The Shaq Trade: Four Years Later

I like to think that Mitch Kupchak, in the year following the Shaq trade, woke up in a cold sweat more than a few times. I mean, here you have a guy charged with meeting the trade demands of potentially the most iconic LA athlete since Magic Johnson. How he dealt with this impossible situation would not only define his legacy as a GM, but would also shape the sports landscape of an entire city for the next decade.

After the Lakers fell to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals, the team was at a crossroads unlike any it had seen since at least the summer it acquired Shaquille O'Neal - and there was no clear road to salvation. That was because the Lakers had a multitude of issues at hand. Foremost among them was the ongoing feud between Shaq and Kobe. Kobe had ruffled feathers in the organization by announcing before the season that he intended to opt out of his contract the following summer and test free agency. This, plus his ongoing rape trial in Colorado (as well as the fact that he "ratted out" Shaq for sleeping with NBA groupies), cast a shadow over the whole organization.

That would be bad enough if Shaq hadn't brought issues of his own to the table. During a pre-season game, Shaq threw down a thunderous dunk and, following the play, turned toward owner Jerry Buss, who was sitting on the sideline. "Show me the money!" Shaq yelled, referring to his desire for a contract extension in excess of $100 million. Dr. Buss was irked that Shaq put him on the spot like this in a public situation.

And, of course, we can't forget the ongoing issues between Kobe and Phil Jackson, culminating in Jackson deeming Kobe "uncoachable" and angrily demanding he be traded during the season. Clearly, this was a situation with no easy resolution. In the war for control of the Lakers, there were going to be casualties.

The first domino fell almost immediately after the Lakers lost the decisive Game 5 in Detroit, with Jackson all but admitting that he would not be back to coach the Lakers. Soon after, Shaq publicly demanded a trade. Plus, Kobe was now holding the organization hostage with his impending free agency. It was a perfect storm of crap, and one that, as we'll see, not even the league's best GM could have come out of unscathed.

But let's digress for a moment and take a look at what was going on in Miami. The Heat, which had been an Eastern Conference powerhouse for the last half of the 90s, had fallen on hard times around the turn of the century. In a way, the late 90s Heat were like the late 80s Hawks, a supremely talented team that just couldn't get over the hump. Coach/GM Pat Riley decided he had had enough in 2000 and opened the team checkbook, signing forward Briant Grant from Portland and trading P.J. Brown and Jamal Mashburn to the Hornets for Eddie Jones. These players, along with Alonzo Mourning and the other veterans, made the Heat a trendy pick to reach the Finals and challenge the Lakers.

Nothing went according to Riley's plan. Seemingly moments after making these acquisitions, Mourning discovered that he had a kidney disorder and would need a transplant. He ended up missing 69 games in the 2000-01 season, and the burden fell to Grant and Eddie Jones, along with aging players like Tim Hardaway and Dan Majerle, to shoulder the load. While the Heat made the playoffs, they were swept in the first round, ironically by the Hornets. The next couple seasons saw the Heat tumble into the lottery and select Caron Butler, sign the undrafted Udonis Haslem and free agent Lamar Odom and, of course, draft Dwyane Wade.

For a team, coach, and fanbase so accustomed to success, this sudden decline was disheartening, to say the least. So much so, in fact, that Riley decided just before the 2003-04 season that he no longer felt like coaching and handed the team over to assistant Stan Van Gundy. The Heat, at this point, were widely expected to be one of the league's worst teams, especially after getting off to a woeful start and dealing with injuries.

Then a funny thing happened - the young team gelled and ended up making the playoffs as a number 6 seed, knocking out the Hornets in round one, and taking the number 1 seed Pacers to 6 games in round two before falling. The team suddenly had a bright future, especially considering Butler had missed much of the season with injuries. The core of Butler, Odom and Wade, along with role players like Haslem and vets like Grant and Jones, had the Heat poised to grow and contend for a long time.

Anyway, back to the Lakers. With Jackson gone, the Lakers had a few major objectives. First, they had to solve the Shaq-Kobe standoff. Would they keep Shaq and sign him to an extension, thereby hoping Kobe would come around and stay as well? Or would they trade Shaq and then hope Kobe re-signed? We all know what they decided, but for the sake of argument, let's take a look at the possible scenarios that could have developed.

Scenario 1: Shaq and Kobe realize they need each other, kiss and make up, and stay with the Lakers. Shaq signs an extension that pays him nearly $30 million a year and Kobe re-signs for the maximum allowable (over $20 million per season).

Pro: The league's two best players (at the time) stay together. The Lakers still have enough juice to make a run at a title. Kobe's good name remains untainted (despite the fact that he, um, probably raped someone. But people didn't really get down on him until he "ran Shaq out of town." Oh sports fans).

