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  15. LeBron blames. On February 6, 2017, you openly cried to the press about needing a “playmaker.” You actually told the press that your 2016 World Champion Cleveland Cavaliers, an already stacked organization, didn’t have enough good players. Did Tom Brady ask for a third arm after winning the Super Bowl? Did Derek Jeter ask for a fourth supermodel when the Yanks won the World Series? Fuck, no! This was your yearly shit fit, the same shit fit you’ve been throwing since you went back to Cleveland. It baffles me and my people. Stop complaining to the press every spring and look in the mirror. Be the one to make the change, like the King of Pop said. You’re the greatest playmaker in the world, so man up! Real playmakers do real things!

  16. What the hell is with the dancing? You’re playing patty cake with your teammates, turning the sidelines into an embarrassing episode of Dancing with the Stars. I see your teammates’ faces, and they’re not thrilled to be involved with this either. They’ll never tell you, but as a person who reads between the lines for a living, the team is praying the dancing stops. Trust me, the guys are going home to their wives like, “We don’t know what the hell is wrong with him. I think I spun when I was supposed to finger snap, and LeBron went crazy. I can’t keep up with the new choreography.” Save the dancing for when you’re home with the family or in the back of a club where no one else can see what the fuck is going on. The shit is corny, and you’re making your teammates uncomfortable. Not to mention you’re doing it in the faces of opponents while you’re winning, yet you’re not shaking guys’ hands when you’re losing. You ain’t Danny Zuko, and this ain’t Grease.

  17. Trying to get into the next Space Jam movie. You’re rumored to be attached to the Space Jam sequel? How the fuck are you going to be like Mike when you can’t even come up with your own movie franchise? Let Bugs Bunny rest. He’s tired. You want your own franchise? Bring the Care Bears to life. That’s more your style. I’ll make a call if you need me to.

  18. The Blood of David. You got Israeli coach David Blatt fired in the darkness of the night like an episode of Homeland. What a shanda. (That means “shame,” for all my non-Yiddish-speaking readers.) You publicly disrespected him, you pushed him out of the huddles during time-outs, and you wiped plays off his clipboard on national TV. I saw it all. You walked right by him and left his fist bump hanging. I understand if you don’t get along and you don’t agree on basketball philosophy or you don’t see eye-to-eye—okay, fine, it happens. But you got David Blatt fired before the 2016 All-Star break, while the Cavs had the best record in the Eastern Conference, and you act surprised? You acted like you had no participation in it. This was some Godfather II LeCorleone James–type shit. Don’t tell me you weren’t the button pusher on this one. You wanted him whacked from day one, and you went to the mattresses to make it happen. The Cavaliers didn’t get the most dominant player in the NBA’s approval for this? GTFOH, man. You singlehandedly turned the country of Israel against you and all things Cleveland when you spilled the Blood of David and left the scene of the crime in the darkness of night. You handled the Blatt situation like a pakhdn. That’s Yiddish for “coward.”

  19. Rivalry shaming. For some reason, you deny rivalries in your life. Rivalries are good, LeFear. They define you. Ali versus Frazier, Leno versus Letterman, and Fonzi versus the Malachi Brothers. These are real rivalries. You win some, you lose some, but don’t deny they exist. You deny these rivalries because you think the competition is beneath you. Is that true, LeBron? You’re so great that you’re rivalry-less?

  Your Heat beat the Spurs in the Finals of 2012. The Spurs came back and knocked the snot out of you guys in 2013, and instead of seeking revenge for your embarrassing loss and giving the fans the tipping-point series and a great rivalry, you ran back to Cleveland with your tail between your legs. Four years later, after losing one championship to the Warriors and then coming back to beat them, you publicly say, “The Cavaliers don’t have any rivalries.” Even Riley Curry looked at you sideways, Bronny. You don’t like Curry, he doesn’t like you; the Cavs don’t like the Warriors, and vice versa. That’s called a rivalry. Go watch The Outsiders. The Greasers and the Socs hated each other, and we loved watching it. Stay gold, Ponyboy!

