The Tyson Zone 2010

For those of you who follow ESPN sportswriter Bill Simmon’s, I am sure you are familiar with the Tyson Zone.  For those who are not, let me explain  The Tyson Zone is a term used to describe an athlete or celebrity who has attained a level of notoriety in which you could hear any ridiculous, crazy, unbelievable story about them and you would have no problem believing that it was true.  For example, if ESPN reported that Mike Tyson had decided to marry his 17 year old third cousin, move to South America to become an Argentinian Goat Herder/Computer Technician/Official Bread Taster for Paula Dean’s South American Restaurant, I could see that.  If he were caught trying to breastfeed a pigeon for pigeon milk in a Wal-Mart parking lot, I could see that.   If he were to be arrested for any crime in the books, I could see that.  (You won’t believe me, but I swear to you that I found that picture AFTER I thought of Mike Tyson breastfeeding a pigeon.)  According to Simmons, other celebrities whose behavior have landed them in the Tyson Zone include Omarosa, Gary Busey, Lindsay Lohan’s Dad, the late Michael Jackso, Suge Knight, Flava Flav, anyone in G-Unit, the late ODB, Paris Hilton, Manny Ramirez and all pregnant women.  Well it appears that the Tyson Zone is preparing to induct three new members, all from the NBA: Ron Artest, Stephon Marbury, and of course, Gilbert “Gilly” Arenas.

RON ARTEST’S A SERIES OF UNNECESSARY EVENTS

Ron Artest – First of all, let me apologize to my fellow diehard Laker fans for slandering the good, respectable name of one of our very own.  To be perfectly honest, Ron Artest, who seems to have been on track to join the Tyson Zone for several years now, finally seemed to be making a turn for the better. Signing with the Lakers was a move that screamed, “For Goodness Sake, I’ve Turned My Life Around!!!  If that ball-cutter Rev. Jesse can ride Obama’s coattails back into the spotlight, then surely I can ride Kobe’s coattails to a championship.”  And who can blame him?  If you’re an aging NBA superstar with an expiring contract, and you have the chance to align yourself with any player in the league, the first guy you think of has to be Kobe.  So when Ron-Ron stepped up and said he’d take a pay cut just to put on the purple and gold, we all thought “What a smart career move by him.  Maybe he’s not so bad after all….”  But we’re the stupid ones for giving a guy named Ron-Ron even that little amount of credit. 

First, he chooses to wear the number 37 in honor of who? – Fellow Tyson Zone member, the late Michael Jackson because MJ’s Thriller album spent 37 weeks at #1.  Then, he shows up in China, plays basketball with a poor 15-year-old local, becomes so impressed with this young man that he decides to help this young man’s future.  Decent of him, right?  Setting up a trust fund for the young man, or making a monetary contribution to the young man to be set aside for college tuition, or writing a check, right?  (Fellow Tyson Zone aspirant Randy Moss is yelling right now, “WHAT?!? WRITE A CHECK?!?”) No.  Instead Ron-Ron did the most charitable thing HE could think of – he gave the young Chinese boy a $45,000 diamond watch.  I suppose he intended for the young man to walk into a Chinese pawn shop and say “Hi I would like to pawn this watch.  It’s covered in diamonds and its retail value is $45,000, but it was once worn by the one and only Ron-Ron, so surely that makes it worth at least $75 more.”  (Ron-Ron does have somewhat of an oriental sound, I suppose.  After all, he spent the rest of his time in China with Chinese pop sensation Shin Shin).  ANYWAYS, he then posts a video on Twitter, a video of him singing “My Heart Will Go On”.  I, along with all Laker fans, knew that we wouldn’t be able to defend such jackassery.  We were getting a poor man’s version of Dennis Rodman, all over again.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, Ron-Ron “slipped and fell” in his own house and give himself a concussion. Again, we raise our hands in the air and curse like the Clinton’s did after losing the 2008 Iowa Caucus.  COME THE #$%! ON MAN!  He would be back in the lineup by now, but following his concussion, Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach flew to L.A. and forced Ron-Ron to sit in the dark in his L.A. pool shed.  And with that…the Tyson Zone formally congratulates the first member of the 2010 induction class – Ron-Ron.

