIIIIIIII willllll always love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, ohhhhh" in the past week while working downstairs. Every major network was covering this story as she had never done anything wrong.

A similar situation occurred with the death of Michael Jackson, where the simple mention of his past allegations of child molestation would give you nasty glares from many people in the room, arguably some of his fans.

I never understood why the complete story of people isn't presented when someone dies. Well, I do understand - we want to preserve a positive memory of someone as our first thought when that person's name is mentioned.

But isn't telling the complete narrative (the good and the bad) important to tell? Shouldn't it be mentioned more that the last decade of her life that saw her devolve from one of the world's greatest singers to a person with a substance abuse problem?

I'm not trying to take anything away from what she did as an artist in the 1990s, but for hardly a peep to be mentioned about the whole story of her life puzzles me. It's like the 2000s never happened.

If you were to ask someone who knew little of Whitney Houston to base their opinion of her off the coverage the past week, you'd think she was a saint her whole life.

side note: If Michael Jordan is to pass away in about 10 years and he continues to suck as an NBA owner, I believe it should be noted in the stories about him that he was bad as a basketball executive. But we all know that the Powers-That-Be would write the fluff pieces like they have always wrote about him. The only thing that media people have felt comfortable critiquing him on was his baseball experiment. You hardly ever heard anything about his womanizing or gambling for fear that a media member might lose access to the guy.

I digress.

When it comes for my time to pass on from this Earth, I'd expect people to remember me for the good AND bad of my life. Granted, the bad in my life might be limited to a few moments/time spans in my life. I'd prefer the entire narrative of my life be told, not just the good parts.

In my case, the bad moments in life were the prequel for better moments that were on the near horizon that had a "redemption/comeback story-feel" to them. Some people aren't as fortunate to bounce back from their bad moments to live and tell about it.

That doesn't mean we should ignore that it ever happened. Instead of making all of these pop stars out to be Statue-esque Idols who are above all humans and could do no wrong, let's present them as the humans that they are - a complicated blob of success and failure, littered with good and bad decisions, events and moments along the way that made them the person they turned out to be.

Breaking Good: Recent Records That Will Be Hard to Beat

As a frequent watcher of sporting events, one of the main topics that comes up on a continual basis is records/milestones that will never be broken or achieved. Each time, the same records are trotted out as unbreakable and are usually reflective of different eras of the sport of which they speak. Records like Cy Young's career win total or Wilt Chamberlain's numerous records (notably points in a game and points per game in a season) are just some of these records that will never be sniffed upon anytime soon, yet alone broken.

I decided I would compile some milestones or benchmarks in particular sports (whether it be a season or career) that have been set in the past 10-20 years that we will never see in the next 10-20 years (or perhaps ever), based on how each particular game is evolving. For example's sake, I'm going to focus on the sports that I know: NFL, MLB and NBA.

NFL records that will not be broken any time soon (in a 16 game regular season format):

Tomlinson's 31 TDs in 2006: Even though this record was broken several times in a 3-4 year span before this, I believe this record will stand the test of time. The way teams are going towards running backs by committee, there is no need for a guy to carry the ball as much as LT did that year.

No one (not even Jenn Sterger) will touch Brett Favre's small....err, large records

Favre's 299 games in a row as starting QB: I assume this number includes playoffs - I saw it as this on the nfl.com page. With the concussion rule the way it is now (where they will make sure players cannot play if signs of a concussion are apparent), I don't see a QB (or any position for that matter) making it through 18+ seasons worth of games without missing a game. Peyton is the closest, but he still has over 5 years to go and may even miss Week 1 of this year. Of Favre's numerous accolades, this one should stand the test of time for the longest. (Note: NFL.com has the record wrong - my partner in crime Tim found the number to be 297 regular season games).

