Gonna get to that New Year’s resolution next week. Promise.
Theater of Pain: The Knicks as Performance Art
Robert Silverman
The Classical
If there is one thing that’s been good about this Knicks season, it’s that it’s produced writing of the likes I’ve never read before in my time as an internet-bound fan. This piece takes the proverbial cake, so to speak; a loose comparison of this Knicks campaign to performance art, and the way the audience becomes complicit with whatever the performance artist is trying to do. The piece trots along at a beguiling but eerily sinister pace; taking the reader on a slow march through Silverman’s questionable performance art with small snippets of the Knicks season sprinkled on top. Silverman concludes that while the performance is offensive, sloppy, and questionably executed, it is the very spectacle that keeps bringing himself, and other fans, back to enjoy the show. “The Knicks are not the NBA’s worst team, but they are the laughingstock of the NBA—more ridiculous than they are bad,” writes Silverman, adding that they are “too sour and paranoid and unhappy in their ridiculous to be worth a laugh.” Yet, “those of us who consider ourselves fans keep coming back, knowing that we’ll be mocked for doing so in various ways.” A really great piece from Silverman in the wake of a bizarrely artistic Knicks season, in a sadistic sort of way.
Amir, Freed
Miles Wray
Hickory High
Definitely enjoyed this piece from Diss contributor Miles Wray at Hickory High, which focuses on power forward du jour Amir Johnson. Of course, the Toronto Raptors have been the hottest team in the NBA since trading away Rudy Gay, and Amir Johnson has become one of the faces of the post-trade resurgance. Wray takes us on a brief spin around the block of life that has been Amir Johnson’s; a strangely seasoned veteran who has seen quite a bit in his decade in the NBA, and who still has quite a bit of career left. Hearkening back to an analytical era that is fond and familiar to many of us late-twentysomethings, Wray chooses to look at Amir Johnson as a player “freed”, and indeed, this is a beautiful thing. “Freed Amir looks and acts really different than we imagined In-Captivity Amir would act when a coach finally up and unchained him,” writes Wray, who includes a useful corpus of retro Amir Johnson highlights and tidbits. I learned much about Amir in this piece by Mr. Wray, who has quite the talent at this basketball-writing thing.
Does Race Matter in NBA Coaching?
Andres Alvarez
Boxscore Geeks
This ambitious piece seeks to answer an important question: does race matter when it comes to getting a job as an NBA head coach? To get at an answer, the piece’s authors (in addition to Alvarez, Joe Price and Chandler Phelps of BYU, as well as Ben Noah) take a look at hard data tracking the number of games coached between 1991-2013. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the numbers tell a troubling tale. Overall, far more white men have coached NBA games than black men over the last two decades. Moreover, among the black coaches, playing in the NBA is a minimum requirement. White coaches are far less likely to have played in the NBA than their black colleagues. According to Alvarez, this seems to hint at structural shortcomings (such as institutionalized racism) that lead to more opportunities for white candidates than black ones. This is a very important piece due to its focus on racial inequalities in the NBA workplace, and its production of a set of data that deserves further analysis in years to come.
Wolves’ Ricky Rubio Facing a Momentous 2014
Britt Robson
MinnPost.com
As much as we’d like to, we can’t hide it anymore: Ricky Rubio can’t shoot, and it’s starting to become a problem for a lot of different reasons. Luckily we have Britt Robson, a longtime Wolves vet for a variety of Minnesota-based outlets, to explain all the reasons why Rubio’s non-existent offensive game is becoming an issue, and what might be done about it. Robson is one of my favorite NBA writers because of his ability to lay out the complexities of the NBA in layman’s terms. Without using any of the jargon that has become part and parcel with NBA writing, Robson easily discusses max and super-max contracts, plus-minus, branding, efficiency and the importance help defense without it seeming overbearing or unnecessary. In the end, he produces one of the fullest efforts on Ricky Rubio I’ve ever read, and offers a set of assertions that seem backed by both evidence and eloquent writing. This is well worth the read, and very nice work from a writer I have enjoyed for a very long time.
NBA Shootaround: New Years’ Resolutions
Grantland Staff
Grantland
It was something of a quiet week in the basketblogosphere, so we’ll wrap it up with this mixed-bag New Years resolution piece from Grantland. You like all the writers, and I like all the writers, and they’re all telling jokes that are at least as good as the ones they use on Twitter. And it’s a textbook Grantland “Take a Work Email Thread and Turn It Into Content” piece, so you know there are some decent gifs and YouTube shorts embedded in there in order to make the piece longer and more piece-like. I enjoyed the “chuckers” portion. netw3rk always has good jokes. I approve, especially if you’re in the bathroom. So give it a look-see and I’m sure you’ll find something you like.