The NBA commish delivers laughable one-liners
Leave it to NBA Commissioner David Stern, that small-but-great humanitarian, to step forward when his country needs him most.
Only hours after Hollywood comedy writers hit the picket lines, Stern single-handedly picked up the slack with a stand-up routine in Phoenix, where the commish laid out a few one-liners on the current status of the Seattle Sonics:
• Seattle, he said, is mysteriously “hostile” to that paragon of business virtue that is the modern NBA. Even more incredibly, local leaders had the gall to tell him so to his face. (Yep. This is how they stay elected.)
• Team owner Clay Bennett gives and gives and gives, spending millions on blueprints and lobbyists, and gets nothing but scorn in return. (Not true: He got his own anti-corporate-welfare city ordinance as a lovely parting gift.)
• State Speaker of the House Frank Chopp’s suggestion last year that a $50 million payroll for a bunch of marginally talented hoopsters might just be a small part of the NBA’s “revenue problem” here amounts to “casting aspersions” on the entire NBA operation. (Is it too late for Chopp to file for governor?)
It’s sad, and a little pathetic, to watch the guy fret and stew and continue to just not get it - or get it and just not give a rip.
The real punch line: Until the same door slams in his face in another city, Stern will squirm along, convinced it’s just us.
More rim shots:
Speaking of Little Big Men: Immediately after his daily public whizzing on Seattle, the commish flew to Oklahoma City, where he personally inducted duplicitous, carpetbagging Sonics owners Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon into the “Oklahoma Hall of Fame,” whatever that is. Next week: Stern flies to Los Angeles to cut the ribbon on the new Attila the Hun Memorial at the Museum of Tolerance.
Meanwhile, Down in Olympia: Washington’s state Supreme Court, in the interest of saving time later, issued a 5-4 ruling declaring Tim Eyman himself unconstitutional.
Speaking of the Writers Strike: “My expectation is that we’re in for a long strike, and it will end up in a Pyrrhic victory,” UCLA professor Howard Suber told the Los Angeles Times. Just wondering: How come you never see quotes like that during coal miners strikes?
Still Speaking: The main issue in the strike is “secondary use” of material once it’s aired on television or film. Fortunately, we in the forward-thinking newspaper biz avoided such conflicts by figuring out our secondary use a long time ago. It’s called a bird cage.
Is It Just Us: Or does the Seattle Mariners organization lead the known world in players later revealed to be loading up with steroids? Can an entire franchise “think it was flaxseed oil?”
And Furthermore: With that many juiced players, it must take special managerial talent to avoid stumbling into a World Series.
With-Friends-Like-These Dept.: Televangelist Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president. Frustrated opponents conceded that it pretty much gives Rudy a lock on the influential psychotic wing-nut vote.
Again, We Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up: President George W. Bush, R-Flightsuit, on the phone to Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf: “You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time.”
Backseat Surprise: Imagine the shock of tens of thousands of motorists who learn that the three rows of “stadium seating” in their new Jeep Commandos come with their own outrageous Ticketmaster service charges.
And Finally: Monday was J.P. Patches Day in Seattle. It brought a warm smile to every one of us who learned from J.P. that a life best-lived is one never taken too seriously.Ron Judd’s columns appear in Sunday’s
A section and Thursday’s Northwest Weekend section. Email: rjudd@seattletimes.com