Sunday, February 09, 2014

No Smart Puns

If you are a grown man whose greatest joy in life is paying huge amounts of money for the privilege of taunting 20 year olds you don't know, then there is probably something wrong with you.

No, Marcus Smart shouldn't have shoved the so-called Texas Tech "Superfan" (and "Superfan" is awfully close to "SuperFund", but that's neither here nor there) when the guy said whatever he said to Smart at the end of the Oklahoma State - Texas Tech game. Smart will almost certainly be suspended, as well he should be - the line between performers and spectators is one that should remain inviolate.


Of course, that goes both ways at well. So all the jackasses who rain down batteries on ballplayers, or who spit on players and coaches as they head to the locker room, or who call out racial epithets (as this genius apparently did) or who do crap that would make them feel perfectly justified in taking a swing at someone if their situations were reversed need to grow up or get gone. The teams that coddle schmucks who do that sort of thing need to take responsibility; Texas Tech claiming they've "never had a problem" with this guy conveniently ignores at least one other incident that was nationally televised.

Now, of course, we'll get the public dissection of Smart. There will be much hand-wringing over this, much self-important moralizing (ESPN's Andy Katz is the clubhouse leader in the "THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS BIT OF SERIOUSNESS" sweepstakes) and what this means for Smart's draft status (hint: nothing, as long as he can play; this is a league that has kept Metta World Peace gainfully employed since Lorde was 3) and arglebargle out the yin yang. What we won't get is anything that considers Smart's perspective, or that admit mist that as shoves went, this wasn't exactly Sisyphus rolling the boulder uphill, or that Smart then turned and walked away. 

Malice in the Palace this wasn't. It was a middle aged wannabe getting his jollies by taunting a kid.

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