My initial reaction to Kobe Bryant’s comments during last night’s game were ones of anger, considerable anger. I didn’t react that way because I’m a “Kobe hater,” or because I wish ill on the Lakers. I was angry at the nature of the comments, the insensitivity for which Bryant happened to be responsible.
Kobe Bryant is an icon in the NBA, a figure who transcends basketball and stands for leadership, perseverance, and plenty of other values. To see him use derogatory language was disappointing, as he should know better. The normative question as to whether athletes should be considered role models is a loaded one, and one that will probably remain insoluble. With that said, it is irrelevant in this case. What matters is that Bryant is seen as a role model, whether he likes it or not, and he has to act accordingly. What he said was not compatible with his role-model persona.
On Wednesday afternoon, Bryant issued some haphazard comments to get out in front of the story:
“My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period,” he said. “The words expressed do not reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were not meant to offend anyone.”
In the wake of the situation, Bryant made the right decision to respond right away. The problem, though, is that these remarks aren’t very meaningful. He didn’t really apologize for himself, only for the misfortune of the situation. He’s a very proud man, and it’s understandable that he had a problem with admitting guilt for harm he didn’t intend. In this instance, though, intent is irrelevant.
There’s no contention that Bryant was complimenting Bennie Adams when he uttered the regrettable slur in his direction. It was a negative comment. That’s undeniable. By expressing his disgust with those words in a negative connotation, he necessarily implied discriminatory feelings toward the homosexual community.
But the real tragedy of the situation isn’t that Kobe used this phrase. It’s used quite frequently, probably among the NBA community, and he was just the guy to get caught on national TV (For those who think this bad luck excuses his behavior, though, that’s bogus. It was the same luck in the genetic lottery that got Bryant to the NBA.). The real tragedy is that Bryant is only a notorious representative of a pervasive toxin plaguing our entire society. It is, for whatever reason, still socially tolerated and commonplace to discriminate against the homosexual community in casual conversation, and Bryant was an eye-opening reminder of that societal glitch.
There’s a discrepancy between the reception of words like the one Bryant used and that of racial, religious, or gender-based slurs. If a white NBA player were to use the N-word in a derogatory context to or about another black player, that would be egregious and met with duly severe castigation. Why, then, is society lagging behind in attaching the same stigma to homosexual slurs? Until those words are just as socially taboo, a problem needs solving.
When the NBA levied its $100,000 fine on Bryant later in the afternoon, it was a step in the right direction. That’s chump change for Bryant, honestly, but it sends a message that the league is not going to tolerate this type of insensitivity from its players. Still, this should be just the first step in a series of moves to push reforms for the league.
In everyday society, there is no way to discourage people from committing these acts of discrimination. They’re protected by the freedom of speech and driven by personal insecurities. The NBA has no such problem. As a private, controlled body, the league has the power to forbid this type of behavior by its players. In that way, the NBA has the potential to be a major agent of social change by setting an example, serving as a pioneer of social justice in the spotlight.
So here’s what David Stern should do: outlaw a specific list of slurs. When a player uses a word, fine him. Or suspend him. Or institute mandatory sensitivity training for that violator. Considering all the no-tolerance policies already in place with regard to performance-enhancing drugs, apparel, social media, or anything else, this shouldn’t be that much of a step up. It’s an easy solution to an ignored problem.
Consider this Tweet from Matt Moore:
If our priorities are so messed up that we chide one player for standard conduct and shrug off another player for being socially despicable, there needs to be improvement. And it needs to come soon.
Kobe Bryant might have been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he’s a figurehead of a society with a flaw. And that figurehead has to be held accountable. Fortunately for him, there’s a chance something great comes out of all this.
Maybe it was Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals that led to Danny Ainge trading Kendrick Perkins.
Even without the defensive stalwart thwarting scoring attempts in the lane the Boston Celtics still led the Los Angeles Lakers with less than seven minutes to play. A loss meant his team – a year older – would only be that much hungrier entering the 2011 playoffs, eager to win another championship before the triumvirate of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were no longer capable of elevating their play to the highest level. Certainly with Rajon Rondo blossoming into a superstar and the emergence of Glen Davis as a viable frontcourt presence, meant it was time to start thinking about the next wave of Celtic teams beyond the Big Three.
The opportunity to acquire a young, athletic wing player who could shoulder some of the load for Allen and Pierce wasn’t one that could be passed up – could it? Even with the asking price of Perkins, surely Garnett and the Brothers O’Neal were capable of maintaining Boston’s suffocating interior defense.
On second thought – perhaps it was Ainge’s arrogance that manifested itself in this trade.
The emotional impact is undeniable and was readily apparent in the reactions of Perkins’ former teammates when they learned of the news. The physical effects have been even more pronounced, resulting in a 15-12 record since the trade and a significant blow to Boston’s trademark defense. Derrick Rose’s endless barrage of forays to the basket last Thursday in a loss to the Bulls wasn’t an aberration, rather a nationally televised unmasking of the Celtics dirty little secret – the soft underbelly that is now their ability to defend the rim sans Perkins.
From an overall statistical standpoint, Boston remains one of the best interior defenses in the NBA. This however is an empty facade, a result of their first 55 games, which saw them limit opponents to 59.4% shooting at the rim, a percentage bested only by the Miami Heat. To be fair, Perkins was absent for a large portion of these games, with Jermaine and Shaq handling much of the interior duties, but suddenly with those two succumbing to injury and Perkins gone, things have digressed. In the 27 games since Perkins was dealt that initially pristine mark has swelled to nearly 64%, this puts the Celtics nearly on the league median. But the absence of Perkins goes far beyond numbers: Boston is suddenly vulnerable in a way we haven’t seen in years.
In a game rich with young guards who continually push the boundaries of their position, size remains directly correlated with success. The Lakers – for all of the adjectives used to describe Kobe Bryant – can point to their overwhelming frontcourt advantage as the base on which their back-to-back championship teams have been built. San Antonio and Chicago can point to the ability to defend the area around the rim as helping to propel them to the top seed in their respective conference playoffs. Is it any wonder that Oklahoma City has suddenly become an even bigger threat out west after providing a strong complement to Serge Ibaka inside? Boston’s intimidation factor is gone – teams aren’t deterred from driving the lane, an act that at best used to be cautionary.
