IrishTex
06-10-2010, 08:03 PM
It has indeed come to this: Tony Soprano, or at least the man who played him, made LeBron James an offer he can't refuse, or an offer, anyway. At this week's Spike TV awards, James Gandolfini made a plea from the podium for LeBron -- who happened to be in the house that night -- to come to the Knicks. If Jay-Z won't do it, another fake gangster has to step in, I guess.
Except Gandolfini got it all wrong. For one, Tony ruled New Jersey, and the actor himself lives in the Garden State. Pushing for New York like that would make TS, or any self-respecting Mafioso, sick to his stomach. Where are the core values of loyalty, territory, home, and siding with the underdog? Plus, who would a mobster rather roll with: the wretched James Dolan, or the charismatic, insistent Mikhail Prokhorov?
Admittedly, though, Gandolfini was onto something. Organized crime figures do make for strong pitchmen. They're respected, powerful, and can mess up a life bad if things don't go their way -- unless LeBron wants to go all warlord on us and get his own militia together to insure his safety. Mostly, though, people love Tony Soprano because we make icons of criminals. With that in mind, here's who Tom Ziller and myself recommend to each city in the running for LeBron to be their underworld-spokesman in this torrid, increasingly twisted, Summer of 2010.
New York Knicks: Frank Lucas. Running a sprawling drug gang may make this seem like slumming for upwardly-mobile LeBron. But Lucas, who made it his mission to wrest the business away from Sicialian overlords, fits well with LeBron's plans to rework the NBA food chain. Smuggling dope from the Orient in caskets? That's like a no-look pass! In his day, Lucas made clowns of flashier competitors like Nicky Barnes, while raking in cash and enjoying the finer things like a true professional.
Frank may have ended up in jail, and yet he became the kind of multi-platform global icon that James aspires to be. In 2007, the major motion picture American Gangster hit theaters to largely positive reviews. It was based on Mark Jacobson's NY Mag piece "The Return of Superfly," which puts Buzz Bissinger to shame. Denzel Washington took the lead role. A certain Sean Carter recorded an entire album based on the film. This was synergy to the fullest degree and in the end, it didn't really matter how good the movie was. Oh, and unlike James, Lucas can guest on Larry King Live without drawing guffaws. (Bethlehem Shoals)
New Jersey Nets: Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich. Who is Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich? Only the most feared, powerful figure in the history of Russian mobbing. He's the proverbial "boss of bosses," but has also earned the nickname "The Brainy Don" for his economics degree and, well, brain. If James likes Warren Buffet, he'll love this guy. Too bad he's an international fugitive ... who also still controls RosUkrEnergo oil company. I'm sure that the fabulously rich and seemingly fearless Prokhorov can convince Mogilevich to come out of hiding, or at least Skype with Bron Bron.
I'd thought about going with Michael "Mad Dog" Taccetta, a fractious Lucchese boss who oversaw the New Jersey operations. His New York associates one day decided that Jersey was getting too strong, and vowed to rub him out -- and in fact, replace all the leadership in that state. If he'd been smart like a hypothetical LeBron Nets, Mad Dog would have followed this failed assault with a move on Brooklyn. Remember, the goal is to make James see the Nets as a platform for world domination, not a provincial outpost. (BS)
Chicago Bulls: Al Capone. An absolute no-brainer. Al Capone is the greatest mobster ever. Michael Jordan, he's that for the NBA. Jordan's career has been reduced to a series of playoff moments and a handy, "I got this, no matter what" narrative. That's the commercial, the words on the statue. But really, Jordan dominated the game first because he upped the ante on sheer one-on-one fury, and then refined that into a kill-or-be-killed ethos when it came to winning and losing. Capone also played it both ways. His bootlegging operations made him a key figure in the wild and woolly world of Prohibition-era America, almost a crusader for justice. Certainly, it made him very wealthy, allowed him to run in exclusive circles, and glamorized him, and the figure of the mobster, like never before.
