Odds and Sods

Stephon Marbury made headlines earlier this season.  Bucking a trend for NBA players to endorse sneakers that can cost upwards of $150, Marbury announced that his “Starbury” line of sneakers would sell for a mere $14.98, a price affordable for nearly everyone, and, most importantly, millions of inner city kids.  Unlike Jessica Simpson, he has worn the exact same shoes in the game.  In a climate where kids were beaten up and in a few cases even killed in order to steal their sneakers, this was a great move to give back to the community and Marbury would probably be given a medal and worshipped, had he not had a previous reputation as a selfish Black athlete.

When asked if he would ever sell such a sneaker, LeBron James stated that he had could never endorse such a sneaker “Me being with Nike, we hold our standards high.”  Really LeBron?  Is that why Nike has admitted through its own investigation that “extraordinarily low wages, physical and sexual abuse, restriction of bathroom usage, and other human rights abuses” have taken place?

This isn’t the first stupid thing LeBron has said this season.  In response to former teammate John Amaechi coming out to the closet James stated, “If you’re teammates, you have to be trustworthy, and if you are gay and not admitting that you are, then you are not trusting.”  Whom someone happens to be sleeping with is obviously essential to the playing of basketball, and should be common knowledge to everyone involved.  Give me a break.

I suppose that the  media may be partly to blame for thrusting a microphone in front of his face and asking him stupid questions, but that does not absolve LeBron.  If he has enough spare time to learn Mandarin to increase his marketability in China, he has enough time to get a clue, read a newspaper once in a while, or at least hire a decent publicist to tell him how to answer questions.

Live your sheltered life surrounded by sycophants that have sucked up to you since you were a sophomore in high school.  Build your 35,000 sq. foot house with a 2,000 sq. foot mutli-story closet, while there are millions of starving children throughout the world.  Hawk your sneakers and your lawnmowers.  But when someone asks you about something that has nothing to do with basketball, please spare us all and shut the fuck up!