The Little Guy!
While home for the holidays, I got to listen to Celtics color commentator Tommy Heinsohn orgasm on live TV as Isaiah Thomas hit a dagger three pointer to cap off his incredible 52 point game against the Miami Heat. Ok so maybe that first bit didn’t actually happen, but if you heard the old man’s exclamation of pure affection for Boston’s diminutive point guard, you wouldn’t think it was totally out of the question.
And look, Tommy’s not alone. Celtics nation (the Bleacher Creature included) has fallen head over heels for Thomas, dubbed “The Little Guy” by Heinsohn, in a way we haven’t for any player since Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen arrived in 2007. What’s not to love about the guy? He’s listed at 5’9” but that’s only because he was wearing high heels at the draft combine. He’s an incredible ball handler and shooter, consistently bombing deep threes off the bounce, a skill in which he’s rivaled only by Steph Curry and Damian Lillard.
He drives to the rim with an apparent recklessness reminiscent of a young Dwyane Wade, only he’s incapable of finishing above the rim … so instead he punks fools by living off a ludicrous selection of unblockable scoop shots released from his hip.
Look, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but Thomas might be playing at a level as high as peak Iverson right now. 28 PPG and 6 APG at an efficiency that the Answer could only dream of? It’s time the rest of the league was put on notice.
Rodgers = Nostradamus = Illuminati Confirmed
Green Bay’s improbable run from 4-6 to a division title behind the MVP-caliber play of Aaron Rodgers is one of the best stories of the NFL season.
But I’ve heard enough about the Packers’ QB “calling his shot,” vowing after his team’s 42-24 loss to the Redskins in Week 11 that they would not lose another game on their way to the playoffs. I mean was he right? Technically, yes, but … what was Rodgers supposed to say? “Yes, I think our team is looking outstanding! I’m fully expecting us to win four of our next six games and narrowly miss the postseason. Who else has a question?”
We should be able to appreciate the Packers’ success and the continual brilliance of Rodgers without making a vague affirmation of his team’s ability into some sort of prophecy.
Give it a rest, Meryl
This is not the place to get into politics. I’m sure some Collegian readers probably people loved Meryl Streep’s thinly veiled criticism of Donald Trump at the Golden Globes, while others probably wished nothing more than for her to get off the stage.
And so, because I don’t want to offend anybody (and because this is the sports section) I only want to focus on one moment from Streep’s soliloquy: her abject and tone-deaf dismissal of football and mixed martial arts, which apparently “are not the arts!”
That remarkably ignorant statement was met with cheers from the crowd of self-aggrandizing Hollywood elites and maybe it’s true in the sense that sports aren’t considered to be a fine art.
But everybody already knows that, Streep was clearly trying to make a larger point. She was attempting to categorize sports, perhaps two in particular that are violent in nature, as the pastime of choice for the ignorant rube of middle America.
Never mind that the level of hard work and natural skill that goes into professional sports is at the very least equal to that of acting, or that appearing in a commercially produced Hollywood film designed solely to make a profit (as was the case with most of the people in that room) is not enough to make a person a culturally important artist.
Even if it was, who are you to criticize how people entertain themselves in their free time? In this age of ever-increasing polarization, doubling down on divisiveness and attacking the great unifier that is sports probably isn’t the best idea.