Sports is a funny thing. It’s like real life, only it’s not real life. We are drawn to sports because it is a microcosm for life. We get to play voyeur and watch a person develop from a kid to a man to a grown-ass man. We see him learn the ways of the world on his journey from being a wide-eyed rookie to a hardened, smart veteran. The other thing we like about sports is, unlike real life, there are clear winners and losers.

Since wins and losses are black and white and our lives are constantly filled with various shades of gray, real life/sports comparisons don’t normally hold up. When I felt lazy at my previous job, I’d sometimes think to myself, “I’m no better than that whiny, entitled bitch named Vince Carter.” This isn’t really an apt comparison, though. There are surely mitigating circumstances – Vince had reasons for his behaviour and they are probably totally different than the reasons for mine.

As far as mitigating circumstances go, there are none better than those annoying things we need to do our work but have no control over: our co-workers. In real life work settings, no matter what our industry, job or pay scale, we all know some people who just drive us up the wall. The people who have seniority and don’t seem to ever do anything other than hang out by the coffee machine. The people who never get asked to do ‘special projects’, who seem to escape the criticism that accompanies the rest of the employees. The people that seem ‘untouchable’. The people who never seem to do anything, but when it’s job cutting time they always seem safe and when it’s pay raise time they always show up. And while they never show up with a bunch of coffees for the rest of us, they’ll be first in line when someone brings in a box of doughnuts.

You know someone like this, I know someone like this, we all know someone like this. Well, the Toronto Raptors have someone like this. His name is Hedo Turkoglu.

I had an ex-girlfriend who was obsessed with this karma and energy stuff. Since she believed in it so strongly, I’d have to hear about it fairly often. One of her favourite target in her rants was the “energy vampire,” someone who manages to sap other people of their strength and energy. My opinion was that it was a bunch of crap (I kept that to myself since I am sane – telling your girl she’s crazy tends to not work out well). That was until I met the person I described above. No, not Hedo Turkoglu, the person at my previous work who made it so unbearable to work there that I had to tell my boss off and walk out.

Before it got to that point, I (at that point the hardest working member of my ‘team’) lost all will to work. The work environment became hopeless. Here I was, a competent and capable worker putting in a full day’s work every day and loving the challenge whilst other people took a more laid back attitude. It didn’t bother me much because we were all equal and if I’m stuck at a desk for 9 hours every day I’d rather be busy than not. Besides, I love having responsibility. Even if I wasn’t making any more money than the rest of my small team, I enjoyed ultimately being responsible for our relative success.

This lasted for almost 2 years, until a small promotion shook things up. One of my better friends received what was essentially a promotion in title only, no added job duties and a very small raise. My boss however, in his wisdom, decided that my friend would be too busy to continue doing his old duties and that they would have to be moved to the most capable person on the team. I got all of them.

Again, I didn’t mind this since I love responsibility and a good challenge. Life continued on normally but when it was my turn to talk to the boss about what my raise would be, I was told there was no room in the budget to give me a raise. Despite my doing about half of my boss’s job and all of the newly promoted guys’ jobs on top of my own job that already involved more time and energy than anyone else’s.

My thinking was, “Fine, there is a recession and money is tight.” So everything remained good in Eric’s World. The problems didn’t start until I found out that the laziest, most frequent absentee person in our team had managed to get a 5% raise. This guy was the weak link; he would nap and frequently use his cell phone at work. He passed off work to other people after he’d been too lazy to do it himself, ruining people’s days. After a few months of this, the rest of us began lobbying for him to be moved. Six months of the entire team lobbying for the guy to be removed and he got the raise the rest of us were denied.

Suddenly, our little team was far from equal. Two of our six were making fairly substantially more money than the other four, despite the other four of us doing roughly 85% of the work. That’s when the laziness started creeping in for me. I explained to my boss that I didn’t have time in the day to complete all the tasks I had on my plate. “Fine,” my boss said. “You do a lot, let’s shuffle some responsibilities around.” A band-aid was put on the situation.

The problem really began when the newest member of the “I got a raise” club saw what I had done and went and tried telling my boss the same thing… SUCCESSFULLY! He managed to get half of his work passed off to the other three people who were already over-worked. Now not only had I become lazy but the other three members of our ‘team’ became lazy and, worse, disgruntled. The first person to leave was a friend of mine named Ragoo. She told off our boss something fierce on the way out. Since she quit, naturally there was work to be split up. Which was split between myself and the other two remaining competent workers.

