Over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend I re-watched the documentary Man On Wire. Because, apparently, at the threshold of 30 you spend your holiday weekends watching artsy movies alone. I was hung-over, if that at all increases my street credibility, I suppose if I was concerned about increasing my street credibility it’d be better not to mention, of course, that I was drinking alone the previous night. Man On Wire is about Philippe Petit who, in 1974, spent close to an hour walking across a high wire strung between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. When Petit is discovered and subsequently arrested for his crime the NYPD and assembled media immediately ask why he did it, a question, Petit subsequently observes, uniquely American. Petit laughs and responds to the assembled "Why? There is no why."

I bring this up not to inform you of my weekend movie selections, after all, I also re-watched Grandma’s Boy, which, aside from Man On Wire, may be the most underrated movie of the last decade. I bring this up because the reality of the man on the wire, the reality that there often is no why, seemed to serendipitously syncopate with the ongoing online argument of biases and Kevin Martin. A sports blog, honestly much like any blog but especially a sports blog, can be a tenuous thing, it exists for people that care too much about something that, ultimately, they don’t really care that much about. Yes we love the Kings, yes we bleed purple and black, yes we spend excessive hours analyzing meaningless January match-ups with Charlotte. But none of us would say our existential make-up, our us, is Kings-centric; it does not supplant family or friends or faith. Sure the Kings may remind us of, even underscore, the importance of all three of those things, but they never supplant said things as core values. Consequently in many ways this blog is our wire; our art for arts sake; our moment to play sports writer; our moment to artfully articulate those thoughts that the general public, even the Sacramento general public, don’t care about in the way we collectively do.

Caring for something that is, effectively, ephemeral does not make that care any less intense, if it did we wouldn’t bother dating until our late 20’s, and even then we would be sorely disappointed by love’s fickleness. Contrarily, caring for something ephemeral often makes the caring more intense. And that is often the case on Sactown Royalty. The recent extended debate on the implications of Kevin Martin’s return illuminated that reality. I do not believe TZ is biased toward Kevin Martin. However, if he was, I do not believe it is an issue. STR is a labor of love, his love, Ziller’s not objectively obligated to objectivity, and he is entitled to his own opinions and assertions. Particularly given that said opinions and assertions are more often than not informed opinions and assertions and not "Why haven’t the Kings’ hired Bill Laimbeer yet?" blind assumptions.

 Two asides to this: 1) If TZ has historically taken sides in the Martin Vs. debates has he heretofore been wrong? Granted in Martin Vs. Artest, Martin Vs. Theus, Martin Vs. Napear it’s not particularly difficult to choose sides, but as long as we’re building a historical record of side taking he has not taken historically irrational sides when siding with Martin. 2) Full admission, I am of the opinion that ultimately the Martin/Evans pairing is fated for failure. Maybe failure is too intense a word, but I don’t like the looks of its long-term potential.

Having said all of that I also believe that those expressing dissenting opinions, those who ardently oppose any Martin/Evans pairing and find Martin’s "excessive shot taking" and "porous defense" lost causes, are equally entitled to their opinion. This is a blog, it is not our responsibility to censor the opinions of others. However what separates this blog from the Bee’s comment pages, or KHTK’s callers, is that if we dissent to your dissenting opinion we have equal right to express said dissenting dissension. Does this a vicious circle make? Perhaps. But it is our vicious circle.

We too often tend to take for granted those things that are beautiful solely for the sake of their beauty. The motivations for our opinions, assuming those opinions aren’t infected with invective, aren’t nearly as important as the opinions themselves. It is not the why of our opinions, but the what, that matters.