Reggie Evans: Not a role model says SI for Kids writer

Remember those great pieces this weekend on Reggie Evans, the ones Howard Beck and Dave D'Alessandro penned? They wrote about how Evans rose from the depths of poverty and the drug culture to become an NBA specialist, a great rebounder and someone for whom flair is a calling card.

Forget them. Reggie Evans is a bad man, writes Jeremy Repanich for Deadspin. Repanich often writes for Sports Illustrated for Kids and he does not like Evans one bit as a role model. Reggie Evans, he says, is a perverse faker. Actually, he's campy, writes Repanich, meaning all artifice and exaggeration. (High camp? Low Camp? Don't know. All we get is a link to Susan Sonntag's Notes on Camp. A bit outdated, we agree.)

Repanich also attacks the most common defense of Evans. "'Well, he's great to have when he's on your side'," you say? No. No, he isn't," responds Repanich. "This isn't Dennis Rodman, a self-contained performance on a healthy team. Evans is a perverse sort of role model, whose sensibility infects entire teams," writes Repanich.

Once he goes through Evans career, team by team, he signs off with an angry fit on Evans choice of a new team. (Kids, close your eyes...now!)

Now he is in Brooklyn, a "gritty" player on a club that's selling itself as "gritty" to reflect its borough. I guess he fits the Nets' new brand, which involves a marketing plan based on that gritty reputation AS IF the team weren't nestled in a sea of gentrified neighborhoods. Helmed by Jay-Z, who acts AS IF he owns a majority share of the franchise. Playing in an arena adorned with pre-rusted steel to make it look AS IF the building has been there for years. Wooing a crop of well-heeled Brooklyn hipsters who style themselves AS IF they're indigent woodsmen. "Being-as-Playing-a-Role,"

Wow, we know someone who could use a caviar canopy washed down with some Cristal. (We've tried it at the Vault. Fab-u-lous!)

• Deadspin NBA Shi*t List: Reggie Evans, Basketball Camp - Jeremy Repanich - Deadspin