Welcome To The Super Bowl
By Bill Simmons
Page 2

HOUSTON -- On the night before I hopped a plane to Texas for the NBA's annual All-Star Weekend, L.A. Times columnist J.A. Adande e-mailed me just to say, "Have fun at the black Super Bowl."

And that's when I thought two things:

1) Perfect. That's the perfect description of why I love NBA All-Star Weekend. It's the black Super Bowl. How could you possibly predict what could happen at the black Super Bowl?

2) Damn, why didn't I think of that phrase first?

Most Disappointing Moment
Stephen A. Smith showed up at Friday night's ESPN party, forcing me to watch him out of the corner of my eye for two hours so I could overhear him order a drink. Alas, he never did. But I think it would have gone something like this:

-- Bartender: What can I get you?

-- Smith: WHAT KIND OF BEERS DO YOU HAVE IN BOTTLES?

-- Bartender: Bud Light, Miller Light, Bud, Heineken.

-- Smith: I'M GONNA HAVE A BUD LIGHT PLEASE!

And I'm sitting there dying. For one thing, I love cards and have a gambling problem. Also, what would be a greater story than Sully and me getting winners against Oak and MJ? Sure, there wasn't a chance in hell, but it was fun to imagine. Meanwhile, the day kept getting stranger and stranger. Around 6, Shaquille O'Neal showed up with his posse, wearing a four-piece suit that caused MJ to joke, "I'm glad you're living up to the responsibility of the dress code." A little bit later, Bucks assistant Lester Conner showed up wearing a red sweatshirt with a giant Jordan logo on it .... when do you run into someone when you're randomly wearing their clothes? And MJ kept getting louder and louder, and he and Oakley were cleaning up, and we're all watching them while pretending not to watch, and then suddenly ...



MJ's wife shows up.



Uh-oh.



Everyone makes room for her. She sneaks in and sits down right next to him. And poor MJ looks like somebody who took a no-hitter into the ninth, then gave up a triple off the left-field wall. The trash-talking stops. He slumps in his seat like a little kid. The cigar goes out. No more hangin' with the boys. Time to be a husband again. Watching the whole thing unfold, I lean over to Sully just to say, "Look at that, he's just like us."



And he was. Just your average guy getting derailed by his wife. For once in my life, I didn't want to be like Mike.

MJ takes more crap off his wife than I do.

At one point, he was thinking about ordering food, stood up, looked over at all of us eating, noticed Rich's cheeseburger, asked if it was a cheeseburger, asked if it was good, kept glancing at it, kept glancing at it ... and I swear, we were all waiting for Oak [Charles Oakley] to say the words, "Oak wants your cheeseburger, and he wants it now." But he didn't. He ended up ordering one himself. Too bad...



...Stephen A. Smith showed up at Friday night's ESPN party, forcing me to watch him out of the corner of my eye for two hours so I could overhear him order a drink. Alas, he never did. But I think it would have gone something like this:

-- Bartender: What can I get you?

-- Smith: WHAT KIND OF BEERS DO YOU HAVE IN BOTTLES?

-- Bartender: Bud Light, Miller Light, Bud, Heineken.

-- Smith: I'M GONNA HAVE A BUD LIGHT PLEASE!