Beyond his presence as an unselfish defender though, the void left by Perkins may be the single biggest argument for those that so staunchly oppose the statistical revolution. As much as I enthrall myself in the world of advanced stats, I do understand the need to sometimes throw caution to the wind and let the emotional aspect of the game have its due. The Celtics thrived on this emotion, dating back to that championship season, when they embraced the concept of Ubuntu.
Yet Ainge’s insistence that his (somewhat) failed offseason acquisitions in Shaquille and Jermaine O’Neal could sustain the Perkins presence, not merely his production, was shortsighted. Boston may be better suited for the day when the Big Three retire and yes they got something in exchange for Perkins in the present, rather than losing him to free agency, but at what cost? A team once revered for its cohesiveness and lauded for its postseason play, has lost its edge and more importantly, likely its last chance at a title.
Is it unconventional that on a veteran laden team the loss of a 26-year-old proves to be its undoing? Of course, but then again, very little about Boston’s run of the last four years has been conventional. Now in a postseason filled with young and hungry sharks, the Celtics sudden vulnerability is akin to blood in the water and their life raft is wearing a new uniform.
There is an interesting dichotomy characterizing this year’s MVP race. There’s an assumed winner in Derrick Rose, but there are several worthy candidates. Nobody’s really a clear-cut winner. The reality of it, though, is that all the popular choices are clear-cut options.
Mike Wilbon’s clear-cut winner is Rose. John Hollinger’s clear-cut winner is Dwight Howard. Ethan Sherwood Strauss’ clear-cut winner is LeBron James. The thing is, none of them is wrong. When there are no fewer than three arguable candidates, that might be a problem. This year’s MVP race is kind of like a multiple-choice question that has no right answer — you answer it because that’s the nature of the thing, but later on you’re told that there wasn’t a correct answer, so you should have abstained.
If the MVP voting process for the NBA is at that point, a change is necessary. Right now, the MVP vote has no definition. There are no official qualities inherent to the award. Without some directional guidance, it’s useless to elect a winner. The voting is based entirely on speculation, personal opinion, and newsworthiness. That seems a bit off.
As Matt Moore was quick to point out, that’s probably the way the league wants it. The openness of the award facilitates discourse, which generates popularity for the relevant players, their teams, and the league as a whole. The more candidates there are, the more fan bases start to rally and promote the NBA, however indirectly.
That’s all fine and dandy to a degree, but what happens if things get worse? The MVP is a media-driven award, and the landscape and scope of the media is ever evolving. As the generation gap continues to widen between the traditional print writers and the up-and-coming bloggers, it’s within the realm of possibility that candidacies could get ridiculous. The example I used last night was this: what happens if we start voting Ryan Gomes MVP for best mohawk? Or Kyle Lowry for best internet meme? It seems absurd now, but down the line it could be feasible.
The NBA is supposed to be fun for the viewers. Entertainment creates good business, which circles back to fun. It’s a mutually beneficial cycle. What’s ignored, though, is that the greatness of the NBA isn’t just based on fun. There’s a necessary factor of legitimacy. The Harlem Globetrotters are fun, but they aren’t very successful. Slam Ball was fun, but it wasn’t successful. When Golden State Warriors fans herald Monta Ellis at their MVP at Oracle Arena, that’s a rather tame violation of the legitimacy of the award and the NBA, but it’s still outrageous.
Better yet, take a look at the All-Star Game. Every year, one or more undeserving players get voted in to the starting lineup because of personal allegiances or Lifetime Achievement Awards (Yao Ming and Allen Iverson have fit those categories, respectively, in recent years). Without a doubt, the game has taken a hit in relevance of late, and the joke of the voting process is no small factor. The MVP’s on the same track.
I don’t mean to suggest that there should be a list of robotic criteria for a player to be voted MVP in a process that takes all the life out of things. But marginal reform would be the best thing at this point. The Rookie of the Year Award is a good model. It has a controversial condition that players are eligible for the award even if they are playing in a year other than their first. The pertinent example? Blake Griffin, who garnered every first-place ROY vote from the contingent of ESPN writers. If that weren’t the case, every one of those writers would have to reconsider his or her vote.
Getting a push in the right direction from the NBA wouldn’t be a detriment to fun, and it would help to avoid the pitfalls of illegitimacy — a balance of which even this year’s MVP race could be jealous.
At this point, there is precious little anyone can detract from the Denver Nuggets. With every game, the traces of Carmelo Anthony’s vice grip on the organization become harder to identify. There is no time for what was in Denver’s fast-paced attack, only what is. If you stop to think, you’re already trailing behind.
Barring disaster in these last few games, the Nuggets should enter the playoffs with supreme confidence for what they’ve been able to accomplish and create since the trade deadline. But something that has been overlooked amid the team’s success is the fact that the players acquired in the midseason trade — almost all impact players — are new to this. Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, and Timofey Mozgov have no prior playoff experience. Raymond Felton, the wily veteran of the bunch, has never won a playoff game. When considering that Anthony has made the playoffs in every season he’s played, and that trade-mate Chauncey Billups — counting the Knicks’ latest berth — has a decade’s worth of consecutive playoff appearances, it’s obvious that the Nuggets weren’t banking on such immediate success. But success is pretty much the only thing the Nuggets have generated since the end of February, and the young ones ought to be ready if that success is to continue.
If Chandler, Gallinari, and Felton — all important cogs in the Nuggets offense — fold under the pressure, the team still has veteran leaders to compete, and more importantly, win. Alas, the uncertainty regarding Denver’s new players leaves the door slightly ajar, allowing that stupid back-climbing monkey to return:
Denver doesn’t have an elite isolation scorer! What do they do when they have no options left to exhaust?
…Which seems a little silly, considering how deep the Nuggets’ roster is. The team has nine players legitimately capable of scoring 20+ points on any given night. The odds of every single one of them struggling is far-fetched, but it happens. Great offenses collapse. And in that hypothetical Game 5 situation — with the series tied up, and the game deadlocked — do the Nuggets have someone who can be a game-changer on offense when nothing is going right?
