That's What I Was Thinking- RE: TeeMak

Both Charlie T and I are regular readers of ESPN's Bill Simmons. "Regular readers" might undersell it. We IM his best stuff, slam his worst, email him and never hear back because he's too bigtime. I'm not gonna oversell it either, but we're regulars.

Simmons, in his most recent article (which is a really interesting and surprisingly well-researched look at NBA finance), captured the essence of someone we at The Black Converse have a mutual unappreciation for: Tracy McGrady.

And by the way, nobody loves basketball more than me. I mean, NOBODY. But when an NBA player with two years remaining on his contract for a total of $44 million shows up for the season out of shape, complains most of the year, lets down his teammates and fans again and again, lands in some trade rumors and decides, "Instead of getting traded to a team I don't like, I'm going to announce that I'm getting microfracture surgery four days before the trade deadline and kill any potential trade, and even better, I'll be healed by next spring, just in time to showcase myself for another contract," and successfully pulls this off -- with no repercussions from anybody -- then yes, the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Because that was disgusting. Tracy McGrady, you are officially indefensible for the rest of eternity. Even your cousin Vince wouldn't have done that. And that's saying something.

For the stat-mongering Hollingers of the group, that was 3 sentences.