So, Mark Cuban is retiring Kobe's number???

I get it. It's a tribute to retire the jersey number (24, not 8, but why on which number) of Kobe Bryant after his death in the chopper crash.

But, you know something? Neither the Mavs nor the NBA as a league has/have retired the numbers of Earl Lloyd, Sweetwater Clifton or Chuck Cooper. See here for more.

For those unknowing of those three names? Drafted in the same year, they were the NBA's collective Jackie Robinson.

As for Cuban? Retiring Dirk's number I assume is coming. Derek Harper, Ro Blackmon and Brad Davis I understand.

But, you want to be remembered?

Instead of joy-riding on Kobe's oxygen (and his unrepentedness), do a real solid.

Ditto for the Lakers, who of course already retired both Kobe numbers, along with Wilt, Elgin Baylor, James Worthy, Jerry West, Gail Goodrich, Magic, Kareem, Shaq and others.

Even if retiring Kobe's number is something worthy to do, Cuban, it could have waited 24 hours. Or 48. Or more. Or been done two years earlier.

And, per an alleged rape in Eagle, Colorado, where Kobe likely bought / bullied his way out of criminal trouble but has never admitted that, be ware of who you honor, as a full person.

Update: The Bezos Post has suspended a reporter for tweeting about this, and apparently given her zero support for death threats. Fact is that Red Satan ESPN, while not going into detail, mentioned the rape case in its original story. If Bezos Post is going to be more craven than that (I don't know if its initial story had anything about this, but I HIGHLY suspect it did not. The Bezos Post is NOW claiming that her Tweets of screenshots of death emails to her might violate Twitter policy or company social media policy. That may well be true, but, suspending Sonmez is gigantic overkill, especially when it's not a 24-hour timeout or something like that.

Besides, I'm calling bullshit.

In the first link, Daily Mail quotes Post ME Tracy Grant:

"The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of colleagues."

It's clear to these eyes that he's referring to the original set, not the email inbox screenshots.

Post ME Tracy Grant isn’t on Twitter, which of course has a hugely low signal-to-noise ratio. But, I got her email address.

I sent a link to my blog post with these three observations:

1. Between the first story from the Daily Mail, and later stories, the Post's explanation seems to be, uh, "shifting."
2. The suspension not having a "date certain" (ie 24 hrs) is overkill.
3. If you didn't mention the rape allegations/case in your original story, shame on you, not her. Other reporters needed a bit of undermining. Hell, Red Satan ESPN mentioned it in its initial story.

(I also tweeted Sonmez to ask if the Post’s original story had anything, even an ESPN “aside,” about the rape case.)

OK, the biggie, No. 3. The Post did mention it, with basically the same amount of mention as Red Satan. Could they have mentioned it more, per their own columnist and ersatz ombudsman Margaret Sullivan — who, probably with a muzzle on, doesn't talk about her own paper? Yes.

So, Nos 1 and 2. On No. 1, if Grant responds at all, it will be corporate boilerplate. On. No. 2, the suspension is still too harsh. On 3B, I don't know if it "undermines" or not, but, it does surely undercut corporate policy.

Back to Cuban. (I have a separate blog post to focus more on the media issues.)

Basically, to me, this comes off as the kind of brash tackiness Cuban was known for when he first bought the Mavs. I don't see it as being as much a magical tribute as others probably do.