Bleacher Report - Articles by CyberCosmiX

Why Twittering, Web-Cam's & NBA Players Aren't a Good Mix!

CyberCosmiX — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:06:40 -0400

Most of us have already been introduced to the latest Internet sensation (aka fad), twittering! A lot of us are signed up to twitter.com and have been 'tweeting' for months already. However, recently twitter has begun getting a very-bad image in the media and a lot of sports franchises have already / probably will soon ban players and athletes from using the texting service. How did we go from 'newest Internet must-do thing' to disallowed and banned service in one short summer?

For those of us that now 'twitter and tweet' regularly, along with related things such as posting our pictures to the Internet, it's easy to think, "man, how could I get along without this thing before?" Twitter was originally set up around the concept of being a quick, easy way to answer the question of "what are you doing right now?" but, as most Internet stuff does, has grown and expanded into doing so much more. The biggest appeal to twitter however seems to be the ease to use it while on the go, many people twitter exclusively from their portable devices from wherever they are in the world. Twitter users can now keep in touch with what is happening in the world wherever they are and whatever they are doing.

So, just how is it that twitter becoming a service that is getting so many athletes in trouble, for various reasons, lately? A lot of players don't seem to realize that amongst the tens or thousands of followers they have, not all are their friends or family. An athlete might be unguarded when someone is taking a picture, like Michael Phelps infamous bong pic, or Derek Rose's ill-advised pose showing gang signs. Possibly an athlete says something to a fan and doesn't realize they are being taped, such as Kobe Bryant bad-mouthing Andrew Bynum, captured by a cell-phone cam.

When an athlete tweets a greeting for instance that includes words that they wouldn't use when talking to a group of children, let alone a group of locker-room reporters, well that is a problem. One doesn't need to imagine the public relations hit an athlete would take if he were to use the n-word or other similar type of word when talking to a reporter for instance, but yet unfortunately it is common to see many athletes tweet something that is offensive. Indiana Pacer Marquis Daniels for instance regularly tweets or re-tweets bad language, including the n-word. It is quite common to see player tweets that read "what up my homie, catch you lata n***", obviously not realizing that they have just permanently recorded their quote.

For every positive thing we've seen on twitter, such as Steve Nash announcing his re-signing with the Suns, Shaq challenging other athletes to compete on his new reality show and the Chris Bosh vs Charlie Villanueva first to 50k followers bet we've witnessed an athlete get into twitter-trouble, such as Charlie Villanueva twittering during halftime of a Milwaukee Bucks game, and Chad Ochocinco threatening to twitter during NFL games.

Outside of pushing- boundaries of team limits over players and control, one of the most interesting things about twitter is the ability to see how athletes and celebrities talk to each other, it gives us a new way to glimpse into their world that the average fan otherwise wouldn't have. One particular exchange just last night between NBA players Baron Davis and Chris Paul went like this:

Chris: @Baron_Davis. Yo yo what up!
Baron: @Oneandonlycp3 how u like hong kong?
Chris: @Baron_Davis yo that's CRAZY we said that at the same time...man I loved it over here, wish I couldve stayed in Hong Kong longer...u good??
Baron: @Oneandonlycp3 watitdo bro! I'm at gurg camp in vegas trying to keep up with these rookies lol.
Chris: @Baron_Davis: yea til the season start nu go at they head!!! lol

These type of exchanges happen numerous times daily. Some athletes though convey other types of messages, such as Denver Nugget player J.R. Smith recently twittering using known gang-code used by the Bloods street gang, specifically by changing the letter 'c' in words to the letter 'k', such as his tweet saying that "I just Kame home. ... I kouldnt have done it with out yall" soon after his release from jail, amongst other tweets of the type. He recently tweeted "watch what you say on here it gets me in a lot of trouble!" and as of yesterday has removed his twitter account.

Other athletes and sports celebrities use twitter to send out pictures they have taken of themselves and teammates in some interesting places, like Cincinnati Bengals player Chad Ochocinco taking pictures from within team meetings, locker room, and back rooms of the Bengals practice facilities. Numerous other athletes have posted pictures of themselves while on vacation, posing with other celebrities, at public events, from their homes, with their wives/girlfriends, etc.

Athletes have also begun to take twittering to the new-level of live web-cam, recent ones including Stephon Marbury, Chad Johnson, J.R. Smith, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Ron Artest amongst others. Most athletes are pretty quick to realize that everything they are saying is being transmitted, and recorded, by all those watching their 'live streams'. However, whatever filters in their brains that they may have against saying something that could end up harming them seems to wear off the longer they videocast through their web-cams.

