Another Humbling Experience for Myself

Dear Dwight,

As you know, ESPN covered your trade status these last few months the way CNN covers major natural disasters—except ESPN stuck to the story longer. I remember in January on MLK Day I was at Dick’s Sporting Goods in the middle of the afternoon while my wife bought running shoes, and up on the big TV screen I saw an ESPN anchor ask Jalen Rose about you. In response, Jalen started complaining about our 24/7 media culture—before proceeding to discuss which L.A. team would be the better fit for you. I wanted to yell, Jalen, you’re complaining about yourself, bro! You've become what you hate! But I didn’t, because I was in a public place and nobody listens to me anyway. But as of last week’s trading deadline and your decision to stay in Orlando for another year, all that bullcrap is finally over, at least for a while. The Worldwide Leader has moved on to that other fascinating Floridian, Tim Tebow (again). And now that the chatter around you has finally tapered off, I’m hoping I can have your attention for a moment to offer a very small piece of advice. I have no comment on how you handled the situation these last few months, nor on your decision to put off a decision for a while. I want to talk to you about something else: Remember a few weeks before the trading deadline, when you played in New Jersey? And remember how the Nets fans, throughout the game, chanted "We want Dwight! We Want Dwight!" and held up posters and cardboard cutouts to encourage you to come to the Nets? Remember what you said after the game? If you don’t, let me quote you: "It's a humbling experience…I wish more people can see how it feels to go into another arena and have big faces and posters, it's a humbling experience. It's a blessing. I've been to every arena and it feels good to have a great reception, not only here but everywhere I go. And like I said, it's humbling and I really appreciate it." Well, my advice to you is very simple, Dwight: You gotta stop using the word humbling like that. I’m serious. The experience you were referring to is not humbling at all. Actually, it's the exact opposite of humbling. And in the future, you’ll no doubt experience many more moments like this one, and you’re going to want to use the H-word to describe those moments, too. Don't do it, Dwight. For the sake of yourself and NBA fans everywhere, please don't do it.

Frank Lloyd Wright Doin' Work

Dear Kobe,

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite books—This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff—is this: “All my life I have recognized almost at a glance those who were meant to be my friends, and they have recognized me.” I love this, the idea that friendship is a destiny that you’re aware of right away with some people, and that you can choose to accept or reject it, like Flannery O’Connor’s idea of grace. And the line can also be related to sports fandom. Maybe you don't know this, Kobe, but all our lives as fans, we recognize almost at a glance which athletes we believe we could be friends with, given the right circumstances. This recognition often informs our cheering, in fact. Like with the last Rockets team to make the playoffs, I could’ve seen myself being friends with Yao for sure, plus Scola and Battier and even their teammate and now yours, the humanitarian formerly known as Ron Artest. (One of my buddies and his wife ran into Scola and Battier at karaoke one night in Houston; they took a picture with Scola, who was wearing a giant t-shirt with Kurt Cobain’s face on it, which proves my point.) And in the current NBA, there are all sorts of dudes I believe I could be friends with: Durant (both of us nerdy UT alums), Roy Hibbert (both of us Parks and Recreation fans), Blake Griffin (I enjoy those commercials), and your teammate Luke Walton (Grateful Dead), just to name a few. And here's the thing, Kobe: though you are an interesting and super-intelligent guy, I have never once thought I could be friends with you, under any circumstances. Yes, you made that great reference to Black Swan (a movie I still haven’t seen) last season while talking about Pau. Yes, I’m impressed with your ability to give interviews in multiple languages. Yes, your turnaround fadeaways are truly a work of art. Yes, you’re one of the greatest players of all-time (and we all secretly want to believe we can relate to greatness). But you’re also kind of an asshole, Kobe. I’m not going to cite all the reasons I think you’re an asshole, except to say that it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the rape trial (for which you were acquitted, after all) or the prima donna stuff I read in The Last Season. No, it has much more to do with the way, earlier in your career, whenever you got knocked down on a foul, you would sit up and cross your arms while making the most arrogant face possible, and then keep this pose even as your teammates held their hands out to pick you up. That's what I mean by asshole, Kobe. And besides your beautiful fadeaways, this is the image that I believed defined you as a basketball player.