This Book Has Balls Page 13
6. Kenya Moore, RHOA: Every show needs a great villain, and Moore plays it to the fullest. This former beauty queen could “twirl” her way onto Mother Teresa’s bad side. She’s the master of the hit-and-run. Loves to throw shade and act like it never happened. Has shown a softer side of late but will always be a natural “talk shit first, ask questions later” player of the game.
5. Teresa Giudice, RHONJ: Became a New Jersey icon with the “table flip heard ’round the world.” Entertaining as Carmela Soprano. Spent one season in prison and kept her job. A “family first” type of broad with a gravity-defying hairline. We’ve watched her grow up before our eyes and bounce back from more adversity than arguably anyone in reality TV history.
4. Vicki Gunvalson, RHOOC: A true-blue Housewife Iron Woman. Often referred to as the Cal Ripken Jr. of reality TV because of her longevity and dedication to the craft. The twelve-year Orange County vet is the OG of the OC and will be the first to say it loud and proud. Salute legend.
3. Kim Zolciak-Biermann, RHOA: Some call her the Great White Hope of Housewives. Duked it out in the early years of Atlanta. Impact player as the show’s only white girl. Her magical moments with her Sugar Daddy, the mysterious “Big Poppa,” are not to be forgotten. One of the first to have her own spin-off series. This Southern baby-making machine is a shoo-in for the Housewife Hall of Fame. Married to NFL veteran Kroy Biermann.
2. NeNe Leakes, RHOA: The hands-down Queen of Shade. This magical wig-wearing housewife is a true Atlanta icon. Singlehandedly brought the term “Bye, Girl, Bye” to the masses. A legend in her own mind and those of Housewives fans alike.
1. Bethenny Frankel, RHONY: Because duh! She built a life and a brand while being a ball-breaking machine. She will wind up as the silhouetted logo of the Housewives franchise like Jerry West is for the NBA.
23 Reasons Why LeBron Will Never Be Like Mike
I first heard about LeBron James the same way most of the world did: from seeing clips of him as a high schooler destroying poor kid teams like they were playing a different sport. It was impressive. Did he look like a bearded twenty-seven-year-old man? Yes. Was he dunking on freckle-faced kids from Ohio who looked fifteen years younger? Yes. But I was a believer. LeBron was the real deal and ready for the big time. He even answered media questions like a vet: “LeBron, as the greatest athlete in our city’s history, do you feel you have to carry the torch, and does the pressure ever get to you?” LeBron came right back, prepared: “I’ve learned to tune out distractions and focus on the game at hand, so the answer would be no.” What the fuck? Was Deepak Chopra his media coach? Who says that shit in high school?
Then he got drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers, became Rookie of the Year, averaged over 20 points a game, and the stage was set. And I was all in! I really liked LeBron. I even met him early on in his career, and he seemed like a nice young man.
I bumped into him during his rookie year as I was leaving Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan after a frustrating conversation with HOV himself about the importance and influence of Brooklyn’s own Dwayne “Pearl” Washington. HOV shockingly disagreed with everything I said, but we moved on. LeBron could not have been more polite after I literally bounced off his already cement-hard and giant nineteen-year-old frame. He said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rapaport. I’m a big fan, sir.” And I always remembered that he called me sir, ’cause while it was nice, it also made me feel old. Part of me wondered if it was a backhanded compliment. Was LeBron secretly hating on me but covering it up in a nice-guy sandwich? Was he thanking me and hating at the same time? I am not sure he had all that on his mind, but after seeing him in the league over the past decade, I’m convinced he does have a secretly devious side—that at least sometimes the dude smiling for the camera is shitting on us when he gets home.
The first glimpse I saw of the real LeBron James was at the Celebrity All-Star Game a few years back. This was my territory. As many of you may or may not know, I was the MVP of the Celebrity All-Star Game in 2010. Look it up; it’s true. For some reason, they kept me out of the game the following year, but it was probably a mistake. Rumors flew that some of the other celebrity participants couldn’t handle my rants or hard fouls, but I’m sure that wasn’t it.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t in the game, but I had the chance to do some sideline reporting, and I was fine with giving other kids a shot at the MVP trophy.