Con: Yeah RIGHT. Beyond the fact that there was never a chance of this happening for logistical reasons (you couldn't put these two in the same room by the end of the season), the financial ramifications would have been staggering. One of the biggest reasons Shaq got traded wasn't because he and Kobe didn't get along, but because he wanted such a massive contract extension. Shaq was adamant that he wanted in excess of $20 million a year, and Kobe also wanted a max deal (and at the time, both deserved it). Had the Lakers done this, they would have been paying 2 players over $50 million a year! For those keeping score at home, in the 2004-05 season, the salary cap was around $55 million, while the luxury tax threshold was a little over $60 million. That means that in order to fill out their roster, the Lakers would have had to pay the luxury tax. For those unaware, when a team passes the luxury tax threshold, it has to pay a dollar for every dollar it goes over. So a $10 million contract actually costs the team $20 million, and so on. As we saw during the Lakers' mismanaged title run offseasons, Buss would rather eat his own children than pay the luxury tax. Put simply, there was absolutely, positively no way this was happening unless Shaq was asked to take a substantial pay cut. And that would have only pissed him off more.

Scenario 2: The Lakers keep Shaq and let Kobe walk away.

Pro: Shaq stays to anchor the team he led to 3 titles and continues to strike fear into the hearts of Western Conference opponents. The Lakers use the cap room gained from Kobe's departure to upgrade various aspects of the team in a way they never could during the title years. Plus, the drama comes to an end (well, maybe).

Con: Of all the scenarios listed here, this could have potentially been the most disastrous for the Lakers. Sure, Shaq would still be in LA, but things wouldn't have been rosy by any means. For one, Shaq would have gotten his fat contract, likely $25-30 million per. That's fine until you remember that big men often age rapidly in their 30s, especially when they have infamously awful offseason conditioning habits. The cap room would have been a boon for the team's flexibility, but knowing the Lakers (and the NBA, really) much of this probably would have been taken up by "panic signings." In other words, we probably would have seen guys like Larry Hughes and Kenyon Martin in Laker jerseys had this gone down. Even if they had gotten it right, though, and signed guys like Gilbert Arenas or Carlos Boozer, they would still have had Shaq taking up a massive chunk of payroll and not getting any younger. To be even more blunt, the Lakers would be in the same position Miami is in now (which we'll discuss later), only arguably worse off. And this is before you remember Kobe likely would have signed with the Clippers. This would have been a marketing NIGHTMARE, especially considering the Lakers make a whole lot more money off Kobe than they ever made off Shaq.

Scenario 3: Lakers say to hell with it, trade Shaq and let Kobe walk away.

Pro: Mountains of delicious cap room. No more drama. Um...

Con: It doesn't matter if the Lakers had signed Arenas AND Boozer to replace them - the fans would have rioted and burned down Staples Center. On the flip side, this is an intriguing combination of ballsy and stupid that I would like to see any NBA team try.

Oh wait. The Bulls did this in 1998. Oops.

Scenario 4: The Lakers trade Shaq and re-sign Kobe.

Pro: Lakers get deeper, Kobe stays.

Con: Lots of them, which we know very well since this is what actually went down. But here's a run-down in case you don't know or have forgotten:

-The only teams that ever had a realistic shot at trading for Shaq were Indiana, Dallas and Miami. Of these three teams, Indiana was the least interested because trading for Shaq would have involved giving up Jermaine O'Neal, who was 8 years younger and cheaper. Dallas would have had to give up Dirk but likely still would have let Nash walk because of Shaq's salary. Considering how they disintegrated the next year, would the Pacers have made this trade if they were able to see into the future? Yeah, if it involved tossing Ron Artest to the Lakers.

-Since Indiana was never serious and the Mavs refused to trade Dirk, Kupchack's hands were tied. Trying to get anything he could, he traded Shaq to Miami for Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler, and a 2006 first rounder. He was skewered for the deal, which analysts and sportswriters like ESPN's Bill Simmons referred to as "the Shaquille O'Neal pupu platter."

-The Lakers rounded this out by drafting Sasha Vujacic, signing Vlade Divac to play center, trading Gary Payton to the Celtics for Chris Mihm, Jumaine Jones and Chucky Atkins, and luring Rudy Tomjanovich out of retirement to coach. On paper, this team wasn't awful. It was extremely young and athletic with a reasonable amount of upside. Plus it still had the game's best overall player...but no Big Fella.

-Just like Riley's dream season in 2000, the Lakers' young season quickly imploded. Following a public falling out between Kobe and former teammate Karl Malone, the public began to turn on Kobe. This reached an apex when Laker fans cheered wildly for Shaq during a Christmas Day game between the Lakers and Heat (which the Lakers lost). Things got even worse when Tomjanovich abruptly resigned due to health concerns 38 games into the season (some speculate that the "health issues" were Kobe himself). At this point, the Lakers were 22-16 and playing reasonably well. Losing their coach, however, sent them into a tailspin as they finished the season 11-33 and lost Kobe to injury for a prolonged stretch.

-Meanwhile, Shaq instantly upgraded the Heat to the Eastern Conference elite, teaming with Wade to lead them within one game of the first NBA Finals in franchise history. The next year, the two would get over the hump and reach the Finals, winning a controversial series in which Wade was named MVP.

