Congratulations Zach Lowe, you got me. In a month where there is less basketball news than plot lines on an MTV show, you managed to conjure up a topic that will spark debate from all corners of the internet. (Or at least the one I’m hiding in.) It’s the most controversial thing a Lowe has said about sports since Rob tweeted, wrongly so, about a pending Peyton Manning retirement.
For those of you unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, let me introduce you to Mr. Lowe’s piece on Grantland.com ranking NBA team names from worst to first. In true internet fashion, he spends time passing sarcastic judgment and doling out over flowery praise -- something I can’t rip on him for since I too make a living doing it -- about the various monikers tied to NBA franchises. I was on board with No. 30-28. Then I reached No. 27.
In the words of the immortal Wayne Campbell, Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder?
Exactly how is this a “name the team contest gone wrong”? What is the most powerful entity in our universe? No, it’s not LeBron James or reality television, it’s the sun. What helps plants grow? The sun. Oh and what gives Superman his power, that’s right, the sun.
How can you rank the Miami Heat at No. 24, three spots better than the Suns? You admit in your first sentence that the sun itself causes heat. How can a byproduct of the Phoenix name be better than its creator?
No. 22 is the Oklahoma City Thunder? You know what helps create and make thunderstorms grow? You got it, the sun.
What could evaporate a lake till it’s nothing more than a dried up basin of dirt? I’ll give you one guess, the sun. So how can the Los Angeles Lakers be No. 19 (and that’s before you get to the fact that the closest thing to a lake in LA is the
puddle of tears of all the failed actors and actresses working as restaurant servers).
That’s even before we get into your obsession with the newly formed New Orleans Pelicans.
Oh, and if you doubt the power of the Phoenix sun, I invite you to spend an August afternoon sitting on top of the US Airways Center without any water for a few hours, you’ll probably change your tune in no time.
Like I said,congratulations Zach. You not only got my page view, you also managed to get me to write 600 words to help promote it. Now if only you got the list right, then we’d really have something to talk about.