Tanking; Radio/Writing; Boozer vs. The Whore

All my life as a Cleveland fan, I’ve heard other Cleveland fans argue on behalf of the proposition that losing games is sometimes a good thing — so good a thing, in fact, that sometimes not trying to win is a good thing. I spoke with many Browns fans this past season who viewed the team’s close losses as blessings, because losing would improve the team’s draft position. Toward the end of the NBA season, I heard Cavaliers fans likewise complain that the Cavs were trying too hard to win games when losing would have increased their chances of getting the first pick in the draft.

My position on pro teams tanking — not trying to win — may be summed up in a single semi-word: Feh.

My message to Cleveland fans who view losing as a route to winning is three words long: Los Angeles Clippers. Franchises lose consistently because the folks who run them aren’t good at their jobs. I don’t believe those same folks can simultaneously possess an ability to recognize and develop the critical mass of talent that a pro sports team needs to win a championship. Winning teams — the Spurs, the fucking Steelers — find talent despite drafting low because they’re consistently better than shitty teams at finding talent.

Even in the NBA, no draft pick, no single superstar, is enough to win a championship. Cleveland fans, particularly Cavs fans, should have learned that simple lesson by now.

***

I was on WIP, Philadelphia’s sports-talk giant (and my favorite radio station in the nation), yesterday, crapping on the Whore of Akron. On Thursday mornings, I do a short segment on KRZQ in Reno. I’ve been tarred and feathered twice on LeBatard’s show on in Miami, had a couple of half-hours on Sirius’s Mad Dog radio, did Slate’s Shut Up and Listen, along with a whole bunch of others. I don’t think I’ve ever said no. Radio is a whole lot of fun, even when nobody agrees with anything I say.

In a previous life, I hosted a call-in show one night a week in Iowa City — I have the tapes in a box somewhere — and I always had a ball, but I forgot how much I love radio until I started doing it again. I’m sure there are deep and complex reasons, neural and cultural, that help explain how and why a relatively archaic medium remains so vital. I myself have only one reason, and it’s simple: I like to talk shit.

I like to write shit, too, of course. That’s my job. But writing shit is harder than talking shit, at least for me. I’m more or less incapable of writing about writing, maybe because I’ve read so much writing about writing over the years. I spent a lot of time reading the Paris Reveiw‘s series of author interviews; I still revisit those collections once in a while, and I’d urge anyone interested in writing as a craft to find them and drink deep.

What radio and writing have in common is the use of voice. Voice on the page is a formal abstraction, and whenever someone tells me that they have a great story but couldn’t possibly write it themselves — I hear that kind of thing often — I have come to believe that what they mean is that they have no confidence in their ability to write, and no tolerance for the effort and discomfort that go with the work. The only cure for that — the only tip, the only trick, the only secret I can share — is writing. Writing is where you find your voice on the page. On radio, you use the voice you already have.

***

As a Cavs fan, I have no dog in the NBA playoff hunt, but that doesn’t mean I have no strong rooting interest.

Every pundit pissing on the Cavaliers because he thinks the franchise failed King Shit, and every Cavs fan wondering how the team never quite managed to win a title with him, should realize that what Carlos Boozer did to the Cavaliers when he broke his word and bolted for the Jazz was a huge factor in the failed quest for a ring. Fuck Carlos Boozer, and fuck the Bulls.

Unless they wind up playing the Heat. Because I don’t just root for the Whore of Akron to lose; I hope that every NBA game he plays is his last.