Now look, as a Laker fan, I have to admit this - there is absolutely no way in hell anyone can say with a straight face that the Lakers got the better of this trade. The second the clock ran down in Game 6, the Heat officially got the better of it - they won a title. The Lakers, meanwhile, made decent strides in their second year. But their youth became their own worst enemy when they blew a 3-1 series lead to number 2 seed Phoenix in the first round. The next year they took a step back and got blown out in round one by Phoenix, then endured a summer of Kobe Bryant trade speculation (due to Kobe's unhappiness with his "supporting cast").

After missing the playoffs in 2005 for the fourth time in franchise history (seriously), the Lakers got a rare lottery pick and drafted center Andrew Bynum. Deciding that Butler duplicated many of the skills Kobe and Odom possessed, the Lakers, in need of size, traded him to Washington for former number one pick (and frequent contender for the WORST PLAYER EVER AWARD) Kwame Brown. They also drafted Jordan Farmar with the Heat's draft pick and eventually brought back Derek Fisher and signed Vladimir Radmanovich.

A little over a quarter through the 2007-2008 season, the Lakers are one of the league's most interesting yet enigmatic teams. They possess a surprising amount of young talent in Bynum, Farmar, Trevor Ariza and second-round steals Luke Walton and Ronny Turiaf. As I type this, I'm watching the Lakers beat the Sixers with Bynum having a career scoring night and 3 players with 20 points apiece...and Kobe isn't one of them. While they aren't inspiring fear in San Antonio, Phoenix, or Dallas at this point, the Lakers are as promising as any up-and-coming team in the league...which is a whole lot more than I could have said for them as recently as this summer.

And then there's the Heat. After winning their title in 2006, just about nothing has gone according to plan for Shaq and D-Wade's team. First they stood pat with the team that won the championship, forgetting that the team had a myriad of issues and rode a wave of momentum (and dispatched an uninterested Pistons team) on the way to a title. The Heat got off to a slow start and had to play every game like a playoff game just to make the postseason, sneaking in as a sixth seed before getting swept in the first round by Chicago.

During this struggle to make the playoffs, Wade hurt his shoulder and missed the beginning of this season. The Heat responded to his absence by shipping out two of Riley's doghouse players (James Posey and Antoine Walker) and getting Mark Blount and Ricky Davis in return. Despite this, the team missed Wade and Shaq started to do what Dr. Buss always feared he would: He got old. Real old. Averaging 14 points and 8 rebounds, Shaq is a shell of his former self and has even been called out by Riley and Wade for not pulling his weight (literally) on the team. Arguably, Shaq is being outperformed by young Bynum, the guy replacing him in LA.

Miami's problems run deeper, however, than being 7-19 and dead last in the Southeast Division. See, Shaq got his contract with the Heat, albeit for less money than he wanted from the Lakers (probably as some sort of "screw you" gesture), but still a hefty $20 million a season all the way until 2010. In the 2006 offseason, Wade signed an extension that will keep him in a Heat uniform 5 additional years after his rookie deal expires, except that he has an opt-out clause after 3 years. Scarier than this, however, is the fact that the NBA tacitly encourages Wade's "fall down seven times, get up eight" style of play. He constantly throws himself around and risks injury and is helped out by favorable whistles. Worse, having to pull the team out of these early season holes while Shaq works himself into shape is putting more wear and tear on the youngster's body than he should be having to deal with at this point. Truthfully, at this point you're going to call Wade the next anything, it may just be "The next T-Mac" due to these sudden injury concerns.

Far from the young team that nearly shocked the Pacers in the 2004 playoffs, this Heat team is old. Real old. The Heat do have younger players like Wade, Dorell Wright, Haslem and rookie Daequen Cook, but these guys are off-set by older and/or ineffective players like Jason Williams, Mark Blount, Ricky Davis and O'Neal. And sadly, the Heat's best older player, Alonzo Mourning himself, likely had his career end the other night when he tore a knee ligament. So help isn't exactly on the way. The Heat are going to have a hard time filling holes the next few years, largely because of Shaq's mammoth contract and the raises due to Wade in that stretch. The best Riley can hope for, at the moment, is a favorable draft pick and/or a shrewd trade or two...though that whole Ricky Davis experiment hasn't exactly worked out. While I'm not going to guarantee the Heat will be trapped in lottery hell the next few years, they have a better chance of this happening than the Lakers...and they play in the weaker East.

The bottom line, four years later, is this: in every sport, up-and-coming teams are constantly faced with a dilemma: do we mortgage our future to win now? The Heat took this chance and were rewarded with a title. However, it's looking like as a result of this decision, they may have given up their chance to win another title, or perhaps more. And that's before remembering that Wade has an opt-out clause three years into his new deal. If he isn't happy with the direction of the team, he could easily walk out the door to greener pastures.