MR. MARBORIUM’S WHAT DID HE JUST SAY? EMPORIUM

Stephon Marbury – When people think of this guy, most think “How did such a great talent fall so hard?”  I ask, more appropriately, “Why didn’t he fall sooner? And who the hell decided that alien-head earned the title of “STARBURY”???”  He’s not even a Starburst.  He’s a dried up taffy that’s lost its chew and is just tough; the kind that you spit out and then curse the person who offered it to you.  I’m not going to rant about his behavior with the New York Ni**erKnockers or how he rode the bench for two years.   Regardless of his lack of respect for the integrity of the game, or his uncanny ability to overvalue himself and what he’s worth, that dispute really was just business, and I don’t hold that against him. I’m also not going blame him for having sex with a stripper in the back of his pickup truck in a strip club parking lot, despite being a married man. (Can we really hold anything that happened with the Knicks against anyone but Isaiah Thomas, who ran that team the way Mister ran his farm into the ground in the Color Purple?  We saw how they both ended up).  Besides, like Ron-Ron, Marbury appeared to make a strong career move by signing with the Boston Celtics.  Although he only scored 20 points (approximation, but damn close) all season, he did try.  Honestly, he did try.  If only the story ended there….but no.  Marbury left the Celtics and began his search for a new team to revive/finish out his disappointing career.  When most people try to find a new employer, they market themselves in a way that makes employers seek them.  They clean themselves up, get back in shape, and present the most polished, presentable version of themselves, showing as few flaws as humanly possible.  Marbury did….well….something else.  His induction into the Tyson Zone didn’t come from a career of reckless behavior, or even an entire summer of ridiculous antics. It took Marbury just 24 hours to earn his stripes.  WHAT HAPPENED?  He appeared on a live stream on the net chatting with his three remaining fans and other interested and shocked on-lookers.  His chat revealed that he too, was charitable like Ron-Ron.  He was setting up a foundation for the world.  The whole world.  Because he is a comet. He is taking his money and using it to build more cities.  His words, not mine.  Yep. His charity….is to set up a foundation for the whole world and use his money to build cities. Because he is a comet….(shakes my head and sighs) 

He also answered the question that the world has been dying to know – Stephon Marbury prefers Bugs Bunny over Mickey Mouse.  He turned on Kirk Franklin’s Lean On Me and began to cry in a pool. (Bono and R. Kelly get to me everytime too…)  He then got out of the pool and cried in front of the laptop.  Then he carried his laptop into the pool with him and cried with the laptop in the pool.  Then he pulled a gob of Vaseline from a jar and ate it.  I repeat, then he pulled a gob of Vaseline from a jar and ate it.  By the end of the day, he apparently  had lost all the money he was using to set up his foundation for the world and to build new cities, because he asked Oprah Winfrey to write him a check for one billion dollars.  Sorry world.  Welcome to the Tyson Zone, Mr. Dried Up Laffy Taffy Inside Peanut Butter Outside KY-Jelly Guy.

GILLY MAGUIRE

Gilly Arenas – Agent Zero.  Hibachi. Gotta love a guy whose nickname is Hibachi.  Very similar to Stephon Marbury, Gilly’s career has been plagued by the grey area of injury/contract disputes.  Gilly could have been an MVP in the NBA and could have gone deep in the playoffs during some of his better seasons.  With regard to talent, he still could.  But quite frankly, his mind is no longer in the right place.  But it’s not where you think it is.  He’s an interesting personality with a unique sense of humor.  He’s connected to his fans and his community.  He donates $100 for every point he makes to the D.C. Public School System (more than Congress has ever given them).  But that may not provide much comfort to D.C. students considering how he’s probably played a total of 7 games in the last three seasons.  

