Kenny Smith Picks the Warriors to Win Game 4 - the Lunatic!

The difference, at least for me, @durvasa, is that I expect Shaq to mumble and not make any sense half the time. Maybe more than half the time. I could point out that his team lost badly to the Rockets in the Finals back in the day, at the end of that historic run by Houston, the Rockets winning 9 road games, beating four 50 win teams, a record beating accomplishment. We were the first team in NBA history to sweep a Finals series to win a repeat title, and other records I forget. The Rockets put Shaq and his team in all sorts of records during that glorious run, but I won’t go there. Why? Because of the praise he heaped on Hakeem later, a very classy thing to do. Yet Shaq, despite his history with Houston, picked Houston to win last night, along with Charles, making Kenny’s pick of Oakland even more inexplicable. It makes him appear to be a bad actor playing a role in one of the great plays put on by @Batman Jones. In other words, the actor stands out from the others, and not in a good way.

I continue to expect more from Kenny, but I won’t denigrate his play during our championships. Every player can fumble when everything is on the line. Dream himself got thrown out of game 5 for slugging Mitch Kupchak after being goaded into it. Riley used every trick in the book to try and win. That is one of his most famous. Sampson shocked the Lakers and the world by making The Shot, a miracle, eliminating the defending NBA champions, the Lakers a truly great team filled with tremendous players, but Olajuwon was in the locker room. Even the best can miss a crucial free throw, or a game winning 3, or get beaten defensively because he was outmatched at that end when it mattered most. It doesn’t mean that a series or a championship wouldn’t have been won without him.

So Kenny? He’s been a mystery to me since he became a TV “talking head.” He’s appeared to have gone out of his way over the years to not support his former team, a team he got rings with. Paul Pierce clearly leans towards the Celtics, given half a chance, and I don’t mind, because he’s human and I understand it. Sure, I still consider Kenny a human being, but I think he has issues when it comes to the Rockets, which seems weird to me. Yes, he picked them to win the series in 7, but then picks Oakland in game 4. It was a contradiction and very surprising. Surprising to me.

I may have gone overboard using “Traitor” in the thread title. You didn’t mention it, but I’ve been considering this morning changing that word to something else. There are endless less pejorative words I could use. Goofus, chump, idiot, and worse. I still might do that.