How did he get there, though? By carrying on mob wars that culminated in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a slaughter so gruesome that Chicago authorities (usually hesitant to bite the hand that fed them) were forced to close in on Capone. Basically, Jordan won because he's a jerk. Al Capone needed violent extremes to make it. What is it people always say about LeBron James lacking a killer instinct? Like MJ, Capone's proof that there's only one way to get to the top.
(Fun facts: Jordan was initially stifled by Dean Smith's Four Corners offense at UNC, Capone was an underling in New York's Five Points gang before heading to Illinois. Also, Capone went even crazier as he rotted in prison, on account of a case of syphilis. He never got to give a Hall of Fame speech, but I think we can guess what it might have sounded like.) (BS)
Miami Heat: Tony Montana. Tony Montana is not a real person. He's hardly even a real character, if that makes sense. In another acting life, Al Pacino breathed life into calculating boss Michael Corleone. Scarface was the beginning of Pacino's descent into pure histrionics. Yet Montana has become as famous as any real life gangster. His rags-to-riches story, outright ruthlessness, and island-nation-sized bravura resonated with a generation or two of hip-hop fans. Montana is make-believe, Scarface a dynamic fantasy -- much like the possibility of Wade being joined by LeBron James. It's an experiment that borders on absurd, a combination that could instantly transform the league and yet very likely not win a ring.
Throw in a third max player, though, and the Heat are champs for the next decade -- a scenario as awesome, and unlikely, as the reckless grenade-launching and mounds of cocaine that close out Scarface. Then again, South Beach itself has always been somewhat mythical, or at least ripped from the pages of Baudrillard. It's plastic nature is part of its appeal. So who are we to bring reality into all this? Wade, James, Bosh, the world is yours -- as soon as you get handy enough with those chainsaws in practice. (BS)
Cleveland Cavaliers: John Scalish. John Scalish helped boost the Cleveland Mafia's status, much as LeBron rescued the Cavs from mediocrity. But Scalish eventually stopped trusting people and wouldn't admit new members into the crew, and things got stale. Sound familiar? LeBron staying in Cleveland with just a new GM (who was basically co-GM already) and a new coach (who isn't that different from the old coach, whether the new coach is Tom Izzo or Byron Scott) and likely no new big-time free agent is effectively the same thing as Scalish's isolationism. Every city in America wants LeBron, and he stays with ... Cleveland, content to make the playoffs every year but unwilling to take his rightful (and righteous) place as Global Icon?
It's worth nothing, then, that Scalish died during heart surgery having failed to name a successor to head the Cleveland Mafia. He just couldn't be bothered. Be wary, LeBron. (TZ)
Dallas Mavericks: Joseph Civello. J.R. Ewing and Jerry Jones have given us a false impression of Dallas as some sort of cigars and 10-gallon hats cliché that can't see past its own borders. But this is a city where big, epoch-shaping things happen. Civello was running Dallas' crime family when JFK was assasinated in Dealey Plaza. You do the math. Jack Ruby killed the convicted assasin Lee Harvey Oswald. The first person to visit Ruby in jail was Civello's underboss. When conspiracy theorists say the mob killed Kennedy, they are talking about Joseph Civello. It's complicated, but so would any sign-and-trade for LeBron the Mavericks put together. And based on Mark Cuban's recent $100,000 tampering fine, the plan has been set in place. Just because you can't see it, or there are barriers in the way, that doesn't mean it won't happen. It only means you can't prove anything.
LeBron could also buy some stock in Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant (don't ask about the name), the best silly Italian spot in the DFW. It was Ruby's favorite eatery; in fact, he dined there the night before he shot Lee Harvey down. That landmark status, and the tourism opportunities it suggests, are a business goldmine waiting to happen; explicitly linking his own profoundly sketchy arrival to Civello/Ruby would allow Bron to make the Mavs the favorite NBA team of conspiracy theorists everywhere. (TZ)
Washington Wizards: G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy ran the White House Plumbers, and was the mastermind behind the Watergate break-ins. He also reportedly imagined a plethora of hare-brained schemes to poison (figuratively) political opponents of President Richard Nixon, including luring Democratic lawmakers onto a houseboat in Baltimore, send prostitutes into their laps and secretly photograph the encounter. Not all the ideas come to fruition; the Nixon administration, it must be said, lacked the resolve to be truly skeevy. But it's ultimately believable that Liddy, who has outlived most of his contemporaries, is still working the strings in D.C. The Wizards did land John Wall, after all, and Gilbert Arenas isn't in the pen.