  20. Superteam Amnesia: Immediately after the Warriors flushed the Cavs back to Cleveland in the 2017 Finals, you denied ever being part of a Superteam. Are you kidding me? You said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a Superteam.” Oh, you don’t think you’ve ever been on a Superteam? You invented the Superteam, my friend. You made that statement in front of the entire world, and we were baffled. This was the most outlandish shit you’d said to date. The Miami Heatles set this Superteam bullshit off, and you were the orchestrator. The Kyrie, Kevin Love, Tristan crew you’re a part of right now is a Superteam, and they’ve got the paychecks to prove it! You guys should play in capes, you’re so super. Maybe you were disoriented because you got out-Superteamed by another Superteam, and that must be confusing. It’s like building Frankenstein and then he tries to kill you. Don’t be shocked. You created the contrived Superteam. Live with it. We have to.

  21. The elephant in the room. You’ve never gotten hurt, LeBron, and that’s a good thing; thank goodness for that. Throughout your magnificent career you have somehow, some way avoided a serious injury or even a strained anything. Even Mike missed stretches of games due to injury. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Lance Armstrong all suffered injuries as well, and, shit, they were on . . . let’s just say vitamins. But you’ve avoided injuries altogether. Now, I know you take great care of yourself. I read about it, I saw pictures of you at the juice machine, and I even tried to follow you on that special 2014 super summer cleanse. Pictures surfaced of a super-skinny you with half the muscle tone, and the streets were talking. You looked pretty damn skinny. Now, I’m not exactly sure, because I don’t fact check and I don’t have a staff to do it for me, but that was the same summer the NBA changed its drug-testing policy, wasn’t it? Like I said, I don’t know, and I’m not pointing fingers. I’m sure this is all just a coincidence.

  When the 2014 season started, it was your first season back in Cleveland, and you weren’t looking too LeBronish. You were nowhere near as physically explosive. No big dunks around the rim, and no power flops. You looked a bit slower, too. Hmmm. Then out of nowhere you took two weeks off to “rest.” Personally, I was shocked, because you’re such a fierce competitor, but I guess everyone needs a little rest. No injury reason was given; they just said “rest.” During this “rest” period you went back to Miami, A-Roid’s—I mean, A-Rod’s favorite town. Then lo and behold, two weeks later you return to Cleveland looking strong as shit, weight gained and muscles toned. Man, I wish I could “rest” for two weeks and get cock diesel. Can you share with the world that amazing Miami Resting Diet? Anyway, I think it’s great that you’ve never gotten injured, especially in a world where even Mark McGwire got hurt while he was on—hachuu! Excuse me.

  22. You lost in the Finals. You’ve lost in the Finals so many times that it’s hard to keep track. Mike never lost in the Finals. He was 6–0. He never even needed a Game 7 to close out an NBA Finals. I’m a firm believer in the String Theory, LeBron. We are all interconnected. Hear me out. I see a sign. You’re three and five in the Finals, Kevin Durant’s jersey number is thirty-five, and Miami-based rapper Pitbull is known as Mr. 305. Do you see a connection? I do.

  Richard Williams’s open proclamation of his daughters’ takeover, Key Biscayne, Florida, 1999. Al Bello/Getty Images

  23. Stop chasing ghosts. The reason why you’ll never be like Mike is because from the bottom of my heart I believe you’re better than Mike. Not as a player—don’t get ahead of yourself, Bron Bron. That ship has sailed. You’re better than Mike as a star, as an example of what you should stand for as a celebrity in the sports world. You’ve spoken out on so many important issues throughout your career that Mike never even touched on. Social issues of race and politics you took head-on and made your voice heard. Your speech at the
2016 ESPYs was fantastic, bold, and brave. The public Donald Trump disses have been legendary and important. I couldn’t stand your Miami Heat teams, but the Trayvon Martin acknowledgments were ballsy and were needed from such a cross-cultural superstar. RESPECT for all of it. Sincerely. I’m well aware of the millions of dollars you have personally donated to send kids to college, and now you’re financing an entire school in Cleveland for at-risk kids. Nothing but pure respect and admiration for all that. I know you do a lot of good that we never hear about. It’s awesome and inspiring, and maybe it should have been moved up in the chapter, but that’s not what I do. The biggest mistake Michael Jordan made during his playing days was never speaking out on real issues. You’ve used your superstardom to kick ass for a lot of people. You’ve inspired the next generation of star athletes to do the same. Stars get afraid to speak out and make a stand. You have done the opposite. Salute! So stop trying to be like Mike, my man, and just be yourself, LeBron. But the next time you see me with my kids, you better recognize.