How about J.R. Smith?
Under normal circumstances, this would be a stupefying proposition. But the Nuggets aren’t a normal team. With so many options and so many willing playmakers, Denver doesn’t need to rely on any one scorer, which they’ve obviously proven through the last few months. But concerns are understandable given the nature of the playoffs. So if the Nuggets are able to execute their offensive for most of a playoff series, would it be reasonable to say that this iso-scorer would only be necessary for 1 out of every 3 games? Also, isn’t Smith the walking definition of a 1 out of every 3 games player?
Smith’s consistency issues are well documented, but so are his unhinged scoring onslaughts. At his best, he is clearly the team’s best offensive player. He’ll make the highlight reels with impossible dunks and three-point barrages, but his ability as a creator is perhaps the most intriguing element to his game. Some of Smith’s most brilliant plays have come from him running the pick and roll. The bounce pass is a criminally underrated facet of Smith’s game, and one of Denver’s deadliest weapons when Smith is in the right frame of mind.
At his best, Smith is a savant, skillfully creating what can only be construed as art, maintaining a balance between his own combustibility and the flow of the game. At his worst, Smith finds himself completely out of tune, either from extraneous issues, a lack of consistent playing time, or both. Smith’s predilection as a player is to shoot. It’s innate, and there’s not much that anyone can do about that. The difference between good and bad J.R. Smith is judgment. When the variables are all in place for Smith’s wacky algorithm, elements of his game open up. And it’s a beautiful thing.
Probably the thing you admire about him is his explosiveness and his athleticism as an offensive player. From the standpoint of one-on-one skills and individual skills, he’s a top-20 player in basketball.
But the ability to fit that into the team and fit that into winning basketball has been our challenge. I think J.R., this year, has probably had his best year as far as being a good teammate and committed to the team first. It’s going to be exciting.
George Karl’s relationship with Smith over the years has been tumultuous. With the new players capable of playing the wing position, Karl has more reasons than ever to play Smith as little as possible. But Karl is aware of Smith’s talent, and that’s the problem. You don’t let a genius suffer idly in the corner. You embrace him and his quirks as much as humanly possible. And while Smith can’t be happy with a few of Karl’s punishments this season, he should be grateful he wasn’t axed from the rotation entirely. Karl has tinkered with Smith’s minutes throughout the year, but maintaining a firm 25-30 minute allotment should prove to be rewarding with the playoffs only days away.
In last week’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, Smith’s potential as Denver’s closer was never clearer. Smith scored 13 points in the fourth quarter — seven of which game in the game’s last three minutes, including a three-point dagger with 23 seconds left in the game — making five of his six shots in the period. In a close game with clear playoff seeding implications, Smith was their best player down the stretch. Was it a taste of what’s to come?
Maybe what’s more impressive is Smith’s completely pedestrian performance in the two losses to the Oklahoma City Thunder, with one game before and one after the Mavs game. Momentum doesn’t appear to have much sway in the face of Smith’s lack of short-term memory. Every game is a blank slate with an equal chance of Smith setting himself on fire. In the playoffs, there are seemingly insurmountable highs and traumatizing lows. J.R. Smith knows the feeling too well. This team will have to find a balance between its veterans and its patches of inexperience in the face of stiffening competition. Smith has the chance to find the Nuggets’ absolute center by bringing back what it had lost; by finally getting that monkey off their backs.
Brace yourselves, for the Lakers are engulfed in another slump. On the heels of a wholly impressive stretch coming out of the All-Star break in which the two-time defending champions went 17-1, they have hit a snag, dropping their last five contests — one of the recent blunders was Friday’s loss at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers, who won with unexpected ease, 93-86.
This is, at minimum, the third time the Lakers have found themselves in a losing streak that’s troubling to some, impertinent to others during the season. Invariably, these spates of difficulty spark an unnavigable divide between those who consider any discernible losing streak as the ultimate apocalypse and those who could care less; after all, the playoffs haven’t started yet.
No matter one’s bent on the gravity of the Lakers’ regular-season losses, a trend has emerged this season through which one explanation is sufficient to pinpoint why they were defeated in any instance: they didn’t try hard enough.
No game demonstrated this trend better than Friday’s drubbing by the Blazers. As Phil Jackson said after the game, “These guys just don’t want to play hard right now.”
(And comments like those are not a one-time thing, for those who view this as an aberration. Looking back to the Lakers’ loss to the Miami Heat on Christmas Day, here’s what Kobe Bryant notoriously had to say postgame: “It’s like these games mean more to our opponents than they do to us,” Bryant said. “I think we need to get that straight — play with more focus, put more [emphasis] on these games. I don’t like it. … We know what we’re capable of doing, and that’s part of the problem.”)
In this Blazers game, how much did lack of effort really play in to the defeat? The knee-jerk response is obvious: the Lakers are agreeably better than the Trail Blazers, so they had to have phoned in the game to have lost. Yes, the Lakers shot a despicable 39.5 percent, but couldn’t that just have been the result of great Blazers defense?
Bryant shot just 10-of-25 from the field, due in large part to lockdown D from Wesley Matthews, who has emerged as one of the top Kobe stoppers this season. Factor in LaMarcus Aldridge’s containment of Pau Gasol, and it doesn’t seem all that ridiculous that the Lakers could have scored only 86 points.
Meanwhile, the Lakers won the battle of rebounding, a stat that many classify as an effort number, 52-41.
On Wednesday, the Lakers lost to the Golden State Warriors, 95-87, for the first time in 14 matchups. It was largely a poor showing for L.A., but Pau Gasol (18 points on 7-of-11 shooting) and Andrew Bynum (13 points on 5-of-5 shooting, 17 rebounds) were a pair of bright spots. If the problem was effort, care to explain why Pau Gasol only played 27 minutes throughout the game and not at all down the stretch? Presumably Jackson would want the guy in who was actually playing well. Furthermore, Bynum probably would have taken more than five shots if he were playing so effectively and no one else gave a hoot.
