I Just Can't Resist . . .

UPDATE: Amazing how quickly the little elves at the Strib work. Before I even finished writing my criticism of Hartman, his column had been drastically altered. Hartman blames the gaffe on Fred Hoiberg, who to be fair was quoted in the original column. The link below will now take you to the heavily edited version of Hartman's column, so don't expect to find the incriminating evidence there. Before I send you on to my original column, let me just say that I stand by the criticism of Hartman that is found below, even if he was misled by Hoiberg. Pretty much everyone in basketball knew that Kevin McHale was infatuated with Kevin Love. I know very little about the NBA, but when the Wolves drafted Mayo and the Grizzlies drafted Love, I groaned and said to my roommate "guess the Wolves are going to end up with Kevin Love." (I also suggested this possibility in my Nightly Notes column, written before the second round of the draft started and long before the Mayo/Love swap). I said this not because I'm a genius, but because I had read numerous articles over the past 48 hours about the Wolves interest in Love and the fact that a bunch of teams, including the Grizzlies, wanted Mayo. Hartman bought Hoiberg's statement hook, line, and sinker, and checked his critical thinking skills at the door. If someone like me knew that the Wolves didn't "want Mayo all along," then Hartman certainly should have, too. Now, on to the original post.

I've never been a fan of Sid Hartman's. I stopped reading his column several years ago because it either made me laugh out loud or gave me a headache. Tonight, though, after seeing on ESPN.com that the Wolves had done what just about everyone thought they would do and traded O.J. Mayo for Kevin Love, I stopped by the Wolves section on the Strib website just to see what was kickin' around. Imagine my surprise when I saw a Hartman column with the glorious title of "Wolves wanted Mayo all along." The article is almost painful to read, considering that it was horribly outdated mere moments after being posted. I don't know that I've ever seen a columnist write something that is so obviously rubbish -- I mean, I've read columns that I strongly, strongly disagreed with, but never something that so blatantly made the writer look like a fool. It'd be sad if it weren't so darned funny.

As for the trade itself, I can't say a lot. I know a lot less about the NBA than I do about professional baseball. I know that I don't particularly care for Kevin Love, and have never thought he would make a solid professional baller. I sincerely hope he proves me wrong, but with Kevin McHale's track record I doubt it. Thing is, I also wasn't all that high on O.J. Mayo, either. I don't know what it was -- I just never really was into him. When it was clear that the Wolves weren't going to have any shot at Michael Beasley, I pretty much figured that they weren't going to end up with a player I wanted no matter what happened.

For me, then, I'm actually inclined not to completely hate this trade. Mayo is almost certainly a better player than Love, but as I said I wasn't all that high on Mayo so I don't think the difference is going to be astronomical. The key to this trade, then, might be the addition of Mike Miller to the Wolves. I'm inclined to think that, in the end, this deal might turn out just fine.

This post isn't really about whether the deal was good or bad, though. Instead, it's about a sportswriter who made one of the worst gaffes I've seen, and made himself more irrelevant than ever. Normally, I don't feel it's necessary to point out errors like this. Everyone is human, and I certainly make more than my fair share of mistakes. But Hartman too often comes across as smugly superior, as if he's seen it all and knows everyone worth knowing and therefore is far better than all the rest of us mere mortals. When he makes a mistake as colossal and embarrassing as this one, he deserves to be taken to task -- even if my writing a disparaging column about his work is the equivalent of shooting a giant with a spit ball. On behalf of readers everywhere, all I have to say is do better, Sid, or hang 'em up.