By Justin Aucoin
Special contributor to Wicked Good Sports.com
Call it a belated Christmas gift; call it your good deed for the year; call it a slap to the head; but for the love of Larry Bird, will someone buy LeBron James a dictionary? They cost 6.
For those who havent heard, LeBron recently admitted ignorance to what the word contraction means. His quote:
"That's crazy, because I had no idea what the word 'contraction' meant before I saw it on the Internet," James said after theMiami Heat's practice Monday.
Umm what? Youre turning 26 in two days and you never knew what the word contraction means before you saw it on the internet? Youre kidding, right? St. VincentSt. Mary High School must be so proud of you right now LeBron, just like your Mom and Pa.
What? Too soon?
Here are LeBrons original comments for those who missed them (emphasis is ours):
Imagine if you could takeKevin Loveoff Minnesota and add him to another team and you shrink the league. Looking at some of the teams that arent that great, you takeBrook Lopezor you takeDevin Harrisoff these teams that arent that good right now and you add him to a team that could be really good.
And straight from Merriam-Webster.com:
Excuse us while we go purge ourselves from all the dumb James is inflicting on the world.
Wait, theres more?
"I never even mentioned contraction. That word never even came out of my mouth. I was just saying how the league was back in the '80s and how it could be good again. I never said, 'Let's take some of the teams out.' "
And yet he said shrink the league. Taking teams out of the NBA is shrinking the league and therefore contraction.
Look at what youve done to Captain Picard!
Were not sure how one shrinks the league without contracting it. Perhaps LeBron is actually much smarter than the rest of us and has come up with a crazy way of shrinking the league without losing any teams -- Rick Moranis style.
Are we just picking on LeBron at this point? Probably.
But the guy deserves it. We have no love for millionaires with Brobdingnagian egos who dont know simple definitions and then, after learning the definition, fails to see how it relates to his comments. Contraction has to be, what, a fifth grade level vocab term? Its not like we expect him to know what Brobdingnagian means.
Perhaps LeBron should live by Mr. Abe Lincolns adage:
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
But we have a feeling thats a long shot.
Justin is co-ownerwriterPhotoshopisteverythingelse for Days of YOrr.