To witness ESPN’s Rob Parker stumble through an anti-Lebron rhetoric on First Take was to internalize a couple of things, none of which, unfortunately, bespoke too much good for either him or the network itself, or perhaps even the sport.
One, of course, is that ESPN has devolved into a sort of big-headed, entropic mess, trying to pass the buck for sports’ waning entertainment value on to undeserving parties, such as a Lebron James, an exciting player who’s almost undoubtedly good for basketball’s popularity level.
The other is that, sure, there is somewhat of a problem of “anti-parody” in the league, currently, and this All-Star Game is proof. The new schoolyard “pickup” format of choosing two “captains” to pick the teams marks a rigid entrance into a new era of the All Star Game, and of the NBA itself — one that rabidly feasts on individual star power as an antidote for the affective decline of the team game.