I hadn't planned on letting 2 months pass between posts, but it's hard to find time to write a lot when I don't get paid for it. On the other hand, it's hard to get paid for writing when I don't find a lot of time to do it. Dammit. Either way, I have a good idea. After LeBron James' dumbass tweet last week saying God hates Cleveland (maybe not in those words), followed by him backpedaling fast enough to make an All-Pro cornerback jealous, but preceded by his not having won a meaningful thing yet (and I'm not counting Olympic gold; that was Kevin Durant’s baby), I decided it is high time someone devised a way to judge if a superstar is worth paying any mind too. In other words, is their entertainment value negated by the stupidity they tend to ooze forth? Unfortunately for you, that someone is me. And, after several minutes’ worth of thought and for lack of a better term, I'm proud to give you the PAIN Ratio.
"WTF is PAIN Ratio?" I can hear you asking now. PAIN Ratio is the relationship between Positive Accomplishments and Idiotic Negativity. PAIN. Here's how this works: everything good a celebrity does (for sake of argument, I am sticking to athletes), they get points in the Positive column. This includes, but is not limited to: rings, MVP awards, scoring titles, donated kidneys, All-Star games, and general public perception of the athlete as a passable human being. Now, for every stupid thing an athlete does or says, they get points in the Negative column. This includes, but is not limited to: breaking up with your team on national television, possibly raping someone in Colorado, throwing teammates/coaches under the bus, getting arrested, gut-punching a homeless man, and general public perception of the athlete as a steaming asshole. The point totals for each column make the PAIN ratio, and the higher the number, the higher the chance the athlete may actually say something worthwhile from time to time. If the number falls below 2, the guy no longer matters. This is will be known as being a “PAIN In The Ass.”
Before I get into the points breakdown, let me clarify this: crazy people don’t count. Bill Simmons once wrote about “The Tyson Zone”, when celebrities reach a point where no one would be surprised at anything they did, like tattooing their face. This is a different system; Mike Tyson is crazy. This applies to athletes who make you say, “Geez, that guy is an asshole.” Like LeBron James. If Tyson picks up a VW in an intersection and flips it over, no one would blink an eyeball since the man is nuts. Likewise, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if LeBron bought an orphanage, shut it down, threw the children out on the street, and opened a store that sold nothing but his shoes and jerseys. He is proving himself to be a colossally arrogant prick.
Now, for the scoring system. This is the part I’ve struggled with. Obviously, it’s completely arbitrary at this point, so if anyone feels like giving feedback, I’d love to hear it. If this thing grows legs, I will make the necessary adjustments and update it as we go. I’m also sure that as soon as I post this, I will think of about 7 other things to add. For now, consider this Version 1.0. To start, I decided to score each item on a scale of 1-10, with the most positive/negative things receiving a 10 rating. You’ll notice each item on the Negative list is worth ten times more. I figure this helps compensate for the fact that media and fans obsess over the bad things people do. Here’s what I came up with:
POSITIVE
10 points- Finals MVP
9 points- MVP
8 points- All-Star/All-Pro teams
7 points- Scoring titles/stats leaders/ROY
6 points- Significant role on a championship team
5 points- Olympic participation
4 points- Outperforming hype
3 points- Living up to hype
2 points- Voluntary public service
1 point- Being considered a good ambassador to the sport
NEGATIVE
100 points- Accused of murder/manslaughter/rape
90 points- 2nd offense (or more) of particular crime
80 points- History of complaining/blaming others/quitting on team/2nd league suspension
70 points- League suspension
60 points- Arrest for different offense
50 points- Arrest; multiple kids by multiple women
40 points- Being an idiot on Twitter (henceforth known as being a "Twidiot" if no one has coined that term yet)
30 points- Publicly embarrassing someone/calling them out
20 points- Not living up to hype
10 points- Getting caught in a lie/bad PR
Somes notes about my train of thought here: for starters, you’ll notice I put a lot of emphasis on individual accolades. This is because we as a society, for the most part, would rather see our superstars at the center of the stage; that is why they are superstars. This also means that ultimate team guys, like ring-wearer extraordinaire Robert Horry, don’t usually generate enough press, good or bad, to dominate conversion. As for the negative side of things, it should be fairly self-explanatory. You’ll notice I put “accused of” regarding murder, manslaughter and rape, rather than “convicted of”. I’m not trying to be harsh, but these guys should know better than to put themselves in compromising positions in the first place. If you are in shape to get accused of murder, you made a damn bad decision somewhere that night. Also, no decimals, because that would be an endless discussion.
