Rick Morrissey Is A Douchenozzle

It's ugly enough watching Vinny Del Negro try to coach a professional basketball team. (For some reason, the words "monkey," "fucking," and "a football" are coming to mind.) But as if to prove that ugly can stretch beyond the Bulls' recent suckitude (indeed, can tend toward the infinite), the Trib's Rick Morrissey has been roused from his armchair to edify his readers with with what he no doubt believes is sound advice: "Bulls Should Throw Joakim Noah Overboard."

This column makes only one argument, but it makes it absolutely brilliantly. The only problem is, it's not the argument that Morrissey believes he is so cleverly making. Indeed, Morrissey's lone argument doesn't proceed from logic or reason (or--heaven forbid!--evidence), and in fact it is not so much rhetorical as it is performative. That is to say, throughout his scribblings, Morrissey makes one thing perfectly, remarkably clear, over and over and over again: "I am a fucking moron. I am a fucking moron. I am a fucking moron." (Or, alternatively, "Pieces of shit columns like this are why the Trib's going bankrupt! Pieces of shit columns like this, etc...")

There are so many perfectly formed pebbles of turd to tweeze out of this stinker, but let's start with this:

Noah informed Andres Nocioni last week that he had missed a defensive assignment, leading to a verbal altercation. That's called being out of touch. Nocioni is to defensive effort what a tornado chaser is to bad hair.

Gee, Rick, bang-on analogy (seriously, dude: a tornado chaser to bad hair??? WTF?), but as Matt explained the other day, the only problem here is that Noah was correct in calling Nocioni out.

It gets even better. Here's my favorite. My Lord, is this perfect nonsense:

Noah, Tyrus Thomas and Larry Hughes were fined after reacting poorly to coach Vinny Del Negro's reminder that Bulls players are not allowed to eat in the locker room before games. The fine, of course, had nothing to do with food and everything to do with who is running the show.

[...]

The truth about professional sports is that if you can play, you can get away with just about anything. In that sense, Noah's problem is a complete lack of awareness. He thinks he can play. And because of it, he gets himself in all sorts of situations he should avoid if he wants to have an NBA career that lasts longer than a few seasons.

The difference between Hughes and the double-headed, inconsistent monster of Noah and Thomas is that Hughes can play a little bit. [Emphasis abso-fucking-lutely gobsmackingly mine]

I repeat: The man actually wrote "Hughes can play a little bit." The man bitching about the Bulls' play in their last three games is complimenting the guard who is 9 for 30 in those games, while averaging 3 assists and 1.67 turnovers. This, so that he can castigate the player shooting 10 of 21 over the same period, while grabbing almost 10 boards a game. Ooh, the stupidity! It burns!

And indeed, though they're obviously very different players, if you compare their two seasons this year, you find the still-developing second-year center outperforming the nine-year guard (who should be roughly in his prime) in just about every meaningful statistical category (PER, True Shooting, Effective FG%, Win Shares, etc.).

Ah, but I'm sorry; I was potty-mouthed during this post (while actually performing research and introducing objective evidence into my argument). Looks like it's off to a Blogger's Ethics Panel for me. And if there was any accountability in this world, while I was there, Rick Morrissey would be in the unemployment line.