As Ball Don’t Lie details, Shaquille O’Neal responded to criticism from Jim Rome in the most sensible way imaginable: By challenging him to a fight.

This absolutely has to happen. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more in my whole life, and that includes the Mark-McGwire-riding-a-triceratops situation that came up in a recent email chain with the TedQuarters guest posters.

Someone start a petition or something. Take pledges. I’ll pledge $50 to the charity of the winner’s choice if Rome takes so much as one punch from the Big Shaqasso.

Gilbert, the Cavaliers’ majority owner, wrote an angry letter on the team’s website after LeBron James’s nationally televised announcement that he was leaving the team. It cited what he called James’s “cowardly betrayal” of the team and called the TV event a “narcissistic, self-promotional build-up.”

For whatever reason, all 421 words of the screed were written in the less-than-intimidating Comic Sans font. This fact is already on the Comic Sans Wikipedia page and it was all over Twitter shortly after Gilbert’s letter was published. A Tweet from Jsmooth995 decried Gilbert’s choice, saying “nobody who posts official statements in Comic Sans MS should be running an NBA team.”

– David Biderman and Emily Steel, Wall Street Journal.

I fail to see how Gilbert’s use of Comic Sans is anything other than completely and utterly hilarious. Especially now that I know, from the article, that the 48-year-old multimillionaire uses Comic Sans for all his correspondence. It’s funny, just not in the way Comic Sans is intended to be funny.

But that said, the backlash over the typeface is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. It’s a typeface. And thanks to its overuse, the font is now particularly useful for a variety of humorous pursuits. The movement to ban Comic Sans would rob future satirists the opportunity to use the font ironically. Consider this Comic Sans backlash backlash.

Hat tip to Can’t Stop the Bleeding for the link.

One of my favorite lines to quote from anything is Dennis Eckersley’s advice to Mike Birbiglia around the 4:15 mark of this epic clip. Sometimes it’s easiest to just outright dismiss someone or some group of people rather than continue to fret about their decisions or actions. And I know of no better way to do so more effectively than with Eck’s epic, “Ehh, f*** ’em.”

So that’s really all I’ve got to say about LeBron James:

Ehh, f*** ’em.

In one fell swoop last night, LeBron defied logic multiple times. He didn’t just choose a team in an only medium-sized market where he’ll have to play alongside other stars while simultaneously disappointing a room full of children. He also somehow managed to make Kobe Bryant a sympathetic character. Who among us won’t be rooting for the Lakers if they square off with the Heat in the Finals next year?

Rooting for the Lakers. Who (outside LA, of course) could have imagined that a few weeks ago?

Or, I suppose, we could opt for the other approach, the one I’m more likely to take: We can continue not paying all that much attention to the NBA because the college game is more exciting anyway, and because the NBA is silly enough to schedule its playoffs during baseball season.

In other words: Ehh, f*** ’em.

The Knicks, who just threw away two whole seasons in an effort to sign LeBron James and still don’t know if they can, should be ashamed of themselves. The NBA, which has engineered a free-agency system that allows and often encourages teams to do otherwise unconscionable things like tank entire seasons, should be ashamed of itself. The players, who have all been groomed to believe these max contracts are their birthright, should be ashamed of themselves, but that’s clearly not about to happen.

But we, the sporting public, should be the most ashamed. Because what we have allowed this league and these players to do to us is thoroughly shameful….

These players wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. You’re the fool and they’re all playing you for it. Can you imagine if you found out the CEOs of three different high-profile banks got together in secret  with a mortgage calculator to discuss which one of them was going to buy your mortgage loan? Or if the presidents of three different Ivy League colleges got together to decide which of them was going to accept your application and which one was going to accept your neighbor’s?

Well, you’d think it was an outrage. The people who hold all the power hanging out together, lighting up cigars and laughing about how great it was all going to turn out for all of them no matter what happens, no matter whose feelings get crushed in the process.

– Dan Graziano, SNY.tv.

Graz’s scathing teardown of the NBA free agency system is definitely worth a read.  I don’t know that I’m as worked up as he is over the current nonsense since, to me, the fault lies wholly on the league for creating this situation. The players and teams are doing their best to take advantage of it, as they should be expected to. But it’s a stupid system regardless, one that appears in need of an overhaul. I’m not saying I know how to fix it, but I’m certain it’s broke.