Bard On Basketball (Shakespeare's Take On The Lockout)

Note: I bumped this up a bit because I'm sad it got buried under lockout updates.

What do bored bloggers do with their time when there's no basketball to talk about?  We get creative.

The following is a compilation of altered Shakespeare quotes that express our feelings on the NBA and usually the lockout in particular.  Hope you enjoy.

---

LJ Rotter from Mavs Moneyball

Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this win of Dirk; 
And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our league 
In the deep bosom of the lockout buried.

I am a Player. Hath not a Player eyes? Hath not a Player hands, feet, vertical leap, quickness, shoe deals, clothing lines; fed with the same food, flown in the same jet, subject to the same fines, booed by the same fans, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as an owner is? If you fine us, do we not pay? If you heckle us, do we not laugh? If you cheer us, do we not showboat? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

More one liners:

• What's in a Bulls Game?
• That which we call D-Rose by any other name would play as sweet.
• The player doth protest too much
• The fault, dear Fan, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings

JR Wilco from Pounding The Rock with assist by Steve Perrin from ClipsNation

To play or not to play... that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous luxury tax penalties
Or to take arms against a sea of owners, and by decertifying, end them
To hack -- to foul, 
No more; and by a foul to say we end 
Negotiations and the thousand press conferences
That press is heir to; 'tis a decertification
Devoutly to be wish'd.

JR Wilco from Pounding The Rock

All the world's a court,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their check-ins and their foul-outs;
And one man in his time plays many positions...

The following is from Richard III Act 1 Scene 2 -- with David Stern as Gloucester/Richard and the fans as Anne.

For background: The villain Gloucester (who becomes Richard the Third when he's crowned later in the play) killed Lady Anne's husband, prince Edward, and then followed that by slaughtering her father-in-law, King Henry the Sixth. As Anne was mourning and walking alongside King Henry's corpse as it's being taken to be entombed, Gloucester shows up and, against all odds, wins her over with flattery and smooth talking -- all of which are false. At the beginning of the scene she's raining down curses on his head, by the time his silver-tongued work is done, she's ready to believe he did it all for her and is guardedly considering marrying him. (Of course, he's only interested in her as far as she can help him become king himself. So, there's a parallel or two between him and our beloved commish.) She leaves to go home and prepare for him to visit, and he has a moment for a soliloquy.

GLOUCESTER:

Was ever a fanbase in this humour woo'd?
Was ever a fanbase in this humour won?
I'll have them; but I will not keep them long.
What! I, that destroyed their players and their league,
To take them in their heart's extremest hate,
With curses in their mouths, tears in their eyes,
The bleeding ruins of the player's union nearby;
Having God, their conscience, and my deeds against me,
And I nothing to back my case at all,
But my half-truths, smirks, and sarcasm,
And yet to convince them, all the world to nothing!
Ha!Have they forgot already that brave season,
Called the best ever, that I have now buried,
Killed at the negotiating table?

---

Steve Perrin from ClipsNation

I have of late, -yea wherefore I know well, -lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of blogging; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the arena, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the court, look you, this brave o'erhanging backboard, this majestical roof fretted with soaring Griffins,-why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is Stern! How ignoble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and reprehensible! in action how like a devil! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the owners! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and George Cohen is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the Stern moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, his mediator, art far more fair than he.

---

Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog

"Shall I compare thee Lockout to a summer's day?
Thou art more dour and more destitute:
Rough winds do shake the darling fans to dismay,
And Sacramento's lease hath all too short a date".

More one liners:

• the play's the thing, wherein I'll capture the conscience of King James
• "I am but mad in the Southwest division. When the trade winds blow, I know a Hawk from a Harden." - Mark Cuban"
• Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast" - The Celtics, Mavs, and Spurs before the season
• "For you and I are past our dancing days" - The Celtics, Mavs, and Spurs after the season
• JaValle McGee is fortunes fool
• "Friends, fans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Stern, not to praise him".

---

Chris Clark from Silver Screen & Roll

The OWNERS lock the PLAYERS out.

THE FAN:  I am hurt.
A plague on both your associations! I am sped.
Is basketball gone, and hath nothing?

DAVID STERN: What, art thou hurt?

THE FAN: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a mediator .

Exit Stern

DEREK FISHER: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

THE FAN: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me next season, and you shall find me a grave fan. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this game.

A plague on both your associations!

'Zounds, an owner , a player, a lawyer, an agent, to bleed a man to poverty! a braggart, a rogue, a villain that fights by the book of finance! Why the devil came you between us?

---

J.A. Sherman from Welcome to Loud City

• "Boldness be my friend" - LeBron