The Deadspin -51*: The Most Useless Thinkers, Doers, And Dreamers
Last week, Politico, a Washington, DC-based native advertising shop, produced the Politico 50, a list of "the thinkers, doers and dreamers who really matter in this age of gridlock and dysfunction."
Today, as a complement, we offer the Deadspin -51*, a list of the thinkers, doers, and dreamers who don't really matter at all. This list isn't ordered in any particular way, and we didn't work especially hard on it, but we're confident that you will find all of these figures as useless as we do.
1. Kevin Johnson, former NBA player, mayor of Sacramento
Used NBA superstardom as a springboard to elected office, and also to beat repeated child-groping allegations and filch federal funds. Also "saved" the Kings by facilitating the bankrupting of his shitty cow-town to build a new arena for them.
2. Chris Cooley, former NFL player, current sports radio bloviator
Professional idiot management stooge. Will say any dumb shit to stay collecting that Snyder money.
3. Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros general manager
Ted-talking would-be thinkfluencer. Best skills involve getting gushing profiles written, getting other people fired, and figuring out novel ways to scam teenagers.
4. Donte' Stallworth, former NFL player, current take-artist
Combination 9/11 truther/vaccination nut/convicted felon who's inexplicably carved out a "thoughtful athlete" niche.
5. DiGiorno Pizza, pizza/Twitter user
Dumb, bad pizza won't stop performatively apologizing for a harmless hashtag mishap.
6. Chris Hansen, rich person
Seattle finance dude who let himself get played like a damn kazoo by the NBA so it could get a new publicly-funded arena in Sacramento.
7. Eric Shanks, Fox Sports president
President of Fox Sports.
8. Jamie Mottram, USA Today Sports director of content development
Enthusiastic advocate of viral brand marketing.
9. Jerry Richardson, Carolina Panthers owner
Went all-in as a hardline advocate for a crypto-fascist CBA while lying about his team's financials.
10. Scotty Brooks, Oklahoma City Thunder "coach"
Vestigial chaperone for a team that could probably win 55 games and a playoff series with a googly-eyed garden rake holding the clipboard on the sideline. Actively makes team worse whenever he makes a decision.
11. Matt Yglesias, blogger
Soulless apologist for capitalism's most unnecessary degradations. Declared Chipotle burritos the best in America because a publicly-held consumables manufacturer has figured out a way to make them quickly in ubiquitous storefronts.
12. Clay Travis, Fox Sports hot-taker
Fake lawyer with spray-on beard. Blogger-turned-personality who lacks the creative or intellectual ability necessary to support such a leap. An incredibly stupid person's idea of a smart person.
13. " The Sisters Williams," ESPNw football bloggers
Wrote this goddamn thing, which is all but explicitly intended to be useless, advising women who play fantasy football on whether they should want to marry or just fuck various NFL players.
14. The 1972 Miami Dolphins, 1972 Miami Dolphins
Annoying uncles hanging out at the high school tailgate, talking about the time they won state.
15. Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated media reporter
Brags on how he will never stop going in; does not go in.
16. Chris Jones, writerer
17. Violet Palmer, NBA referee
Maybe 3D glasses would help.
18. Jeanie Buss, Los Angeles Lakers president and part-owner
Couldn't get her boyfriend Phil Jackson a job with the team she owns and runs, and where he won five rings.
19. Steven Hyden, Grantland music writer
Primary professional duty seems to be constructing circuitous apologia for his boss's lousy taste in dad rock.
20. Rob Neyer, Fox Sports senior baseball editor
Healthy skepticism became a guy aggressively working a Falling Down gimmick so slowly no one really noticed.
21. Chris Berman and Tom Jackson, ESPN talkers
NFL analysis as produced by an iPhone app that makes fart noises.
22. The editors of Deadspin, Deadspin editors
Handwringing scolds who traffic in smut; alternately demand to be seen as high-minded or mere purveyors of internet effluvia according to the needs of the moment.
23. Suey Park, Twitter activist or whatever
24. Julie Hermann, Rutgers athletic director
Former abusive, domineering coach. Former abusive athletics administrator at Louisville. Now head of the most dysfunctional, abusive athletic department in the entire NCAA.
