Guornalism

From Grog, Doug Smith when asked what Jamario Moon is doing in the off-season:

Moon? He’s doing what every other NBA player worth is salt is doing, working on his conditioning and every part of his game, presumably ball-handling and shooting. It’s not like these guys go home and don’t touch a ball or go to a gym all summer. They work at their craft.

Is there any other reason he'd be that angry about a simple and innocent question except for the fact that Doug Smith obviously has no idea what Jamario Moon is doing this summer.

Doug Smith, circa whenever it is he experienced adolescence:

Kid: "Are you coming to Tina Goldstein's Bat Mitzvah?"
Douggie: "Ummm... Totally. There's going to be... dancing. And food, right? And I'm going to bring a gift. I was definitely invited. I know everything about Bat Mitzvahs"

Grog round up

First of all, Juan Mendez was cut from the Canadian national team for some dude named Ras. Denham Brown never showed up. Also Jamaal Magloire disappeared from the face of the earth, Steve Nash is aging and ticked and Jay Triano was hired last year to coach a practice team for Team USA. Can anyone make a strong case that we'll make it to the Olympics in the next 12 years?

Okay.

So much stupidity, so little time. I'm not linking to each excerpt but all the letters arranged into words arranged into terrible basketball reporting can be found here.

Q: Out of curiosity, are you into fantasy basketball at all?
If so, who are your top 10 picks for next season?

Aaron P, Toronto

A: Sorry, I have no knowledge and, frankly, little interest in fantasy basketball, reality basketball occupies too much of my time as it is. And my top 10 would be the usual top 10 players in the league.

Why post this question if you're not going to answer it? You shouldn't berate your faithful, Doug. Leave the assaults to us.

Q: I am a loyal reader and really enjoy your articles and your blog. While I usually agree with your views I have to ask the following questions to ensure that I am recalling your viewpoints correctly.
Only 6 months ago or so when there was the Calderon and Ford debate you used to say that Ford was #1 as he had more upside and could do things Calderon couldn’t.
Ford can still do things Calderon can’t but you seem to have changed your mind along the way – am I recalling your former viewpoint correctly? By the way, I am a big Calderon fan.
Last fall when asked about Ukic you felt that he would not be able to come over as the backup point guard without a fair amount of time as the 3rd guard. Now it seems that you are penciling him in as a 14 – 16 minute a night backup. Have you lowered the standards or just had a change of heart?

Carl M, Codroy Valley, NL

A: The more I watched Ford and Calderon, the more it became apparent to me (and this is not a universally-held opinion around here) was that Calderon had emerged as the right kind of point guard for this team. And as I’ve mentioned a billion or two times, on this roster, at this time, I saw Ford as a better backup, but that was never going to happen.

Last fall, Ukic wasn’t nearly ready, I didn’t think. After another year in a good Italian League and the Euroleague, he’s probably ready to take on a great role than I would have thought before 2006-07. It’s just that he matured as a player, nothing to do with my standards.

But what he should have said was:

My opinions surrounding the one professional sports team I am paid to report on reflect the status quo rubberstamping of any move they make with the right to change my opinions at any time to suit the PR needs of said pro team.

And it brings us to list time:

Four worst trades in NBA history

Vancouver for Memphis.

Let’s see, Stanley Park or Beale Street? The Pacific Ocean or the Mississippi? Duh!

Pau Gasol for, um, garbage

Maybe if Marc Gasol wins a ring before his brother does, this one moves down the list.

Oklahoma City for Seattle.

The Kells, Metropolitan Grill and Pike St.Market for, oh, I dunno, dust!

He Who Shall Not Be Name for a bunch of guys

This one hits close to home still, doesn’t it?

Exhaustive list.


Here’s three things to think about concerning the newly-constructed roster and “depth.”

It defines more clearly the role for Bargnani, who is now a backup four and five. No more questions about whether he should start or Rasho should, no more jerking him around and maybe that helps his confidence.

The swingman position has been narrowed. There were legitimate questions last year about whether Delfino should play more or Kapono should play more or Moon should play less or, yes, even whether Joey should get on the court. And we haven’t even touched on Juan Dixon. This way, there are three – Moon, Parker, Kapono -- with legitimate claims on playing time – and two – Graham and Adams – who can fight for a fourth position. But if they don’t do anything, there won’t be people saying they should get on the court.

The point guard position is settled.

You may not like the way things are shaking out because there is no question they didn’t address the lack of athleticism on the wing and that’s going to bite them in the ass more often than not, but that’s some of the logic behind the moves.

Having less players that are good at basketball is excellent because it lets fewer players play more. The "legitimate questions" over playing time happened because no one was playing well enough to be a starter. Doug's argument is like saying it would be easier to decide which pair of shoes to wear everyday if you only had one pair.

100th post!

So it took a little bit longer than expected but we have reached our 100th post. Here are the thoughts of one brilliant AP writer, Tim Dahlberg, on baseball attendance.

...[T]he other thing that struck me was how many empty seats there were for one of the biggest games of the year in Minneapolis. It was Saturday, the Twins were riding a 10-game winning streak and the Milwaukee Brewers were in town.

A couple of weeks earlier, I noticed the same thing in San Diego. The hated Dodgers were playing the Padres, yet you could walk up just before the game and score a seat almost anywhere in Petco Park

So you went to two games and saw a lot of empty seats when you probably were expecting to see a few hundred more fans. Sounds like...

It's purely anecdotal, of course.

Well I'm glad you can admit to that. When you have two pieces of anedoctal evidence, it is very difficult to draw a broad conclusion. I hope you aren't about to do that.

But look around almost any stadium outside of Boston or New York and you'll see large chunks of prime seats going unused – whether the game is sold out or not.

Are you really claiming that by going to two games and looking at the seats on TV for a few more, you are able to know that baseball attendance is down (even though you acknowledge in this very article that MLB is expecting to set a record for number of seats sold)? So your theory is that people are buying tickets but then just not showing up for the games? And why is that?

...[M]aybe baseball isn't delivering on what brought fans back to the ballpark in the first place in the late '90s and touched off today's attendance boom: the big home run.

Glad to see your argument still makes no sense. To recap: People buy tickets and notice there are fewer home runs being hit. Decide to stay home in record numbers. Ya, of course. That makes perfect sense. Thanks for the insight Tim.