"Well I am just SO put out."
This one hurts, because Mike used to be my boy. When you're a fan of a sports team, you develop serious man crushes very easily on any young prospects who show early promise for your club, especially when those guys exceed expectations. In his first year after being drafted 21st by the Suns, Michael Finley was awesome. Finally, the Suns had an athletic wing player, which hadn't really been the case since I'd become a fan of basketball. He could dunk like crazy (he was the first guy whom I saw successfully dunk on Dikembe Mutombo - back when Mutombo was still an otherworldly shotblocking god who stuffed it right back in Shawn Kemp's face every time Kemp tried to dunk on him). Finley even hit a game-winning jumper in a crazy early-season game against the Lakers; the Suns were down 10 with a minute left, but they hit three quick 3s, forced a jump ball at midcourt with about three seconds left, tipped it to Finley, and let him run down the floor and hit a pull-up from elbow with no time left in like the eighth game of his career. I was fucking psyched (even though the Suns plummeted from the elite in the West that year).
The next year, we traded him to Dallas in the Jason Kidd deal, which hurt, but it still seemed worth it. He went on to be a minor star and the third wheel of Dallas's big three in the early Oughts. He signed a huge contract, got cut via the amnesty rule after the last collective bargaining agreement, and had a real chance to do something meaningful with his life. But instead of following his boy Steve and coming home to Phoenix, he did the unthinkable: signing for cheap with the one team that both of his former clubs detested above all. I realize that you gotta do what you gotta do, Mike, but so do I. And I gotta hate you, you son of a bitch.
Finley has developed into one more in a long, long succession of perimeter guys who nail open 3s to torment the Suns, including John Paxson, Mario Elie, Sam Cassell, Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Brent Barry, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (until later in this list). Strangely, a number of these guys later played for the Suns, but never at length or effectively. At any rate, I hate all of them, because there's really nothing worse in basketball than watching your team dash around and scrap like mad to get a key stop, only for one of these dicks to hit a three that just strangles your chances.
Eighth Most Hated Spur: Brent Barry
Nowadays, Brent Barry and Michael Finley are pretty much the same player, except that Brent Barry is white and ugly (see above). I also used to kind of like Barry when he played for the Sonics, but that all changed when he joined the Spurs. Now, his every 3 pains me like an eyefull of bees and his awkward gangliness turns my stomach like a mouthful of poop. Add to that his impenitent scruffiness, which is less Brett-Favre manly and more child-molester shady, and the fact that his insufferable brother always seems to be announcing his games and blathering about how funny it is that they have the same parents, and the man becomes equivalent to a massive federal subsidy for hatred.Oh, he was also the first and only affirmative action dunk contest winner. "Oh, hey, you're white and you kind of did that dunk that Michael Jordan already did in this contest ten years ago. Take a charity trophy for your earthbound race." Watch this clip and tell me: Is it any wonder that the terrorists thought they could defeat us after we crowned a dunk champion this goofy looking? How are we to strike fear in the hearts of our enemies when we once concluded that this man, out of all our many peoples, could perfect something as awesome as the dunk? Blood is on your hands, Brent Barry.
No comments:
Post a Comment