Stephon Marbury for instance recently went live for 24-hours in a row, uncensored and basically showing us every facet of his personality, good and bad, in the process. Recent web-cam antics for Marbury include eating vaseline on camera to sooth a sore throat, breaking down and crying to song he was playing, getting into an car-accident while being driven live on camera (and fleeing the scene of the crime while spouting 'it's the devil doing that!') and the like. If Stephon doesn't think that this might not negatively effect his chances to sign on with another NBA team, well he really is off his rocker then.

It's not only athletes out of the spotlight doing questionable things though, some current stars dangerously straddle the line between what is acceptable and not. Chad Ochocinco about a week ago has started almost nightly web-casts of 'THE OCHO CINCO SHOW'. Some of the recent things he has talked about on camera is his choice of what race the women he dates are, discussing the various fines he has collected and broadcasting live conversations including one with rapper Lil Wayne about tattoo's. One has got to think that this is the reason behind that various NFL teams are now banning their players from video chatting and twittering.

Ron Artest has been filming videos of himself, 'vlogging', for over a year and he almost got himself into trouble last month during his free-agency period by posting various videos of himself talking about where he might sign. One of those videos featured driving and him talking to his agent for about 15 minutes, about possibly re-signing with the Rockets, the Lakers being interested in him, being informed that LeBron would like him on the Cav's and having him explain that he has a special connection with James because his cousin served jail time with LeBron's 'pop' (most likely his real father who served jail time). It is incredibly interesting to watch for an outsider and get a glimpse into an athlete-agent relationship, but Artest posted the video without his agent David Bauman's knowledge (or approval) and in it the agent does mention other clients. A Sports Illustrated article describes Bauman's reaction when told of the video as causing his "heart to stop when he first heard about it, as he frantically tried to recall if he had said anything that would embarrass him or the teams he had discussed." This video very easily could have gotten Artest into trouble. Recent Artest 'vlog' entries include footage of a scantily-clad chinese rapper set to a rap song she sings with Artest, Artest describing his infamous 2004 fight at The Palace in Detroit, and enjoying a 'victory cigar' after signing with the Lakers. You gotta wonder that Laker management is probably quietly wishing Ron tone-down his videos, at some point in the future it's forseeable that they will have to sit Ron down and tell him as much.

As a sports-fan and someone who has been watching much of the curiously fascinating glimpses that athletes and celebrities, along with everyday people, give us into their lives, I will miss the day that twittering and streaming live videos will be banned by athletes from their respective teams. I can foresee that day coming, and very quickly. When the technology is at hand like it is now where an athlete can transmit whatever it is that they are feeling at the time, right at that moment, or put themselves in front of the camera for hours at a time, well we all let our antenna's and filters come down every so often. Even someone as guarded as Shaquille O'Neal, perhaps the most media-savvy athlete there is, can get caught up in a moment. When he recently tweeted to his 1,866,662 followers about a plane crash he witnessed, this just about perfectly sums up the whole athletic twitter debate. Shaq wrote "Holy s***, I'm at the santa monica airport I just saw a lil plane crash, and the guy walk away, dam dam glad he's ok s***, excuse my words" His post was interesting, but his words were poorly chosen. One can excuse this type of language, but one can't erase the much-worse 'athlete-talk' we have seen this summer, and the videos that somewhere will come back to haunt many of those foolish enough to do or say the wrong things and have them immortalized by transmitting them to legions of fans and followers.

How Blazers & Kevin Pritchard Lucked into Andre Miller

CyberCosmiX — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:53:00 -0400

It only took two aborted signing efforts, but Portland GM's Kevin Pritchard's third move was actually the best for the Trail Blazers. Andre Miller does several things for the Blazers: He gives them a 'true' NBA point guard, it moves Steve Blake to a backup role which he is more naturally suited and most importantly it removes some of the pressure off of Brandon Roy. The Blazers went into this off-season needing to upgrade at point guard badly so it was curious to see them make a huge offer to free-agent Hedo Turkoglu, essentially a small-forward and then try to pry Paul Millsap from the Jazz, paying him starters-money to basically backup Aldridge and Oden. So in many ways signing Miller should have been looked at as option number one, but instead was the third choice and Blazer fans should be happy it worked out like this.

Saying that Kevin Pritchard bungled his way this off season might be harsh, but at the very least he showed he didn't have a handle on what was needed and the type of player they should add to the squad. Turkoglu's newest contract is the latest example of the phenomena many GM's around the league fall-victim to, a veteran player in his free-agency year plays a little better than he ever had, make a run through the playoffs and vault their stock to way above what it should be. Hedo is exactly that and he has really got to be counting his lucky stars, that aligned perfectly for him.

Just why did Kevin Pritchard decide to go after Hedo and offer him the kingly-sum of $10 million a year, for five years? Here is a player that does much of the same things that the Blazers two-best players do, Brandon Roy & LaMarcus Aldridge, except those two do it better. Travis Outlaw is a more athletic version of Hedo that maybe doesn't hit quite as many shots.

