I Continue to Not be Impressed by Bill Plaschke

This is pretty late, but Bill Plashke’s column about the Men’s USA hoops team victory over China is good enough to read a little of if you feel like getting mad at something.

The title: Men's basketball: It was a billion to 1, and we did it

Not a good start when the title doesn’t make sense. China has over a billion people, got it, but the USA has 300 million. Also, “we” did nothing. YOU….ate a dick.

The U.S. men's team begins redeeming itself with an Olympic win led by a special K: Coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Special K. Awwww.

The first step was a stomp. The first greeting was a slap. The first words were sung with steals, stuffs and the angriest of slam dunks.

This opening is classic Bill Plaschke nonsense. The first greeting was a slap? Wha?

This wasn't a game, it was a star-spangled banger.

That wasn’t a pun; that was a god-awful pun.

Later:

The prettiest basketball country in the world returned to the Olympics and its roots Sunday with a 101-70 victory over a skilled team, a giant nation and an old stereotype.

Prettiest?

Later:

It has been tagged as the most selfish basketball nation on Earth, but the U.S. showed teamwork intensity normally not seen at any place other than, say, Duke University.

First, the US is totally the most selfish basketball nation in the world. Have you seen the AND1 tour bullshit? We have a league of people who are devoted to playing selfish, showboat basketball. Second: what is teamwork intensity?

What a difference a K makes.

I get it – that rhymed with “day”. Pretty clever!

Kobe Bryant, Wade, James, Howard…..nawwww….it’s all the coach. I could have coached them over China.

Four years ago, the U.S. team selfishly blew a gold medal for the first time since it began sending NBA players to the Olympics in 1992, raising the question of whether our stars had forgotten how to play the game we invented.

How did they selfishly blow it? That makes no sense. The way that sentence is written it implies that they lost in the Olympics for their own gain. They were the wrong guys, coached by the wrong man, given very little time to put together a cohesive team. Kryzewski has better personnel, who have played together, and he has a team that doesn’t expect to just show up and blow teams out, like the ’04 team did. That team was the perfect storm of circumstances that left the US ripe to get beaten.

Here's guessing Coach Mike Krzyzewski won't let them.

In case you’re just figuring it out, this column is all about Plaschke wishing it was Coach K’s dick he was eating.

Later:

Then there were the assists. Seven guys had them, maybe more guys than in all of 2004, the Americans poking and prodding and passing to all those nasty slams.

Seven guys had assists? This is meaningful? Eight guys on China’s team had assists. From what I can quickly discern, between 6 and 8 guys had assists in each of the 2004 games.

But other than that, right on!

Cliffs Notes Version: Bill Plaschke on the Lakers Clinching the West

Same guy, same annoying, cutesy writing. Here is a trimmed down version of his column on the Lakers clinching the Western Conference.

From Finished to Finals.

From Loons to June.

From Shock to Awe.

No more punch lines, just punch…

No more laugh track, just tracks….

Whoever they play… the Lakers will not have home-court advantage.

But for the fourth time, they will have home-run advantage.

Nobody's season...

Nobody's season...

Last summer, remember, Bryant's prayer was that he leave everyone.

Now, his prayer is that everyone follow him.

How did this happen?

How did this happen?

If you don't think … then you haven't been watching.

If you don't think … then you haven't been listening.

So did the San Antonio Spurs. So did the rest of the NBA. So did we.

Now go read the column.

Done?

Didn’t you pretty much get the tone, style and point with 80+% of the words missing?

Why I Can't Stand Bill Plaschke

It's because of lines like this, in his latest column, about the Lakers game 1 win and, more specifically, Pau Gasol.

With his frumpy hair and delicate gait, sometimes he looked like a bird. With his long thin arms spread wide, other times he looked like a plane.

In the end, though, he looked like Super You-Know-Who, scoring 36 points with 16 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a 128-114 victory over the Nuggets in their first-round playoff opener.

Gee I didn't see where that was going.

It was a day of class, with Rick Fox bringing out the ball to start the game.

It was a day of crass, with some Lakers fans chanting, "D-U-I" when Carmelo Anthony shot his first free throws.

It was a day of sass, with Coach Phil Jackson, during pregame interviews, impulsively calling out Shaquille O'Neal for never getting his proper sleep during the playoffs.

But mostly, it was a day of Gas.

Hey! I get it! You RHYMED! How clever!!!!

I hate you.

Your English Teacher Would Dislike Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke of the LA Times has a writing style that I can’t take very often. He could be writing about ME and I would tune him out after 7 one-sentence paragraphs. He also will throw in all these little cutesy statements that are supposed to be clever and/or give us a warm feeling. If you look here, you can see a good representation of his style. There is nothing particularly egregious as far as content goes, this is just his standard work.

A quick summary:
- 878 words
- 33 one sentence paragraphs. 33! His other paragraphs were just as short anyway.
- 40 paragraphs total.

This line:

We're so busy worrying about You Know Who lying, we are missing Ichiro flying, and Junior striding, and K-Rod nearly crying.

But were they all trying? I don’t know I was just eyeing. Larussa had an excuse for shying away from using Pujols in the ninth but I wasn’t buying, and who cares it was so long I was dying.

…and this line:

With Vladimir Guerrero winning the home run-hitting contest and Rodriguez earning the save, the two days were touched by Angels indeed.

Awwwwwwww.