25. Phil Jackson, New York Knicks president
Has conflated superior interpersonal coaching skills with being a Zen Buddha savant. Signed Lamar Odom in 2014.
26. Malcolm Gladwell, thoughtfluencer
Oh for Christ's sake.
27. Eric Winston, NFLPA president, free-agent offensive lineman
Probably Roger Goodell in a wig.
28. Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner/frontman for Dan Snyder and Jimmy Haslam
Believes he is a towering beacon of leadership; wants you to believe he is an iron-fisted strongman; is actually a laughably inept buffoon.
29. Gregg Easterbrook, public pseudo-intellectual
Haughty, endlessly self-congratulatory dipshit. Eagerly awaits the vindication of his dumb ideas by the magical return of 1962. Recommends his own books.
30-t. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder forward/Robert Griffin III, Washington Redskins quarterback
Have focus-grouped personae designed to allow sportswriters to pin on whatever moralistic platitudes fit the moment. Human lamp post, meet Mitt Romney in cleats.
32. David Moyes, unemployed soccer coach
Sad-sack Manchester United flameout last seen fighting some dude in a wine bar.
33. Ann McKee, neuropathologist, brain-injury expert
Produces hasty science about CTE and shouts it into a megaphone, performing brain dissections out of ceremony more than curiosity at this point.
34. Ray Lewis, ESPN bloviator
Inspirational leader who probably didn't kill anyone only says anything interesting when you bring up long-ago unpleasantries, leading him to insist you stop talking about them.
35. Darren Rovell, ESPN "sports" "business" "reporter"
Knows nothing about sports, has zero curiosity about business, and reports nothing that can't be found in the sponsored tweet immediately below it in your timeline. Rewrites press releases.
36. Howard Milstein, rich person
Wannabe Washington Redskins owner whose historic 1999 rejection by the NFL unleashed Dan Snyder on the world.
37. Jonathan Duncan, NCAA vice-president of enforcement
Ineffectual enforcer of bad rules.
38. Lane Kiffin, Alabama offensive coordinator
Downwardly mobile sports doofus. Literally has never accomplished anything.
39. Jason Whitlock, sportswriter (?)
Does he even have a job anymore? What is his actual job?
40. Shelly Sterling, rich person
Parlayed maybe, possibly being slightly less virulently racist than Donald Sterling into a role as elder stateswoman of the Clippers.
41. Steve Patterson, Texas athletic director
Donald Sterling channeler.
42. Bob Bowlsby, Big 12 commissioner
43. Jim Nantz, broadcaster
The soothing voice of your granddad's dementia.
44. Asker Jeukendrup, global director of Gatorade Sports Science Institute
Fronts a "scientific" organization whose principal purpose is to validate Gatorade's existence and perpetuate its success.
45. Dana White, UFC figurehead
Sleazy minority owner of the "combat sport" apparatus he seems hell-bent upon ushering back into irrelevance.
46. Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager
Loser.
47. Chris Kluwe, gamer
Mediocre punter; off-brand Drew Magary. Needs a day job we can tell him not to quit.
48. Richard "Dick" Parsons, Los Angeles Clippers CEO
49. Jon Barry, NBA commentator
Played basketball for decades and now commentates on it for a job, despite manifestly hating the sport and everyone who plays it.
50. Billy Beane, Athletics GM and minority owner
Soccer fan. Arsene Wenger fan. Thinkpiece writer.
51. Wright Thompson, writerer
52. Peter King, stooge
53. Paul Hughes, mouthpiece
Flack for Qatar's Supreme Committee of Delivery & Legacy. Hasn't been doing a very good job.
54. Mike Wise, Washington Post columnist
Thinks Ernie Grunfeld is good at his job. More damningly, that's not an atypically dumb Mike Wise take.
55. Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts quarterback
The only reason there's anything here is that we assumed if we left this blank you would think it was inadvertent.
56. Andrea Bargnani, Andrea Bargnani
Image by Jim Cooke