So was small-forward a need? If one looks at the Blazers roster, one quickly can identify point guard and Greg Oden's health as two weak-spots on the team so the fact that Hedo was sought-after is mystifying. If one looks at the money the Blazers would have tied up to Turkoglu and possibly meaning that it would lessen the chance of re-signing Aldridge & Roy to long-term deals, it is crazy. Besides, if one is looking to sign a jump-shooting forward like Hedo, normally that is to spread the floor and allow a dominant big-man to have more room to operate, the Blazers don't have that in Oden who is a defensive specialist, but lacks offensive ability at this point in his career.

The Millsap signing is a little more understandable given the Blazers need for a backup at Power-Forward/Center. A lineup that at times could feature Roy, Aldridge, Millsap and Oden at the floor at once would have looked nice, but really the Blazers were looking to pay Paul Millsap star-type money, and although he has potential to one day be a star, he's definitely not there yet.

Millsap is a player that has started less than half an NBA season during his career and the Blazers are looking to hand him a reported $10 million a year contract? If anything signing Millsap to an offer-sheet that the Jazz later matched will turn out to hurt actually hurt the Jazz at least in the near-time by probably forcing them to trade Carlos Boozer. I think the Jazz simply didn't want to see Millsap succeed after Sloan and their organization built him up the past three years, especially for a division rival.

I wonder how Aldridge and Roy are looking at this whole situation, both their contracts are coming up for renewals and there are reports of snags in terms of money and years with them. Both of them will be seeing the money the team was ready to dish out to lesser free-agents and if anything will be looking for the Blazers to show as much or more interest, which means money, in them.

This leaves the question of just why Kevin Pritchard didn't go after the player that was probably the best-fit into the Blazers, that being Lamar Odom? Simply put, fans have got to ask does Kevin Pritchard not possess the combination of smarts and guts that make some GM's in all of sports succeed where all too many fail?

Lamar was never looked at, never mentioned as a possibility by the Blazers, one quick thought might be that he did have a drug problem, while with the Clippers and the Blazers organization is trying to move beyond their 'JailBlazers' reputation.

If we dismiss this as a single instance and go by what Lamar could bring the Blazers, his size, unselfishness, rebounding skill, ball-control ability, passing, versatility and the fact he could right in and handle everything from center to small forward he would bring several missing elements to the Blazers.

In general, aggressive general managers go after other-teams free-agents even if they don't 'think' they have a shot. Pritchard went after the easier-fish in Hedo, but not the bigger one. Look at what has happened with the Lakers negotiations with Lamar Odom and how that has hit snags and dragged on, this happens quite a bit in the NBA and all sports and sometimes players start to look at other teams and for other deals, so although it probably looked to Kevin Pritchard on July 1st, that the Blazers didn't have a shot with Lamar, by the time Hedo turned down the Blazers offer Lamar was still there and Pritchard continued to look away. One has got to think that had the Blazers pursued Odom and simply offered him the same contract they were looking to give Hedo Turkoglu, of rumored $10 mill a year for five years, he probably would have been a Blazer right now.

I think most would consider Lamar a better, more versatile player than Hedo Turkoglu or Paul Millsap so it just leaves one guessing why. If anything one can think that Kevin Pritchard never had a thought-out plan-B and had a hard time coming up with one after plan-A failed.

All told though I believe most Blazers' fans have got to be breathing a sigh of relief that not only did ill-fitting Hedo turn down the Blazers offer but the Jazz matched Paul Millsap's overpaid offer-sheet too. So, although the Kevin Pritchard arguably bungled his options this off-season, Blazer fans have got to be pleased that they and feeling lucky a talented guy like Andre Miller fell through the cracks, mostly due to the NBA's deteriorating economic conditions.

I guess it is possible for a GM to learn from his mistakes and Blazers' fans have got to hope that Pritchard gets better, at least more aggressive about making backup plans and reaching out towards possibly 'unattainable' free-agents who might just be there long-after most thought they would be.

15 Reasons Cavs and LeBron Were Overrated, Kobe Tops "The King"

CyberCosmiX — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:19:06 -0400

As an NBA fan FED UP with LeBron being forced down our throats. To those LeBron-lovers I offend, sorry.

I'm a LeBron fan, but an OBJECTIVE one, a fan that is tired of seeing games in which he plays like a "bull in a china shop" type brutishness, settling for crazy outside shots or bashing into players, absolutely dominating possession, freezing all of his teammates out and having the media absolutely gush over it all. Disgusting.

