The other day, Jacko and the Sports Guy were discussing the difference between athlete funny and actual funny. The basic idea was that whenever you see guys like Kevin Millar or Nick Swisher talking to teammates in the dugout, they always look like they’re about to fall off the bench laughing. I don’t know too much about either of those guys actual personalities (Sports Guy and Jacko seem to think they probably aren’t really funny although everyone definitely loves Millar), but athlete humor definitely is graded on a a curve. It’s hard to believe that hanging out with Chris Bosh, for instance, would be an uproarious time despite the fact that he once made a really funny YouTube video. I just doubt that he would be contextually hilarious throughout the day. Mildly comical, sure, but not memorably funny.
Some guys in sports, of course, are legitimately funny. Bill and Johnny toss around names like Peyton Manning and Charles Barkley as potential candidates.* I’m not sure about those guys, but I’m fairly certain that Steve Nash is hilarious. I always prefer a dry wit with some self-deprecation to a class-clown persona anyway, but Steve’s understated subtlety has always been great. (Particularly during all these spectacular commercials.) Tim Duncan supposedly has a similar sense of humor. And Yao has definitely killed me with this brand of funny in both The Year of Yao and during the epic press conference he shared with Ron Artest last month. (The truncated 1:42 in this clip really doesn’t do this press conference justice. It was like 15 minutes long in actuality and both Yao and Tru Warier were dropping comedy nuggets throughout. I’ve made several requests to my NBA press contact to get a link to the entire thing with no luck. Some day it happen, however. I’ll letcha know.)
The reason I bring this all up is because the following video where Steve serves as NBA Finals roving reporter for the Late Show with David Letterman is pretty comical. You should watch it.
* (Jacko easily has the best line of the podcast when, after Simmons asks him who might possibly be the least funny athlete of all time, he drops a “Ty Cobb?”) (video via Ball Don’t Lie)
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