You're an NBA fan. Dissatisfied with the typical online outlets, you're coming to an NBA-obsessive blog on a Monday to read more than what the more orthodox NBA media outlets are giving you. You search and you scour for takes and columns and Tweets and video and you'll do it all again come Tuesday morning. Tell me, have you ever read a Jason Whitlock column on the NBA? Do you even think to go to him when NBA news breaks?
Jason Whitlock knows this. He's also an unfunny boor with a massive ego, and the combination of those factors plus his NBA irrelevancy leads to Twitter comments like this, in the wake of Jeremy Lin's brilliant 38-point performance against the Knicks on Friday night:
"Some lucky lady in NYC is going to feel a couple of inches of pain tonight."
There are funny penis jokes, and then there are unfunny penis jokes that mix with needless racial stereotyping and the laziness that comes from not even bothering to look up the fact that the Knicks would be flying to Minneapolis directly after Friday's game.
On Sunday, after much criticism and derision, Whitlock came through with an apology of sorts:
I then gave in to another part of my personality - my immature, sophomoric, comedic nature. It's been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my godmother's Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.
Don't you dare involve Richard Pryor in this, Jason Whitlock. Maybe your mother makes lame penis jokes all the time, but do not invoke Pryor's name. His jokes were funny. This was pathetic.
I like dark, weird humor. Michael O'Donoghue remains a steady influence on me, even as I write up posts about Dwight Howard dunking on a fake giraffe. But this, to paraphrase the least-darkest comic of all time in Jerry Seinfeld, offends me more as someone who appreciates humor than it does the ugly and needless stereotyping of a 6-3, 200-pound man. If you're going to go nasty, at least go out being funny.
Whitlock's not going anywhere. FOX Sports likely asked him for the apology while loving all the attention he'll bring to their website, and the Asian American Journalists Association was more than correct in looking past the "not funny" aspect of Whitlock's noise and calling out its blatant stereotyping.
Jeremy Lin, meanwhile, went on to overcome tired legs in his fifth game in seven nights on Saturday, and score 20 points in New York's win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Whitlock, per usual, will be dutifully ignored by NBA fans until he says another stupid thing about the league.
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