Basketball has always treated me the way Ike Turner treated Tina. We occasionally made beautiful music together, but most of the time I often felt hurt and violated. I had a high school coach who, out of spite, thought I would work better as an offensive decoy after my first game senior year of 36 points (our 15-13 that year shows that that philosophy sucked). I then had two college coaches who chose to use me as an anchor to the end of the team bench (not a terrible idea because I was a big dude, but some more time out of the warm ups would have been nice).

But September 1st, 2006 will be the day where basketball became a full on disgrace.

First, Team USA lost to Greece early this morning in the World Basketball Championships. Perhaps it was the Greek body hair that threw them off, or the 15 syllable names, or the sodomy, but Team USA should not have lost to Greece. It seems that the US invents every cool team sport and then the world catches up and beats us at it. Fortunately we will always be the best at X Games because no one gives a sh-t about the X games. Perhaps if the World were as interested as the NBA at anointing Dwayne Wade the next Jesus Christ (the free throws in the NBA Finals this summer still piss me off) maybe we could win the worlds. People need to stop saying that white people can’t play basketball at the NBA level. They have to be more specific and say that White Americans cannot play at the highest level. White Canadians and Europeans are doing just fine.

But September 1, 2006 will really mark the end of basketball because a movie is coming out today. The movie is not Hoosiers quality, hell it isn’t even One on One with Robbie Benson quality. It is Crossover, starring Wayne Brady as a gangster-type street ball coach/promoter. When I say the trailer for this movie I saw 3 of the 4 Horseman arrive. Now that the movie is out, the 4th has arrived. Wayne Brady – liked your ironic cameo on Chappelle’s Show, but you are awful. As my Mom said, “He’s too f–king happy!” What is he going to do if his team loses the street ball tournament – sing a song? But I could be wrong, Crossover did receive one and a half stars from the NY Daily News, which is one and a half more than I expected.

So let September 1, 2006 be known as the death of basketball. This is the equivalent of basketball, which had such a good, robust life, now shitting in its diaper as it gets older. And frankly, it makes me sick.

Maybe for the 2008 Olympics they should just have Wayne Brady coach the Olympic team.