So apparently we are supposed to care about the NBA finals. It’s there in print for all to see. On Monday ESPN quite literally published a piece screaming at us, insisting that everyone cares about this particular NBA finals.
Well, I want to see the raw numbers. I don’t buy it, and I don’t buy the Miami Heat.
The Heat are about as genuine as an over produced Simon Cowell boy-band. They are a product of a massive pre-season collusion that the NBA never bothered looking into, fronted by a narcissistic business man who held a one hour infomercial announcing his choice of team with the arrogant air of royalty, all hosted, aided and abetted by ESPN. Do you follow LeBron on Twitter? It’s a blast. You are given every opportunity to buy into the LeBron brand. He hocks LeBron Headphones, LeBron boxer shorts, LeBron James smoky mesquite marinade. LeBron James will do anything to get your dollar bill.
What’s most worrying is sports media giant ESPN’s manipulative, sycophantic coverage of the Heat’s glorious quest. Launch ESPN and key into the NBA coverage and you would be forgiven for thinking you had landed on the Miami Heat official team page. All week ESPN has bombarded us with reasons why we shouldn’t hate the Heat. They came at us from all angles. Online in print and later on their various shows. It was almost Orwellian in content. You should love the Heat, you should not hate the Heat, these NBA finals are going to be awesome!
Have a look at this laughable excerpt from ESPN’s report on game one;
‘’The Miami Heat are three wins away from the reason why the Big Three came together in the first place.’’
What, the Heat are three wins from a massive truck of money pulling up at their Miami mansion and dumping seven bazillion dollars on their lawn? Really?
Of course, how dare we accuse ESPN of bias, they raised some very serious questions in their coverage. Take the notes section of the game report. ‘’In his annual state of the league address David Stern was asked about how James, Wade and Bosh all ended up in Miami last summer. ‘’I don’t consider it colluding’’
Oh, well that’s that then! Aggressive, Incisive reporting by ESPN, really cutting to the bone of the issue. Give me a ducking break. Quack quack. Lest you be in any doubt about ESPN’s true colours on the Heat, just remember ESPN is the same media giant that removed one of its own articles an hour after publishing it for no other reason than LeBron’s team didn’t like the way it portrayed their ‘product’, LeBron James. Thankfully the Internet is an elephant that never forgets and you can read the article here. Read it in full and then ask yourself if you want to root for LeBron during these NBA finals.
The fact of the matter is, you will not read a bad word about LeBron or his Heat boy-band on ESPN. It simply won’t happen, and if any ESPN journalist goes AWOL and tries to sneak one up, it will be yanked down faster than you can say ‘disingenuous’.
When journalism gets corrupted like that, it can only be a bad thing.
Now, when does the hockey start?
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