Wizards C Brendan Haywood has progressed from hair-tugging battles with Etan Thomas to bashing Stephon Marbury to most recently, defending Tiger Woods from the gold-digging nemesis that is Elin Nordegren. Blasted for his Woods-shilling, Thomas tells the Washington Times’ Mike Jones, “you can only practice basketball so much. You’ve got to do a little something else.”
“It’s interesting. I think some people obviously might not like it, some people might like it. It’s a different point of view,” Haywood said. “I think a lot of people are bashing Tiger out there, and he’s done his thing, but I try to look at both sides. I know I put something out there that might not be that popular, but that’s because a lot of people are thinking it. I’m not the only one.”
Haywood, who usually gets 15 to 30 reader comments on a given post, had 246 responses to his Woods post as of Wednesday. Some fans agreed; many did not. Haywood said he welcomes all responses and even responded to many because he believes the spirit of debate is one of the greatest aspects of sports.
“I love it. I would love to do a show like ‘Pardon the Interruption’ or get up there [on ESPN’s “First and 10″] with Skip Bayless. I love it. That’s what sports is,” Haywood said. “Sports isn’t fun if you watch it at home by yourself. That’s why you go to sports bars, so you can argue with people, so you can high-five your friends. … It’s a lot of banter.”