It's unreasonable to speculate what would have happened to the Heat had they not traded for Shaq, but it's reasonable to assume that they could have kept improving and contended in the East for years. Now, they're facing a rebuilding process earlier than they would have otherwise. It's very possible that, by the time his opt-out appears, Wade could find himself in a very similar situation to the one Kobe is in right now - a team that isn't a lottery team but isn't elite either (on a different note, it frustrates me to no end that GMs are unable to surround talented players like Wade and LeBron with decent players. Sigh).

While the Heat took the plunge and were rewarded with a championship, there are two other cautionary tales for a team faced with the same dilemma the Heat found themselves in 4 years ago - the question of whether to win now or continue building.

The first comes in Chicago, which went through multiple rebuilding processes after Michael Jordan retired. As the team floundered year after year it compiled an impressive war chest of young talent, including players like Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Tyson Chandler and Thabo Sefolosha. When the team began to improve and make the playoffs many felt that the Bulls' Achilles' Heel was the fact that they didn't have a reliable low-post scorer and, further, a legitimate go-to guy at the end of games. For a few years, they were the only team with enough young talent and cap space to land players like Pau Gasol and Kevin Garnett. They continually turned down chances to acquire marquee players in order to keep stockpiling young players, their lone acquisition of a big-time veteran coming in the form of Ben Wallace...who isn't exactly Garnett or Gasol in the low-post. Now, the team is in a tailspin and continues to lack a go-to guy. Not only that, but the luster has worn off many of the Bulls' blue chip players. Gordon is seen as a glorified sixth man, some doubt if Deng can be a marquee player, Thomas appears to be a rich man's Stromile Swift, and Noah can't shoot worth a damn. All of that trade leverage is suddenly gone. Unfortunately, when the eggs went bad, the Bulls were the one left holding the carton with no KG or Gasol to show for it.

On the flipside is the San Antonio Spurs, the most consistently successful team since Jordan retired. After winning one title in the lockout season, the Spurs watched the Lakers win three straight championships. After drafting Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, the Spurs had a duo of promising young players to go with their veterans and finally broke through to win another title in the 2002-03 season. After this, however, they were faced with a dilemma. Jason Kidd was suddenly available, and the Spurs thought long and hard about trading Parker to the Nets to acquire the veteran point guard. Despite the fact that Kidd was the league's best point guard and could likely have made the Spurs one of the all-time greatest teams, the Spurs stuck with Tony Parker. Two more titles later, with more potentially on the way, the decision looks genius. Parker is still only 25 and was named Finals MVP last year. Further, the stability this has given the Spurs has allowed them to win consistently without any huge shake-ups.

As you can see, the decision to mortgage the future can pay dividends, and it can also lead to even more suffering. On the flipside, knowing when to roll the dice is an inexact science and a team can easily end up like the Bulls. Or they can be like the Spurs, stick with their guys, and hit the jackpot.

Ironically, the Lakers were in the same position last year, also involving Kidd. The Lakers chose not to trade for him, as New Jersey wanted Bynum in the deal. Now, Bynum is averaging a double-double and Kidd is still unhappy in Jersey.

In the end, as a basketball fan, it makes sense to ask yourself: would you rather your team won a title now and rebuilt for years, or take the chance that the current group of guys will find a way to win?

There's no easy answer. Especially if you're John Paxson.

Or Mitch Kupchak.

I should write for the Onion

So sitting here watching ESPN, like I do every day, I found myself inundated about sports coverage from various talking heads. They bitched about the usual crap (The Cowboys are doomed, Nick Saban is the anti-christ, Mark McGwire is the co-anti-christ, Pat Riley's hip is the associate anti-christ, etc.), but then they started talking about LaDainian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers winning the NFL MVP award. This, coupled with my reading of a CNN article at the time about the war in Iraq, suddenly made me realize how the Onion puts out such ridiculous stories. So, without further ado...

LaDainian Tomlinson Dispatched to Iraq - NFL MVP to Juke, Stiff-Arm Sectarian Violence

