Sports Media Review by Jonathan Weiler

1)      John Hollinger, ESPN.com’s basketball guru, had an excellent piece up yesterday in which he a) holds himself accountable for his assertion, in the summer of 2004, that the Phoenix Suns had badly overpaid for Steve Nash. Hollinger then analyzes why Nash beat the odds, becoming an even better point guard in his thirties than he was in his twenties.

Here’s what Hollinger wrote in 2004:

“"The Suns took a huge risk in giving him five guaranteed years and part of a sixth. At the end of his contract, he'll be 35, making well over $10 million a year, and probably won't be more than a bit player."

Oops.

Hollinger notes that the odds against a point guard performing at Nash’s level in his thirties are long:

“To understand how incredibly rare it is for a point guard to play this well at Nash's age, consider the daunting list of men who were out of the league by age 32 -- a list that includes Magic Johnson, Kevin Johnson, Phil Ford and Norm Van Lier.

Those are just the ones who were gone entirely -- the list of guards who were diminished is considerably longer. Isiah Thomas and Pete Maravich played their final seasons at 32; while Clyde Frazier, Fat Lever, Tiny Archibald and Mark Price were mere whispers of their former selves by this age. And these are the stars -- the list gets much more depressing if you look at the league's rank and file.”

But, Hollinger now argues, certain kinds of attributes – like a high shooting percentage, relatively good size for a point guard (Nash is 6’ 3”), and especially good passing skills can beat those odds (witness the amazing Sam Cassell, still going strong at age 37). 

Even when he’s wrong, Hollinger’s worth reading.

 2) Deadspin has a lengthy interview with John Rocker. Will Leitch doesn’t really tip his hand as to what he thinks of Rocker and describes himself as politically “agnostic.” But, Rocker certainly isn’t trying to hide where he’s coming from. Among the gems in the interview is Rocker’s characterization of Jeff Pearlman, the SI writer whose article famously outlined Rocker’s views of the 7 train in New York City and other aspects of his worldview. About Pearlman and his credibility, Rocker says: “Jeff Pearlman is who he is: A liberal Jew from New York. He's one of their own…”

With any luck, defenders will construe this as merely a “media comment,” just like Limbaugh’s remarks about McNabb were really just comments about the liberal media.

In any event, the good news is that Rocker has a book coming out in which he details his Bill O’Reilly-esque views. Rocker’s also big on sporting his “Speak English” t-shirt which, as you’ll see from the photo if you click thru, his girlfriend is also, um, proudly wearing.

The interview is chock full of Rocker goodies (and the comments are very funny and worth reading). 

3) From the pet peeve department – this one about free-throw shooting in the NBA. Sports Talk radio personality the “Pack man,” who can heard throughout the Southeast, had Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell on his show last night. In addition to bashing the NBA players for complaining about the new ball, Maxwell and the Packman were also lamenting the lack of fundamentals of NBA players – especially their inability to shoot free throws. As I have outlined here, free throw shooting is better overall today than it was twenty five years ago, when Maxwell was playing. For a refresher on some of the numbers, Maxwell played in the NBA between 1978 and 1988. During that time, the best leaguewide free throw percentage in a season was .766, in 1988. The worst, was .740, in 1982. Since 2000, the best season was .758, in 2003, and the worst was .745, in 2006. These are trivial, in fact, imperceptible differences. The league definitely suffered through a trough in free throw shooting between 1994 and 1998, its worst period of free throw shooting since the late 1960s. But, there’s no meaningful difference between charity-stripe accuracy in Cornbread’s day compared to today.

4) Speaking of the NBA – there’s always, of course, plenty of piling on from the sports commentariat. Chris “Mad Dog” Russo of WFAN has been unapologetic in his denunciations of the league, which he described two days ago as insufficiently “americanized” by which he meant, pursuant to a caller’s attempt for clarification, that white America dislikes the NBA because of the cornrows, the tattoos, the hand guns and the fight in Detroit. 

The latest instance of such piling on came from PTI last night. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) wrote a clever letter to the NBA concerning the switch back to leather balls. And, PTI’s Tony Kornheiser, who regards the NBA players as a bunch of babies for complaining about the new balls, was giving the letter a lot of positive attention.

Here’s part of what PETA had to say (courtesy of True Hoop):

“...we have a compromise that will save Shaq's skin and cowskins at the same time: Today, PETA's Campaign Manager Dan Shannon sent an open letter to NBA players, offering a lifetime supply of cruelty-free hand cream to anyone who's willing to give the composite ball another shot. You can read the letter here, and if you have any extra sensitive-skin hand cream lying around, you might want to send it along to some of these guys c/o the NBA. We just hate to see them suffer.”

Which answers the question: what would it take for a member of the mainstream sports media to embrace the positions of an organization as politically radical as PETA? Answer, another opportunity to attack the NBA players. 

True Hoop, incidentally, has this interesting little take on the political ramifications of Stern’s ball reversal:

“They say the last election was insight into a divided right: conservative Christians, big business, and other traditional right-wingers had divergent agendas. Similarly, NBAballgate is insight into a divided left. This is like one of the best victories ever for the union and the workers of the NBA, and the biggest opponent is the animal rights people.”

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• #1 Comment from dmaster8888 
  12/14/06 10:17 PM | Permalink

  I think he is going to do fine well into the sixth year of his contract. I think he may drop from the numbers he is putting up now, but he will still be a top Point-Guard in the league.
  
  Also I want to know if you would link my site onto your blog, and I will do the same for your blog:
  
  www.americanlegends.blogspot.com
  
  If you wish to do this just write the URL you want to attach and the name you want it to be under in one of the comments on my blog.
  
  Thanks,
  David