Was that all just a set-up for LeBron? Perhaps James understands what the Romans knew 2,000 years ago: the real path to glory and riches is through public service. Or maybe this is just part of the deal he struck with the Illuminati on the day he was born. I'm sure Liddy could find a way around the Constitutional age restriction for those seeking to hold the presidency. This is the real reason Obama is pushing LeBron to Chicago: if Liddy installs LeBron in the White House, it'll be Barack who's sent back to Chicago. (TZ)
Los Angeles Clippers: Bugsy Siegel. Benjamin Siegel spent his whole lift trying to go straight. He craved legitimacy more than anything else. When Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello sent him to Los Angeles to oversee gambling operations, he thought he finally had his chance. Siegel moved to Los Angeles with his family, files taxes on legal gambling earnings. Except then, he and members of the notorious Murder, Inc. had to go and order the murder of a police informant.
Siegel stood trial, and while he was ultimately acquitted, he was now know nationally as a destructive thug who looked kind of crazy. That's where he earned the nickname "Bugsy", which no one ever called him to his crazy-looking face. Then he got another chance when Las Vegas sprang up. He helped build the town, even naming the Flamingo after his pet name for mistress Virginia Hill, then got in trouble, then was murdered. Some part of this was the basis for The Damned Don't Cry, one of my favorite Joan Crawford movies.
What's the point of all this? If LeBron were to become a Clipper, he would find himself worse off than before in every way. "King James" will give way to "Fart Teeth"; "The Chosen One" becomes "Does Not Recycle." Then, to save the league and LeBron (there will be no difference at that point), Stern will let the Maloofs move to Las Vegas, ferry LeBron there, and see his master plan go down in flames when James hooks up with Adam Silver's niece. That's right, the ghost of Bugsy Siegel, the most famous LA gangster who isn't a Blood or Crip (no way Sterling contacts them), would dissuade LBJ from making the move there. Let one great man learn from the failings of another. (BS)
Sacramento Kings: David Cervantes. DC, an inmate at California's Pelican Bay State Prison, is said to be the general-in-charge of the powerful Nuestra Familia, one of the state's two biggest prison gangs. Nuestra Familia's creation myth isn't all that different from the birth of the Sacramento Kings' identity. Rumor has it members of the state's first major Latino prison gang La Eme looked down upon inmates from the rural parts of Northern and Central California, thinking them lightweights much as those in L.A. heckle Kings fans as yokels. But Nuestra Familia became strong enough to challenge La Eme for supremacy for decades. LeBron could do the same by pairing with Tyreke Evans in Sacramento.
The key here is embracing the negatives: While so many gangsters see prison as the ultimate constraint, Cervantes has used his status as an inmate to grow his power. Free agents may want to spurn Sacramento as a cultural backwater. But as LeBron has learned in Cleveland, being the King in a landfill still makes you royalty. (TZ)
Minnesota Timberwolves: John Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and Ma Barker's gang; Verne Miller, Fred Goetz, and "Machine Gun" Kelly. Say what? I know, you don't associate the Twin Cities with the heyday of mob folk heroes. I didn't, either, and was about to use that Somali group that recruits kids to go fight with extremists overseas. As it turns out, though, in the 1930s St. Paul was an airtight haven for criminals on the run, no matter how badly the feds wanted them. There was a longstanding deal -- more like a pact -- between criminal elements and the local authorities that offered them amnesty for as long as they wanted. Of course, it would cost them, but the city was steadfast in opening its arms to Dillinger, Nelson and the like.