The U.S. military received a much-needed shot in the arm to start the 2007 season with the surprise deployment of NFL MVP LaDainian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers to the battlefield in Iraq.
Tomlinson, who recently set the NFL single-season record for rushing touchdowns, is expected to provide much needed speed, agility, and breakaway potential for an offense currently banged up, with nagging injuries to its morale and resolve.
"Any football coach will tell you that you don't win games unless you can establish the run early on," said United States President George W. Bush. "The addition of LT will finally give us a workhorse that we can ride to victory."
Since beginning the campaign in Iraq in March of 2003, the United States military's success against the Iraqi defense has dissipated with each passing month.
"What began as a swiss-cheese, Indianapolis Colts-style defense has suddenly seen a scrappy late-season surge akin to the Philadelphia Eagles," said United States General John Abezaid.
Abezaid feels that one of the things that the military has lacked since beginning the campaign was a dependable option in the backfield that could be deployed at a moment's notice to keep the enemy off-balance. In turn, the Iraqi defense has all but neutralized the previously potent United States air attack, making a strong ground game that much more important.
"It's really all about time of possession, which is obvious to even the most passive observer," Abezaid said. "With our resources, we feel that a time of possession battle really tends to favor the United States. We can afford to wait."
The excitement felt over Tomlinson's arrival is palpable in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, where Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki greeted the news with cheers while brandishing a San Diego Chargers powder blue retro jersey.
"Our ability to pound the rock with Mr. Tomlinson 30-40 times per engagement is the key to loosening the hold that [radical Shi'ite cleric] Muqtada Al-Sadr has over the hearts and minds of the people," Al-Maliki said while drawing up battle plans with a telestrator.
Not all are impressed with Tomlinson's arrival in the Middle East, however. Least of all Al-Sadr himself, who dismissed the tailback with an age-old saying.
"The American infidels would be wise to remember that defense wins championships," Al-Sadr said in a videotaped appearance on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption. "Send over Mr. Tomlinson's teammate, defensive lineman Shawne Merriman, and then we'll talk."

Take Me Out to the Goddamned Ballgame Already

You know, it kind of made sense at first. I mean, look at it like this - on September 11th, the World Trade Center fell, lives changed, the country's direction changed...I don't have to spell it out for you, we all know this because we all lived it. Anyway, the most immediately tangible thing that helped people heal was sports, as much as some people may claim that sports are inconsequential compared to what happened.
Truthfully, they are. Yet they provided an escape (especially for the people of New York) from the horrific events had just occurred.
But really, the period immediately after 9/11 was the only time it made any conceivable sense to play "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch of a baseball game. And that might have even been a stretch.
I say this because in watching the 2006 World Series, I've been surprised to notice that, on national telecasts, they STILL play "God Bless America" during the stretch. And not even in New York, either - they do it in Detroit, St. Louis, Oakland...everywhere. Yet when the game isn't nationally televised, at least here in southern California, teams still play "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
What gives? I fail to see the logic behind any of this - are we saying that 9/11 has made baseball more serious and somber? That baseball is suddenly a mouthpiece for patriotism? Sure, baseball is America's pastime (well, arguably nowadays), but we can't forget one simple thing - it's a game. Do we need to be reminded every single time we watch a nationally televised game that we should be saluting the flag? We already sing the national anthem before every sporting event. Do we really need to do this too?
In the 2001 World Series, New Yorkers (and Americans, really) used the game as a release, as something to root for in a new world where a war was being fought against the most intangible enemy in the nation's history.
Yeah, we should remember what happened, but we should also use our leisure activities to relax. If terrorists had crashed a jetliner into Yankee Stadium in the middle of the World Series, that would've been a different story - but that's not what happened. Baseball had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. So why do we pretend that it did?
When I watch a baseball game, I want to think about banal things, like whether pine tar was on Kenny Rogers' hand, or whether Jeff Weaver has girlier hair than my girlfriend.
There's obviously a place in this country for "God Bless America," the most beautiful of all songs about America (and one that I feel should be the national anthem).
It's just not in a baseball stadium.

"I got a good feeling!"