It appears, then, that the “effort” argument doesn’t really have much practical traction. More simply, the explanation is probably just that the Lakers get outplayed on occasion. It’s not a huge surprise that the Lakers and their fans would want to remain blind to that argument, though. Considering they have won the last two NBA titles, maybe that’s their prerogative.
Still, there is a disconcerting problem with the duality that the NBA community at large perceives of Lakers’ losses as lack of effort and losses of every other team as nonperformance — more simply, other teams “suck” when they lose. Such was the case Thursday when the Celtics fell to the Bulls in a fairly embarrassing manner. But it wouldn’t be right to say that the Celtics were disinterested in playing hard against the Bulls (after all, they soiled the proverbial bed and were undoubtedly outplayed). So why is it permissible to excuse the Lakers’ poor play that way?
Well, frankly, the Lakers have won a lot over the years. A lot. They have won so much that there’s a culture of win-or-die subordinate only to the delusion that the Yankees and their fans share. With that culture as a basis, the Lakers have done a masterful job of crafting a narrative in which their team bows down to no mortal — in the eyes of the Lakers, they are never underdogs and should never lose.
Consequently, accentuating the accomplishments of another team has a stigma of inner weakness attached to it. Acknowledging that the Blazers’ defense might have shut them down would have been tantamount to saying that the O’Brien Trophy was open for the taking, at least from their perspective. This is why you’ll never, ever see a Lakers player help up an opponent during the game or cry in the locker room after the final buzzer. They vigorously defend their image of toughness.
Phil Jackson didn’t win 11 titles by being an idiot, and it’s evident from his aforementioned comment that he’s aware perception is reality. He’s basically the only coach that will say anything legitimate to the media, and he uses that candidness to, well, construct an effective facade: the Lakers do try, and the appearance of apathy is just a cover for ineluctable vulnerability.
It might sound bunk, but there’s a psychological hurdle to beating the Lakers that is absent for other teams, most notably the Heat. And so long as the Lakers keep winning when it counts, it will remain impenetrable. That might not be right for the game, but it is most definitely right for the Purple and Gold.
When we started FreeDarko, we thought we knew everything. We had doctrine, catch-phrases, invented theories, and an extensive list of heroes and villains. There was even an uncompromising house style, one whose major influence, as far as I could tell, was Babelfish. I guess you could say we were ideologues, or fancied ourselves a movement, except we didn’t. It just seemed like the only reasonable way to charge in and start making bold, possibly faulty, points about professional sports. We were wrong as often as we were right, and we knew it, but part of the fun was never letting on that we cared—or even noticed.
The further you get into media, the more you become keenly aware of the obsession with being right. You don’t have to write with any style, come up with any original thought, or present any new perspective. You just have to be right. It helps if you’re right in the sense that what you present can’t be disproven and you take a bombastic approach. Make sure you make things as black and white as possible.
It’s sad, but it’s true.
And FreeDarko bucked all of that. If we’re talking sports blogs of sports blogs, FreeDarko was at the very core of that ideal, mostly by not being about sports at its core. But the best thing about it? It wasn’t afraid. Of anything. I’ve backed off hundreds of opinions, theories, lines, jokes because of what I was concerned the reaction would be. FreeDarko, however, was fearless. It presented ideas with the hopes of sparking debate, creating different ways of looking at basketball. And if it was wrong, they held no aversion to that. No one has ever gotten anywhere great by being safe all the time, which is what you have to do to be right all the time.
Get a group of bloggers in what I term Generation 3, of which HP is a part of, or later, and almost all of them will say that something FreeDarko wrote inspired them. Some, like myself, will be honest enough to admit that a lot of what they do is simply them trying to be as smart, as innovative, as Goddamn cool as FreeDarko (and failing).
FD is/was/shall be an institution among like-minded individuals. It’s fitting that FD’s ending during a time when the stats debate isn’t being discussed as a meeting of the minds, but a polarized, disgusting, bitter, mean counter-positioning.
I wrote at FanHouse for the brief sliver of time when the Works existed. Seeing Ziller and Shoals work together just made your jaw drop. They were so different in every way, and yet worked so well together and hit on the same wavelength.
Wavelength.
That’s where FD got you. The writing hit you on a level you hadn’t considered before and when you hit it, that’s where you wanted to stay. You wanted the game to be that interesting, that provocative, that fun.
FreeDarko shut down today, and the reflections in the piece linked above are essential to your day if you’re a fan of basketball writing on the internet. FD crossed over and made an impact like no other blog has. As I said on Twitter, FanHouse and FreeDarko are gone. This must be what the empty streets feel like on the day the world’s going to end.
FreeDarko is a blog, but also a book (or two, really); it’s a force of nature somehow distilled from the endlessness of the internet into bound paper. It’s a collective and a mindset; FD is a group of like-minded basketball enthusiasts, but whether “FreeDarko” is a descriptor for all of those who subscribe to a particular way of thinking or merely the fantastic collection of writers who led the conversation is beyond me. FreeDarko will clothe you, and then revel in its own endearing impracticality. It will cover your walls in the most vivid NBA artwork money can buy, and fill your head with ideas that will change the way you look at basketball forever, so long as you throw convention to the wind and sip on the Kool-Aid for a while. It is both criticism and appreciation, for no teams and all teams, for some players and all players.
I have no idea what FreeDarko means. I thought I did once, but I was probably wrong. The same is undoubtedly true regarding my comprehension of some of the fine, lofty works of Bethlehem Shoals, Brown Recluse, Esq., Dr. Lawyer IndianChief, and FD’s many other incredible contributors, as well as the visual stylings of Big Baby Belafonte and Silverbird5000; I wouldn’t dare claim to have properly processed the lot of FreeDarko’s exports over my years as a reader, partially due to my own faults, but also because FD simply loves to teeter on the edge of the rails.
Or at least FreeDarko loved to teeter on the edge of the rails. The FD site as we’ve known it is no more, and though this is hardly the time to pen epitaphs for FreeDarko’s authors, it’s as worthy of an occasion as any to reminisce over what was, what was learned, and what was gained from the most unforgettable cornerstone of the contemporary basketball blogosphere. I know blogdeath is not the end, but only a transition; FreeDarko is survived by the numerous authors who made it great — many of whom still hover around the game — and years’ worth of amazing works. Still, this is an event of reflection, if not one of mourning.
