Every year around this time, ESPN gets to take their turn on the award show circuit by putting on their annual ESPY Awards. It’s the one time of year that superstar athletes show up and mingle with Hollywood’s biggest stars for a pretty decent awards show. With the NFL and NBA mired in lockouts, more than the normal amount of hoops and gridiron players were in attendance hoping to take home some hardware.
The show was hosted for the 2nd straight year by Saturday Night Live comedian Seth Meyers and started with a few digs aimed at Lebron James, the Miami Heat, and baseball closer Brian Wilson’s beard, who oddly enough showed up in a full body-suit tuxedo made of spandex.
One of the funnier moments came during Meyers monologue when he joked that Miami’s Big 3 of Lebron, Wade, and Bosh got their nickname based on how many quarters they play. Amare Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, and Ray Allen in particular, who were at the show, seemed to take some extra pleasure in the joke.
My favorite one-liners had to be Meyers dig at the newly retired Shaquille O’Neal, when he joked that O’Neal recently announced his retirement, only 3 years after his feet had already retired and that Kim Kardashian chose to date the Nets’ Kris Humphries because she was tired of dating pro athletes. He followed with, “It’s OK, the last NJ Net to attend was Jason Kidd 15 years ago.”
As for the actual awards, it was a sweep for the NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks, with Dirk Nowitzki taking home Best Male Athlete and Best NBA Player and coach Rick Carlisle winning Best Coach/Manager. Jimmer Fredette won some more hardware, snagging Best Male College Athlete and NBA dunk champion and ROY Blake Griffin won Breakout Athlete of the Year.
Check out Seth Meyers’ Monologue at the ESPY’s:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