I had my two sons with me, and after the game, we spotted LeBron. My kids are chill when it comes to the celebrity thing. It doesn’t faze them. They’ve met a lot of people over the years, and they don’t trip. But they wanted to meet LeBron and asked if we could go over and say hi. I told them of course we could. Now let me reiterate: My kids are NOT star-struck. For instance, we were once backstage at a Kanye show talking with Kobe Bryant, Matt Barnes, and Kanye, and my youngest asked if we could go home so he could rest up for school! That’s a fact, one you need to keep in mind here. They aren’t easily impressed. So now the shit gets weird, and this is where King Jizzames fucked up.
I walked over to LeBron with my kids to say what’s up. Everyone knows the All-Star Game is for the kids and about the socializing between players and fans. Well, the shit went south quicker than I expected. I said, “What’s up?” to LeBron, and before I could even ask him for a picture, LeBron James iced me and my kids. He stuck his long-ass, tattooed arm out, didn’t acknowledge me or even make eye contact with my sons. Instead, he turned his back on us and looked in the opposite direction like a scorned woman. Gave me the Heisman for real. My kids’ faces dropped. And I was ready to fight the man-child. You ice me out, I don’t give a fuck; you ice my boys out, and now we got a real fucking problem.
You’ve read about my past, LeBron; you understand the level of emotion I live with inside my body. I don’t know exactly why LeBooBoo tried to play me out, but I did hear rumors later on that a situation arose in which a friend of a friend of mine knew a woman of a friend of his, and things got sticky between the friends. Regardless, it had nothing to do with me, and it definitely had nothing to do with my eight- and ten-year-old sons. And while I still want to fight him, I don’t want my kids growing up without a father. I’ve been fortunate to be around NBA events for a long time, and I’ve met everybody, and LeBron is the only motherfucker to pull a fuck-boy move like that. It was blatant and it was personal.
LeBron, I know in your mind, somewhere in the back of that perfectly coifed, amazingly trimmed, bearded head of yours, you think you’re the next MJ or that you’ve somehow surpassed Mike. But you’re not. And if you thought you were going to Be Like Mike, let me spell it out for you in a different way—you ain’t. So I’ve compassionately and with much thought put together an exhaustive list of the twenty-three reasons why you will never be like Mike. Let us begin:
The Official Career-Spanning Twenty-Three Reasons Why LBJ Will Never, Ever Be Like Mike
1. You shave your armpit hair. The man we call King Fucking James shaves his armpit hair. This isn’t a figment of my imagination. Homeboy shaves his pits. My sources tell me you also shave your chest hair. Who are you, David Hasselhoff ? A six-foot-eight, 280-pound man shouldn’t manscape. It’s not manly. Let it grow. Let it dangle.
2. You toyed with the numbers of legends. You wore Michael Jordan’s iconic number 23 when you came into the NBA in 2004; fair enough. You were on his jock, he was your idol, all good. Five seasons later, you suggested the league retire it. You even threatened to start a league-wide petition on some real Mean Girls–type of shit. Who made you jersey king? And to make matters worse, you were then wearing the number 6, which was Dr. J’s and Bill Russell’s number. So, it’s okay for you to wear their numbers but not MJ’s? You’re better than the Doctor and the winningest player in NBA history, Mr. Bill Russell, now? What were you trying to say here? Now you’re the one deciding who means more to the game? But the baseline SuckaShit you did was going back to wearing the number 23 in 2014. You’re all fucked up and confused in the game, man. If
you want to be like Mike, pick your own number, stick with your own number, and create your own lane.
3. Sneakers. There’s never been a better player with a worse shoe. I’m confused by this sneaker catastrophe. Is it made for basketball or hiking? The shoes take a half hour to get on and need to come with an instruction manual on how to lace ’em up. I’ll say it again: great player, shit shoe. They should have named the shoe Irony by LeBron James. I can hear the advertisement in my head: “From one of the greatest players of all time comes a shoe you’ll never, ever wear: Irony by LeBron James.” Them shits look like overpriced combat boots. Matter of fact, give them to the troops; they’re not for hoops. Maybe that should be the slogan: “For troops, not hoops.” The shoe is an overpriced, overstylized disaster. Your latest 2017 joints have four Velcro straps and no shoelaces. Are they for playing basketball or checking into a psychiatric ward? You should’ve named these new ones Rubber Rooms. This ain’t the Cuckoo’s, and you ain’t the Chief. Fix this fiasco.
