If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you might know that I think Peter Vecsey of the New York Post is a tool.
I don’t apply the word “tool” to someone often, but here it fits. He is, in every sense of the word, a tool. A fool. A dolt. A writer with bad intentions who seems to take great pleasure in his own (increasingly fleeting) celebrity. Once upon a time, Vecsey was big time. He was on network NBA telecasts; he was known as one of the true league insiders. When he talked about a potential trade, you listened. You didn’t always agree, but you listened.
Now—not so much. He is just a columnist for a shitty newspaper; a irrelevent hack trying to grasp those last nuggets of relevency. Any sympathy I might have had for Peter Vescey vanished last September, when he accepted his induction into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame with one of the most classless speeches I have ever had the misfortune of listening to. Here’s part of it, though justice isn’t really done. You had to be there.
Anyhow, I digress. While waiting for a doctor’s appointment today, I donated 50 cents to—and I truly feel this way—the worst newspaper that has ever existed (For the record, the Post has some excellent sports guys: Joel Sherman, Kevin Kernan, George Willis, Mike Viccaro—all scribes I greatly respect. But the paper as a whole is best used as a resting spot for my plunger). And there was Vecsey’s latest column—LITTLE GENERAL MUST LEARN SOME PATIENCE. The piece was about Avery Johnson, the new Nets coach, and how he’s a terrible choice to guide New Jersey. Vecsey had some OK points—the Mavs choked in the playoffs under his leadership; he’s too much of a taskmaster; etc … etc. His greatest point, however, was based upon a scene from a few years ago, when Johnson chewed out a beat writer at a press conference after a loss. Wrote Vecsey: “Offended writers and embarrassed league officials who’d seen it all during decades on the front line agreed they’d never seen a coach unravel like that.”
Uh, irony? Replace the word “coach” with “inductee,” and you’ve got Vecsey at the Hall. I watched David Stern squirm throughout the nightmare, and nothing Johnson possibly did could have compared. Nothing.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
