Mariotti's Strange Obsession Over Mark Cuban Disturbingly Grows

by Tyrone Briggs

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If Cuban decided to package Jason Terry and Josh Howard, the Bulls could be in trouble. But again, the Lakers might demand Dirk Nowitzki or forget about the Mavs because of their standing as a West power. Other than Phoenix, another elite Western team in the same situation, there aren't many feasible landing spots for Bryant. Legitimately, people, the Bulls are in position to land the most dynamic scorer of the post-Jordan era and one of the best clutch players ever. - Jay Mariotti

Forget the incessant pleading for spoiled man child Kobe Bryant to become Chicago's cheap impersonator of Michael Jordan for just a moment.

Jay Mariotti has clearly succumbed to his disturbingly uber-zealous fanaticism over Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Read the above paragraph carefully. Any attempt deciphering coherent sense out of such grammatical nonsense is an exercise of futile mental masturbation.

Evidently, the back page pundit has lathered himself into a "human Hummer" frenzy over two separate sports matters and miserably fails to construe a conspiracy theory so asinine only Oliver Stone would appreciate after snorting a few bags of blow.

Somebody please call Val Kilmer's agent. Oliver will soon possess another treacherous script overloaded with enough oddball social depravity to exonerate Colin Farrell. Hell, if Alexander made it on the big screen to the chagrin of critics, so might A Maverick in Dallas.

And Dallas is exactly where Mark Cuban should remain, because I refuse to believe for a minute that Mariotti is not deliberately serving as the unofficial mouthpiece for the Internet tycoon ever since those annoying text messages became common fodder filler in the column throughout the 2007 baseball regular season. A stench of suspicious yellow journalism is at play and growing more and more flagrantly foul than a Ron Artest sharp elbow to the head.

It is one matter to champion Cuban as the next owner of the Chicago Cubs. After all, everyone is entitled to back a horse in the Wrigley sweepstakes. But it is another kettle of fish entirely to insinuate yesterday, in his already infamous "24/7" blog, that Jerry Reinsdorf is somehow organizing an owner collusion to block any Cubs sale to David Stern's nemesis.

Jay must be a real fan of Dancing With The Stars to shamelessly campaign for Cuban at all cost. After all, the tyrant berated and then queerly complimented Cuban during the 2006 NBA Finals:

"If I were the commish, I would have thrown Cuban out of the arena for Game 6 and fined him $1 million. The integrity of the game and its officiating is that sacred, and anyone who bludgeons it should be punished accordingly. As refreshing as Cuban has been in turning around a dead franchise, caring about fans and lathering his players with luxury -- and as great as he would be as a Cubs owner for similar reasons -- his finest ownership attributes are lost when he runs around like a loon."

Jay claims to covet a Cubs World Series championship yet demands that "a loon" be the new team owner?

But apparently that is not enough of a manufactured crisis for Mariotti. Because now Cuban's name has been unceremoniously dropped with much angst and hysteria to be a direct competitor with the Chicago Bulls for the new employer of Kobe Bryant.

So assuming Planet Earth was temporarily substituted with Mariotti-World governed by self-absorbed Oompa Loompas, what are Jerry Reinsdorf's options? Convince all of the Major League Baseball owners to expeditiously approve the Chicago Cubs ownership transfer over to Mark Cuban while simultaneously twisting the arm of the Tribune not to sell to a local businessman such as Don Levin or John Canning Jr? And once acquiring the Cubs, Cuban would then return the favor back to Reinsdorf by stepping aside and forcing John Paxson to trade away half of his developing team for the services of Kobe Bryant?

Wow Jay, perhaps lightening up on the hallucinogenics might help reduce the paranoia. Consider this an intervention, before you say or write something extremely stupid, like a public confession of what truly goes transpires over the weekend in the north-west Chicago bunker.