Year of the Lockout

For those of you who like to keep in touch with the news, you may have noticed that the year 2011 is upon us. In fact, it is almost over. Similar to Tommy, I find myself faced with hours upon hours of free time, of which I do not know how to occupy myself. Often I spend my time on trivial things such as looking up the average penis size per continent (congratulations South America), or trying to see how much milk I can drink straight out of the carton without getting brain-freeze (not very much, actually). Now that the second quarter of the school year has kicked into gear, I made myself a promise that I would use my time, and possibly my body, in a more constructive manner. Obviously school work was out of the question, so I decided to spend my time thinking of a label for this year. My first thought was Year of the Suspension, but that was shot down pretty quickly (The school is watching. They are always watching.) I decided to take a sporting vantage point and settle on The Year of the Lockout, because this year has truly been defined by such events.

2011 began with the expected NFL lockout which luckily ended before the season started, and no time was missed. Quite frankly, this lockout hurt me deeply because my favorite NFL player, Chris Johnson (my New Years resolution was to only root for thugs), is having the worst season of his life due to the lockout and his holdout. I could care less about Chris Johnson as a person, I mean he is a thug, after all. I do however care very much that I wasted the second overall pick in my Fantasy Football league on his sorry bum. Now my season is ruined, partially because I have too much pride to bench him. Since I base most of my life around fantasy football, I can also cast blame upon Chris for my disciplinary woes at school, and my shitty year as a whole. Thanks for nothing CJ. He still is my favorite player, but this is ONLY because I am 90% sure he is illiterate, and that's kinda badass. Props to you Mr. Johnson.

Now we move on to the bigger lockout of the year, the NBA lockout. To be honest, my first thoughts when I heard about the lockout centered around how it would affect my Optimist basketball career. As I enter my prime, I would hate to miss time due to the greedy owners up top. It actually turns out that the NBA lockout will have a minimal effect on the Optimist season, though I am considering holding out for more money. I gotta feed my family, man. It is looking more and more like there will be no professional basketball (that matters) played this season (excluding Optimist, of course). This may surprise you but I am actually very happy that the NBA won't play this season, even though I love the league so much.

I say this with absolutely no bias (unless you consider hating Lebron's guts bias), but I blame the entire lockout on Lebron James and his filthy ways. Lebron represents everything that is wrong with the league: players have too much control and big-market teams are winning while everyone else loses. As a fan of Cleveland and OKC - I liked KD in Seattle, it's not my fault they became good. Don't you dare call me a championship chaser - I root for the small market, and hate those that leave us behind like we are pieces of trash, aka Lebron. Also, just to be clear, I refuse to capitalize the "b" in Lebron's name out of pure disrespect. Take that! Lebron, and many other big market franchises are in favor of reducing the amount of small market teams, and just having big market teams in the NBA. Maybe get an education before you start throwing stuff like that around, Lebron.

Getting back on track, I am happy there will be no basketball for a year, so I will not have to see or hear about Lebron. I can soak in his misery for another 12 months, and watch as his window to win a championship (He won't. Quitters never win. Except for me.) closes greatly. I am sad to miss out on a year, but I needed a break from hearing about the Miami Heat all the time, albeit most of the talk was me saying how much they sucked. It is physically unhealthy for me to harbor this kind of hatred, it haunts my (sometimes wet) dreams. Let me explain where this comes from. Most people say they hate Lebron not because he left, but how he left. I hate Lebron because he left. Him being an arrogant superstar, it would have been disrespectful to me as a fan if he had not wasted an hour of time to answer one question. I would have done the same thing, but then again I am a narcissist. Lebron could have taken a dump on a map of Cleveland, mailed it to the mayor, along with a tape of all the shitty things that have happened to that city, told all the residents to blow him, and ejaculated onto the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I would not hate him any more. In fact, that would have been the most balling thing to do, so I would have respected him. On the other hand, he could have left Cleveland in the most humble, respectable manner, and I would not hate him any less. I would hate myself, however, knowing I cheered for a pussy for 7 years.

At the end of the day, lockouts happen. People want more money, despite making millions already. Hell, I would do way weird shit for a couple million bones. I ask God sometimes, why not baseball? Not baseball instead of basketball or football, but baseball in general. Lock baseball out forever. That was the worst part of the Year of the Lockout: having to watch baseball. There were times when I strongly considered consuming my own feces as a more exciting alternative, but I never could go through with it. To this day, that is my greatest regret of this year. And that says a lot.

Take it sleazy,
Raúl


RIP Joe Frazier. The world has truly lost a legend and a champion today.