my  block

where uzairs roam

I feel sorry for sports writers sometimes. In most professional sports, there are days when there isn’t a game on (in some, cricket being a prime example, those days comprise most of the year), and when coaches/GMs haven’t said anything stupid, and when players haven’t gotten into brawls. I hate those days, because they inevitably spawn lousy sports columns.

I thought about this first a few days ago, when TrueHoop linked to an article by Charley Rosen discussing the future of the point guard position and comparing Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Why? Because Williams’ team beat Paul’s team in one game. I generally enjoy Mr. Rosen’s knowledgeable (though highly biased) commentary on the game, so I thought I’d read through it.

It was Mr. Rosen’s conclusion, that Williams is a better point guard than Paul, that infuriated me. Mr. Rosen’s analysis was that the two players are statistically more or less identical, but that Williams is more under control and still developing, and therefore is a better point guard. He mentions but disparages Paul’s strengths — his ability to create plays out of thin air and his speed — as ‘overhandling’ and ‘NOK’s reluctance to run’.

So, what pissed me off? Well, here’s a short list:

• There’s obvious bias in Mr. Rosen’s conclusion that Williams is going to improve while Paul has maxed out his talent — surely if Williams is developing his point-guard skills, Paul can develop a better jump shot?
• Even on the basis of this one game, Mr. Rosen fails to address important statistics, such as that Paul got twice as many assists and only committed a quarter as many turnovers as Williams. That is, Paul’s assist-to-turnover ratio for this game was 8 times better than Williams.
• Mr. Rosen completely discounts the fact that the quality of the teams Williams and Paul play on are completely different. Yes, I for one find it very difficult to overlook the fact that Williams plays with Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur, both All-Stars and very capable offensive players. Paul, on the other hand, plays with Tyson Chandler and Desmond Mason, two leapers who’ve got very little else to offer. Hmm, maybe it’s not a surprise that ‘Paul delivers better lob passes [while] Williams’ entry passes are superior’.
• The need to definitively state which player is better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for discussion of players’ strengths and weaknesses, but deciding which one is better on the basis of limited evidence (one game, in this case) is just stupid, especially given that other important factors, most importantly the quality of teammates, is completely ignored.

Mr. Rosen’s made a career of being a contrarian, but this article really highlights his bias.

Then today, I ran across a classically stupid article. Yes, a whole bunch of jokes about the East being weak, and then a contrarian prediction that the East will be better than the West in 3 years. How many times do we have to do go through this? After Shaq left the Lakers, we were told the balance had shifted; a couple of years on, the East is still called the ‘Leastern’ conference. The meat of the article is this:

Cleveland’s LeBron James, Miami’s Dwyane Wade, Orlando’s Dwight Howard, Toronto’s Chris Bosh, Boston’s Greg Oden and Charlotte’s Kevin Durant and Emeka Okafor. OK, so we’re cheating and sending Oden and Durant to the East

Jeez, talk about abusing writer’s license. While we’re pre-allocating draftees, why don’t we just put O.J. Mayo on the Knicks and Bill Walker on the Magic? The whole article is just a mess, basically because the East is a mess, which leads to the author repeatedly making a positive statement (’Detroit has one of the best general managers in sports, Joe Dumars, and Indiana and New Jersey have pretty good management track records’) and then withdrawing it (’even though those teams have struggled lately’). Amusingly, Fox Sports’ NBA front page also features an article by Mr. Rosen (yes, of the first article!) telling us Dwight Howard is a work-in-progress, and reminding us that ‘the record books are littered with dozens of hugely talented players who never evolved beyond spectacular mediocrity’. Irony’s a beautiful thing, what?

At the end of the day, even though I feel sorry for these writers, I can’t say there’s any excuse for crappy journalism. If they write fluffy, half-digested pieces apropos of nothing in particular, they’re asking for it.