Jerry Rice's 1549 catches in a career: With all of his down years at the end weighing down his career average, he still averaged 75 catches a year in his career. Even if he didn't play an unbelievable 20 years in the league and ended it about 5 years earlier, many of his records would still be untouchable. A 22 year old receiver entering the league would need to average just under 100 catches a season for 16 seasons to get this record. It's just not gonna happen. Rice has so many unbreakable records to speak of, but this is the one I wanted to highlight.

Marvin Harrison - 143 catches in 2002: Never mind that this record is 20 higher than its second place finisher, the best offenses these days feature QBs who spread the ball all over the field, not to just one primary guy. Green Bay, New Orleans, Indianapolis and New England seem to have different receivers leading the team in catches/yards from game to game. There really isn't anyone currently capable of grabbing an average of 9 catches per game that it would take to beat this record.


MLB records/milestones that are unreachable in today's era

Cal Ripken's games streak: This one is fairly obviously, but no current player (nor will any future player) have the desire to play 16-17 years worth of games in a row. The best players need a handful of games off in a year now. With salaries the way they are, managers have no incentive to play a superstar through an injury that may require a few days of rest. Ripken's record is safe.

Just like the jersey he sports here, Randy Johnson's 300K seasons are a thing of the past.

300Ks in a season for a pitcher: The last pitchers to achieve 300+Ks were Schilling and Randy Johnson for the 2002 D-Backs. Johnson topped the duo with 334, which was only the fourth highest total of his career. For a starter to get that many in a 5-man rotation (33-35 starts considering some rotations skip the 5th starters on days of), a pitcher needs to average 10Ks per game. These days, 10Ks is considered a great game - so to expect someone to average that (or even 9Ks per game) in the Pitch Count era is far-fetched.

60 Home Runs in a season: Unless another cheater era begins, I see Jose Bautista's number from last year (54) to be about the ceiling for home run hitters. Since the baseball drug testing began, home run numbers have gone down. There are some pitcher friendly parks being built these days (Petco comes to mind), but much of it has to do with normal-strength hitters hitting against normal-strength pitchers.

Ichiro's 262 hits in a season (2004): Considering that Ichiro is the only current player with a season in the top 80 of hits in a season (he has 4 of the top 80 hit seasons of all time), there doesn't appear to be anyone on the horizon that could sniff this record. Juan Pierre (2004) and Michael Young (2005) are the closest active players to this record when they got 221 hits in their respective seasons.

NBA Records/Milestones that are out of reach

Jordan's 30 points per game for a career:  If you start your career with a couple of "sub-par" (when compared to Jordan's average) 22/game seasons, you have some major work to do. Jordan's average would have been higher had it not been for his years with the Wizards, which just goes to show you how dominant he was.

No one will get to 80+ points again any time soon. B-Bo knows this.

80 points in a game: Kobe achieved this back in 2006 (81 points to be exact), making him the first player since Wilt's 100 points to break the 80 point barrier. Not only do you have to be a tremendous ball hog to get this record, but you have to be a ball hog that can actually shoot well. Also, you have to be in a tight game where you won't be sat in the last 5-6 minutes of a game. Bryant's Lakers were trailing by double digits for the middle part of the game against the Raptors before pulling away in the 4th quarter. Someone like Carmelo has the best chance of getting this achievement.

Bulls' 72 wins in 1995-96: Ok, so none of these records have been team records thus far. I figured I'd throw in the one record that has been set recently that will not be beat in our lifetimes. For teams to actually get this record, they actually have to want to get this record. This means playing your starters (who have to be the elite of the elite) throughout the season without much rest. Once teams clinch home court advantage throughout the playoffs, there's very little incentive for the top players to continue to play 35-40 mins/game unless there's particular bonuses attached to their contract relating to individual marks. And by the time home court is clinched throughout a year, teams are well past the 10 loss mark. I don't see this one being touched.


I'm sure there's other records I'm neglecting, but these ones come to mind as recent records/milestones that seem untouchable based on how their respective sports are evolving. If there's any recent records or milestones that are untouchable, please share your thoughts.