Douche Nowitzki?

Ok, I hate Dirk. I don't like watching him play. I don't think he should be the MVP. I don't like the obnoxious faces he makes. I don't like watching him throw tantrums at his teammates. Despite an irrational dislike of Dallas as a city, I can't think of another reason why I dislike the Mavs.

But I think I'm disliking all the Dirk-hating even more. Check out this post and response on ESPN.com:

Jason (Ohio): Hey Chris it boils down to this. In any sport you have players and you have winners. NBA: Dirk is a player, Jordan was a winner. NFL: Dan Marino was a player, Tom Brady is a winner. A winner has a certain moxy to them, they stay cool under pressure, they want the ball when the game is on the line, and they don't make excuses. Dirk is the complete opposite of a winner. He may be a hall of famer someday, but not a winner.

Chris Sheridan: I'll let that one speak for itself, Jason.

First of all, Jason, you sound like a douche. You're not the guy I want telling me who a winner is. Second, this guy has probably been saying the same thing for years. Except after the Super Bowl, he had to sub in Dan Marino for Peyton Manning. People were saying the same crap about Manning every year, but he wound up winning. Did he do something radically different or alter his basic nature? No. He was a great player who had some bad performances, and whose teams had some bad performances.

What's even worse is that Chris Sheridan agrees with him and is egging these guys on! Earlier in the chat, he agreed that Nowitzki isn't mentally tough enough and mentioned trading Dirk for Jermaine O'Neal straight up. I mean, I know he's self-aggrandizing and obnoxious, but he usually sounds overinformed rather than uninformed.

Even the "winners" have crappy performances (Simmons mentioned a few that surprised me in his last blog). And some players do seem to have a little more of an "it" factor then others (uuuuuuuughJeterbuthecaneatabag). But this is the best player on a 67-win team, a guy who had the best PER in the league two years running. He's made tough shots and had some pretty big playoff performances last year (50 on the Suns, knocking off the Spurs). Now, because of a ref screwjob last spring (although he probably did let that get into his head a bit too) and a lousy series against a team that finally gelling after trades, getting healthy and playing defense, you want to trade him for a guy who's salary is larger this year ($18M v. $15M) and over the next four ( $80M v. $69M), and has 2/3 the PER (18.86 v. 27.70)? Iguodala's PER was 18.18 -- would you trade Nowitzki for Iguodala? Ok, bad example because Iguodala is awesome.

Look, when a guy's whose star attribute is not screwing up can't stop screwing up in a playoff series, it's going to get ugly fast. And I don't feel bad for him: he seems like a jerk, I don't like his ass-face, and people can revel in his crapping all they want. But to say that athletes are almost genetically subdivided into "winners" and "players," especially when you have highly visible, recent evidence to the contrary, is ignorant. And to suggest blowing up a 67-win team by shipping off the most efficient player in the league for a more expensive, lesser player whose own mental toughness has been questioned is Joe Morgan-esque.