Now I don’t know much about the music that you crazy kids are listening to today, but I’m told by the barista at my Starbucks that Jay Z is a hippity hop rap maker, and he’s quite successful. So successful, in fact, that he could write down 100 jobs and careers on a piece of paper, cover his eyes and point, and just up and do whichever gig he chooses, simply because he’s wealthier than most nations and just doesn’t give a proverbial f*ck.
That’s why it wasn’t very shocking when New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano announced that he had fired his agent Scott Boras and declared that he was the first professional athlete to sign with Jay Z’s new sports agency, Roc Nation Sports.
If I had to rank professional sports fans in terms of craziness, I wouldn’t even think twice:
1) NBA fans 2) Everyone else
While NFL fans are certainly insane in their own rights and passionate about their teams, NBA fans have multiple layers of crazy that can be peeled back to reveal a molten core of manic lunacy that is the universe’s greatest natural source of irrational behavior. I think this is because the NBA, unlike the NFL and MLB, is a star-centric league, in that fans focus on the best players above the actual teams. People love LeBron James no matter what team he plays for, and they’ll go absolutely apesh*t if you try to tell them that’s wrong.
Additionally, the NBA has more frontrunner fans than the other pro sports leagues because the same teams always win. When those teams don’t win, those fans get even crazier, because they’re supposed to always win. But when they do win, these NBA fans become even crazier because they don’t understand how anyone can possibly hate their Lakers or Heat. How can you hate them? You have no reason. You’re just a hater. YOU’RE A HATER, DAMN IT!
Well, good news, you crazy ass fans. You can now anonymously submit your craziest thoughts and questions to “NBA Confessions” so you don’t have to deal with us haters and sane people who just don’t get you and your undying love for Kobe Bryant. Much like the Tim Tebow Confessions site that we’ve previously examined, the submissions are a delightful blend of standard inquiries and batsh*t insanity.
As always, I’ve included some of my favorites after the jump.
Jay-Z owns roughly 1/15th of 1 percent of the Brooklyn Nets, so he’s like the NBA’s equivalent of any of the 632 celebrities that Stephen Ross has sold Miami Dolphins ownership scraps to, but at least he’s thoroughly more relevant than Gloria Estefan. But for those who criticize Mr. Z – who has so many nicknames, yet I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say any of them – for just being there for zip, zazz and zorp, his role is apparently bigger than anyone, short of Deron Williams.
Jay has apparently been given the role of the face of the franchise, Mr. Flash and Flair, and I was under the assumption that was a given all along. But despite his inability to draw LeBron James as a free agent – because that was all his fault, according to the media – Jay brings an important knowledge of culture and, I hate myself for even writing this, swagger that has helped create such incredible buzz around something as simple as the Nets’ new uniforms*.
New Jersey Nets owner, former Russian presidential candidate, and James Bond villain Mikhail Prokhorov has had a busy offseason as he attempts to bring the New Jersey Brooklyn Nets back to prominence in a city that is aching for NBA relevance. Despite not yet landing their beloved trade target Dwight Howard, the Nets made other big splashes by trading for Joe Johnson’s horrendous contract and re-signing Brook Lopez, Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, and, of course, Deron Williams.
But forget that the Nets basically just added Johnson to a 22-44 team – that also went 7-15 after acquiring Wallace last season – because with a new arena opening and new uniforms, this is a promising, exciting time for a team that many have considered the Clippers of New York for years. Prokhorov won’t let numbers or records stand in his way of having a good time and building his team’s buzz, either. He’s excited enough that he’s even promising to take the stage with Jay-Z and rap.
According to Mr. Prokhorov, a reprise is in the works, but this time in downtown Brooklyn, where Jay-Z will open the $1 billion Barclays Center with a series of sold-out concerts this fall. “Yes, I will rap at his concert,” Mr. Prokhorov informed Crain’s via email. “I am in rehearsals now 10 hours a day and plan to demand joint billing.” (Via Crain’s New York, H/T to SLAM)
Obviously people think he’s joking, but I can just imagine him in a top secret laboratory screaming at scientists to rush their development of a microchip that will make him the greatest rapper in the world. He doesn’t need it, though. He’s already proven that he’s rocking wicked MC skills on the mic.