Well, here's 15 observations on LeBron, The Cavs, and Kobe vs LeBron that will probably piss off a whole lot of readers:

1) Mike Brown now has as many Coach Of The Year awards as Phil Jackson.

That is a flat out JOKE! I really can't see how a coach that doesn't seem to be able to coach his team out of a paper bag, and who's only end-of-game and critical play situations is "give the ball to LeBron and stand around waiting for The King to possibly grace you with a pass." Absolute JOKE!!!

2) LeBron has no midrange game. He either shoots circus three-point shots, which he's gotten pretty good at, or he puts his head down and uses speed/strength to bowl his way toward the rim, draw contact, and put up a shot while looking for a foul.

3) LeBron has SUPER athletic ability and quickness. He is truly graced with a "god-like'"and athleticism. This apparently has allowed him to skate by while having simply good NBA skills. Yes, he has been hitting a lot of circus shots, especially while fooling around in practice.

However his skill-level is probably only half of Kobe, Wade, CP3's and a handful of other players. I don't know if his size keeps him from approaching a higher level of skill, or if he isn't working on improving his game (outside of a good passing ability and those crazy circus shots).

4) His "team-oriented" approach apparently only exists up through the last four minutes of games. Because, at that point, it is "give me the ball and stand around, if I get triple teamed and don't want to bully my way to the basket I might grace you with a pass."

Let's see, if Kobe does it he's "selfish" and LeBron is "great: hmmm...

5) Wasn't the last trip LeBron made to the finals, where the Cavs got swept a couple years back, supposed to be his 'learning experience' ?!?? There has probably never been a more coddled by the press NBA player.

6) Be a MAN and greet your opponents after losing! Everyone feels bad when they lose, but this was a six game series, not a single night in the NBA. MAN UP AND GIVE PROPS TO YOUR OPPONENTS!

7) What will ESPN do now the "Golden Child"—or is it "King James" or "Witness"—whatever but what will the four-letter network do now that LeBron is out of the playoffs?

8) Free advice for LeBron, work on your end-of-game free throws or opponents will to the "Hack-a-LeBron" on you for the rest of your career.

9) Sorry Cleveland, LeBron is good as gone. He has NO loyalty, he's simply trying to get promotion $'s and is more interested in playing in a big-market than staying loyal to his birth city and the team he rooted for / plays for.

10) Kobe is a coach out on the court, and much better leader. He talks to, praises, chastises, coaches and leads. LeBron seems to be more a "point to a spot, go run over there" type of "leader." He doesn't talk a whole lot, on or off the court.

11) LeBron does NOT subjugate his own game to help his teammates. If his teammates don't get going, it's ok as long as he has his shots. Kobe has become very good at getting his teammates going before he gets his own shots.

This means his teammates are happier/more involved. Kobe doesn't need silly pre-game rituals to 'involve' his teammates, he actually LOOKS FOR THEM DURING THE GAME. LeBron is SOOOOOOO overrated on this point, he is DEFINITELY NOT Magic or Oscar.

LeBron might put up video-game like numbers, but he is not a pass-first type player, FAR, FAR from Magic. He does make good passes, however it seems he passes it as a last resort if he can't force / find a shot for himself.

12) LeBron controls more of the game than any other player in the NBA. If you give Kobe that many touches / that much possession he would average 40+. Isn't Mo Williams the PG?!?? LeBron should be more a distributor than he is. If you give ANY talented NBA player that much possession time they would succeed too!

13) LeBron's numbers up until now have been put up in IDEAL situation—coming from Cleveland, being the "Golden Child" in high school, having the Cavs put a good but not great team around him, one that he doesn't have to share possessions with.

ESPN drooling, giving him more "cred" to control that many game touches, along with a weak team / coach that give in to "The King."

Compare that to Kobe coming into the league, playing under "Dull" Harris, who sat him his entire rookie year even though he was better than starter all-star Eddie Jones at age 18. Heck, Kobe even made all-star starter his second year, COMING OFF THE BENCH FOR THE LAKERS!

He had all-stars Shaq dominating possession, Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel and a coach that barely played him. Plus, after that came Phil Jackson and the triangle which featured Shaq as centerpiece.

So, even though Kobe was probably the best player in the league, he was being treated as at least second best player ON HIS OWN TEAM through his FIRST DECADE IN THE NBA! IN SPITE OF THAT look at his numbers!

14) Kobe has shut down LeBron this season in their meetings. Kobe has handled EASILY LeBron on defense. Youtube it if you don't believe me, Kobe has OWNED LeBron head-to-head!

15) Shouldn't any player called "The King" have AT LEAST one (1) title before being called that?

To those offended, let me know what you think and where you feel I'm wrong. I purposefully did not want to include stats and averages, simply observations and feelings. This is just a teenie weenie tiny little part to "level" the LeBron=god debate...