The trees that guide us

I don't know why I even bother bashing ESPN.com anymore, other than the fact that everyone reads it and it's an easy target. But sometimes they publish something so remarkably stupid that I feel compelled, nay, justified, to rain holy fire down upon them and all who edit in their name.

Not only is their "what if" NCAA bracket horrifically flawed; SI beat them to the punch, making it the focus of their on-campus issue (and giving them yet another excuse to lead with LeBron).

This Page 2 debacle, though, takes it to new heights of counter-intuitive bliss. Their story has every NBA player, even those yet to find flourishment, dominating the college ranks as if they were already NBA vets. Somehow, they failed to take into account that in the past, when everyone didn't go pro at the slightest provocation, Hall of Famers weren't this statistically unstoppable, much less Tyson Chandler. Also, they (I am not even going to dignify this with an author) neglect that it's not just the stars that go pro--it's anyone halfway decent. As anyone knows, it's the mid-tier players that define the league at any given time; same with college. It's not as if college is made up of mediocre athletes, with only stars leaving for the NBA. The entire mid-section of talent, the future bench guys and specialists, are also leaving, meaning that the same guys that will try to hinder LeBron for the next decade have, in many cases, already followed him to the pros. Most obviously, don't the stars put a check on each other? If LeBron doesn't score 200 points every night in the NBA, why would he in college if future pros are matching up against him--and, to follow, how could he possibly if a future All-Star is on him?

This probably isn't even worth denigrating further, but the idea that the young guns of today would have all been the best college players ever is absurd. Though they probably wouldn't have played any defense on each other, so maybe there is a backward logic to it all.