I had no idea what spooning was until I was about 17. At that age, I was informed of the practice and what it meant. Nice, there’s something else learned and filed away, I thought.
Though it still didn’t make, "You spoony bard!" make a damned bit of sense.
Okay, so I lied. I had heard the term “spooning,” or a derivative of it, used before. Yet it wasn’t from any of my friends or from film, music or TV. Rather, it was from a video game. Final Fantasy IV, to be exact.
The line is uttered by the character Tellah, a senile old man, to his daughter’s boyfriend Edward, a bard whom he disapproves of. I’m assuming that the writers intended Tellah to call Edward a man-whore or something of that nature, but through a combination of Nintendo censorship and a Japanese to English translation error, the bizarre cry of “You spoony bard!” emerged. Though to be fair to poor Tellah, who meets his demise attempting to cast the Meteor (rendered as "Meteo" due to the game’s memory limitations) spell and being drained by the action (seeing as how he doesn’t even have enough magic points to cast the spell), Edward is probably the crappiest character ever in a Final Fantasy title; the guy is a bard, for Christ’s sake. He’s so useless he makes Relm from Final Fantasy VI look good, and all she did was paint crap (and, in a bizarre twist of fate, could delete your save file). This was before Okami made painting as a means to violence totally awesome, by the way.
Anyway, Final Fantasy IV was a high profile game for the Super Nintendo 15 years ago, yet this didn’t mean it was free of bizarre translation errors like this one. In fact, this was common in countless video games for years.
Recently though, games have become a multi-billion dollar industry, and game developers and translators are doing more painstaking work in ensuring that game scripts make sense and are well-localized. And in theory, this is great; it lends games an air of legitimacy that will help slugs like Roger Ebert recognize them as more than toys.
Me, though, I’m going to miss the quirks that emerge from a crappy translation.
The most exposure that many have had to woeful game translations was probably the infamous "All Your Base" internet joke from about 5 or 6 years back. This joke was a video that included the American intro of the arcade game Zero Wing and a makeshift song constructed out of quotes from the intro. And that’s not even mentioning the astonishing ending.
Zero Wing, the internet phenomenon aside, is an extreme and obscure example, but even more well-known games weren’t able to escape localization quirks. While these were pretty annoying at the time and in some games succeeded in making dramatic moments laughable, in retrospect (for me at least) they only enhance the character of these games. Some examples:
Metroid – The original game in this classic Nintendo series contains a screen of introductory text that makes little to no sense. The ending isn't much better. "Mechanical life vein?" What the hell?
Ring King – An obscure wrestling game for the original Nintendo. This one actually doesn’t contain a literal translation error. Instead, it attempts to completely gloss over the fact that, between rounds, players appear to be, um…maybe it’s better if you watch the video. It may just be an unfortunate and vague animation, but judge for yourself. Looks pretty clear to me.
Final Fantasy Tactics – Zero Wing aside, this game is the mother lode of wonky translations. FFT differs from the other games listed here in that its localization woes can at times actually affect gameplay. At one point in the game, you fight the main character Ramza's brother Dycedarg, the eldest brother in the family. Well, in the “conditions for victory” that are listed in battle, you are told to do something rather contradictory. This can cause even the most seasoned player to take pause and utter a “WTF.” The game contains countless other screw-ups, such as the constant misspelling of character names (the spelling constantly goes back and forth, leading to confusion as to just who the hell the game is talking about) and basically the whole sequence of events that occurs when you send characters off on jobs with confusing objectives in pubs and taverns you come across in the game. This entails your characters being gone for a while, then returning and giving a “job report” on how things went. These reports are often gut-bustingly funny, because they all play out in EXACTLY the same way, with one character narrating a numbing story of entering a cave and finding a chest, while the other will randomly burst in with non-sequiturs. Nothing, though, can top the in-game tutorial, narrated by a character named Professor Daravon. I would say that Daravon speaks in riddles, except that these riddles are being told by a rather slow-witted individual and have no meaning behind them. The Professor talks at length about "ability" and how to use it, as well as a stirring thesis on the concept of time. Never have I seen a tutorial that only succeeded in confusing me further. It’s like the one time I actually decided to read the chapter in Honors Biology in 9th grade and got so thoroughly confused that I ended up actually doing worse on a test.
Final Fantasy VII – This one just speaks for itself.
Metal Gear – Long before the series got flashier and more cinematic than even some movies, it once had low production values and a piss-poor translation. This is apparent in an early encounter with a narcoleptic guard, and in just about every conversation with hero Snake's superior, Big Boss, who judging by these exchanges is likely the most incompetent government agent of all time. It’s sort of ironic when you consider that the production values of the Metal Gear games nowadays rival those of major Hollywood blockbusters.
The Legend of Zelda - And you thought you'd seen it all. People forget how seriously screwed up this classic game's translation actually was. It has capitalistic commands, ominous warnings, some "aw shucks" revelations, and even a thinly veiled attempt to turn impressionable children into gamblers.
So yeah, in the end, maybe this is a good thing, as people may now start to actually take games seriously.
But dammit, if that means we’re going to be deprived of comedic gold like this, I’m not sure if the legitimacy of an art form is really worth it.

Crikey...

