I hate that Lebron James doesn't have serial killer DNA

Let me start by saying that the title of this Hate Diary Log is misleading. It should really be “I hate that I got overwhelmed by the hoopla over “The Decision” last summer and thought that the Miami Heat would cruise to an NBA championship in June 2011.”

That title is way too long and too introspective, so we’ll just say bygones and get to the crux of the matter.

Last night I watched the New York Knicks, a team basically 5 days old, (a baby, a zygote, an embryo) beat the Miami Heat on their home floor in a critical game. The game was critical to the Heat because in order for them to have any chance of representing the Eastern Conference, in this years NBA Finals, they must secure the #1 Seed in the East.

As currently constructed they can’t beat both the Bulls, and the Celtics in succession; they need them to beat the hell out of other and hope the winner doesn’t have enough left to put up a substantial fight. The Heat were already trailing Boston in the standings, and only 1 game up in the loss column on Chicago. They needed this game!

The Heat had no excuse, they had motivation, they had a formidable opponent, they were rested, and most importantly Spike Lee was in the house. As a basketball player, if you can’t get up for playing in front of Mars Blackmon then whom can you get up for?

This was a statement game and the Heat made a profound statement… They aren’t ready. They are flawed. Their best playing is a playground baller, with all the talent in the world but can’t seem to summons it in crunch time.

Lebron James’ game is best suited for the Rucker, and not for the Association.

I was mistaken to think that adding him to a team with two all-stars would suddenly change that. Last night in a critical situation down in the fourth quarter the Heat ran a 1-4 isolation with Lebron at the top of the key. Hummm where have I seen that before? Oh I remember, at the end of every playoff game the Cavaliers played over the last 6 years.

Bill Simmons, the best and most astute basketball writer in the country penned a fantastic article at the start of the season about how Lebron was a better player than Dwyane Wade and how that for them to coexist DWade must embrace his inner Scottie Pippen. I’m not doing the article justice; here the link please read it for yourself.

Sidebar

You need 20 minutes to read this. Simmons loves to write and his columns are magical. Magical is another word for wordy. Is wordy a word? The man wrote the Basketball bible a couple years ago and when I say bible I mean that it was both epic and over 700 pages.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/10129&sportCat=nba

I, for the most part, agree with Simmons saving this one caveat, Dwyane Wade is a better clutch player than Lebron James. He’s proven it. He’s was the Finals MVP in 2006 and single handedly won Miami its first championship.

If you asked me three years ago who I wanted in a big game my quote was “give me Lebron for the first 3 quarters, give me DWade in the first 10 minutes of the 4 quarters, and give me Kobe in the final 2 minutes.” 3 years later and my position hasn’t changed.

A player is either clutch or he’s not. Period. A clutch player needs the responsibility of having it all riding on his shoulder at the critical juncture of the game. A clutch player has the unique ability to clear the mechanism, and get to the place on the floor where they know they can produce.

Examine Lebron’s game. Where is his sweet spot on the floor? All the great ones have a spot on the floor where they do the majority of their business. Lebron is a freakish athlete that can physically dominate in non-crunch time. But when the opposition is strong willed and refuses to bend to his will, giving him the lanes to the basket, he then becomes a fraction of himself. When all the chips are on the line, teams aren’t going to give you anything; you have to earn everything.

An interesting aside, I was watching TNT on NBA All-Star weekend and tuned into a show about the greatest All Star in NBA history. The show was basically a fantasy draft of all stars. How would you build your team? Charles Barkley was one of the panelists, in fact he had the first overall pick. With the entire list at his disposal, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, he chose Allen Iverson. ALLEN IVERSON!

Allen “Ball Hog” Iverson
Allen “I never won anything meaningful” Iverson
Allen “Play ground king” Iverson
Allen “Practice, we talking about Practice” Iverson

Are you kidding me?

At first I thought he was goofing around, and then he let it slip that he didn’t understand the rules of the game. He screwed the whole draft up for me, but I thought about it further, and concluded he wasn’t prepared. He agonized over every subsequent pick, taking them all down to the last second before deciding. He was cracking under pressure. I find there no coincidence that he was never considered a clutch player during his career although he is considered an all-timer by many.

On that same show the biggest choker in NCAA and NBA history Chris Webber graced the panel. He too had difficulty making his picks. He was sweating every choice and seemed uneasy during the entire broadcast. No coincidence here. Webber was the most gifted big man in the 90’s but he called the ill-fated time out in the National Championship game that the Wolverines didn’t have, and he came up small in every playoff series he ever played in. In contrast Steve Kerr, who was a journeymen player in the league, was organized. He was cool under pressure. He drafted the best team, and never ran out of time with his picks. No coincidence that he is considered a clutch shooter and won many games in the playoff for his teams.