  Venus and Serena Kicked All the Ass, but Richard Williams Is the Real MVP

  Richard Williams, who is Venus and Serena’s father, is the real MVP. The girls did the work, the girls kicked all the ass, but Richard is the MVP. Forget the fact that both of his daughters became two of the greatest tennis players in history, forget the fact that they came from a city where tennis was nonexistent, and let’s also put aside the fact that he beat every odd stacked up against him to make it happen. We’re talking about tennis, the whitest of the white, most country-club, blond-haired, blue-eyed, matching-plaid-shirt-and-shorts, stuffy, stick-up-your-ass sport ever—next to skeet shooting, of course. The man had vision beyond this world.

  This is a guy who saw everything before it happened. Richard Williams wrote a seventy-eight-page life plan with a pen and paper, mapping out Venus’s and Serena’s entire futures, and it all came true. All of it. When his friends asked him if he thought he had the next Michael Jordan, he told them, “No, I’ve got the next two Michael Jordans.” And he did! And he took no shortcuts. This wasn’t a guy who had “friends” and connections in the tennis world. He didn’t even want connections. He said fuck it and moved the family to Compton to raise them in a town that would reflect the harsh realities of life. He wanted Serena and Venus to see life’s rough edges. Williams was a mad genius, plain and simple. He literally worked a miracle. He barely knew the game and was mostly self-taught. He learned tennis from videos, books, and a guy named Old Whiskey. True story. This man has something special, and we need to hear more about him. Richard Williams put the girls in a tight-uppity-ass tennis academy when they were four years old, but didn’t like the way they were being coached, so he decided to take them out and teach them himself.

  Richard Williams knew exactly what he was getting his daughters into, and he took it on, headfirst, and prepared them to do the same exact thing. He knew the scrutiny that black girls would get in professional tennis. It wasn’t an accident that when Venus and Serena arrived on the pro circuit, their hair was beaded up and braided. That was a statement, and I fucking loved it. The statement was loud and proud that we are here and we want you to know we’re here. We are Young, Gifted, and Black, and we’re here to kick fucking ass. We’re not going to act like we’re just happy to be here. We’re coming to fuck shit up. We’re not going to answer your dumb-ass questions the way you want us to after we just lost a match, and if our opponents don’t move out of the way when we’re walking across the court, they will get bumped into with no apology.

  The Williams sisters are game changers on so many levels, and Richard orchestrated the whole thing. The girls’ worldwide coming-out party in New York City at the 2001 US Open was unforgettable. It will historically stand with Jesse Owens’s, Jackie Robinson’s, and John Carlos’s accomplishments. Two black girls who are also sisters playing for a championship? It was magical. And Richard was brash, bold, and predicted the whole thing from day one. He ruffled feathers and scared the shit out of white people, and the girls backed it all up. By the way, I know their mother, Oracene, had just as much to do with the Williamses’ success, but Richard was the one talking all the shit on the front lines, so he gets the chapter, but a strong shout-out to Oracene.

  I don’t get why athletes, coaches, and scientists are not desperate to track Richard Williams down and scan his brain to see what the hell is going on in there. The man is a total original. The Williams sisters are the best to ever do it, they did it their way, and they created an entire genre that should be called Smash-Mouth Tennis. Professional tennis will not be the same when they finally retire from years and years of Ass Kicking and Complete Domination.

  The odds of anybody coming out of Compton and making it in pro sports are astronomical. But the odds of two black girls coming out of Compton and making it in pro tennis don’t even exist. The best thing about it was that Richard Williams didn’t give a shit about any odds. He made his own odds. He had the vision and the grit, and he never let the people forget where they came from. After Serena won her first Grand Slam in ’99, he grabbed his nuts and yelled to the crowd, “Straight outta Compton, motherfucker!” Then he went and got nineteen-year-old Serena a $12 million deal with Puma. Thank you, Richard Williams, for being a crazy-ass Compton sorcerer and for bringing the world your two amazingly gifted and completely classy kids. And thank you for never giving a fuck what people thought about it. You’re really the MVP.

  Phife was easily the biggest sports fan I ever met.

