The Kardashian Effect

            Over the years athletes have evolved into much stronger, physical and athletically gifted individuals. This is evident in the NBA at nearly every position. Players are faster, quicker and rely heavily on their physical attributes rather than fundamentals. Not only has the NBA become more dynamic and viewer friendly but it has also become significantly younger with nearly every draft class being dominated by 18-year-old freshman looking to turn their exuberance and athleticism into big time paychecks. With this youth movement comes youthful thinking. DUIs, assaults and ‘making it rain’ now dominate the off court headlines but one trend that seems to be surpassing all of this, something I like to call: the Kardashian Effect.

Kim and Kris together. Baby Kris is thrilled!

            The Kardashian Effect can be broken down into 3 very unique categories.

1.)  The number of times player X is on the cover of a magazine or is mentioned on Entertainment Tonight exceeds his average minutes per game or points per game total (we will use the lower of the 2 figures).

2.)  When player X is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is his relationship and not his career (although most times there isn’t much of a career to talk about)

3.)  Player X is voted as the most popular player in the NBA in the newly created Housewives of North America Poll (HNA Poll) light-years ahead of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

The 2 most popular members of the NBA today according to the newly created HNA Poll are Kris Humphries and Lamar Odom respectively. Do you know how I know this is true? I was standing in line at a drug store one day and these 2 girls behind me picked up a People’s magazine and the conversation went as follows:

Committee Member 1: “Kim is engaged again? Good thing she stopped dating athletes at least.”

Committee Member 2: “Actually he is an athlete. I think his name is Kris Humphries. Somebody told me he played for the Raptors but he wasn’t very good.”

Committee Member 1: “How do you know this?”

Committee Member 2: “My boyfriend was watching SportSCentre and they made fun of him a lot during one of the highlights.”

And poof! The HNA Poll was created. See, magic is real! We will get back to Humphries and Odom in a few moments but first let’s take a trip down memory lane and figure out how the Kardashian Effect was created.

Although this new phenomenon is named after Khloe and Kim Kardashian, I think we have Doug Christie to thank for this. Doug Christie somehow turned Morris Code into sign language and found a way to communicate to his wife and told her that he loved her every time he turned the ball over just to avoid a divorce. Most athletes get their wives to sign a prenup but apparently Doug’s wife made him sign a love contract instead. Doug played in the league for 19 seasons and averaged just a shade over 11 points per game and that usually doesn’t earn you a spot in the Hall of Fame but if you ask me, he will be remembered forever. His biggest contribution may have been the creation of the virtual love sign that frequent users of Facebook now use. Who knew you could take the less than sign (<) and the number 3 and when placed side by side a heart would appear. Thanks Doug! <3

Doug Christie with apologetic hand gestures to his wife Jackie.

Kris Humphries went from being engaged to a Kardashian to signing a contract with the Nets. That’s like going from dating Jennifer Aniston to Angelina Jolie. Nobody is really sure if you upgraded or downgraded but your bound to demand out within months. We may laugh at Humphries but he has it good compared to Lamar Odom. I mean Lamar had one of the worst years in recent memory. He spent an entire season playing with Kobe Bryant, which gets you ranked in the top 10 for worst experiences of the year all by itself but to top it all of he met Khloe. Not only did he meet Khloe but they also got married, created a fragrance for both males and females and signed on to do a reality TV show called Khloe & Lamar. The only person who could have had a worse year was Charlie Sheen but at least he got an interview with ABC. Lamar was forced to play behind a guy who changed his name to Metta World Peace and his show landed on “E!”. That’s still way worse than being replaced by Ashton Kutcher.

Khloe & Lamar. They do everything together.

The NBA has evolved and will continue to evolve. Luckily Tony Parker and Eva Longoria are no longer together because her feeding him a baguette during a Gregg Popovich timeout was clearly inevitable.