What does this have to do with LeBron? Well, heading to Minnesota would allow him to hole up and think things over if he really, really can't decide. There's always 2011, with Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant out there for the taking, right? Get ready for another year of suspense, as the game's rightful owner spends a year in self-imposed exile to clear his head and mindlessly averages 50, 15, and 12. Today, St. Paul would prefer this all never happened. Thankfully, David Kahn is way more shameless. (BS)
Source (http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/06/10/the-organized-crime-lebron-james-outreach-effort/)
Except Gandolfini got it all wrong. For one, Tony ruled New Jersey, and the actor himself lives in the Garden State. Pushing for New York like that would make TS, or any self-respecting Mafioso, sick to his stomach. Where are the core values of loyalty, territory, home, and siding with the underdog? Plus, who would a mobster rather roll with: the wretched James Dolan, or the charismatic, insistent Mikhail Prokhorov?
Admittedly, though, Gandolfini was onto something. Organized crime figures do make for strong pitchmen. They're respected, powerful, and can mess up a life bad if things don't go their way -- unless LeBron wants to go all warlord on us and get his own militia together to insure his safety. Mostly, though, people love Tony Soprano because we make icons of criminals. With that in mind, here's who Tom Ziller and myself recommend to each city in the running for LeBron to be their underworld-spokesman in this torrid, increasingly twisted, Summer of 2010.
New York Knicks: Frank Lucas. Running a sprawling drug gang may make this seem like slumming for upwardly-mobile LeBron. But Lucas, who made it his mission to wrest the business away from Sicialian overlords, fits well with LeBron's plans to rework the NBA food chain. Smuggling dope from the Orient in caskets? That's like a no-look pass! In his day, Lucas made clowns of flashier competitors like Nicky Barnes, while raking in cash and enjoying the finer things like a true professional.
Frank may have ended up in jail, and yet he became the kind of multi-platform global icon that James aspires to be. In 2007, the major motion picture American Gangster hit theaters to largely positive reviews. It was based on Mark Jacobson's NY Mag piece "The Return of Superfly," which puts Buzz Bissinger to shame. Denzel Washington took the lead role. A certain Sean Carter recorded an entire album based on the film. This was synergy to the fullest degree and in the end, it didn't really matter how good the movie was. Oh, and unlike James, Lucas can guest on Larry King Live without drawing guffaws. (Bethlehem Shoals)
New Jersey Nets: Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich. Who is Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich? Only the most feared, powerful figure in the history of Russian mobbing. He's the proverbial "boss of bosses," but has also earned the nickname "The Brainy Don" for his economics degree and, well, brain. If James likes Warren Buffet, he'll love this guy. Too bad he's an international fugitive ... who also still controls RosUkrEnergo oil company. I'm sure that the fabulously rich and seemingly fearless Prokhorov can convince Mogilevich to come out of hiding, or at least Skype with Bron Bron.
I'd thought about going with Michael "Mad Dog" Taccetta, a fractious Lucchese boss who oversaw the New Jersey operations. His New York associates one day decided that Jersey was getting too strong, and vowed to rub him out -- and in fact, replace all the leadership in that state. If he'd been smart like a hypothetical LeBron Nets, Mad Dog would have followed this failed assault with a move on Brooklyn. Remember, the goal is to make James see the Nets as a platform for world domination, not a provincial outpost. (BS)
Chicago Bulls: Al Capone. An absolute no-brainer. Al Capone is the greatest mobster ever. Michael Jordan, he's that for the NBA. Jordan's career has been reduced to a series of playoff moments and a handy, "I got this, no matter what" narrative. That's the commercial, the words on the statue. But really, Jordan dominated the game first because he upped the ante on sheer one-on-one fury, and then refined that into a kill-or-be-killed ethos when it came to winning and losing. Capone also played it both ways. His bootlegging operations made him a key figure in the wild and woolly world of Prohibition-era America, almost a crusader for justice. Certainly, it made him very wealthy, allowed him to run in exclusive circles, and glamorized him, and the figure of the mobster, like never before.
How did he get there, though? By carrying on mob wars that culminated in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, a slaughter so gruesome that Chicago authorities (usually hesitant to bite the hand that fed them) were forced to close in on Capone. Basically, Jordan won because he's a jerk. Al Capone needed violent extremes to make it. What is it people always say about LeBron James lacking a killer instinct? Like MJ, Capone's proof that there's only one way to get to the top.