Jay Z owns 1.5% of the Brooklyn Nets and played a role in designing their new uniforms — simple black and white gear with a shield on the front that says “NETS” and a basketball with a B on it. Thankfully, the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick is here to point out an aspect of the unis that us basement-dwelling man-children in the blogging community might’ve missed: that black people are violent animals. Wait, what?
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?
Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N——s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B—-hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!
In case you bl—cked out reading that, Phil Mushnick has decided that black people only dress in monochrome, that when you say Brooklyn is urban you have to say it’s “urban” because you don’t mean urban, you mean black, and if a rapper were put in charge of a basketball team he’d obviously degrade women, call his players a racial slur and change their logo to a gun.
As you might already know, people who say racist sh*t can never understand why people think THEY’RE the racist. You can read this next blockquote, wherein Mushnick expresses outrage over people having a problem with the pageview diarrhea that comes out of his fingers, or you can just assume he said “but it’s the N**GER who is racist!” and move on with your life.
Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don’t call black men the N-word; I don’t regard young women as bitches and whores; I don’t glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand…..Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N—ers?
Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I’M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.
I don’t know, Herb Kohl can get pretty controversial.
And so continues the “old media becomes new media” circle of life, where people write something they know will be controversial, half a dozen people edit and publish something they know will be controversial and spend a few weeks wondering why everyone thinks it’s so controversial. And yes, I just called Herb Kohl a racist, please link to my blog.
UPROXX ‘Archer’ Open Thread: ‘Bloody Ferlin’ With Associate Art Director Chad Hurd - When I’m done catching up with ‘Breaking Bad’, I swear I’m spending a week watching nothing but Archer on Netflix Instant. [UPROXX]
Open Thread — Who Is the Better Character: Walter White or Raylan Givens? - And then, uh, I’m gonna start watching ‘Justified’. Man, I’m terrible at watching television while it’s actually on. [Warming Glow]
2012 Oscars Best Picture Bracket: Round 3 - I liked The Artist, but I’m hoping Midnight In Paris can pull off an upset here. It’s a Woody Allen movie MY MOM enjoyed! [Film Drunk]
Unlaced: adidas Designer Robbie Fuller Talks The adiZero Rose 2.5 - My shoes are also unlaced, and I’m going to talk about argyle Vans. Yes, because of David Otunga, shut up. [Smoking Section]
What If Male Superheroes’ Costumes Were Designed Like Female Superheroes’ Costumes? - They couldn’t be! Where would poor Rob Liefeld draw his pockets? [Gamma Squad]
Steve Carell In Now On Twitter - I can’t wait to see him and Ricky Gervais make awkward jokes about each other all the time. #notgoodafterseason2 [Buzzfeed]
David Wain’s Reddit AMA: 15 Best Answers From ‘Wanderlust’ Director’s Q&A (PICTURES) - If my girlfriend ever ends up contributing to UPROXX, it’ll be nothing but interviews with Stella. [HuffPost Comedy]
What To Expect When You’re Expecting An Apocalypse - Hopefully there’s some sort of movie or comedy or book or comic that could help me out here! At this point I think it might be better to assume everything’ll be all right. [Adult Swim]
The first extended look at Pixar’s “Brave”. June cannot get here soon enough - I don’t care how good it ends up being, I’m calling it How To Train Your Daughter In 3-D until at least June. [FARK]
New Dad Jay-Z Is Deeply Disappointed In RihRih For Reuniting With Breezy - I think our first goal should be to stop calling the deluded, violent sociopath “breezy”. [Bossip]
Does ‘World of Warcraft’ Make Elderly People Smarter? - I don’t know, but I’m interested in seeing how smart ‘Excitebike’ makes them, especially after I’ve beaten their asses at Excitebike. [The FW]
Whip Out Your Wands, J.K. Rowling To Write Something For The “Adult” Crowd - If she writes something more complex than “Harry said, then Ron Said, then Harry Said”, hell, I’ll buy it. [Pajiba]
2012 Oscars Best Picture Bracket: Round 3 - I liked The Artist, but I’m hoping Midnight In Paris can pull off an upset here. It’s a Woody Allen movie MY MOM enjoyed! [