Within six weeks all four of us who actually functioned at work were gone. In January I was told that my boss fired my friend who had been promoted and our department, which had previously been the best of roughly 20 others in a national company, was now consistently near the bottom. In three months one lazy guy receiving a raise managed to cause four good employees to quit and one good employee to get fired. My experience there is why I’ve been sounding alarm bells about Turkoglu for so long.

I am a notorious homer. I defend the Vernon Wells contract. I defended Wade Belak. I defended Milt Palacio. There generally isn’t a single person who wears a Toronto jersey I won’t support. I may not support the management who brought them in, but anyone who plays for my team is someone who is part of my extended family. After all, if a player is in over their heads, it’s not his fault he is being put in a situation he can’t handle. Players are at the mercy of a coach and general manager and no-one guaranteed that the people in those positions are always going to be competent.

An athlete’s job is simply to show up and do their best. That’s it. As long as they meet that modest modicum of success for athletes I have, I will have their backs any day of the week. So what if Vernon Wells is overpaid? True, his offense has dried up, but who’s been protecting him in the line-up? He is still one of the best defensive centre fielders in baseball and he hustles out every ground ball. Again, it’s not his fault JP “I’m functionally retarded” Riccardi wasn’t able to find a single decent power hitter in 8 years.

Turkoglu on the other hand doesn’t even PRETEND to be busy when the boss walks by. He IS the jackass from my office who got a 5% raise despite being useless and after getting the raise managed to do even less. In real terms, a 5% raise on a $25 000 salary isn’t even very much money, and it wasn’t a results-oriented business. In sports, his lack of effort directly affects the ability of his teammates to do well, and in turn directly affects their own abilities to earn raises. Not to mention that his pay isn’t a few hundred dollars more than his colleagues, but millions of dollars.

How is Antoine Wright supposed to feel going into a free agent year, when he is killing himself for his team but can’t get minutes over someone who not only doesn’t pretend to try but doesn’t pretend to care, let alone pretend to actually be productive.

How are Amir Johnson and Reggie Evans supposed to feel when they both have half the skills of Turkoglu, yet work five times as hard while making one-fifth of his overall salary?

How is Andrea Bargnani supposed to improve when he sees his closest comparison on the team, a potential mentor for him, spend his days loafing around and acting lackadaisical?

How is Chris Bosh supposed to feel when he sees the guy who was supposed to be his second banana, the missing piece on a talented team, playing and acting like he’s on a stroll with his wife? Bosh is a guy who looks like he goes home and practically cries after every loss, you don’t think his main help on the court not ever showing up might upset him after a while?

How is Jay Triano supposed to feel knowing he HAS to play Turkoglu lest Turk become MORE of a disruptive force in the locker room? Knowing if he doesn’t find a way to turn Turk into SOMETHING somewhat effective he could get in trouble with HIS boss for not utilizing a $50 million asset?

How are Jarret Jack, Jose Calderon, Demar DeRozan, Sonny Weems and the rest of the roster supposed to feel when they’re asked to defer to a glorified pylon with legs? What are they supposed to think when they watch Turk again not bother to get a hand up? Again not hustle back on defence? Again laugh off a bad loss and a bad effort? We’ve all heard basketball commentators talk about how energy is contagious; doesn’t that mean the inverse is true too? If I was a professional athlete getting sat behind someone who loafed around but was very well paid, and thus needs to be on the floor, to say I would be displeased would be akin to saying Kevin Garnett doesn’t enjoy losing very much.

I like to think of myself as a bit of a realist. While we like to think of athletes in different terms than ordinary people, ultimately they ARE ordinary people who just happen to be extraordinarily skilled. I wouldn’t expect a pro athlete’s mental makeup to be too different from my own. Are they mentally tougher, stronger and basically everything more than me? Of course, they’re pro athletes. But they are still humans and we’re all wired using the same technology. My reaction when I saw laziness being rewarded was to gradually stop caring. I was mentally tough enough that it didn’t poison the work environment for me, I still enjoyed coming in every day, but the rest of my team didn’t. Not only did they stop caring but they began to loathe the company. They began to loathe coming in to work every day. I don’t know that this is the situation that the Raptors are dealing with, but I have a hunch that it is.