No other written basketball entity could ever match FD’s luxuriance, and I’m not sure any ever will. The longform prose, the heavy concepts, the esoterica — FreeDarko’s allure was always based in its indulgence. This particular internet nook offered something rich that no other outlet could imitate, even as FreeDarko’s prevalence inspired and influenced a new wave of online scribes (myself most definitely included) to embrace that which they had been taught to reject. There’s just nothing quite like the FD brand, and though the thematic influence of Shoals and co. can be traced to the ends of our basketball realm, every FreeDarkolite bears roads leading to Rome. Other blogs or writings may be proximal in theme, but FreeDarko had — and has — no NBA peer in style, intellect, and audacity.
Yet what I loved about FreeDarko most of all was its refreshing self-awareness. By the time I finally stumbled upon FD, the site had already covered a lot of its theoretical bases, the comment section had come alive, and the authors were working magic. There was this insanely intricate and self-referential body of work to explore, as threads carried through FreeDarko’s archives in spiraling patterns alternating in intellectual seriousness and bits of tantalizing whimsy. The balance of gravity and levity that FreeDarko was able to strike wasn’t just commendable and awesome, but damn noble. Inspiring on its own merit, really. FD will largely be remembered for its conceptual taglines and general ethos, but I think it’s crucial that those of us who knew FreeDarko well never let ourselves forget how tonally brilliant this entire endeavor was. From blog to book and back, FD’s authors were able to dive headfirst into basketball theory and emerge spewing magnificent and insightful prose, but somehow those under the FreeDarko flag never lost touch with the game’s all-important sense of fun.
Those at FreeDarko’s helm knew what they were doing, even when they didn’t; FD may have missed the point at times, but for most of its natural life, it never missed a beat. The blog and its authors grew into a sense of what they were and what they provided, and once they reached that point, the FreeDarko collective offered the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a self-actualized blog. It was beautiful to watch, to read, and to revel in.
So to Nathaniel Friedman, Todd Ito, Adam Waytz, Jacob Weinstein, and Jesse Einhorn, among so many others: thank you. FreeDarko was a blast, and we’ll never, ever be the same.
The MVP race is all but sewn up. Derrick Rose is the apparent beneficiary of the media’s consensus, overcoming concerns he doesn’t merit the award. Without question, Rose is putting together an impressive season by any standards, but there’s a case to be made for players like Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James.
That said, despite his league-leading PER, his highest career field-goal percentage, and the stature of the Miami Heat at the top of the league, James can’t seem to get within sniffing distance of the crown. It’s not worth debating to whom the award should go at the end of the season, but the point here is that James is getting jobbed of due consideration.
Doubters will point to a couple of main reasons for writing off James: (1) The Heat would be fine without him (even though, as of a week ago, the Heat were about 10.5 points per 100 possessions worse without James and the Bulls just 1.5 points per 100 possessions worse without Rose); and (2) He doesn’t deserve a threepeat in MVP voting (this is just an irrational appeal to tradition in the sport).
It’s clear, however, that the reason that James isn’t getting any credit in the voting process — driven by journalists — is that the media hates him. James garnered plenty of hatred this summer with The Decision, and to be fair to LeBron, that disdain isn’t warranted.
When LeBron James came into this league (in fact, even a year before he came into the NBA), the community at large (hereafter referred to as “we”) had very egotistical representations of him. We constructed a narrative in which he became the “Chosen One.” He was supposed to come into the league and be the absolute savior for whatever franchise drafted him. After the Cavaliers selected him, no one cared about that team. Everyone cared only about LeBron.
And he was very selfish about it, solidifying his role as an icon and not merely a basketball player. We were all completely okay with it back then. This summer, LeBron exercised a right that Curt Flood and others mercilessly fought for in the 1970s to separate athletes from effective indentured servants. He went to Miami. Suddenly we had a problem with LeBron.
But most people will claim that the move itself was not what they had an issue with — it was the circumstances of the move that irked them. They viewed The Decision as an overblown, self-interested way to announce a change of team.
Even ignoring the charitable consequences of The Decision, how was LeBron’s egoism this past summer at all different from the rest of his career? We loved him for being an individualist when he came into the league, and we loathed him for not being a collectivist when he went to Miami. Isn’t that a double standard?
For now, however, assume instead that the contempt that NBA observers have held for LeBron is rational and justifiable. Why should that rule him out of the MVP race? The award is about achievement and excellence on the basketball court, not about selflessness and altruism. Isn’t it a problem that members of the media, who are supposed to be fierce protectors of objectivity and fairness, are playing favorites and taking sides?
To hope for pure objectivity in sports media is a useless exercise. That is, the sports world will never see a day in which every team and player benefits from the same amount of unbiased coverage. The logistics of markets and the nature of fan bases demand more coverage for the bigger teams.
Nevertheless, it’s quite reasonable to not only hope but also expect that the media approach any and all coverage with an open mind unpolluted by preconceived notions and uninhibited by personal grudges. The media bears the burden of honoring the trust that the public places in it. When influential figures start to lead the masses astray based on extraneous factors legitimized by subjective attitudes, that’s a notable issue.
LeBron took a divisive course of action last summer, but it is important for viewers and fans to decide on their own how they want to view him as a result. Instead, the media is peddling a dominating narrative that more or less makes the choice for the masses. Anyone interested in someone else for MVP either is a devout supporter of a particular player regardless of the race or has done the research to find the rare commentary that challenges the Rose testimony.
Rose might very well be the right selection for the MVP this season, however one really defines the award. It’s no crime against LeBron should he fall short of the award, but everyone deserves a fair shake regardless of his history. There’s no reason The Decision should be James’ scarlet letter.
The media gets to decide the MVP. If they’re going to have that kind of responsibility in determining a winner based on basketball achievements, they should at least try to be objective about it. Failing that, there are serious questions about the integrity of sports journalism.
At about the :27 second mark, the commercial turns to D. Wade walking through the gym, where he overhears the “I may be wrong” remix being played in the downstairs club(??), and calls Barkley to tell him about it.