I mentioned those items to say that some people although great just can’t handle the added pressure of being great in the clutch. They don’t have the ability to clear the mechanism and go to work. The only chance the Heat have of winning a championship this year is to let Lebron dominate in the first 3 quarters and then let DWade embrace his inner Michael Jordan in crunch time.

I hate that Cancer still exists

Here recently I’ve been asked to participate in several fundraisers that assist with research for “rare cancers”. Hadn’t really heard the term much until this year, and I can’t get it out of my head. The term sits odd with me. The more I hear it the more uneasy I feel. So I did a little research and then felt like opening my mind and sharing my thoughts. Hopefully I’ll feel better when done.

The first case of cancer was believed to have been diagnosed in Egypt around 1500 BC, so that’s approximately 3500 years ago. To my knowledge we have yet to find cures for “common cancers” in those 35 centuries.

Yes we have medicine, and radiation, chemicals to slow the disease down but no pill or vaccine that thwarts it.

Our world has grown so much in 3500 years. Hell, I’m 38, and the world has flipped twice since 1972. In my lifetime, mankind has reached the heavens, put computers in our pockets, and the Internet at our fingertips. Technology has exploded, and we still have no real cure for cancer. Cancer affects all of us. We all have lost someone to it. Yet and still we have no real cure.

I see slogans racing for the cure, I see ribbons on lapels, and I see drives, and fundraisers, but still no cures. I’m starting to believe that Chris Rock was right when he said there will never be cures for these things that ail so many because “the money ain’t in the cure, it’s in the medicine”.

I’m a capitalist by nature, but maybe we need to take another look at how we’re approaching this thing. One would think that resources would only go to “rare cancers” after “common cancers” have been cured. Maybe we need less autonomy and a more autocratic approach to this.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was established in 1937. Their budget last year alone was 5 Billion Dollars. The monies are basically spread over 10 different cancers in order of “commonness”; skin, lung, prostate, breast, colorectal (combination of colon, and rectal), bladder, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney, leukemia, and pancreatic.

Why don’t we make this thing a real race for the cure, and try to cure one of these before 2015? Why can’t we lock the 100 best cancer scientists in a facility until they come up with a vaccine for one of these cancers? Would this be too much like socialism? Would this threaten our civil liberties? Could our democracy handle it? I think so.

Okay, so which cancer should we cure? Skin is very preventable so scratch that one. 90% of lung cancer diagnoses come from smoking, sorry you did it to yourself, scratch that one. Prostate and Breast are about even, and are predominately gender specific so let’s pick on of those.

Why can’t we concentrate our resources, and systematically eliminate prostate and breast cancer from the world? Maybe if we can get one domino to fall the others won’t be very far behind.

I hate when people count other peoples money

Its that time of the year again when Wall Street companies will get flogged and raked over the coals for the bonuses they are paying to their highly specialized employees. Tis the season for the growing sect of angry populists to stand up and be counted.

The angry people will ask questions like: Why is the company paying that size bonus? They ask the question already knowing the answer because they’ve lived in a capitalist society their entire lives. They also know that the person working at McDonalds doesn’t deserve to make $9 an hour either.

The real question is does anyone deserve what he/she makes? If those same angry people went to an impoverished country and told a poor man that they make 90K for picking up trash those poor peasant would think that 90K for picking up trash is outlandish, and they would offer to do it for pennies on the dollar.

Our economy is based on supply and demand.

When you get a Christmas bonus based only on that fact that a child was born in a manger; is that fair? Do you deserve it?

Then the angry people will say; are these the same companies that borrowed money from TARP just three years ago? Yes, these companies did need a loan to survive in 2008. Just like we all need loans to buy homes, and cars, and boats, and education. The populist’s act as if borrowing was created only for these Wall Street companies, when in fact borrowing is the life-blood of our economy. The TARP funds are basically set up as a 5- year loan. The interest rate goes up in 2013. Over 60% of the TARP funds have been paid back with interest and I can say with some assurance that 90% will be paid back when the interest rate on the loans increase two summers from now.

Risk has a price.

These specialists have produced great wealth for our country, and as soon as we see a few negative statements in our 401K, we’re ready to lynch the people that are working for our future. Look. The only way you and I can retire and live a good life afterwards is if the money we earn makes more money. Money has to make money while we’re sleeping, while we’re eating, for us to have enough in the late stages of life.

It takes a special person to sit in an office and look at money, and move it around so that multiplies. They can’t see faces when they are doing their business, they can’t think about loss, or anger, or judgment. These people are part mathematician, part lawyer, part soothsayer, part gambler, and part psychopath.

Rare talents must be appreciated.

So before you go off the handle and start bashing the companies for paying the bonuses, and the employees for accepting the money think about it. Do you want to retire? Do you want to live well in your advanced age? If so, get your hands out of these guys’ pockets and let them do what they do!