  Phife Dawg: Words from the Five-Foot Assassin

  When Malik Taylor, better known as Phife Dawg, passed away on March 22, 2016, the world lost a great artist and a great man. His family lost a son, a brother, and a husband, and a lot of us lost a valued friend. And A Tribe Called Quest fans lost one of the most beloved and influential performers in modern American music. What may surprise some is that the sports world also lost the biggest fan I ever met.

  In 2011, I had the pleasure of directing a documentary on my favorite group, A Tribe Called Quest, and got to spend a lot of time with Phife. Any big fan of the group could tell he was a sports fan by the way he dressed, in baseball hats with matching jerseys, and by the many sports references he made famous in Tribe songs:

  “Scenario”: “Hey’yo Bo knows this, and Bo knows that, but Bo don’t know Jack, ’cause Bo can’t rap, so what do you know, the Di-Dawg is first up to bat.”

  “8 Million Stories”: “With all these trials and tribulations, Yo, I’ve been affected, and to top it off, Starks got ejected.”

  “Steve Biko (Stir It Up)”: “Hip-hop scholar since being knee-high to a duck, the height of Muggsy Bogues, complexion of a hockey puck.”

  Those were just a few of the lyrics Phife kicked with sports at the heart of them. On Tribe’s final album, released in October 2016, hearing Phife rhyme “John Wall” with “Chris Paul” and then saying “Boy, I tell you that’s vision, like Tony Romo when he’s hitting Whitten” was chilling to hear, but it’s exactly what any Tribe fan would expect.

  * * *

  I knew he loved sports, but I had no idea how passionate he was about them until I started to talk to him during the filming of the movie. He was truly a fanatic. He loved pro football, college football, baseball, pro basketball, and college basketball. He knew the history of the leagues and the players in all of them, and would argue, rant, and debate anyone at any time about whatever topic they wanted under the sports umbrella. The last few years before he passed, Phife started making the rounds on many sports podcasts and TV shows. He was like a kid in a candy store when he was live at the desk on ESPN with Scott Van Pelt. You could tell he was having a ball. I know this was a path he was going to take had life not cut him short.

  The first interview I shot with him was in his house in his Carolina Room. He had a man cave/sports room painted in North Carolina’s baby blue. He had UNC memorabilia and photos all over the wall and loved to talk about his favorite Carolina players, their teams, the win
s, and the greatest losses. Listen to me: I love talking sports any day, anytime, but Phife was on another level. I swear, he was always looking for a way to segue a conversation into sports, and when he did, that train didn’t stop. He would reference moments and periods of his life based on his sports memory, and, believe me, it was vast and it went deep. If I asked him about the Low End Theory record from 1991, he would say, “I remember that tour, because we were in Milwaukee, and I saw Brett Favre give it to the Vikings while I was in a hotel room before the show.” Every interview would start with a musical subject, and he would take it right to the sports world. I could be asking about a song or a lyric or a time in the group’s career, and somehow we’d end up talking about why he couldn’t stand Duke. I would agree with him most of the time, too. I told him, “I couldn’t stand fucking Christian Laettner either, but I’m trying to make a Tribe film here, Phife Diggity. Can we talk Tribe?” He would laugh and admit, “I know, I know; I just love sports so much, man. What was your question?” So, finally I realized I couldn’t show Phife without having him talk about his love of sports and athletes. I told him, “Let’s just get it all off your chest, and I’ll film you talking about everything you feel about sports.”

  A chunk of that material wound up in the film, but still 80 percent of it couldn’t make it in, since it was a film about the group. So, in his honor, here are a few words verbatim from the one and only.

  Phife Dawg, aka the Funky Diabetic, During Our Filming of Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest

  Michael: Okay, let’s do your favorite little men in NBA history.

  Phife: Okay, this is a tough one, ’cause me being a little dude myself, I have a bunch of dudes I really like, but my five favorite little men in NBA history are . . . this is a good one . . . Kenny Anderson, Mark Jackson—I’m biased to New York, obviously, because we are the home of the point guards, or better yet, the point gods. So, Kenny Anderson, Mark Jackson, Kenny “the Jet” Smith, and then I got to say Allen Iverson, Chris Paul. Can I tell you what athlete I compare myself to as an MC?