Where is he exactly? Is he in some sort of special South Beach Gym-Club hybrid? Is it his home? Does that mean that Wade either has people in a constant state of partying in club wear in his living room while he’s upstairs working out in his shared community gym (there are two guys in the shot working out, as Wade walks to the club area).
What fascinates me even more, is how was the logic of this commercial pitched exactly?
Pitchman 1: ”Ok Dwyane, so you’re just getting out of the gym, then you hear a song that has Chuck’s voice in it, and when you go to investigate you see people in a club dancing to a remix of his voice.”
Wade: ”I don’t understand, how can I go right from the Gym to a Club?”
Pitchman 2: ”No, no, you don’t understand. This is all happening in your house.”
Wade: ”Why would I have a club in my house? And why would I have a living room full of people while I’m working out?”
Pitchman 1: ”No, no, you’re thinking way, way too rationally. It doesn’t matter where you are, it just matters that you hear it at a club.”
Forget the MVP. This is the most important issue of the year and no one is paying attention.
At first I thought it was just a matter of Wade walking into a party at his house while he’s changing. But no, he’s clearly working out. Then I thought maybe it was supposed to be a type of flash mob, only orchestrated around a fake song created by a fictional mash-up of a non-existent Barkley soundbyte. But no, the way they’re all dressed, it’s clear they’re there for a reason.
WHY IS THERE DANCING IN THE GYM, WHY IS THERE WORKING OUT IN A CLUB?
I’m not saying that the commercial can’t bend the concepts of rational thought. It clearly can. But if it’s going to do so, shouldn’t it do so because it’s the only way to get to the punchline? If this commercial were an actual joke, it would go like this:
“A horse walks into a bar.
And the schoolteacher says ‘I didn’t know it was raining!’”
(laugh track)
And am I the only one that’s unable to focus on anything but the frizzy-haired girl in front?
And what the hell is the deal with the free-throw motion? Soldja Boy has a better dance sequence. It really does! Or some other more relevant dance move combination.
In closing, the “D-Wade wants a trade!” guy at the bus stop in the “Get me out of here!” commercial is the most annoying juicebag on the planet and I hope he gets hit with a large object from space.
In a nutshell: There are things that go beyond the realm of box score production. You do need your eyes to see them, only because plays exist within context, and if we accept that winning has value in our experience of basketball, and we do (let’s not get into why, I beg you, this thing’s jacked up enough as it is), then we have to acknowledge that the result of your play does have an impact on how we consider it. In this case, if you watch the games, you’ll observe Rose taking over games in a way Dwight Howard can not, LeBron James has not, a flurry of steals, rebounds, assists, and scores in key situations that make you walk away saying “Derrick Rose won that game.” It doesn’t mean Dwight Howard didn’t help his team win, or was the primary reason for Magic wins, he was. But Rose’s ability to do so should be valued, and in turn should match Howard’s statistical superiority. That said, to ignore stats, to reject empirical data from the argument is to say “We don’t care how you actually did, we care about how we think you did.” And that speaks of an arrogance we should aspire to escape from. Even shorter: Derrick Rose is just as much a worthy MVP as Dwight Howard, and Dwight Howard is every bit the MVP Rose is. The end.
I don’t hate Derrick Rose. By saying that, I’m giving ground. Immediately, if you have to define yourself as not something, people are led to believe there’s a reason you’re associated with what you’ve denied being. But in this case, it’s true. I like Derrick Rose’s game. I’m a fan of Calipari’s toy solider point guards that become full-blown mechanized weaponry at the league level. Rose represents the idea that young, explosive, and raw can become elite. It’s progress. That’s what this site was built around. Well, that and jokes about Dikembe Mutumbo in a bar and Vince Carter sucking in general. Rose detonates to the rim, has vision, plays defense, leads without pomp, circumstance, or theatrics. He just delivers.
But because I like evidence, actual evidence beyond my own opinion, I’m lumped in with “statheads.” That’s the gentler term that’s been used the past few weeks. Geeks, nerds, dorks, the usual high-school immature claptrap gets trotted around like calling names on Twitter suddenly makes you tougher or more of a man. We know more about the games, are able to see more about the games, are able to study and explore more about the game than we ever have been able to. And we want to shut out a viewpoint because… what? It’s different? It dares challenge the notion that you may have missed Rose’s man defense when you were getting a soda, talking to your spouse, playing with your kids, or using the can? That maybe we need to look at as much as we can if we really want to be informed in our opinions about a game that features constant motion, constant actions, and constant elements interacting with one another?
That’s what we want to be?
That problem stems from a growing tendency among us as human animals to want to regard everything in some sort of binary opposition. Either McDonald’s or Burger King is the best burger joint. Kobe Bryant is clutch or he isn’t. You can like Ernest Hemingway or William Faulkner, but not both.
As it applies to the focus of this article, there are statheads and there are, well, anti-statheads. These folks, in my experience, distrust any data that refute conclusions they drew with their own eyes.
The truth is more complicated than that. Basketball, like nearly everything else in life, is too complex for us to understand if we apply only one doctrine, so to speak, to our evaluation of it. If we rely too heavily on statistics, no matter how advanced or refined, we are bound to miss something; we run the same risk if we rely too heavily on what we observe.
Call me naive, but I think we can all coexist as hoops fans, without calling names or inventing straw men, if we merely blend the statistical with empirical observation.
I’ve been as much a friend to the statistical community as an average guy. I’m a stats moderate, I suppose. I buy into PER as a descriptive, not evaluative, measure, think Win Shares is poorly constructed, value the Four Factors and think Synergy is a Godsend which enables me to confirm what I see and believe. When I notice a player is defending well in the post, I go to Synergy. If it shows that he surrenders a 59% field goal percentage in the post, sure, maybe his fundamentals are sound but for whatever reason, he’s not getting the job done. If I see that a player is really effective off the cut and see that he scores a high percentage of the time, it confirms what I’ve seen. Others use plus-minus. The easy answer is “look at the win-loss record, that’s all you need.” But there have been, there are plenty of terrible players on championship teams. It simply doesn’t show enough. That’s why I’m friendly with the stats community and try and push things like offensive efficiency and effective field goal percentage in writings at CBS and NBC. Efficiency is scoring with pace removed. That’s pretty simple. Effective field goal percentage factors in the impact of perimeter shooting. It’s not a complex formula. It just puts shooting in context of points produced per shot.
