Feet at Stake

Things have gone utmostly too far. I used to pore over rumors like the next guy, especially when there seemed to be some glimmer of plausibility to them. Now everybody's an expert, the internet has become an authority rather than a dumping ground for raw matter, and game has gotten way too meta.

There are so many rumors floating out in the ether these days that THEY ARE ALL COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. Say every KG-to-Boston scenario had actually been spoken from the mouth of McHale unto a hundred smarmy leprechauns. Even if that were the case, all of their being somewhat "real" would have the net effect of a grand cheapening.



I guess this would represent unprecedented global access, and a major re-gestaltification of what it means to read rumors. It would be eavesdropping or surveillance, not gossip-mongering. In some ways, though, searching for the one true thing is what gives this activity its meaning. We need to know that half of these are nonsense, to believe that somewhere out there is the single, golden exchange that occurred between men of power.

How about this bunker of an option: it's all noise, and we're kicking around these meaningless thoughts for our own benefit. I guess that would also represent some kind of ultra-pomo breakthrough. But hark, where goes that aim, so life and vitality die. If it would suck to find out that all rumors were true, imagine how shitty we'd all get if none of them were?



That's one of the major problems I have with teams "using the media" these days, or Chad Ford being a pawn. I want to think that real insiders aren't subject to the same endless flow of noise I am, that they're outfitted with the filter my travels lack. And yet someone like McHale, or Shaq, still eventually ends up addressing rumors when they take on enough momentum, even if they know full well that they began in nothingness.

Rumors are just rumors, except for when players and execs speak up to remind us that they're just rumors. And then, on occasions that no mere mortal can discern, these rumors actually get under the skin of everyone that matters. It's that last possibility, if true, that keeps me up at night growing scales: try as we might to clutch at what goes on, we are still but lead-earred critters in a sea of tingly gases. While it's right in front of our eyes--perhaps more than ever--there's no way we'll ever be able to read it right.



PLUS, here's some breaking news from Skeets that you simply can't miss.