#60 - Willis Reed is The Man in Black

Givens:

• The Man in Black and The Smoke Monster are two different characters

• Unlike his brother Jacob, The Man in Black fucks

• Willis Reed is professional sports ROYALTY

If the world was just, there’d be a 50 foot statue of Willis Reed outside of the Louisiana state capitol building, there’d be a 100 foot statue of Willis Reed outside of Madison Square Garden, healthcare would be free, the sitting POTUS would be rotting in hell, and cops wouldn’t gleefully attack their fellow fucking citizens. Let’s focus on Willis though, let’s focus on the nicknameless overachiever who brought TWO NBA CHAMPIONSHIPS to the city of Nueva York. 

Willis Reed is fucking special. He went to the historical black college Grambling State who were an NAIA school and Reed led them to 3 conference championships and an NAIA tournament title and then Reed was drafted in the second round by the Knicks and then he went on to be a fucking force in the pros. As an unheralded, undersized 6’9” center/power forward, Reed did it fucking all- Rookie of the Year, 7x All Star, All Star MVP in 1970, LEAGUE MVP in 1970, CHAMP in 1970, FINALS MVP in 1970, CHAMP in 1973, FINALS MVP in 1973. AND AND AND if that were not enough, the man - yes, the MAN Willis Reed, Jr. raised on a small farm in the 40’s in segregated ass Louisiana - is the main character of one of the most mythical moments in pro sports, which was walking his torn thigh muscle having ass out of the MSG tunnel to a standing ovation for game 7 of the 1970 NBA Championships and scoring the first two buckets for the eventual champs. Fucking sports ROYALTY. All caps. 

As for The Man in Black (TMIB), dude knows something about coming back out of tunnels no one ever expected him to come back out of, am I right?! Right?! Ok, so there is TMIB who lives on THE island with Jacob for seemingly a few decades before Jacob goes all Cain and kills his brother by beating him to death and throwing his body into the river that goes into the tunnel of all knowing light of God or the ‘Heart of the Island’ or what-the-fuck-ever, which somehow turns this dude into The Smoke Monster. So, they’re two different folks. 

From their completely nuts Mother’s mouth, TMIB is special and he’s the one she knows she’s got to keep a watch on. Now, Jacob seems to be the special one or is treated as such and gets all the praise and attention and in Willis Reed’s life or the NBA’s life that’s the Los Angeles Lakers. Willis Reed was the special underdog leading the people’s champs and the actual champs the New York Knicks over the Lakers, which is similar to TMIB peacing out on their Mother’s cave of rules and joining the raggedy people (Knicks) on THE island and then leading them to the almighty light (NBA championship) to then harness that light to seemingly time-travel or blow up the Earth or whatever their actual goal was. 

So, Reed was apart of the historic comeback of walking onto the court at the beginning of game 7 after sitting for game 6 with a damn torn thigh muscle, which is pretty similar to Mother braining TMIB’s skull against a rock wall thinking she killed him at the foot of the wheel he installed into the ray of light, but she did not and then he showed up at her cave and daggered her to death. So, that’s a pretty big comeback right there. And then like an hour later, as mentioned, Jacob beat TMIB to death and then threw him into the tunnel of light and TMIB came back as The Smoke Monster. So, you think you got TMIB or Willis Reed down and out, but BLAM they’re back winning an NBA championship all up in your face! And TMIB was right there putting that wheel into the 'Heart of the Island' and leading his people to untold universes or something when his whole shit was cut short by his mom who tried to kill him, killed all the people on THE island, and then he was killed killed by his bro. Willis Reed had won two championships and basically stopped playing bball immediately after that because of injuries, so same thing.

Fuck styles? I can only assume Willis Reed was a true humdinger of a sexman. He’s professional sports ROYALTY, which is actual ROYALTY to me, so he’s good at fucking. Is TMIB good at it? I doubt it. He definitely did it though. See, Jacob is a dork who sat in his Mother’s cave (not sexual) for decades and just watched the people of the island and didn’t interact with them and was a definite virgin because of all that for the rest of his time on this planet as talked about in the Dennis Rodman post. BUT TMIB left that cave, became friends with the people of THE island and lived with them and ate with them and built with them and their plight became his plight. So, that alone to me means he’s fucked. Men and women living in palm frond huts and wearing clothes that they knit themselves on a tropical island? All that means is lots of sex. But the real kicker, when Jacob talks to TMIB over their 1,000,000th game of checkers and asks about the people, TMIB starts saying how dirty and corrupt people are and those are the words of a scorned lover. A person who has fucked and has been fucked over. And I think he says something about how Jacob has like no idea what people are really like and I feel like that’s TMIB in that moment thinking about losing his virginity after a good decade plus living with his mom and brother in a cave and never being taught about the birds and the bees.