All this isn’t to say I totally agree with some of those pushing metrics in this debate.
For one, it’s become too personal. They’ve let the close-minded “count the non-existent rings while I talk about how LeBron is a loser!” crowd push them into an emotional response, which is to say that Rose isn’t worthy because of the metrics. Luol Deng’s a top-five plus-minus player this season. Love is fourth in PER. Deng’s also fourth in defensive win shares, Love fourth in offensive. Those aren’t MVP candidates. (Awesome players, and I’m even willing to have the talk about how team success shouldn’t impact the vote, so Love should be considered. It’s worth talking about.) I understand the element that says Rose isn’t just weak in one area, he’s weak in all the metrics. But he’s not weak. He’s just not elite. He’s moved to eighth in PER, 8th in Win Shares, 8th in Defensive Win Shares. He’s there, he’s just not at the top. So if he’s in the discussion, we have to lean on something to differentiate between the Dengs and Loves and the LeBrons and Howards (and Roses). So we do what brought us to take such an interest: we watch. And we walk away from Derrick Rose’s performances saying nothing but “Wow.”
Saying individual anecdotal evidence shouldn’t be included is just as close-minded and shortsighted as throwing out pocket protector jokes. Just because so many who sling out those comments are idiots doesn’t mean we toss the baby out with the “WINS MATTER” bathwater. And it hurts the case for Howard. Which is considerable.
I don’t hate Derrick Rose. I just think it’s okay to criticize him and really analyze him if we’re considering him for the most prestigious award in basketball. I’m not talking about complex theories, formulas, extrapolations, or vague references that have as much statistical noise as anything in this world like plus-minus. I’m talking pretty simple, understandable, relatable things.
OK, so the evidence from the Four Factors wasn’t in D-Rose’s favor. But the Bulls have been on a hellacious 15-2 run to take over the top seed in the East since dropping the first game after the break to Toronto. I figured it would be fair to Rose to check on his stats during this stretch, to examine how he’s driven Chicago to the top. It’s here that I was fairly stunned. Here are Rose’s pre- and post-All Star break splits:
FG FG% 3P 3P% FT FT% PTS REB AST
Pre 9.1-20.2 .450 1.5-4.3 .355 5.2-6.2 .838 24.9 4.4 8.2
Post 8.2-20.2 .404 1.7-6.1 .284 7.0-7.9 .887 25.1 3.7 7.1
Wait, what? That’s your MVP push? 40% field-goal percentage? Baron Davis-quality gunning from behind the arc?
I do credit Rose for continuing to get to the line more often, as it had previously been a key deficiency, but his true shooting percentage (TS%) has still been below league average (.529) since the break (Rose is at the league average of .540 for the whole season).
That’s field-goal percentage. It’s gone up since Rose went on a late season tear, and that certainly ups his merit in the race. But at the time all this brutal and at once over-simplified and overly-complicated arguments began to emerge, this was the reality. And saying that it doesn’t matter that the player down the stretch when games started to “matter” (whatever the hell that means) shot 40% from the field is akin to saying it doesn’t matter that he led comebacks for his team or took over in close games or made the most outstanding plays. You can make all the calculator jokes you want. Field-goal percentage ain’t rocket science. It’s makes out of attempts. If you’re not succeeding at a comparable rate to your peers in makes out of attempts, how can you be most valuable?
It’s a question that does have answers. But the question deserves to be asked. As does this one.
If Dwight Howard is elite, how come so many people with no rooting interest don’t think so?
If Howard is Orlando’s best player, and he’s holding something back every night how can you say that doesn’t affect the Magic? He’s their best guy! Your best guy leads! Your best guy sets the tone for everyone else! When Howard cruises through quarters, picks up dumb fouls, earns even dumber technicals and disappears in crunch-time (he doesn’t even rank in the top 125 for crunch-time field goal attempts this season), you don’t think that has anything to do with Orlando’s uneven season? Doesn’t it bother you that Serge Ibaka plays harder than Howard every night? Doesn’t it bother you that Celtics fans watch Orlando and think, “That team is soft … I hope we can play them in the playoffs?” Doesn’t it bother you that Howard still defers to Jameer Nelson down the stretch?
Look, I’m a basketball fan — I want Dwight Howard to get there. I want to watch as many great players as possible. But he’s not there yet. I have NBA season tickets and didn’t care if I saw Dwight Howard in person this season. That’s your MVP? Please.
He’s got me. Right up until the end. Up until the last two sentences, he had me.
Thing is, I agree with Simmons 100% on the subject of Dwight Howard. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was about Howard’s game that has caused me in the past two years to go from being a huge advocate to a moderate critic. And it’s the fact that I do feel like he’s holding back. He does have a higher ceiling. He doesn’t hit it. And he definitely takes the attitude he doesn’t have to. He balked at all the talk about his work with Olajuwon, even told me that the league was a lot different back in Hakeem’s day so not everything would translate this summer at a Nike event.
It’s not whether that statement’s accurate (it probably is), it’s that it reflects Howard’s attitude. I didn’t need to improve that much, and he didn’t help that much.
You don’t trust Dwight’s hook. If you do, you bleed blue and white. It’s a legit hook. It’s as good as Glen Davis’ midrange J. He hits it. But you don’t trust it. That takes context to pick up. And that bugs the hell out of me. It bugs the hell out of me that he’s going to leave so many points every night off the floor because he can’t hit free throws. Just because Shaq sucked at free throws doesn’t excuse Howard. You know why? Shaq was better.
But then, there’s that ending. A dismissal. The same kind of attitude taken on the other side. “This guy can’t possibly be your MVP.”
