Mark Cuban Takes a Gigantic Crap All Over Skip Bayless (Figuratively)
It is widely acknowledged by all who are aware of his existence that ESPN “analyst” Skip Bayless is a completely moronic, talentless hack who should have never been allowed on television. Skip certainly isn’t the only person who fits this description; there’s a whole roster of such folks over at Fox News, for instance. But because he’s so blatantly terrible at what he does, Skip is an easy target to pick on. So I have absolutely no problem with what happened on ESPN’s First Take the morning after the Miami Heat won the NBA Finals last week. In fact, I condone it with all my heart. Apparently, Skip and Dallas Mavericks owner and eccentric billionaire Mark Cuban got into a Twitter war, which led to Skip issuing Cuban a juvenile schoolyard dare to come on First Take and, I guess, debate whether or not Skip sucked at his job. This was not a wise decision on Skip Bayless’ part. Within the span of a few minutes, Cuban completely demolishes Skip’s brand of sports “journalism” and exposes the fact that Skip doesn’t actually know anything about basketball or have the slightest clue what he’s talking about. In the process of issuing this epic takedown, Cuban hits on something very crucial about the problems today with a lot of not only sports journalism, but also music journalism, cable news, and plenty of other mainstream journalism: meaningless, provocative generalizing replacing actual reporting or analysis. In the second segment, Skip’s co-host, notorious loudmouth Stephen A. Smith, who is also an idiot but comes across as a thoughtful and brilliant man when paired with the contrarian vapidity of Skip Bayless, tries arguing with Cuban as well, completely misses Cuban’s point, and thus doesn’t fare much better.
I’ve never had a problem with Mark Cuban, even though he usually comes across as a bratty asshole. But after watching this, I have a ton of respect for the guy. The fact that he is able to pinpoint the exact problems with Skip Bayless’ shoddy brand of journalism–which are, again, to me, the same problems that plague a lot of journalism in several different fields–and then vehemently call them out to a couple of the very people that are perpetuating them, well… it’s frigging awesome. Daily Show-esque, even, but even more blunt than that. Check it out below.