Latrell Sprewell helps us learn about English word structure

Are you a sports fan who’s confused about inflectional morphemes?  Fret not, let examples from Latrell Sprewell’s glorious career shed some light on the subject:

I have to disagree with the first example, that one being “Latrell hates all coach-es.” True, he might hate PJ Carlesimo, probably doesn’t exchange Christmas cards with Jeff Van Gundy and wouldn’t give Flip Saunders the time of day, but I’m sure there’s plenty of love in his heart for his coach from his days at Alabama, that being one Winfrey “Wimp” Sanderson.

You see, Wimp helped to create the Latrell that we would all come to know and love.  Turn the clock back to 1992, when Wimp was patrolling the Tide bench in his plaid jackets and Latrell was helping lead the team into the NCAA Tournament.

On March 17 of that year, right in the thick of March Madness, Wimp went a little crazy and punched his secretary, Nancy Watts, right in her eye.  One settled lawsuit later and the guy’s 32-year association with the school was over.

Instead of using his coach’s actions as a cautionary tale, though, Latrell decided from then on he’d “go Wimp” on anyone who got in his way.  There was the 1995 incident where he threatened to hit his Golden State Warrior teammate (yes, TEAMMATE) Jerome Kersey with a two-by-four.  Then two years later came the infamous choking fiasco cited in the examples above.

I’m glad some sort of positive outcome has come out of that ugliness from so many years ago.  Maybe the next version of this textbook can provide some updates on Latrell’s life, such as:

“Latrell’s house was foreclose-d on”

“Latrell is miss-ing his yacht”

“Latrell is the brok-est of all the former players”