ESPN's Lebron James insult

As a die hard, and not overly bright sports fan, I probably watch ESPN way too much. But when one wants to catch up on the highlights of the day in the world of sports, there's nothing better than the "trailer" at the bottom of the screen on the 4-letter network.Wait long enough, and it will usually get around to giving you the info you're curious about.

But a short while ago, I felt insulted by those very same 4-letter folks. Anybody with half a brain and a smidgen of self-respect likely felt the same way.

Yeah, we get it. Lebron James was testing the free agent waters and where he wound up was going to be big news in the hoops world. And there was the answer, scrolling across the bottom of the flat screen. Lebron James signs with the LA Lakers for four years for a bazillion dollars. Got it.

But evidently, the ESPN people thought it was such earth-shaking news that they had to repeat it. Immediately the same message was shown again. OK, definitely got it, just in case we missed it the first time. Could happen.

But that wasn't good enough. It was shown a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth time, back-to-back-to-back, etc.

Here's a question. When's the last time you had to tell somebody, even an animal such as a dog, something eight times in a row before you thought they comprehended it? If it doesn't work the first couple times, I would suggest either you're wasting your breath, or the recipient is too stupid to ever have understood it in the first place.

By ESPN doing an eight-peat with the same message, they were basically telling us they thought we were dumber than rocks. Who needs this aggravation? We've already got the politicians to fill our stupid quotas every day.

Problem is, where else can a sports junkie go to get so much quick info across the sports spectrum? On-line? Sure, if you want to look things up one at a time. That could take a while.

Besides, James joining the Lakers isn't really big news at all. With the dearth of talent and abundance of clowns they already have on that team, not to mention Magic Johnson being in charge of assembling the roster, laughable in itself, the LA-LA boys aren't going to be contenders any year soon, with or without LJ. Does anybody seriously think they'll be able to challenge the Golden State Warriors, or Houston Rockets for that matter? All James is getting is glitz, more exposure, if that's even possible, and the sobering fact of being clobbered by the Dubs and Rockets more often every year.

If he thought things were bad in Cleveland, wait until he gets a serious load of reality in the Western Conference of the NBA.

An afterthought. When LJ left the Cavaliers the first time to pursue titles in Miami, the folks back in Buckeyeland burned his jerseys.

True, he brought them a title they wouldn't have got otherwise when he returned.

But now that's he's kicked them to the curb again, will there be Jersey Burning -- the sequel?

Stay tuned.

And BTW, he can kiss his streak of going to the NBA Finals good-bye.