4. You gave yourself a nickname. You don’t give yourself a nickname, LeBron. Nicknames are given to you by writers, friends, teachers, or coaches. Let someone out there do it for you, LeBronBron. That’s just some egomaniacal weirdo shit. Mike was given Air Jordan by other people, so was Magic, same with myself. You think I came up with the Gringo Mandingo on my own? No, I earned it.
5. The Decision. The Decision was a bad decision, LeBron. It was a travesty top to bottom. It was seventy-five minutes long and overproduced. What was the point of making it such a production? To let us know you were leaving Cleveland? It wasn’t the State of the Union Address. You’re a basketball player leaving one team for another, not an actual king. You don’t actually knight people and shit. But we all tuned in like idiots. You didn’t even make the announcement until thirty minutes into the show. Finally, after boring us to tears, you announced you were taking your talents to South Beach. You then showed up in Miami for your personal pep rally, fireworks and all, declared you were planning to win not six, not seven, and not eight championships and made a spectacle of yourself. Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert was so pissed off by the way you handled the situation that he wrote a full letter in Comic Sans font. Then he slashed the price of your Fathead Poster to $17.41 because 1741 was the year Benedict Arnold was born. You made a circus out of something that should have been handled professionally. Very un-Jordan-like.
6. Sports Illustrated, bully ball. You had a right to sit out the 2016 Olympics, I can’t even argue with that; rest your nerves. But my guy at SI subscriptions tells me you bullied your way onto the cover because everybody was talking about Kevin Durant going to the Warriors and not about LeBron winning his third ring. Look up LeBron’s SI cover, August 8, 2016. It looks like a bootleg cover for a low-end fitness magazine. That’s because my sources told me LeBully shoved his way onto that cover, and they didn’t have time to do a presentable photo shoot. Kids dream about being in the Olympics their entire lives. And just when they get their shot to appear on the cover, you snatched the dream because you needed a little Summer Loving? What kind of greedy shit is that? I’d bet my ass that some Olympic gymnast was scheduled for that cover. But Baby Bron Bron needed a cover story, so he ripped the hopes and Sports Illustrated cover dreams away from some five-foot-two female gymnast? Bad Bron Bron, Bad Bad Bron!
7. The Big 3. You created this monster called the Big 3. This is all you, trooper. No other star has ever left a team during his prime to go play with two other superstars during their primes to create a Big 3. This is all your doing. Every other team in the league is now forced to play catch-up because of this AAU friends and family bullshit you started. And don’t try to compare the Celtics of 2008 to the Miami Heat. Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were heading to their thirteenth year in the league when they arrived in Beantown—still very good but admittedly past their primes. The Houston Rockets’ Barkley, Drexler, and Olajuwon crew of 1996 should’ve been called the Ghosts of the Big 3. That was literally a big fat joke that fell flat on its back and tore its Achilles. The Golden State Warriors drafted their homegrown Big 3 of Curry, Klay, and Draymond, and don’t be mad at your former summertime workout buddy Kevin Durant for following your playbook and creating a Big 4. I’m glad he went to Golden State, and I’m glad they beat your asses in five games. That’s what they call “a gentlemen’s sweep.” When you retire, one of the first things that will always come up is the fact that you left the league out of balance with your Big 3 Bullshit because you couldn’t get things done the natural way.
8. LeBron played water bottle tricks at the Garden. On December 7, 2016, while a professional basketball game was taking place between the Knicks and the Cavaliers, you started flipping water bottles on the Madison Square Garden court like a ten-year-old hopped up on Cherry Coke and Now & Laters. My man, you don’t ever flip water bottles in the Garden. You were doing the water-bottle challenge on the same floor Rocky Marciano fought Joe Louis. The same floor Ali fought Frazier. The same floor where Hulk Hogan dethroned the Iron Sheik! What the fuck is wrong with you, soldier? Mind your manners. You’re lucky it wasn’t in the days of Xavier McDaniel and the Late Great Anthony Mason. Xavier would have had you swaddled up real tight in a blanket and had you sipping out of a water bottle in his lap. The Garden ain’t a playground, and we don’t play children’s games—unless, of course, Disney on Ice comes to town.
