If you’re a Major League Baseball fan listening to any of the sports talking heads talking about the World Series then you already know almost everybody didn’t give the Washington Nationals a shot against the “juggernaut” Houston Astros.
If you’re an NBA fan then you already know nearly everybody in sports media has already declared the Los Angeles Lakers and the LA Clippers will likely face off in the Western Conference Finals against each other. But the Clippers showed on the opening night of the NBA who was the boss on Tuesday.
So the Washington Nationals won and the Los Angeles Lakers lost. Here’s why that’s refreshing moving forward. Yap, yap, yap: all these talking heads, fake sports journalists and self-proclaimed “analysts” give “cutting edge” takes on one of the most unpredictable industries in the world – sports – as if they’re Nostradamus.
It’s cathartic when they’re wrong. Let’s be real though: we all are about sports at one point. That’s why sports gambling is such a gigantic industry.
But when people get paid millions of dollars to give absurdly wrong takes on a daily basis; there is nothing sweeter than hearing just how wrong they were.
For instance, Stephen A. Smith guessed the NBA Finals Champion wrong six years in a row. Yes, a straight pick has a 50/50 probability and he still got it wrong for six years in a row from 2011-2017.
Yet, this ESPN obnoxious bloviating talking head thinks he’s one of the leading basketball journalists in the entire world. In fact, ESPN has such faith in Smith they’re close to reaching an extension deal with the longtime staffer for reportedly worth approximately $10 million per year, or somewhere close to it.
However, it’s not just Smith. The amount of sports media talking heads who condescend to the public about their “experience” in the profession make fools out of themselves on a daily basis.
A great example is that nearly everybody didn’t even give a shot to the Washington Nationals in the World Series. Granted, only one game is in the books and they only won 5-4 in the game with pitching ace Max Scherzer on the mound, but for these “experts” to just dismiss this based on whatever “complex” way they’ve arrived at their conclusion is one of the most disgraceful things in sports. It makes you wonder how they got the job in the first place.
The Nationals are for real. So are the Houston Astros. This series will be hard-fought. But to think for a second this was going to be a cakewalk exposes just how naïve, in a bubble, some of these analysts can be.
As for NBA basketball…
It’s hard to discount LeBron James. Anthony Davis is at least in the top ten players in the NBA. But that doesn’t mean there are a whole lot of pieces around them. One of the game’s all-time great shooters, Danny Green, had a phenomenal game for the Lakers.
The final score was Clippers 112 to Lakers 102. Kawhi did Kawhi things; as he always does. James and Davis didn’t really do anything in the 4th quarter. They have no depth.
Outside of that? Dwight Howard has returned to the Lakers and was uneventful. Point guard Rajon Rondo didn’t play due to an injury.
But the Los Angeles Clippers, with new additions Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, own this town now. The rivalry isn’t even close at this point. The score wasn’t even indicative of how bad the Clippers owned them and the best part was they didn’t even have Paul George on the floor. They beat them without their second-best player!
The main reason why this is a great day in sports has nothing to do with the better teams winning.
It has everything to do with how condescending know-it-all arrogant sports analysts have to hang their heads in shame after declaring one thing and then hypocritically trying to justify their reasoning the next day.
Why it’s a great day is about the changing of the guard with some of these terrible analysts who only rely on shock factor in order to get listeners/viewers. Most of these people are terrible at their jobs and the more this happens where they are so dead wrong about obnoxious takes; then the more likely it is they will lose their jobs.
After all, most of these analysts call for the jobs of head coaches all the time, but then hypocritically ask for solidarity when their colleagues are laid off due to budget cuts. The lot of them are hypocrites. It would be nice to see new voices/faces for a change.
