MAN CRUSH: Andy Murray VS. DOUCHEBAG: Dwight Howard

So I’m admittedly not a huge tennis guy. But I’m a huge British guy. I just find their culture so fascinating, which led to me studying in London in college.

While their love of soccer is pretty well understood over here, one thing that is often overlooked is their love of stuffy British things, which is exactly what Wimbledon is.

I mean, the game is played on grass (grass!) and filled with rain delays, the most British of all things. And then there’s a royal box and you have to be all quiet during the matches and Bradley Cooper and Gerard Butler show up and it’s all of England’s pride wrapped up into one.

And if there’s one thing British people love more than their own sporting events, it’s British people winning their own sporting events.

Unfortunately this doesn’t happen very often. A Brit hadn’t won Wimbledon for 77 years. Andy Murray was the great hope of the country and fell in the finals last year and cried about how he let down the entire country, despite trying super hard (so British!)

This year Murray beat the favored Novak Djokovic to win Wimbledon and return Great Britain to past glories. And I couldn’t be happier.

Murray seems like such a nice dude. Seriously. Did I mention he really tried to win last year? Like a lot? And when he finally did win this year he was overcome with British modesty and just sort of chilled out and chatted a bit?

The dude survived a school shooting as a kid, went on to win the gold medal at the Olympics held in London, dates a girl who draws dogs really great, and now is a national hero. This would be like if a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup or if a baseball team with an American on it won the World Series. It transcends just the color of the jersey and means something to the people of a nation in a way that you think, maybe you too can grow up to be Andy Murray or at least be a guy who remembers a guy winning a tournament your own country started.

Andy Murray is going to live like royalty in the UK for the rest of his life, except probably have way more attractive kids. He is a more than deserving recipient of the Mann Crushe o’ thee Weeke (that was meant to be translated to British).

What is left to be said about Dwight that hasn’t been already? That’s part of the problem when a guy fits a stereotype so well, to the point where you have Dwight down pat. Just completely unsurprising how unsurprising he is.

Look, LA wasn’t a great situation for Dwight. I get it. Kobe is mean and tries to win games. Dwight didn’t like that. There was a lot of pressure because LA is a great basketball city. Dwight didn’t like that. His coach didn’t just give the ball to Dwight every time and not care what else happened. Dwight didn’t like that.

So he did what anyone would have done and return to the comforts of home.

What’s that? He’s from Atlanta? And they had cap space? So him signing in Houston is probably just a way for him to save money on taxes and not even have to deal wth the pressure of playing in front of people he knew 15 years ago?

Of course it is. It’s Dwight Howard. And if there’s one thing about Dwight Howard, it’s that he likes candy. And if there’s two things about Dwight Howard, it’s that he loves video games. And if there’s three things about Dwight Howard, it’s that he loves impressions. And if there’s a bunch of other things about Dwight Howard, eventually you get to the point where he doesn’t care about winning basketball games and instead just wants to do some #cool #yolo #swag. Started from the bottom now his whole team is here and probably not going to like him that much in about a year.

On the bright side, he didn’t let his decision linger on for months just because he liked the attention of people trying to figure out what he was going to do. But Houston was always going to be the easy way out for him and therefore the most likely path.