by Ryan Isley
Once again, there were a lot of stories in sports this week.
From the Indians winning four straight (and beating two more Cy Young Award Winners, including Cliff Lee in the process), to reactions from the NFL Draft (check out the More Than A Fan Podcast and my column) to Steph Curry becoming the darling of the NBA Playoffs to the beginning of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But these are the three stories I am thinking about the most today:
On Jason Collins:
I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.
These are the words from Jason Collins that took the sports world by storm this week when the Sports Illustrated article was released. Forget sports world. These are the words that took the nation by storm this week.
While Josh Flagner (@RailbirdJ) wrote about the story and the reaction from Twitter in his Biased Observer column on Tuesday, I wanted to share my feelings on the situation.
I am standing up at my computer right now giving Jason Collins a standing ovation.
For a player to come out as openly gay while still an active player is something that has been speculated for a long time but something that most people were not sure would happen anytime soon. To have the courage to come out and tell his story, Collins deserves praise and respect, no matter what your stance is on people being gay.
I can only hope that teams do not hold this against Collins – who is a free agent – and I don’t think they will. If Collins has a problem finding a job for next season, it will have more to do with him being a 34-year-old player who has averaged just 3.6 points per game for his career than it does with his sexual orientation.
Hats off to Jason Collins. He has gained a lot of fans this week, myself included.
On Tim Tebow:
I hear circus music in the background, which can only mean one thing – Tim Tebow is a free agent.
This week on More Than A Fan, Hayden Grove (@H_Grove) wrote that he wants the Browns to sign Tebow and Kyle Edwards (@kylecedwards) wrote that Tebow deserves the chance to be a quarterback. As I joked all week on Twitter, we will start drug testing our writers starting sometime this month.
I understand that Tebow is a great guy. I realize that he can turn wine into water, can feed the entire team with two fish and five loaves of bread and can heal an injured teammate with just a single touch.
But the one thing Tebow can’t do? Throw a football accurately. You know – the main component to being a good quarterback. Sure, Tebow completed 75% of his passes in 2012. Then again, he only attempted eight of them. In the two seasons he played for the Denver Broncos, Tebow was 167-for-353 for 47.3%. Those numbers are hardly good enough to warrant Tebow being a quarterback in the NFL.
The thing that keeps people coming back to Tebow are his “intangibles.” Loosely translated, that means he is a good kid with a clean background who won a lot of games in college and was part of the reason the Broncos made the playoffs in 2011. But as I wrote in December of 2011, we need to be able to separate the on-field Tebow from the off-field Tebow. In what has become an overly pass-happy league, the only people happy when Tim Tebow is passing the football are the players on the opposing defense.
While the Browns can use all of the divine intervention they can get, it shouldn’t come in the form of Tim Tebow in brown and orange.
On Kevin Durant:
“I’ve been second my whole life. I was the second-best player in high school. I was the second pick in the draft. I’ve been second in the MVP voting three times. I came in second in the Finals. I’m tired of being second…I’m done with it.”
Those are the words from Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant that graced the cover of Sports Illustrated last week. While Durant is tired of being second, you know what I am tired of? Kevin Durant and his act.
Durant is no doubt one the best basketball players in the world and one of the most pure scorers you will find in the NBA. But Durant isn’t what the media likes to make him out to be – he isn’t perfect. Durant has escaped criticism time and time again when his team comes up short for a couple of reasons.
First, the Thunder have been on an upward path as they made the playoffs in 2009-10, made the Western Conference Finals in 2010-11 and then made the NBA Finals in 2011-12. Second, the criticism for the Thunder has been reserved for point guard Russell Westbrook who has become a lightning rod for media and fans alike because he takes shots away from Durant and sometimes plays like he forgets he has Durant on his team. And then of course, Durant has avoided criticism because he isn’t LeBron James. While James has been made out to be the villain, Durant has been made out to be the superhero.
The issue with this is that Durant has shown time and time again that he is not emotionally ready to move from second place to the top of the mountain. I made this argument last season during the NBA Finals on the More Than A Fan Podcast with Josh because I watched Durant stand in the corner and watch Westbrook run the offense instead of moving without the ball to create space and get open.
And this week, bad Durant showed up at the worst possible time for the Thunder. With Oklahoma City hanging onto a 3-1 series lead and missing Westbrook who is out for the rest of the playoffs with an injury, Durant couldn’t make a shot in the fourth quarter (he went 0-for-5) and then he lost control of his emotions late in their 107-100 loss to Houston.
Durant got frustrated by the Rockets, got frustrated by the officiating and even got frustrated by his own teammates. When the Rockets were in the shirt of Durant to keep him from getting the ball, Durant was called for multiple offensive fouls for pushing off. After getting called for a defensive foul on a Chandler Parsons jumper and then feeling like he was fouled on a turnover, he was called for a technical foul. Also after that foul on the Parsons shot, Durant outwardly showed frustration with Reggie Jackson when Jackson didn’t pass him the ball and then pulled from 25-feet on the next possession and missed badly.
If Durant wants to be better than second, he needs to start acting like it. Actions speak louder than words, KD.
Comments? Questions? You can leave them here or email Ryan at ryan@morethanafan.net
The post My Two Cents on Jason Collins, Tim Tebow and Kevin Durant appeared first on More Than A Fan.