Tony Parker. He raps in French, leads the league in scoring in the paint, leads the world in scoring with Eva Longoria, and is locked down by a perennial contender until 2011 for around $13 million a year. Oh, and he's 25. Damn.
Still, all shallow-as-a-culture-dish envy aside, there's something so simultaneously likeable and detestable about Parker. T.P. is a classic case of guy that you can rip from a hundred different angles, but almost every time you do, what follows is "...but damn, he's good."
Yeah, the coy smile, scarred face, and garbled accent plant him on the cover of magazines and facilitate brutal Frap videos featuring Fabolous, but then he comes out in Game 1 of the NBA finals and drops 27 like he's the Belgian LeBron. Come to think of it, LeBron actually sounds a little Belgian.
But Parker never waffles (gulp), and that's why if he wasn't already considered as such, the 2007 finals will establish him as one of the top three point guards in the NBA. True, rookie Daniel Gibson and veteran rapper Keith Murray, er, veteran bricklayer Eric Snow don't provide a level of competition commensurate with Parker's skill, but the way he and the Spurs will likely slice through what's left of the Cleveland Cavaliers is both a testament to how he runs the team and a credit to James for even getting so many average stiffs so far. But that's for another article.
The point is that as much about Parker as there is to dislike (or at least spitefully make fun of) his hard-nosed-right-at-the-basket play and soft-as-a-white-cotton-suit celebrity are at the very least impressive in combination. Somehow, with his debut album Tony Parker just hitting the shelves, his NBA "Wedding of the Decade" set for July in Paris and his third NBA title in the works, he could be way more obnoxious or erratic than he is, or at least way more French.
Yes, there are some pretty borderline glamour shots floating around the Internet, but even with them in the mix it seems like he's just the right amount of French for right now, and it's all damn entertaining to watch.
Because come on, if you took in even 10 minutes of the first half of Game 2, you saw at least one physics-defying bank shot lay-up in traffic worthy of a sacre bleu! that would make Johan Petro weep.
And maybe that's why Tony's, um, hit single, was called "Balance-Toi." Or maybe not, who really cares?
In truth it makes no difference, because either way Parker is certain to be one of the most talked about, watched, and Googled NBA players this offseason, and before he jumps the proverbial shark, we should all enjoy watching him chop up one last defense, because it's definitely better than Anderson Varejao's hair or watching Tim Duncan quietly collect another Finals MVP to mount next to his Hootie and the Blowfish paraphernalia.
N'est pas?
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