“Dear Mr. Arenas, the city of Washington, D.C. would like to thank you for your recent $1,200 contribution to our public school system.  Although we appreciate your continued support, we would appreciate even more if you would consider lobbying your coach for more playing time, your teammates for my scoring opportunities, or God for a miracle.  When we made this charitable agreement, we anticipated that you would play more than three games each season before throwing in the towel due to injury.  Perhaps, a small investment in some Ben-gay might lead to a more fruitful year, both for you and for our local schools..  Regardless, good luck on your upcoming season.”

The problem I have with Gilly is that he is also a member of the “Sarah Palin What Do I Do Again? Club”  This is a club for the celebrities who remain famous for everything but their actual job.  I.e. Sarah Palin never makes the news anymore for anything political, only for her scandals and controversies and dumbass idiotic stupid quotes.  Other members of this club include Britney Spears, John Edwards, TI, Everyone in the Tyson Zone, Tom Cruise, Kanye West, Hulk Hogan, Amy Winehouse, everyone involved in the show Heroes (seriously, where is the story going?) and the newest member, Tiger Woods.  Like Gilly, these are all super-talented people whose reckless behavior dominates the headlines, while their performance in their actual field suffers.  As I stated earlier, Gilly very well might be a top 10 player in the league, but no one would know because he hasn’t had a column-worthy on-the-court performance in years.

Still, nothing will compare to Gilly’s latest actions.  Rumors of gambling debts have run rampant in the NBA, as well as all professional sports, for years.  Many superstars have lost their entire earnings.  I do not hold his gambling debts against poor Gilly.  But fellow Wizards teammate Javaris Crittentondendtondenton sure held it against him.  Gilbert was confronted by Crittenton before Christmas about a gambling debt in the Wizards locker room. Apparently, Crittenton was trying to buy a TurboMan action figure or something as a Christmas gift for his son, and he needed the money that Gilly owed him. Or something like that.  ANYWAYS, Gilly responds by placing three handguns on a chair and telling Crittenton to pick one.  Tyson Zone. 

But why did he have multiple guns in his locker room in the first place?  I have a few theories about this. Gilly claims that he was hiding the guns in his locker because he didn’t want them at home with his children.  Likely.  More Likely:

1.  The T.I. Theory – The guns weren’t Gilly’s guns.  They were TI’s.  Gilly’s been hiding the guns in his locker while TI serves out his sentence. 

2.  The Grand Theft Auto: Capital City Theory – The REAL reason Gilly has been so low on the court is because he’s been so busy off the court living like the video game Grand Theft Auto.  Remember how you start those games off with one tiny rundown safehouse in the hood.  Then as you progress, you get more safehouses all over the city, luxury apartments, condos, random lockers in the bus station, etc.  It seems pretty clear that the locker room was just one of his many safehouses and he was keeping some of his stash there.  I wonder if NBA Live 10 will have a GTA cheat code when you play with the Wizards….

3.  The Delonte West Theory – On Jan. 6, the Wizards played the Cavaliers. I suspect that Gilly was preparing for Cavs guard Delonte West, who is clearly not afraid to brandish his weapons, after being caught earlier this year with a .357, a 9mm, and a Remington 870 in a guitar case on his motorcycle.  Gilly knows what West was packing, so he took it upon himself to protect his teammates by staying armed and ready.  (It’s entirely possible that the real star of the real life Grand Theft Auto game is Delonte West, and not poor Gilly.  Maybe the upcoming game against Delonte and the Cavs is also one of Gilly’s missions that he must beat….)

4. The Agent Zero Theory – Similar to the GTA theory, perhaps Gilly is now living a video game life.  Or a video life.  Now that we have a Black President, it is time we have a Black James Bond. And who better to pick up the mantle then Agent Zero himself.  If the gun charges mysteriously disappear and the media suspiciously drops the story suddenly, we’ll know that some secret international intelligence organization has stepped in to protect one of their own.

5. He’s a Republican.

6.  The Wizard Theory – Gilly no longer sees himself as a Wizards player, but an actual modern day wizard.  And the gun’s aren’t guns, but magic machines used to make evil rival sorcerers vanish.  Sound ridiculous?  Nothing is too ridiculous in the Tyson Zone.