No, if someone said Monte Ellis was the MVP. That’s pretty absurd. Andre Iguodala. Blake Griffin. Amar’e Stoudemire. Those are all great players. They’re not MVPs by any measure. But Howard deserves to be in the picture. And that data helps us to see that. It helps us to see what you would see if your eyes worked differently. Defense isn’t something you watch, unless you force yourself. And guess what. Every scribe that loves watching Derrick Rose drop 30-10? Most of them aren’t tuning into Wizards-Magic on a regular basis and focusing on what Howard does defensively. Get yourself a Synergy account and see what he does. Watch a game and see how teams completely avert going at Howard, changing the entire texture of the offense. Take a look at how he gets to those rebounds, those points, the work in the pick and roll which helps him get to that high PER. Those numbers don’t create themselves. They’re based on basketball. And they show Howard is as good an MVP candidate you’re going to find. You want to argue a guy who screws with his team by surrendering techs in key situations isn’t worthy? Okay. You want to argue that the MVP has to be someone you can give the ball to inside two minutes? Sure, we can have that discussion (and talk about how bigs almost never get the ball late, but I’ll agree it’s especially true with Howard). But don’t act like Howard hasn’t done what it takes to be in the conversation and to give Rose as strong a challenge as anyone. Giving credit where credit is due doesn’t tear down the award. It raises it.
Of course, that’s if we ignore the ridiculous fallacy behind what the award really is anyway.
LeBron James isn’t talked about for this award because everyone hates him.
Yeah, you can trot out the quality of his teammates, but when you go down that road you start comparing Carlos Boozer to Brandon Bass. You can talk about late game performances, but then you start looking at Rose’s free throws inside a minute in several games this season (calm down, we all know he’s going to sink them in May, but it doesn’t erase the misses, which were admittedly few, but you’d only know that if you looked at the data and down the rabbit hole we go). You can talk about whatever you want but in the end, LeBron James isn’t in this discussion because everyone hates him.
The numbers match or succeed Howard’s. The individual impact on the game factoring rebounds, assists, and defense is greater than Rose’s if you watch the game. This isn’t saying Derrick Rose isn’t a good defender (remember, I don’t hate him!), but that James is a great one. You can talk about wins and losses, but then you’re going to have to say Kobe doesn’t belong in the conversation. I’ll let you tell him that.
James isn’t in it because everyone hates him. And that’s fine. That’s how the award is. But let’s not hide or come up with disingenuous explanations for why James isn’t on the list. Let’s not try and make the award more of an honest honor than it is. It is what it is, and it holds that reverence in basketball culture, but it’s a popularity contest. So maybe we shouldn’t take it so seriously.
The story angle is a popular one. Rose is boosted by playing in Chicago. He is boosted by being the star of an up and coming team that’s come out of nowhere. (This is where Magic fans in 2009 and Hornets fans in 2008 would like to start throwing things, and I’d give them their shot, but the revenue-sharing hole of doom will have to wait for another day.) He is boosted by coming off as humble (hint: he’s just quiet), honest (again, quiet), and genuine (so much with the quietness- he’s a professional athlete. Come on.). It’s absolutely true that a voter trying to determine the best player in the NBA should not, under any circumstances, buy into this crap. It hearkens back to the same crap that created the evolution of sports blogs in the first place. Shoddy, cliche, over-simplified nonsense that you can spout off in a thirty second TV bit. We’re better than that.
Except we’re not. And the story is totally fine to vote on.
You know why?
The award doesn’t belong to us writers.
The MVP award isn’t about determining what’s valuable. It doesn’t belong to the winner of the award outside of the physical trophy and a one-year designation. The award is treated as, but should not serve as an objective determination of who the best player in basketball was. That’s why writers are so defensive of their viewpoints, so acerbic with their approach, because they want what they think to be the voice of reason or righteousness, depending on their viewpoint. But the voters real responsibility?
Their responsibility is to give the people their champion. That’s who the award is for. Fans. It’s for fans to argue for, lobby for, scream and kick and celebrate and be proud of. It’s to create barstool arguments that lead to spilled drinks, Facebook messages, jersey sales, ticket revenue, basketball cards filling binders, and descriptions filling fluff pieces and historical books. It’s for the fans.
And Rose is that. He’s the plucky kid from Chicago who wound up in his hometown, playing in the House that Jordan Owns, bringing a team in a huge city with a massive fanbase back to prominence. Dwight Howard not winning the award because Rose is a good story isn’t a tragedy. He’s not hurt by it. He’s not having money taken off his contract. He’s missing out on a car he won’t drive and the ability to tout his award as another reason he bailed on the Magic in 2012. It’s okay for Derrick Rose to win the award because it makes for the best story for the fans, because that’s who the award is for. For us to act like we’re determining some sort of objective endpoint on what’s important in basketball, even if we did have votes, which we don’t, is the kind of arrogance that makes people hate the media in the first place.
For God’s sake, it’s just an award. Its taking more precedence in the framing of the sport culturally speaks more to the FreeDarko concepts of personality than it does to the actual value of the award. It’s not more important because it’s more important. It’s more important because of the context of the sport. But even that importance is contextual, and at the end of the day, it’s a little trophy and a Kia.
Which isn’t to say that the discussion shouldn’t be had. We’re supposed to try and raise the debate. And we have. Tried. I don’t think we’ve succeeded because people have randomly started making abacus jokes about me before I weighed in and I’m pretty sure Eddy Rivera is going to wind up an anti-Derrick Rose super-villain. But we tried. And that’s valuable.
Howard deserves to be considered. He’s had a phenomenal season, makes an impact on both sides of the floor like no one else, is an all-world NBA player and has pushed a very mediocre Magic team to the fourth seed in the East. He’s a worthy MVP.
Rose deserves to be considered. He’s turned the Bulls into a contender, and yes, he was the biggest reason. The Bucks play awesome defense and are sitting home. You’re not going to find a bigger Thibodeau ass-kisser than me outside of Illinois, but Rose is why that average offense isn’t bottom of the barrel. Carlos Boozers is their secondary option for crying out loud (THERE IT IS. YOU KNEW THE BOOZER SLANDER WAS COMING.). He can take over a game more powerfully than anyone this season, including Kobe, LeBron, Wade, and Howard, and has the leadership and versatile skillset to blow you away. He’s a worthy MVP.
So who gets the award?
LOG ON TO CBSSPORTS.COM WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY TO READ MY SPECIAL MVP COLUMN.
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