The charm of pro athletes referring to themselves in the third person dissipated decades ago, well before the idea of branding took hold. The go-to premise that an athlete would dot even a brief interview with several references to his own name as if he were a commenter describing the action was hacky even in the 1990s; and as a result quite prone for ridicule as we enter 2015.
Still, this is pretty cool. And spot on.
The white hot Washington Wizards have won five of seven games, they knocked off the defending champion San Antonio Spurs and NBA Finals hopeful Chicago Bulls in consecutive games on consecutive days this week, and on Saturday the team is readying itself to take on a Brooklyn Nets club that has lost seven straight.
The Nets, “reportedly,” are for sale. The team is trying to deal all but one player and another stalwart that has a no-trade clause and a bit of a nasty disposition. New’ish Wizard Paul Pierce, a Net for one whole season in 2013-14, decided to pile on in anticipation of meeting his ex-team:
That’s hilarious. And, if we’re honest, not without merit.
Pierce was a Celtic from the 1998 NBA draft until the 2013 version, and Boston dropped precipitously in the standings following a trade that sent Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn for a batch of draft picks and swaps that the Celtic faithful hopes will eventually turn the C’s (currently ranked far below even Brooklyn in the Eastern standings) around.
The Nets declined to attempt to re-sign Pierce to a free agent deal last summer so as not to once again tilt their luxury tax-addled payroll status back toward the near-$200 million mark. A sound financial move, but one made after years of general manager Billy King’s outrageously short-sighted deals. Lopping Pierce off the roster in order to achieve some relative semblance of fiscal security was almost laughable in its approach. It was akin to a casino denizen cashing in on his free buffet breakfast coupon in the hours after basically gambling a (two?) billion dollar franchise away while chasing down what could have been a 7-to-Jack straight hand.
Paul Pierce is not the reason the Nets, who are still in the playoff bracket despite the team’s 16-23 record, are terrible. Nor is he the reason, despite the marvelous 22-point performance against Chicago on Wednesday, that the Wizards are ascending. He’s still a damn good player, even at age 37, that you wouldn’t want to spy loping up to the top of the key in the late stages of a playoff game this spring, though.
Credit Pierce for acting as a sound GM would, and leaving Brooklyn as the ship started to think. It doesn’t take a lot to be a better NBA GM than Billy King, but Paul Pierce – even while speaking in the third person – has already bested him on that end.
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from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1ymAvwO
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