On the last night of The Don't Give A Fuck Season, the Miami HEAT got embarrassed by perhaps the most embarrassing team in their division over the last few seasons: the Washington Wizards. Former Wizards beat reporter for ESPN 980 radio, Jay Glassie, provided an inside look at the Wizards organization that shows how embarrassing it really is for the HEAT to lose to them.
Here are a few highlights from The Last Straw by Jay Glassie:
"I hate sports now. It is largely because of these two men, and how they starkly revealed to me why sports is a vile business and one I want no part in. Today is a prime example why, and I refuse to let them off the hook like so many others who are still in the media today, and are in the pocket of Ted Leonsis and Ernie Grunfeld."
"I have not watched the Washington Wizards play in three months. Oh I’m aware they’ve won five straight games to end the season. Of course they have, because this is what they always do under Ernie Grunfeld. Ted Leonsis will smile and nod and scold the critics for their lack of empathy. I do have empathy. I have empathy for whoever bought the season tickets I finally gave up this year because I couldn’t stand it anymore. Those who bought into the con-game of Ernie Grunfeld and Ted Leonsis."
"I have left the media for good, so I have no agenda. These will be the last words I ever write about this team, because they’re dead to me as long as Ernie Grunfeld occupies that office."
"There’s no way to convey appropriately the incredible losing culture that Grunfeld has cultivated without being there yourself. As I’ve said, it drove me to such anger to see players and staff fail so miserably yet act with such incredible nonchalance, all with the pleased eye of Grunfeld overseeing this atrocity. There’s no possible reason that any owner within his right mind and trying to win a title would bring back this man who has further defiled a franchise that already was one of the most embarrassing in sports. He gets credit for building a playoff team – but that was years and years ago, and even those teams underachieved because the same culture that has this team a bottom feeder now was pervasive even then. It’s the Grunfeld way.
Ted Leonsis, as we’ve seen very clearly however, has no interest in building a title team. His interest is in proving anyone who ever questions him wrong. It’s why he called me into his office after I gave him a poor midseason grade last year (solely on the basis of allowing Grunfeld to further disembowel this organization – imagine what his grade would be now!). He can talk about wicked pixels and all that garbage all he wants – he had a chance to truly rebuild this franchise with John Wall, and instead he and his staff used John Wall as the reason to continue their sloth and cowardly operations. This is a franchise that is more terrified of winning because of the effort it entails, than it is of losing because they have become masters of blame and excuses."
That's what the Miami HEAT lost to last night, with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh on the bench and Micky Arison and Pat Riley in attendance. It was a goddamn disgrace.
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