Guilty By Association

Okay, so when I met Jason I learned quickly about his top three things in life.

1. Cars
2. Lakers
3. Sports

He might deny the order of these, but he's fooling himself. Trust me, I know him better and this is his order.  (You can now add me and Johnathon before #1, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here.)  Those of you who know my honey know that he is a chatty Cathy and when it comes to any of these three topics he is even more chatteriffic.  So, while before I married him I knew little about the NBA or the Lakers, I am now quite the aficionado and can carry on all sorts of conversations on the topics.

Well, after seven years of NBA Playoffs including some aspect of the Lakers, I have heard about tons of games and referee calls and all of that fun stuff.  Jason has told me plenty of times about bad ref calls in favor of the Lakers, and, usually, impairing the Lakers. (One of the things I respect about him the most is his ability to enjoy any sort of athletic activity- it doesn't matter if his team wins or loses, he just enjoys the athleticism and competition displayed.  He'll watch everything from March Madness to college softball to the World Cup to college Track & Field, simply to admire their skill and enjoy the game.)

Anyway, he's talked a lot about games that were swayed one way or the other just because of unfair or biased calls throughout the game.  In the last few years he's talked about how the NBA has realized they make more money if the playoff series go to seven games- I thought he was going "conspiracy theory" on me.  Then when this year somehow Dallas and Miami make it to the Finals when, somehow, the NBA made more money by higher ratings with this matchup in '05 and, somehow, this provided an opportunity for LeBron James to finally get his ring, I knew he might not be as paranoid as I thought he was, originally.

Then he told me about a survey he heard about on ESPN about how 50% or so of NBA fans don't even trust the NBA.

What is wrong with this picture!?!  We support, we condone, we idolize an association that we don't even trust!  How much is this like our world today?  This blatant disposal of values and integrity at the expense of temporary gratification.

I mean, I'm okay with others abandoning their values, whatever, it's their loss.  I have adopted my dad's philosophy, "Sit back and watch it hit the fan."  But, this hypocrisy is giving me a migraine!  We think we can bend the truth (lie), avoid responsibility (cheat), abandon others (steal), but then we get mad when others do the same thing!

We allow the societal entities we give most of our time and attention to to lie to us without any penalty- and they don't even care!  The NBA knows no one trusts them and they don't even care!  They don't do anything about it.  They continue to "stretch series," "sway games," and "influence outcomes" to chase another dollar.


A few years ago, I established a family rule that Jason could only talk to me about sports while rubbing my feet, maybe I should start to enforce that rule again.  I mean, I just wrote an entire post about a sport I don't even like or watch.