ESPN Turns "Douche" Into "######"

We will confess, a little bit of Paul Shirley's I'm A WRITER Who Happens To Play Basketball! schtick goes a long way. He's mostly amusing, we guess, but he has a tendency to overwrite — like we can talk — and seems a little too proud of himself from time to time. That said, he's entertaining, and we're absolutely going to buy his book. And we can't help but love his ESPN chat yesterday, in which he referred to Kobe Bryant as "the biggest douche I've ever met."

Of course, ESPN edited out the line.

Ted, The SLC: Paul, the chat isn't even done yet and you've already been censored...your Kobe post has been removed from the chat. I'll always remember it though. Nice to see someone speak his mind about a superstar. SportsNation Paul Shirley: Fantastic. I wonder if it was the descriptor or the comment itself...

We're gonna say it was a little bit of both. Obviously, ESPN censoring its chats is nothing new — they do it to Simmons all the time, acts that made him so furious that he signed on for another four years — but we think The Big Lead asks a legitimate question: Is "douche" a bad word? Sweet heavens, we hope not.

Blogger/Baller Paul Shirley Calls Kobe Bryant A 'Douche' In An ESPN Chat And The Four-Letter Erases It [The Big Lead] Can I Keep My Jersey?