(Fun facts: Jordan was initially stifled by Dean Smith's Four Corners offense at UNC, Capone was an underling in New York's Five Points gang before heading to Illinois. Also, Capone went even crazier as he rotted in prison, on account of a case of syphilis. He never got to give a Hall of Fame speech, but I think we can guess what it might have sounded like.) (BS)
Miami Heat: Tony Montana. Tony Montana is not a real person. He's hardly even a real character, if that makes sense. In another acting life, Al Pacino breathed life into calculating boss Michael Corleone. Scarface was the beginning of Pacino's descent into pure histrionics. Yet Montana has become as famous as any real life gangster. His rags-to-riches story, outright ruthlessness, and island-nation-sized bravura resonated with a generation or two of hip-hop fans. Montana is make-believe, Scarface a dynamic fantasy -- much like the possibility of Wade being joined by LeBron James. It's an experiment that borders on absurd, a combination that could instantly transform the league and yet very likely not win a ring.
Throw in a third max player, though, and the Heat are champs for the next decade -- a scenario as awesome, and unlikely, as the reckless grenade-launching and mounds of cocaine that close out Scarface. Then again, South Beach itself has always been somewhat mythical, or at least ripped from the pages of Baudrillard. It's plastic nature is part of its appeal. So who are we to bring reality into all this? Wade, James, Bosh, the world is yours -- as soon as you get handy enough with those chainsaws in practice. (BS)
Cleveland Cavaliers: John Scalish. John Scalish helped boost the Cleveland Mafia's status, much as LeBron rescued the Cavs from mediocrity. But Scalish eventually stopped trusting people and wouldn't admit new members into the crew, and things got stale. Sound familiar? LeBron staying in Cleveland with just a new GM (who was basically co-GM already) and a new coach (who isn't that different from the old coach, whether the new coach is Tom Izzo or Byron Scott) and likely no new big-time free agent is effectively the same thing as Scalish's isolationism. Every city in America wants LeBron, and he stays with ... Cleveland, content to make the playoffs every year but unwilling to take his rightful (and righteous) place as Global Icon?
It's worth nothing, then, that Scalish died during heart surgery having failed to name a successor to head the Cleveland Mafia. He just couldn't be bothered. Be wary, LeBron. (TZ)
Dallas Mavericks: Joseph Civello. J.R. Ewing and Jerry Jones have given us a false impression of Dallas as some sort of cigars and 10-gallon hats cliché that can't see past its own borders. But this is a city where big, epoch-shaping things happen. Civello was running Dallas' crime family when JFK was assasinated in Dealey Plaza. You do the math. Jack Ruby killed the convicted assasin Lee Harvey Oswald. The first person to visit Ruby in jail was Civello's underboss. When conspiracy theorists say the mob killed Kennedy, they are talking about Joseph Civello. It's complicated, but so would any sign-and-trade for LeBron the Mavericks put together. And based on Mark Cuban's recent $100,000 tampering fine, the plan has been set in place. Just because you can't see it, or there are barriers in the way, that doesn't mean it won't happen. It only means you can't prove anything.
LeBron could also buy some stock in Campisi's Egyptian Restaurant (don't ask about the name), the best silly Italian spot in the DFW. It was Ruby's favorite eatery; in fact, he dined there the night before he shot Lee Harvey down. That landmark status, and the tourism opportunities it suggests, are a business goldmine waiting to happen; explicitly linking his own profoundly sketchy arrival to Civello/Ruby would allow Bron to make the Mavs the favorite NBA team of conspiracy theorists everywhere. (TZ)
Washington Wizards: G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy ran the White House Plumbers, and was the mastermind behind the Watergate break-ins. He also reportedly imagined a plethora of hare-brained schemes to poison (figuratively) political opponents of President Richard Nixon, including luring Democratic lawmakers onto a houseboat in Baltimore, send prostitutes into their laps and secretly photograph the encounter. Not all the ideas come to fruition; the Nixon administration, it must be said, lacked the resolve to be truly skeevy. But it's ultimately believable that Liddy, who has outlived most of his contemporaries, is still working the strings in D.C. The Wizards did land John Wall, after all, and Gilbert Arenas isn't in the pen.