9. Sitting out games. People are traveling to come see you play, not to watch you cheer in sweatpants from the bench. That’s like going to Disneyland and Goofy takes the day off. You wanna be like Mike or you wanna be like Goofy? The choice is yours. You know what that does to a child’s head? Kids are like “Daddy, where’s LeBron? I thought he was playing,” and now the dad’s a mess because he has to explain to little Harold why his favorite player is sitting out but joking around with the guys on the bench and leaping up and down with seemingly healthy knees. Plus, they’re spending real money to see you. And you don’t even stop to think about the family problems you’re causing. Dad has to get home, the kid’s crying, the wife’s trying to calm the kid down, and Dad’s stressed out wondering how a ball game cost him $350 and he didn’t even eat a hot dog. LeBron, you just caused a divorce. Think about little Harold and his sad father the next time you decide to sit out a game and rest. And don’t try to blame it on your coach, Ty Lue; everyone knows that little fucker isn’t calling the shots on that team.
10. Mani-pedis. Yo, my man, what’s up with you biting your nails all the time? You nervous? What are you so nervous about? When you’re on the bench, you’re there to rest and absorb the game; it ain’t a beauty bar. It ain’t a nail salon in downtown Akron. You’re giving yourself full manicures with fingernail clippers and nail files on an NBA bench. By the way, do you prefer glitter or classic French tips? I’m asking for a friend.
11. Headband confusion. Kids everywhere were throwing their headbands to the ground in confusion. LeBand, call your stylist and let’s make a decision already. We can’t rest not knowing what it’s going to be. Kids are sitting in front of the TV waiting on the headband or no headband so they can get their wardrobe together. Pick a style, any style. You don’t see Slash going from top hat to baseball cap and confusing the skinny-jeans youth of Rock ’n’ Roll America. Settle on something. L.L. Cool J didn’t take his hat off until 2013, and that was just to prove he didn’t have ringworm.
12. The flops. “I love it when they call me Big Flopper.” Shout-out to the great Biggie Smalls. I never read any Shakespeare talking about “Then the King flopped down for no fucking apparent reason and, yes, by golly, he did it again.” Real kings don’t flop, King James. You have an actual flop compilation mixtape, for crying out loud. You don’t believe me, look it up on YouTube. Type in “LeBron James flailing all over the fucking place” and see what comes up. Michael Jordan ain’t got no flop compilation mixtape. Neither does Kobe. Not even Anderson Varejão has one. It makes no sense. You tell the press you’re like a football player, but then you
fall to the ground like Nancy Kerrigan when she got the baton from Tonya Harding. What’s up, puppet legs? Are you made of Lincoln Logs? And the floundering arms on the way down are just embarrassing. These are the little details that keep you from true, unarguable greatness. Stop the flopping before the second mixtape comes out. By the way, the Draymond Green Ghost Flop of the 2016 NBA Finals should’ve gotten you a Flop Oscar. Even Bobby De Niro was impressed with that performance.
13. Never entered the dunk contest. Jordan lived for the dunk contest. He won some, he lost some, but at the end of the day he was all about them. He didn’t become a superhero until he leapt from the free-throw line and threw it down. The world hasn’t been the same since. You do 360-degree dunks on the layup line. You beast-dunk in games and the crowd goes nuts, yet you’ve refused to be in the dunk contest your entire career? One of the classic contests in sports doesn’t get to see “the Chosen One” throw it down? It’s upsetting. It’s disappointing. It’s selfish. Do you hate the fans, LeBooty? I know you’ve got crazy dunks up your sleeve. Let’s see “the Thunder Shave”! Leap over two friends, finally shave every hair off your head, and throw it down. Get wacky with it. Even Dominique couldn’t pull that dunk off. The fans want to see it. I want to see it. Your barber wants to see it.
14. LeBron unfollowed the Cavs during the 2016 season. You unfollowed your own team on Twitter? What the fuck is that? They call that Uncoupling, and Gwyneth Paltrow invented it. Whatever happened to a good ole-fashioned pep talk? What about a phone call to some of the players to try to motivate them? “Hey, man, we need to buckle down on D and get our shit together, and now is the time!” Instead you unfollow them? Then a Cavaliers reporter asked why you unfollowed your team on Twitter, and you got so offended that you walked off on some Marcia Brady girl-pouting shit. Men lead, they don’t unfollow.