The fact that such a great player has been reduced to a cliché, and that the cliché describes his failings, should be a story in itself. But LeBron's performance in the Finals and the echo from the end of the Boston series exist somewhere outside our usual rhythm of "watch, react, and relate." In the postgame press conference, a reporter asked LeBron and Wade about the word "choke" and if they felt as if they had choked the series away. LeBron let Wade answer, but what struck me about the question wasn't Wade's tepid answer or LeBron's deferral, but rather that the word "choke" doesn't seem to really describe what happened in this series. LeBron did not shrink up in the moment. He did not miss big shots or free throws. He did not turn the ball over or travel or call a timeout. Instead, he just kind of wasn't there. And what was even weirder than the public's lack of surprise, or LeBron's hostile postgame press conference, or even the defensiveness with which he carried himself throughout the season, was just how the villain in this particular tragedy felt staid, warmed-over.

when you're saddled with a shaky goalie, when you keep telling yourself that hockey is a team sport and saying all the right things … and yet, that fucking goalie is still staring at you, the weak link, the fresh fish, the one you know you can't trust

Congrats on being better than me, Psycory.

I can't wait until the site gets over it's Boston-AL Eastcentric writing. Oh wait...

Chuck Klosterman is going to be the star of this site and the long form writing is excellent the piece on the Stanley Cup yesterday was a great lunch break read.

Since every band starts on the same 100-point scale, the GRM and the ARV allow us only to measure a group against itself, which generates a logic gap (certainly, the 19 points Morrissey gets for being the principle lyricist in the Smiths doesn't accurately compare with the 19 points Pete Wentz gets for being the principle lyricist in Fall Out Boy). In order to calculate someone's "Real" Rock VORM (RRV), we need to multiply his or her personal ARV by the "established value" of the group itself. A group's established value encompasses all aspects of its existence (musical and otherwise). All bands are ranked on a scale of 1.0 to .01, with the Beatles representing the 1.0 designation. Due to space limitations, I can't list the established value of every single band that has ever existed — but here's a partial list:4

1.0: The Beatles
.989: The Rolling Stones
.98: Led Zeppelin
.97: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Beach Boys, the Velvet Underground, Pizzicato Five
.929: Black Sabbath, CCR
.914: Steely Dan, Bad Brains
.91: The Replacements, the Smiths
.909: The Clash
.88: Thin Lizzy, The Carpenters
.84: The Stooges
.825: Pavement, Radiohead, the Grateful Dead, The Police
.81: R.E.M.
.78: Nirvana, Parliament-Funkadelic
.71: ZZ Top
.7099: The Pixies
.685: Queen, Cheap Trick
.62: The Faces, Fleetwood Mac
.635: Oasis, Sleater-Kinney, Rush
.6: The Drive-By Truckers, Sleep
.59: Sonic Youth, Motley Crue, the Go-Gos
.55: My Morning Jacket, Rancid, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments
.543: The Fall, Journey
.53: The Chills, The Eagles, The Stone Roses, Cinderella
.47: Metallica, U2, Soundgarden, the Japandroids
.469: REO Speedwagon, Husker Du, Wings, Best Coast, Slade
.444: Sweet, Poison, Crosby Stills & Nash, Depeche Mode, Supergrass
.39: Ra Ra Riot, Cornershop, Dokken, Roxy Music
.345: Aerosmith, Styx, Paramour5, Black Oak Arkansas
.32: Uriah Heep, Grizzly Bear
.3: Spacehog.6
.28: Rage Against the Machine, Rilo Kiley, The Doors
.24: Primus, Black Flag, Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force
.2: The Dave Matthews Band, Wavves, Foo Fighters
.18: April Wine, Black Eyed Peas, Joy Division
.15: Incubus, Spoon, Gaslight Anthem, Iron and Wine
.1: Porno for Pyros, Kaiser Chiefs, Bat for Lashes, Asia
.05: Crash Test Dummies
.025: Green Day, Alabama
.01: The Fabulous Thunderbirds

I will concede that some of these rankings are debatable

The fiberglass backboard article by Bryan Curtis is just fantastic. Especially for anyone who used endless hours as a kid shooting in driveways thinking about issues related to growing up.

+ 1000

Absolutely great article. I can certainly relate.

If you hate Laurence, then don't listen - don't comment. When he co-hosts the B&B show, take that day off ... listen to an old podcast of a Bernstein solo show and jerk off all day.

Allegedly it's a serious sports website maintained by a man whose critical rigorousness about sports can often be measured by going to the IMDB "memorable quotes" page for a movie and trying to apply it to some random category like "interceptions made by New England Patriots, 2001-2010." Allegedly it's a serious cultural website maintained by a man whose cultural mind looks like one of those spooky MRIs of "ecstasy brains," with all the black dead spots, and a bit where someone burned "SWEEP THE LEG" into it with a laser scalpel. Its celebrity contributors list reads like a Who's Who of people whose only metric for understanding the human experience is the singular preciousness of themselves or the nauseating insipidity of corporate-retreat science.

Of course I read the post, that's why I responded. I didn't read the article you linked cuz the quote was stupid enough.

That's fine. I'm not here to impress you, I don't even recognize your name.

If you think Gladwell's writing is movie references and lame sports analysis you couldn't have sounded more ignorant. Congrats.

Allegedly, whoever authored that article is an idiot. Grantland is about writing craftsmanship. And every contributor on there is better at that craft than "mrdestructo"

It's funny how as soon as a new website or idea is published on the net, there is always some talking head ready and waiting to tell everyone exactly how "bad" it supposedly is.

You're right, that's mainly Simmons' forte (though Gladwell's sports analysis is also mediocre, as best represented by his concussion article). I should have included "simplistic scientific writing on topics only superficially understood" in my list to represent Gladwell's contribution to the revolution.

You clearly don't have any journalism training/education. There's a reason sports writing is called the toy department of the industry. Get a clue before spouting off.

You may fool some people sometimes, but anyone who knows anything about writing can tell you are pulling random personal insults out of your ass and disguising them as professional criticisms.

You clearly don't have any journalism training/education. There's a reason sports writing is called the toy department of the industry. Get a clue before spouting off.

You may fool some people sometimes, but anyone who knows anything about writing can tell you are pulling random personal insults out of your ass and disguising them as professional criticisms.

Exactly.

Everything Zeph has said about Grantland.com can be easily summed up: "I don't like Bill Simmons."