Immortal words from a man who's dropped almost as many memorable quotes as double doubles over the years. Charles Barkley was talking about all the troubling behavior most parents sneer at and fear from their children's idols: arguing with referees, brawling with the opposition, spitting on fans and talking more shit than anyone around the NBA would dare these days. But while the NBA's definitely adopted a more (fan-) friendly approach since the M@P unleashed an almost 9/11-esque overhaul of public policy, basketball's very essence has allowed the league to manufacture a product that's very quickly creating a different kind of harmful role model.
Let's call the NBA what it is: the most star-driven of the Big 4 North American team sports. Not only is basketball the only one where any given star doesn't spend half the game on the bench, but its nature fosters the potential for players to dynamically affect the game in so many ways. Knowing this (and also knowing that Michael Jordan was a once-in-eternity blessing for them) the Sternbot and his cronies have gradually developed (through everything from their promotion style to hand-checking rules that pamper perimeter scorers) a league that puts even more emphasis on their best players, which has shown to exacerbate the already-bloated ego of the typical professional athlete.
The drama unfolding as we speak is pathetic: A guy who's far and away the most dominant two-way player at his position in the NBA (and has been for years despite not having given 110% in any game for about three seasons now) is holding a franchise, hell an entire city of sports fans, hostage at the trade deadline, feigning a slight interest in commitment so he can be courted in Free Agency. This guy (it's Dwight Howard for those of you who haven't figured out by now) has become just the latest in a long line of players who've manipulated franchises - usually for the worse - to get what their way (as if they didn't have enough), taking advantage of how important an asset they know themselves to be. It's a new breed of NBA star: the Diva. It's a disturbing and ridiculous trend.
Vince Carter. Stephon Marbury. Kobe Bryant (the OLD Kobe Bryant...Might also be worth noting that his diva act directly led to two championships). Lebron James. Chris Bosh. Carmelo Anthony. Add Howard to the list after yet another Twitter misstep (you'd think these guys would figure it out by now) made either of two things very clear: 1. Dwight Howard, despite being a nice guy, is clearly indecisive and insincere, two things you'd hope not to see in a franchise guy or anyone that had matured at all since leaving high school for the NBA. 2. Dwight Howard is a lying, attention-starved douchebag.
There's really no other way to look at it. Even if Howard truly is torn and loves Orlando as a city and team, they'd both be better off if he let them down easy and told them it wasn't going to work. Seriously. Dwight Howard is close to a decade into his NBA career and surely must know by this point if he's motivated by money or glory. Either way his decision's easy: The Magic can give him far more money than any other team, but aren't close to winning a title this season, or next season, and have someone who gave Rashard Lewis $400 quadrillion to shoot threes and ignore defense steering the helm of their franchise.
For the past eight months, Magic fans everywhere have been sleeping on beds of nails, while Howard's been happily Twittering around and listlessly dominating the paint, caught up in this fantasy while he captures headlines and sparks debate; the entire league caught up in his indecisiveness.
This is not what basketball's about.
It's about guys like Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant; guys who catch headlines with their play instead of their childish behavior. When it came time for them to make their future-binding decisions, they didn't flop their intentions around, hold nationally-televised events or ask their fans where to go, they just put pen to paper with the teams that drafted them and continued playing, sorry dominating, as if it had never happened. They're team guys; guys you'd want to bring home to Mom if you were a scout and "Mom" was an NBA GM. They're humble, work their asses off, and are never going to do what Dwight Howard is doing to basketball, hell pro sports, right now. What's sad and telling is that remarkably few players have been able to take heed from Rose and Durant, and that the masses continue to fuel their antics; giving the Dwights of the World satisfaction every time we click a trade rumor link.
I'd love, just for once to see a headline like "Rose keeps word, signs extension" or "Durant re-signs without first demanding trade". Because the guy who's just trying to go out there and win basketball games is becoming a rare breed.