My first encounter with Steve Irwin was eerily prophetic.
One night in high school, a friend told me to turn on Animal Planet to “watch a complete lunatic in a safari outfit narrowly avoid death.”
I proceeded to watch my first episode of “The Crocodile Hunter,” fascinated by what I was seeing. Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was playing with extremely poisonous cobras and the creatures were obviously irritated. At one point, a cobra struck at him and he dodged its attack, which missed his hand my mere inches. Irwin, more winded than startled, remarked, “Crikey! That was a close one!”
Now, here we are five years later dealing with the news that Steve Irwin has died doing what he loved: studying animals and educating others about them. I always half-heartedly joked that Irwin was going to get himself seriously hurt or even killed one day, as evidenced by episodes of his show where he frolicked with lions, elephants and dangerous reptiles. Yet never once did I honestly believe it would actually happen.
Nor did I think it would happen the way it did.
When I jokingly said Irwin could get himself killed, I always thought it would be as a result of messing with a truly dangerous animal – mauled by a tiger or, in a twist of “Grizzly Man”-esque irony, eaten by a crocodile. Instead, Irwin met his end at the hands of what many wildlife experts call “the pussycat of the sea.”
Some may remember a few years back when Irwin took flak for feeding a crocodile with his infant son in his other hand. People were appalled and called him irresponsible, saying it was emblematic of his “risky behavior.”
I didn’t see it the same way.
This wasn’t Michael Jackson holding his child over a balcony. Yes, Irwin’s actions were unwise, but they showed how much trust he placed not only in himself, but in the animals he studied. He was confident in his ability to protect his son and to interact with dangerous creatures. In an interview with Larry King shortly after this happened, Irwin said that if he treated animals respectfully and understood them and their ways of life, he had nothing to fear. Some have suggested that Irwin did these outrageous things for ratings and that his death is a sign that people will only meet tragic ends trying to please fickle audiences.
This is a shoddy argument, one that would make sense only if Irwin had died doing something universally dangerous. And even then, I’m not sure. Being killed by a sting ray has to be one of the rarest deaths in the entire world. The fact that CNN had to run a story after Irwin’s death where it interviewed marine biologists who assured people that sting rays aren’t dangerous shows how truly outrageous this whole tragedy is. I wouldn’t be that shocked if sting rays, in the 2000s, develop a reputation like sharks in the 70s when “Jaws” came out.
Regardless of the circumstances or how he was viewed by the public, Irwin’s death is profoundly sad. Not just because he was so young or because he had two young children, but because he was someone who had so much to offer. It’s extremely rare that someone gets so much pleasure out of pleasing and educating others. Irwin didn’t do what he did for thrill-seeking or because he was attention-starved. There’s a difference between taking risks Steve Irwin-style and taking risks David Blaine-style.
Irwin interacted with these dangerous animals to educate people about them and to show them what they were missing sitting in their houses. Or perhaps, more importantly, what they stood to lose from the world if the environment continued to be destroyed.
The Prime Minister of Australia offered Irwin’s family a state funeral (which they fittingly declined because Steve was “an ordinary bloke”) for a man who was an Australian folk hero. I tried to think of a figure in America whose death would be reacted to in a similar fashion. Who is a true American folk hero like the Crocodile Hunter, I thought?
In perhaps the greatest compliment to Steve Irwin and his family, I couldn’t think of anyone.

"Et por quoi?! ET POR QUOI?!?!"

In other news, the World Cup final delivered a satisfying conclusion. No, not because one of my countries of ancestry won the cup and not because we didn’t see Brazil win again (thank God), but rather because this game contained possibly the most hysterical, bizarre, inexplicable yet strangely fitting climax I’ve seen in a while: the Zinedine Zidane headbutt.
I mean, let’s be serious here – Zinedine Zidane is one of the greatest soccer players of at least the past twenty years. He delivered France its only World Cup title eight years ago and was on the verge of doing it again, this time with a French team no one thought had a chance to get out of group play, much less score a goal at one point. And I mean, we see people come up short in situations like this. Look at the World Series last year – Biggio and Bagwell had sentiment on their side and the Astros had battled through the postseason only to be embarrassed by Bobby Jenks’ fastball and a light-hitting outfielder who suddenly thought he was Reggie Jackson. Or take Karl Malone’s last hurrah with the Lakers. Things don’t always have storybook endings. Look at Michael Jordan’s second comeback or Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath’s ignonimous career endings (for the record, I’m talking about Namath’s year with the LA Rams, not his decidedly one-sided 2003 sideline tryst with Suzy Kolber; though this incident did make Suzy Kolber strangely attractive to me in spite of the fact that she talks like a wrestling announcer).
But Zidane’s headbutt is beyond any of this. His international career doesn’t simply end with a loss, which is how these things usually go. No, Zidane’s career ended in the same fashion as Joe Theismann’s (though the only way Zidane’s headbutt would have been as traumatic as that horrific scene would’ve been if Materrazi’s heartbeat had been interrupted and he had died on the field) – in an utterly unforgettable spectacle akin to an on-field supernova.
This whole scene reminded me a lot of what ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote when he previewed this year’s Spurs-Kings opening round playoff series. Simmons said that he expected the series to go seven games, but that the Kings would ultimately come up short in the seventh game. He said this would likely happen after Ginobili flopped while guarding Artest, followed by Artest helping him up and then body-slamming him to the floor without changing his expression at all. When you think about it, this is exactly what Zidane did in a lot of ways.
Watch the video – Zidane’s expression never changes the entire time (even when Mazterrazi appears to give him a titty-twister), and the way in which he goes about the attack is just exceedingly non-chalant.
Here’s something else to chew on – precisely how were these two communicating. I mean, here you have a Frenchman and an Italian – I highly doubt that Zidane was speaking Italian, and I don’t think Materrazi would even attempt to speak French. In that case, this means that this entire exchange was probably carried out in extremely broken English. I like to imagine Materrazi, in a thick Italian accent, gesturing his hands wildly and saying something like “YOU-A DIRTY ALGERIAN, I FUCK-A YOUR MOTHER” while Zidane calmly mutters “Sacre Bleu” (in the same tone as Napoleon in the water slide in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and rams his forehead into Materrazi’s sternum.
I don’t see why people are surprised that Zidane did this, either. This is the same guy who stomped on a Saudi Arabian player during a World Cup match in 1998 for no apparent reason.
A lot of people are probably going to say that this headbutt sullies Zidane’s legend in some way. I don’t really see it that way. Look at it like this: The average person doesn’t know who Ron Artest is because of his basketball playing ability; there are players who play similarly to Artest, and these aren’t the kind of players who are typically household names. However, people know Artest because of this, for Christ’s sake.
The average person in America doesn’t give a rat’s ass about soccer, even when the World Cup is on. They’re not going to remember who won, even if it’s the United States (and something tells me that in the bizarre parallel universe where this has actually occurred, people still care more about the Red Sox and Yankees playing chicken with bullpen carts). But I’ll guarantee you one thing – they’ll sure as hell remember the crazy guy who headbutted an opponent in the chest.

