Keown: Nitpicker\'s paradise

Tag : women's cardigan
Djokovic bounces the ball as many as 30 times before he serves, ahabit that infuriates and frustrates his opponents. Nadal obsessesabout the position of his water bottles between sets, moving themfractions of inches before letting them rest.
The novelist David Foster Wallace once wrote an exhaustive -- and,because it's DFW, frequently exhausting -- story about a midrangetennis player who had no discernible personality. It was Wallace'swell-reasoned contention that the single-minded devotion needed totruly excel at the sport removed all chance for nuance -- tennisplayers are essentially well-trained automatons.
This truth frustrates us sports fans more than anybody. We want ourathletes to be informed and entertaining off the court, too, but itrarely happens. Look at Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer. Asidefrom Djokovic's penchant for impersonations -- of his competitorsonly, of course -- we don't know much about any of them. Nadalseems to exist behind a wall of PR people, and Federer is a formerracket-tossing brat whose reformed ways make him a blandperfectionist we're forced to enjoy from a distance.
But hey, with the Olympics looming, we're about to enter highseason for contrived drama. Everybody's got a story, heartwarmingand heart-wrenching and wrapped in the flag. Pity the man whochooses to stand in front of that train.
This Week's List
• I know I sound 900 years old every time I say this, and I know itshows I can't find the intersection of Commerce and Sport with aGPS, but that doesn't make it any less true: The NBA Finals -- just like the World Series -- has become apoorly played anticlimax because the preliminary rounds force teamsto play too many games.
• And get the hell off my lawn, you dadgum kids: Once again, the format that would ensure the best competition andthe freshest legs would be a first-round best-of-three, followed bya best-of-five conference semifinals, followed by a best-of-sevenin both the conference finals and the Finals.
• When they talk about leaving it all on the floor, these twoapparently aren't sold on the concept: Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol.
• Just for the heck of it: Tim Teufel.
• Apparently there is such a thing as presumed guilty: Cedric Benson was ordered to install a Breathalyzer in his carthat unlocks the ignition only after it doesn't detect alcohol.
• And in other traffic news, the high road remains clear: In what was described as a "freestyle rap in a New York nightclub"on Sunday night, Shaquille O'Neal ripped Kobe Bryant by saying,among other things, "Kobe [expletive], tell me how my [expletive]tastes."
• And finally, I know Shaq has his experiences and I have mine, but: I've always found nothing but trouble when I get going on afreestyle rap.
Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. Sound off toTim here .