Sports comedy

It's not that often that I laugh out loud multiple times while reading a column--but I did reading a recent NBA column by ESPN.com's Bill Simmons. Basically he pretended he was moderating a panel of bad NBA general managers; some of my favorite parts, although really it's hard to convey how funny the whole thing without essentially quoting all of it:

Jim Paxson: Along those same lines, we aren't just trying to upset our fans, we're trying to confuse them. For instance, three years ago, I gave Kevin Ollie $15 million over five years. Now, he's a below-average guard with no real skills -- if you rated a point guard in eight different categories, he's probably a C-minus or below in each of them. If you're a Cavs fan, how are you supposed to react to that contract? Complete confusion, right? Well, those are good reactions. At least your fans are discussing the team. If the fans are talking about you, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, at least they're talking.

Scott Layden: And there's another element here, Jim: You want the fans to feel like they could do a better job than you. When I was in New York, every Knicks fan thought they could do better than me. Every one of them. And they were probably right. Well, you know what that really means? There's a small piece inside of them that says, "If this schmuck can run the Knicks, maybe some day, I can run the Knicks." And once they think that, you have them for life. Those are the people who keep buying tickets and jerseys and hats. ...

Rob Babcock: When you're trading an unhappy superstar, like Isiah said before, you have to get one of three things back: Cap space, draft picks or young stars. Or else your fans will flip out. Especially if the guy immediately starts playing hard again, which was a mortal lock in Vince's case, because he was clearly tanking it for us. Anyway, my goal was to trade Vince without getting cap space, draft picks or another young star -- that's what would have made it the worst trade of all-time. The problem was that you can't be too obvious with this stuff or the commissioner's office will veto the deal. So what ended up happening was, the Nets gave us two non-lottery picks to save face, but everything else worked out -- not only did we not get a superstar back, we took on three bad contracts, including Alonzo Mourning's deal, which we had to buy out. So instead of getting cap space back, the trade hurt our cap space. I was more proud of that than anything.

Simmons is really good, here are some selections from his Quote of the Day archive:

"There's always going to be criticism when your name is Jalen. You have to wear a bulletproof vest and be ready for it."
-- Jalen Rose

"I think it's a great city. I think it's a fabulous city. But in my young juvenile days, I was an idiot and I bought 30 cars. And I need to drive those cars and New York isn't really the place you can do that."
-- Shaquille O'Neal on why he never wants to play for the Knicks

"I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before every game. Whoever invented that was smart. That's got to be one of the best sandwiches ever."
-- Bulls rookie Ben Gordon

"Was it for Richard Jefferson?"
-- Jalen Rose, after hearing that Vince Carter had been traded to New Jersey

"I just don't want the day to come where I pick up that paper and it says [Zach] shot someone, or that he was shot. Every day that goes by that I don't see that, I feel good."
-- Moe Smedley, Zach Randolph's high school coach