After this, I realized I needed a way to recognize patterns, such as repeat awards/offenses. So, if a guy wins multiple MVP awards, he gets recognition for the duration of his accomplishment. Likewise, if a guy has regular diarrhea of the mouth on his Twitter feed, he gets points there as well. It works like this: if something happens more than once, but not consecutively, then the point value is two times what the previous value was. In other words, if a dude gets the MVP, then another three years later, the second is worth 18 points, since the first MVP was worth 9. If he got a third MVP two years later, that one would count for 36 points. Got it? Now, if a guy wins multiple MVP awards in a row, each successive one is worth the point total of the first one squared. Therefore, the second MVP would be worth 81 points (9x9), and a third consecutive award would be worth 81 as well. And, for the hell of it, if a guy wins two consecutive MVPs, then a third one 2 years later, the third one counts for 81 points. On the other hand, if a guy gets accused of rape on two separate occasions, the second offense is worth 100 points, and each offense after that is 1000 more. This should offset the fact I’ve used the maximum point total for mere allegations.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the nitty-gritty and see the PAIN Ratio in action. For the sake of time, I’m going with 3 people on the initial run: LeBron, Kobe, and Ben Roethlisberger. Here’s a look at the stats for each guy:
Bryant:
Rings (’00-’02, ’09-’10)= 150 points
Finals MVP(’09-’10)= 110 points
MVP(’08)= 9 points
Scoring titles (’06-’07)= 56 points
All-Star/All-NBA (12 times each)= 1328 points
Olympics (’08)= 5 points
Living up to and outperforming hype= 7 points
Being a good ambassador= 1 point
Arrest and rape accusation= 150 points
Tendency to pout in games= 160 points
Calling out Shaq for cheating= 30 points
Bad PR over rape arrest= 10 points
That’s 1666 good points to 350 bad points, for a PAIN Ratio of 4.8
James:
MVP (’09-’10)= 90 points
Rookie of the Year (’04)= 7 points
Scoring titles (’08)= 7 points
Olympics (’04, ’08)= 15 points
All-Star/All-NBA (6 times each)= 656 points
Public service= 2 points
Quitting on team in ’10 playoffs= 80 points
Being a Twidiot= 120 points
Not living up to hype (no rings yet)= 20 points
Bad PR= 110 points
“The Decision”= 30 points
That’s 777 good points to 360 bad points, for a PAIN Ratio of 2.2
Roethlisberger:
Rookie of the Year(’04)= 7 points
2 Rings (’05, ’08)= 18 points
Pro Bowl (’07)= 8 points
Living up to and outperforming hype= 7 points
Voluntary public service= 6 points
2 rape accusations= 200 points
Suspension= 70 points
Bad PR= 100 points
That’s 46 good points to 370 bad points. Damn. PAIN Ratio of .1 for Ben.
Obviously, Ben’s numbers are skewed on account of the rape accusations, so if he keeps it in his pants, he can get his number back up eventually. What hurts him is that, even though he is a proven winner, he doesn’t have eye-popping numbers to offset the dumb shit he tends to do. I may have to find a metric to get him back up to a respectable level, something like his career win percentage compared to the overall history of the franchise. In the meantime, we are all hoping he makes a strong recovery. As for Kobe, I think he proves my system to be at least somewhat fair. He has accolades out the ass, and just enough negative marks against him to make it interesting. A 4.8 seems perfectly reasonable to me. LeBron, on the other hand, needs to keep his damn mouth shut until he wins something. The All-Star games are the only thing carrying him right now, as a 2.2 rating makes him very close to being a PAIN In The Ass. A sizable chunk of the population already thinks he is anyway.
In a large nutshell, maybe a walnut shell or something, that is the PAIN Ratio. I’m hoping to get some feedback, on Twitter or in the comment section, if anyone so desires. When I came up with this, I created the scoring system without looking at anyone's stats; the fact that I had LeBron in mind with the cut-off point he nearly reached thrills me to no end. Now I’m curious what the 32 of you who are going to read this think.
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