I didn’t even know that Mason Plumlee made it to the NBA. I figured he would be like most of the white basketball players that went to Duke, and ride out their college careers because they probably wouldn’t be good enough to make it in the NBA. I figured he’d be like Greg Paulus, Steve Wojciechowski or Brian Zoubek or something, and simply not be good enough to make it in the pros.
While running on the treadmill and watching Hannah Storm on ESPN, during a commercial break my eyes wandered down onto the ticker where I saw mention of the Brooklyn Nets beating the Miami Heat, thus sweeping the entire regular season series of head-to-head games against the sissies from South Beach. But then a quick blurb followed that stated that the game ended when “Plumlee blocked James from making go-ahead dunk with 1.2 seconds left,” and then my brow furrowed and I was quickly puzzled to the notion that any Plumlee was actually in the NBA.
I’ve never made any secret of my enjoyment of Duke’s shortcomings, but if there was one particular name that always stood out, it was always Mason Plumlee. He was just such the typically big white oaf basketball player that fouled too much, and simply made too many careless errors. However, he was, as much as I never wanted to admit it, pretty athletic, and for a guy his size, had some pretty impressive leaping ability. I always said that you knew when a game was unofficially over when somewhere in the final 5-7 minutes of the second half, Mason Plumlee would throw down a massive dunk; typically this was always the result of the trailing team making this possible by going into a panic-mode and doing something stupid defensively. Point was, when Mason Plumlee threw down, the game was basically over.
Anyway, after I saw the mention of the highlight, I knew I had to see it. And because ESPN is fixated on LeBron James, it didn’t take long for the highlight to eventually come up, and sure enough, Mason Plumlee, oafy as ever, looking even more out of place in his black Nets uniform contrasting against his lily-white persona was the guy that synched up his focus, and made one perfectly timed leap and a hell of a defensive block on LeBron James.
I think the best part about it all was that the games was one of those nights when the players were wearing their jerseys with their stupid nicknames on them because the NBA is greedy, and people really are dumb enough to buy jerseys with nicknames on them. But all that it was, was KING JAMES going up for a massive, heroic, late-game dunk that would have put the Heat in the lead with practically no time left on the clock, only to be outplayed and rejected by a true pauper of the NBA like Mason Plumlee.
The supposed best player in the history of the game, absolutely stuffed and rejected by an oaf like Mason Plumlee. Hahahaha. That’s like Michael Jordan getting crossed up and taken to the hole by like Jeff Hornacek, or Shaq getting rejected by like Vlade Divac.
It just shouldn’t happen, but it did.
LeBrowned.
