I’ve invited Kevin Sawyer, a displaced Pistons fan living in Minnesota (you know him in the comments as “kevin s.”), to pontificate on basketball, the Pistons, and, well, whatever else he wants. The guy has serious writing chops, as anyone who’s frequented his blog, The Problem With Kevin, knows. Today, he calls out lazy basketball writers. (Gulp)
by: Kevin Sawyer
Basketball writers seem to have a particular penchant for reiterating, rather than challenging, the status quo. Thus, we are blessed with a sport that is often reported by way of a constant string of banalities that are often completely incorrect. What does that mean for basketball fans? Well, owners read the sports page, and many make decisions accordingly. So it pays for diligent fans to call reporters out on their indolence.
Here are some of my (least) faves.
UPSIDE
-
Usage in a sentence: The skinny dude from Canada has serious upside!
This is the term that starts the discussion. In lazy sports reporter parlance, “Upside” means “has yet to play well in the NBA and isn’t yet 26”. Heck, people were talking about Michael Olowakandi’s upside right until the point he officially became washed up. We can also include “upside’s” second cousin “project”, which exclusively refers to 7 footers from Senegal who were spotted hunting goats by a scout from his prop plane during a safari.
THE STAT SHEET, OR LACK THEREOF…
-
Usage: What Mark Madsen brings to the game doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.
This phrase is unique in that it is always empirically true. Nobody says this about, for example, Ben Wallace, whose hustle and defense find many a column on the stat-sheet. If you box out, you get rebound. If you hustle, you get a steal, or an assist, or even a basket. If you set picks, you get open looks on pick and rolls. If you play defense, your opponents don’t score.
If it doesn’t result in points or possessions, it isn’t worth much. Falling down five times a game, beating the basketball against your head, and intermittingly shouting the word “hustle” are signs of autism, not basketball prowess. They don’t show up on a stat sheet for a reason.
CHANGE OF SCENERY
-
Usage: A change of scenery might do Eddie Griffin some good.
Reporters often speak as though an arbitrary adjustment from playing in one city to another will somehow benefit a player. Antoine Walker changed his scenery to Miami Beach, the Lake Wobegon of the NBA, where the taxes are low, the cocaine is harmless, and the starting center duals as law enforcement. And how did Walker, a borderline all-star in Boston, fare in his new digs? Exactly. If your present scenery includes Ricky Davis, then a change can be valuable. Otherwise, this is fluff.
EVERY TRADE IS POSSIBLE, IF NOT IMMINENT
-
Usage: Kobe to the Knicks? Could happen.
Lazy sports reporters will use a source, any source, to make an interesting story out of a slow newsday. Thus, we get Kobe Bryant for David Lee scenarios, which seem only to require a mid-level exec refusing to deny the possibility of such a trade. If you are a mid-level exec for the Knicks, would you outright dismiss talks of a possible Kobe trade? If a mid-level Bush administration hack tells a political that catapulting encephalitic goats into Bolivia isn’t off the table, does said political hack run this information? A basketball writer has an obligation to use their basketball brain when they write.
GOOD TOUCHES
-
Usage: He’s a strong player, but he needs touches to be effective.
A companion to “volume scorer”. What it really says is that, if player x doesn’t have the ball in his hands, he is unlikely to score. In related news, if I don’t drive my car, I am unlikely to wind up on a highway. This phrase is generally used to cover for mediocre two-guards who have an unearned reputation for being good.
Agreed, that guy is good. He has a serious writing upside, if only he could get more touches he would be famous, but not all good writing shows up on the stat sheet, (being a paycheck I would imagine.)
Good stuff. Unfortunaely, these terms, along with “long” and a few others are with us until new, even more nonsense words replace them. By the way, did the lakers really find Samb hearding goats from a prop plane?
haha. I like it. It’s so true.
A little off topic: did anyone see the Piston’s open practice today at Oakland University?
I thought it was pretty good
Do tell, Diablo. Details…
Wow, I know I’ve seen “kevin s” a number of time in comments on the site, but I never noticed the “serious writing chops” until now. Kudos to you on both your writing skill, and your insights. I enjoyed both a great deal. My only piece of dissent is that I don’t know if I wholeheartedly agree with the bashing of the “change of scenery” tagline. I will admit that it is probably overused but I think it helps in more cases than just escaping the jaws of Ricky Davis. I think Chauncey Billups or Rasheed Wallace would be a good example.
Diablo, I am also interested in hearing your thoughts on the open practice. However, as a self-admitted, anal retentive, apostrophe usage stickler, I’ve got to let you know that your apostrophe is grossly misused. Correctly used, it would look like: Pistons’. Not at all trying to be an ass, just something that drives me nuts.