Sports is a results-oriented business and the recent results speak for themselves. The other day, after weeks of crappy effort and blowouts, Turkoglu didn’t play against the Denver Nuggets. Against one of the top teams in the league conventional wisdom said another probably bigger blowout was on the horizon, but somehow the Raptors found an energy and effort that had been lacking since the All Star break. What changed? Well, Turk wasn’t there. There’s a different energy, a different vibe around the team that just disappears when Turk-a-do-do is around. Not just last game but also in the various other times that Turk was away from the club for his varied and borderline plausible reasons. While my theory as to his laziness and lack of emotion may be wrong I don’t think that any Raps fan could disagree that there is a different vibe around the Raptors when Turk isn’t there.

As a result of this, Turkoglu has reached new ground in my history of sportsfandom. I am, and have been for some time, cheering for him to get seriously hurt. When I say hurt, I mean as in out for the season hurt. I’ve never wished that on the players that I’ve ever ‘hated’ in my life, let alone a player on my own team.

Sports is similar to real life, after all. Again, we all know people who we love working with but, god bless ‘em, they just aren’t great at their jobs. And, no matter how great of a person they are, YOUR life would be much easier if they were in a different department or a different job entirely. There’s no inconsistency in real life with liking someone as a person but not as a coworker. That’s how I view sports hatred. When I talk about hating athletes I’m talking about hating them as an athlete, not as a person. I’ve never met Vince Carter. I don’t know what kind of man he really is, if he’s cool to hang out with, or if he’s generous with his time and money away from cameras. I only know him as an athlete. As such I loved him as an athlete and now I hate him as an athlete. While I may drunkenly scream obscenities at him from my seat, I’d probably very politely say hi and thank him for his time in Toronto if I saw him on the street, despite my ‘hatred’ of him.

Turk however has transcended sports hate for me. I have realized that I legitimately hate Hedo Turkoglu. If I saw him walking down the street I would either scream obscenities, spit, or just turn red and walk away to avoid somehow making him worse. Remember, this man plays for MY Toronto Raptors! Turkoglu has managed to personify everything I hate about modern athletes. Entitlement? Check. He needs the ball to be effective, doncha know. Laziness after a big contract? Check and check, no explanation required. Lack of hustle and emotion? BIG check. But hey, jogging 60-70 feet to get back on defence once every ten to fifteen minutes IS something. Lack of desire to fit in to a ‘team’, and a system? “Ball”. I’d call him a mercenary but mercenaries are actually EFFECTIVE.

I’m no coach or General Manager, hell I’m not even a real writer, but I know a problem when I see one and I know a solution when I see one. The only addressable problem the Raptors have is Turkoglu, assuming Bargnani continues to develop, particularly on the glass. This Energy Vampire is a cancer that has infected the locker room and the only solution is to operate and remove the cancer permanently. Whether that’s through injury (paging Shane Stant, Shane Stant there is a phonecall for you), trade or even in a worst case scenario a buyout he needs to be as far from the Toronto Raptors as possible. I mean restraining order far. This team will NEVER be able to succeed as presently structured unless Turk makes a serious attitude change.

The Raptors are an emotionally fragile team. Maybe on Orlando it didn’t matter if Turk had a bad attitude or was lazy. After all, Dwight’s personality is a bit strong if you hadn’t noticed. He’d be happy if you told him he had to get 4 teeth pulled. But Toronto isn’t Orlando and Chris Bosh isn’t Dwight Howard. Bosh is a brooder, from what I can see. He WANTS to win. Scratch that, he NEEDS to win. He’s the type to dwell on losses to attempt to figure out what he could possibly have done to change the outcome of the game. He lives and dies with the success of his team. And when he sees his teammates uncaring while he goes home and agonizes over what he has to do to make the team win, it has to hurt. And what hurts him hurts the whole team. And what hurts the whole team hurts the city. And me. So please Mr Colangelo, I’m begging you. Remove this cancer from me; it’s eating away my insides. If this cancer isn’t cleared up, I fear Bosh will have to flee for safety. And so might I.