One More Thing

Oh yeah, since I didn't post yesterday, here's one more super awesome little anecdote for you. It's about someone who should not be working in the business of analyzing sports. I bet you saw that coming.

Earlier today I flip on ESPN. And lo and behold, what do I stumble into right off the bat? Why, it's Skip Bayless doing his argument show thingy! (First Take? Cold Pizza? The Place Where Sensible Ideas Go To Die?) Skip was trying to claim that LeBron James is hurting the Cavaliers, which is kind of like claiming that alcohol is hurting the world's reproductive rate. First he cited some essentially meaningless statistic like the Cavaliers being 5-2 when James isn't in the lineup the past two years, and then tried to claim that mediocre players like Larry Hughes and Daniel Gibson are actually really awesome. I don't remember the exact quote, but his conclusion was something like:

"LeBron is holding this Cavs team back!"

Fortunately, Skip's guest/opponent for the day was some dude who actually knows his butthole from his elbow. (I'm not sure who, and I'm sorry clarifying that he was smarter than Skip doesn't exactly narrow it down). He quickly pointed out that the Cavaliers averaged 55 losses a season during the four years before James arrived. Since then they've won 35, 42, 50, and 50 games. Skip, confronted by this fact, backed down but offered the following rebuttal. I'm not sure if he could have said anything stupider. (This one is an exact quote.)

"Well, he's holding them back from advancing in the playoffs."

Let's look at the 2007 NBA Playoff bracket. Where is Cleveland? How far did they adv- Oh, OK. There they are. Great.

And hey, don't forget to go two posts down and throw your hat in the ring for Reader Extra Participation Friday. If you don't, it'll hurt my feelings.