Thanks for the Kudos, LB. I think Wallace simply kept being himself (remember, he was an all-star in the WC). On a 48-50 win team, that meant pushing us to championship caliber. Billups seems to have improved with age, but made a very modest improvement upon his arrival to Detroit. Both were great players already (letting Billups go was one of McHale’s many, many stupid decisions).
@ LB-lol thanks for the correction, most likely you will probably see more errors when i write up what i thought about the practice because i don’t usually go over and correct what i type down…:/ Be Fore-Warned!
Anyways, I thought the practice was interesting, wasn’t too concerned about our veterans, I was mainly trying to focus in on the play of the younger players.
Amir Johnson played decent, at times it seems liked he got lost in the middle of the paint. Ive heard rumors about him being faster than Rip and i wouldnt say those rumors are far off, it seemed liked he would be flying down court on Every fastbreak oportunity. I definately see him getting alot of his points off of transition breaks and offensive tip-ins.
Rodney Stuckey is an extremely fast player and looks like he will be able to play the 1 very well. Didn’t see him take too many jumpers but he definatelly knows how to draw contact when driving to lane. Evidence to all the freethrows he shot. Also, it seemed like Lidnsey HAS adopted the role of being a player/teacher to him, i seen a number of occasions where he pulled Stuckey over giving him a peice of him veteran knowledge.
Aaron Afflalo has a beautiful shot, he knocked down some nice 3s and also seen him being moved around on defense to guard the Point and Shooting Guard.
Cheikh Samb was impressive, i could definately see him playing in the NBA if he can pick UP his WEIGHT!
Javris Hayes and Nazr Mohammad surprisingly played pretty good.
Flip Murray on the other hand…not so much.
Flip Saunders actually was coaching, thought that was impressive also…lol
I’m not an expert analysis but those are somethings that stuck out to me while watching the practice. Might of actually done alot more analysising on the players if i knew i was going to be the only one going to the Open Practice.
Diablo, you have my sincerest thanks all the way from Los Angeles. I think I’m more geeked about Stuckey than I am about Amir OR Maxiell (maybe even both of them combined). Stuckey blew my mind in the summer league. I for one think that Hayes and Mohammed ARE pretty good players when you surround them with multiple great players (like the ones we have) to take the serious heat off them.
Kevin, I’m willing to concede that Chauncey and Rasheed may not have been great examples, but I just don’t know if I’m ready to admit that a change of scenery isn’t exactly what the doctor ordered for players on occasion. I think I may have a pair of Hornets who fit the bill. From 2005-2006 where he started in Sacto, Peja Stojakovic looked like his career was on the decline, and then all of a sudden he starts tearing it up again once he’s shipped to Indiana mid-season. His little change of scenery salvaged his contract year and he worked himself into a 5 year/$64 million deal. We’ll see how that works out when he (hopefully) finally plays some games this year. And I fully expect Peja’s new teammate Mo Pete to bounce back and recover his respectability this season, due largely to a “change of scenery”.
I think Kevin S has amazing upside potential as a writer. He’s just so long and athletic. I don’t know that he has a true position in the NBA but Dick Vitale says you always take athleates at this point in the draft.
*PG4L takes Kevin S with the 6th overall pick of the NBA writers draft*
Congrats, funny read and well written
Kevin S is a good writer. I have to politely disagree w/ a few things…
First of all, I think a lot of non-stat sheet stuff is valid and important. Ben Wallace was the perfect example of this (taking charges, deflections, boxing out, beating your man to the spot or the loose ball, or the fact that other teams didn’t even THINK of going inside w/ Ben on the floor). These type of things may show up in team stats somehow, but the individual rarely gets due credit on paper.
The upside/project issue: There is some truth to this as well for some players. Look at Jermaine O’neal early in his career w/ Portland. He had tons of potential, but it wasn’t fully reached until he was well into his 20s. Of course, it didn’t help that he had to fight for playing time behind Sabonis, Rasheed, and Brian Grant either. I also think Darko Milicic will be like this as well. Granted, he won’t be an all star or anywhere CLOSE to as good as the players who were taken immediately after him in the 2003 draft. He’s still only about 23 years old. I think he’ll be a decent player eventually.
As for the “limited touches” issue, that’s valid. I absolutely believe Rasheed Wallace could avg. 25 pts/game if he touched the ball on the block 30-35x a game, but Chauncey & Rip are the Pistons’ 1st options, or the Pistons go with whatever the biggest mismatch on the floor is. Consequently, since Rasheed is the 3rd or 4th option a lot of nights, he averages between 12-15 pts instead. Imagine if Rasheed was on a team like Boston, Charlotte or ATL last year who were limited on scoring options?