Saturday, March 29, 2008

Hey Benefactor, pick me!!

I don’t like the Dallas Mavericks.

This statement alone should cause Mark Cuban to immediately stop reading this and move onto the next blogger.

My intent is not to annoy Mr. Cuban, but rather to test him. He aims to open up the Mavericks’ locker room to any blogger.

If he truly wants to see how allowing access to the “Joes” of the blogging world affects locker room coverage, then I’m his man.

A neophyte to the blogging world, I read Mr. Cuban’s blog for advice as to how to blog. He wrote, “troll the net looking for other people's work and then throw out some witty comments or a simple rant to complement a link to that work.” There I just did it. Hey! This blogging stuff is easy! I think that last line qualifies as a witty comment (witty can be argued, but it is a comment), so I must be a great blogger now!

I’ve just recently moved from Houston, so the only blogging I’ve done is on the Houston Chronicle’s website in regards to the Rockets. Mr. Cuban hit the nail on the head in describing my previous work when he wrote, “they sit in front of the TV and throw out posts/comments about the game.”

My comments would go along the lines of “She-Mac’s always hurt, trade him!” Never mind that I have no idea of his actual status, how much pain he’s in, or the extent of his injury. Or (before their 22 game win streak), I’d write something like, “This team stinks, that Adelman’s an idiot!” Never mind that he’s been to the NBA finals twice or has over 800 wins, I know more than he does, because I’m a blogger!

But of course, being in the Dallas Mavericks’ locker room, I couldn’t cover the Houston Rockets (like I said, I just moved here, so give me time to switch allegiances. BTW, letting me cover the Mavs is a good start on said switch). I agree with Mr. Cuban in that I don’t see the point of the bloggers having to have locker room access. Isn’t what counts on the court? With that said, I don’t plan on blogging about the Mavericks. I’m not going to waste his players’ time asking them what their favorite color is or why they missed a particular shot (as if they missed it on purpose). I intend to blog about the bloggers in the locker room.

I intend to write about them, what they’re doing. I’ll interject every now and then. For example, here’s a theoretical exchange I’ve already acted out in my brain:
Pseudojournalist: “Jason Kidd, do you think this trade has made the Mavericks a worser team?”
Me before Mr. Kidd can answer: “WTF! First of all, ‘worser’ is not a word. Ignoring your ignorance of the English language, what do you expect him to say? ‘Yeah, I suck?’ Come on!”

Here’s another example of what I would offer:
Wannabe-journalist: “Avery, do you think that you should have had Jason Kidd in there at the end of the game?”
Me: “You’re asking him that?! If he thought that Jason Kidd should have been in there, wouldn’t he have put him in? He’s the freakin’ coach for goodness sake! Should he have had him in there? Well, they lost, which means that whatever he did was the wrong choice . So yes, he should have had him in there. Of course he’s not going to say that because that would be tantamount to saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Speaking of not knowing what they’re doing…”

These bloggers are just going to waste your players’ time, so I intend to waste theirs. Why should they go in the locker room and ask about Dirk’s injury? How is blogger X’s knowledge of Dirk’s personal medical opinion going to change anything at all?

I could go on, but I have to save some for future rants, err blogs. God bless the First Amendment.

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