Congrats Whitlock....You've won again.

Moronic mediot of the day goes to the guy the award might one day be named after......Jason Whitlock. Whitlock is an amazingly frustrating writer, who will pen 5 or 6 good, deep, thought provoking articles and then put out a pile of dung just to throw you off course. This months pile of dung from Jason is a piece about one of his favorite topics....tattoos in the NBA.

Let me preface my rant with this: I am a 31 year old, white, suburban male that lives on a lake in rural Alabama. While I may have had the experience of living all over the country in my 20's, this is where I grew up and really who I am. I (based on race and culture) am the epitome of "the guy" that Whitlock believes would turn off the NBA playoffs because it's "too black" or "too hip-hop". My demographic is highly likely to be one of the ones that doesn't like the tattoos and the corn rows on the athletes on TV. I'll be honest......I hate corn rows. Don't understand them, don't see how they are even close to being considered attractive by anyone and can't see how you'd look in the mirror and think they are a good look. I just don't get them and never will. However, I don't turn off NBA games when there are 4 or more players with corn rows playing at the same time just because I don't like how it looks.....just doesn't happen.

Whitlock asserts the the NBA playoffs are getting better ratings in part to the fact that the Denver Nuggets aren't playing with Carmelo and Iverson's tattoos clogging up your flat screen in HD. He actually believes that people are tuning into the conference finals more this year because there are less tattoos. Really Jason? You actually think that people that watch and love sports are that easily swayed away from a good product or towards a bad one? The truth is that these are the best the conference finals have been in many years. I hate the Spurs after living in Dallas and becoming a Mavs fan, but it's the defending champs making what could be a final run at a title before some of these pieces get too old/banged up to make another run through a brutal and young Western Conference. It's new Kobi (who I also totally loathe) with his brand new toy Pau Gasol playing the best team basketball we've ever seen him play and a Lakers squad that is fun to watch even for L.A. haters. It's Kevin Garnett and the echoes of Boston Garden (even if it is a newer, less cool version) with a chance for a flashback Celtics vs. Lakers Finals. It's the Detroit Pistons, the NBA's nearest thing to Jim Kelley's Buffalo Bills, seeing if they can win more than one title after dominating the landscape in the East for what seems like a decade. There are too many great story lines to count....can KG, Pierce and Allen get rings to validate their careers, can Kobi win a title without Shaq, can Phil Jackson get another ring, is Greg Popovich going to continue an amazing run? That is why we are watching!!

My father is a 54 year old basketball purist. Take him out in the driveway right now and he'll play you one on one and make you look foolish with Bob Cousy/Pistol Pete moves. He loved Larry Bird enough that the first time I saw the man tear up was when he found out Bird was retiring. He's been bored with the NBA since the last Jordan title, as many other fans have probably been. He'd watch a game here and there, but it wasn't a sport he loved anymore. He's been addicted to these playoffs since Round 1...you know, when the tattooed Nuggetts were still playing. He probably hates the long hair of Sasha Vujacic more than he does the tats on Iverson. The bottom line is that he doesn't care what the guys look like on the court...he's not watching a freaking fashion show. He wants to see good, competetive basketball played in a manner that isn't streetball. He wants to see great team defense, good ball movement and high quality play. This year, the NBA playoffs are giving us that......and you could tattoo every player from head to toe with pink tats and it wouldn't make a difference. I know it's a slow day Jason, but please don't burden the sports world with this monstrous pile of dung you call an article.