Was that all just a set-up for LeBron? Perhaps James understands what the Romans knew 2,000 years ago: the real path to glory and riches is through public service. Or maybe this is just part of the deal he struck with the Illuminati on the day he was born. I'm sure Liddy could find a way around the Constitutional age restriction for those seeking to hold the presidency. This is the real reason Obama is pushing LeBron to Chicago: if Liddy installs LeBron in the White House, it'll be Barack who's sent back to Chicago. (TZ)
Los Angeles Clippers: Bugsy Siegel. Benjamin Siegel spent his whole lift trying to go straight. He craved legitimacy more than anything else. When Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello sent him to Los Angeles to oversee gambling operations, he thought he finally had his chance. Siegel moved to Los Angeles with his family, files taxes on legal gambling earnings. Except then, he and members of the notorious Murder, Inc. had to go and order the murder of a police informant.
Siegel stood trial, and while he was ultimately acquitted, he was now know nationally as a destructive thug who looked kind of crazy. That's where he earned the nickname "Bugsy", which no one ever called him to his crazy-looking face. Then he got another chance when Las Vegas sprang up. He helped build the town, even naming the Flamingo after his pet name for mistress Virginia Hill, then got in trouble, then was murdered. Some part of this was the basis for The Damned Don't Cry, one of my favorite Joan Crawford movies.
What's the point of all this? If LeBron were to become a Clipper, he would find himself worse off than before in every way. "King James" will give way to "Fart Teeth"; "The Chosen One" becomes "Does Not Recycle." Then, to save the league and LeBron (there will be no difference at that point), Stern will let the Maloofs move to Las Vegas, ferry LeBron there, and see his master plan go down in flames when James hooks up with Adam Silver's niece. That's right, the ghost of Bugsy Siegel, the most famous LA gangster who isn't a Blood or Crip (no way Sterling contacts them), would dissuade LBJ from making the move there. Let one great man learn from the failings of another. (BS)
Sacramento Kings: David Cervantes. DC, an inmate at California's Pelican Bay State Prison, is said to be the general-in-charge of the powerful Nuestra Familia, one of the state's two biggest prison gangs. Nuestra Familia's creation myth isn't all that different from the birth of the Sacramento Kings' identity. Rumor has it members of the state's first major Latino prison gang La Eme looked down upon inmates from the rural parts of Northern and Central California, thinking them lightweights much as those in L.A. heckle Kings fans as yokels. But Nuestra Familia became strong enough to challenge La Eme for supremacy for decades. LeBron could do the same by pairing with Tyreke Evans in Sacramento.
The key here is embracing the negatives: While so many gangsters see prison as the ultimate constraint, Cervantes has used his status as an inmate to grow his power. Free agents may want to spurn Sacramento as a cultural backwater. But as LeBron has learned in Cleveland, being the King in a landfill still makes you royalty. (TZ)
Minnesota Timberwolves: John Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and Ma Barker's gang; Verne Miller, Fred Goetz, and "Machine Gun" Kelly. Say what? I know, you don't associate the Twin Cities with the heyday of mob folk heroes. I didn't, either, and was about to use that Somali group that recruits kids to go fight with extremists overseas. As it turns out, though, in the 1930s St. Paul was an airtight haven for criminals on the run, no matter how badly the feds wanted them. There was a longstanding deal -- more like a pact -- between criminal elements and the local authorities that offered them amnesty for as long as they wanted. Of course, it would cost them, but the city was steadfast in opening its arms to Dillinger, Nelson and the like.
What does this have to do with LeBron? Well, heading to Minnesota would allow him to hole up and think things over if he really, really can't decide. There's always 2011, with Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant out there for the taking, right? Get ready for another year of suspense, as the game's rightful owner spends a year in self-imposed exile to clear his head and mindlessly averages 50, 15, and 12. Today, St. Paul would prefer this all never happened. Thankfully, David Kahn is way more shameless. (BS)
Source (http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/06/10/the-organized-crime-lebron-james-outreach-effort/)