"Yes!!!"

I feel bad for kids growing up today and watching the NBA. No, not because they didn’t get to see Michael Jordan play in his prime and no, not because the NBA is the most boringly predictable league in all of professional sports. You might think baseball is boringly predictable with the dominance of the Yankees, but since 1980, 18 different teams have won the World Series. In the same period in the NBA, 8 different teams have won a title.
This isn’t why I feel bad for kids, however. I feel bad for them because they don’t get to hear the greatest song ever composed by man play during telecasts.
That’s right – John Tesh’s “NBA on NBC” theme song is the single greatest musical composition that man has ever created. Nothing the Beatles, Elvis, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan or Marvin Gaye ever recorded can come close to touching this song.
So why does John Tesh beat out all of these formidable musicians? Well, that’s easy.
The “NBA on NBC” theme was easily the greatest “get-pumped-up” song ever written. I have never heard anything more effective at any level. Yes, not even Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” This song could get you excited for some total crap matchup. Pat Riley’s mugging, dirty Knicks against the methodically boring Utah Jazz? Ugh! Then the theme song comes on…and suddenly you’re legitimately excited by the thought of an 82-75 final score. Seriously, this song even got me excited for Game 5 of the 1997 Lakers-Jazz series where 18-year-old Kobe Bryant got his first taste of failure as he hoisted airball after airball in a losing cause (as oddly metaphorical for Bryant’s personality and career trajectory as the entire “Pinkerton” album was for Rivers Cuomo. Downright eerie).
Hearing this song conjures up countless images for me. Jordan’s “final” shot against the Jazz, Reggie Miller’s playoff heroics, the Portland Trailblazer collapse in the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the Suns-Bulls Finals…it never ends.
Of course, with the coming of digital music players, its now possible to listen to this song at any time of the day, anywhere you go. This opens up a whole new can of worms.
Lately, I’ve been walking to campus and class listening to the “NBA on NBC” theme. And let me tell you, it’s like downing twelve Red Bulls in 5 minutes and snorting a bunch of No-Doz for good measure (or, if you prefer, like having 5 consecutive Jager Bombs and playing Broom Ball. Not that I’d know anything about that). You are WIRED.
I walk through crowds on Bruin Walk as this music plays, getting all manner of ridiculous thoughts in my head. As I come up on a slow-walking group of girls, I imagine that they’re a bunch of Pistons defenders and that I must drain fadeaway jumpers over them. I get the uncontrollable desire to set moving screens, particularly on guys who fly down the hill on skateboards. If I’m late for a class, suddenly I have a sense of urgency, as I must drive the lane in crunch-time and hope for a three point play (With Marv Albert saying in my ear,“To the basket…..YES!!!!!”).
I even had a ritual during this year’s NBA Finals where I would mute the volume on my TV and blast this song through our crappy speakers. It really made the games (which I was pretty excited for anyway) that much better.
Why can’t ABC bring this song back? Hell, buy the rights from John Tesh, or NBC, or whoever the hell owns it. Look at it this way – last year, Al Michaels got traded from ABC to NBC for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a Disney character from way back when that NBC Universal still owned the rights to. If the man who asked whether we believe in miracles can be traded for some shitty cartoon, why the hell can’t ABC get the rights to the song I want played at my wedding, my children’s weddings AND my funeral?

Here Goes Nothing

Well, it took me a few years, but I've decided to jump on this whole blog train. I've thought about it a few times before but have never really committed to it. Of course, writing a column in the Daily Bruin (shameless plug) has helped me to further nurture my frequent habit of writing down all the crap that comes into my head at any given time.

And fret not, because I don't intend for this to be one of those countless political blogs where people bitch and moan about the state of the nation without doing anaything about it. Oh, I'll bitch and moan a ton - just about really miniscule and comparatively unimportant things. Pop culture, sports, entertainment, random occurrences in my everyday life - you name it and I'll probably write down something about it.

With that said, I invite you into the baffling world of Pencil Rot. Its name, taken from the Stephen Malkmus song of the same name, implies that putting pen to paper really is becoming a thing of the past - fingers to keyboard is where it's at these days. And when you can type 70 words per minute with two fingers like I can, then, well...I'm not sure where I was going with that, other than attempting to impress the five people reading this with my typing skills.

So yeah. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. If you've ever seen a horrible car accident and slowed down to see the gory details against your better judgment, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Cheers.