Sports Rapport

Deep Routes

At The Classical, Jack Moore praises Bo Ryan and his system:

In a way, Wisconsin’s story is the Moneyball of college basketball. Wisconsin hasn’t been good enough for long enough to match up with the truly storied programs in terms of recruiting resource; the program arguably became relevant nationally in 2000, when Dick Bennett helmed the squad to the Final Four two seasons before Ryan took over. For much of his career, Bo Ryan simply wasn’t going to convince the star guard, the muscular center or the hyper-athletic slasher to come play basketball at Wisconsin.

Instead, Ryan had to find talents hidden beneath the scoring-centric and NBA-centric scouting world that defined the national recruiting scene. He had to find big men with jump shots. He had to find small forwards who could defend the post. He had to find guards who could rebound. Even top-tier recruits like Joe Krabbenhoft, a five-star forward out of North Dakota, earned reputations as bangers and scrappers, reputations reserved for the untalented.

For Salon, Patrick Wensink talks about how much he ultimately got paid for writing a novel that became an Amazon bestseller:

I was reminded of a single page in “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”; specifically, the section where Dave Eggers breaks down his $100,000 advance on sales from his publisher. He then lists all his expenses. In the end the author banked a little less than half. It wasn’t bad money — just not the “I bet Dave Eggers totally owns a Jaguar”-type of income I expected. I mean, his name was on the cover of a book! He must be rich.

That honesty was refreshing and voyeuristic. I always said if I ever had a chance, I’d make a similar gesture. As a person learning about writing and publishing, there was something helpful about Eggers’ transparency. So here is my stab at similar honesty: the sugar bowls full of cocaine, bathtubs full of whiskey, semi-nude bookstore employees scattered throughout my bedroom tale of bestseller riches.

This is what it’s like, financially, to have the indie book publicity story of the year and be near the top of the bestseller list.

Drum roll.

$12,000.

Hi-hat crash.

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Deep Routes

For ESPN the Magazine, Wright Thompson gets unbelievable access to Michael Jordan:

THE OPPOSITE OF this creeping nostalgia is the way Jordan has always collected slights, inventing them — nurturing them. He can be a breathtaking asshole: self-centered, bullying and cruel. That’s the ugly side of greatness. He’s a killer, in the Darwinian sense of the word, immediately sensing and attacking someone’s weakest spot. He’d moo like a cow when the overweight general manager of the Bulls, Jerry Krause, would get onto the team bus. When the Bulls traded for the injury-prone Bill Cartwright, Jordan teased him as Medical Bill, and he once punched Will Perdue during practice. He punched Steve Kerr too, and who knows how many other people.

This started at an early age. Jordan genuinely believed his father liked his older brother, Larry, more than he liked him, and he used that insecurity as motivation. He burned, and thought if he succeeded, he would demand an equal share of affection. His whole life has been about proving things, to the people around him, to strangers, to himself. This has been successful and spectacularly unhealthy. If the boy in those letters from Chapel Hill is gone, it is this appetite to prove — to attack and to dominate and to win — that killed him. In the many biographies written about Jordan, most notably in David Halberstam’s “Playing for Keeps,” a common word used to describe Jordan is “rage.” Jordan might have stopped playing basketball, but the rage is still there. The fire remains, which is why he searches for release, on the golf course or at a blackjack table, why he spends so much time and energy on his basketball team and why he dreams of returning to play.

At SB Nation, Paul Flannery talks about the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and drafts a strategy for effectively communicating the message:

For every analytically inclined member of a team’s front office there are several more who aren’t interested. For every Hoopdata loving basketball writer (please come back, Hoopdata) there are crusty beat writers who don’t care nothing about fancy-boy stats. And for every enlightened fan there are hundreds more who count the ringzzzz first, last and forever.

And that’s where this whole thing breaks down in a self-congratulatory echo chamber of smugness and mistrust. The cultural divide is still strong, but it doesn’t have to be. As Kirk Goldsberry mentioned in his presentation, we need to get better at communicating what the metrics mean and that’s where the media comes into play. With a little more patience and whole lot less hubris, we can start talking with people instead of at them.

Also on SB Nation, Matt Ufford analyzes Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea:

1. Rodman is right: he DID make history, though he makes that boast to Stephanopoulos with more flair and import than it warrants. A garishly-dressed pawn with facial piercings is still a pawn, and Rodman will be lucky if his role in the history of American-North Korean relations falls somewhere between Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and Paul Tibbets. (Humanity will be lucky if it doesn’t.)

2. I’m less troubled by Rodman’s lack of circumspection than by his utter failure to make a simple comparison. If you’re going to compare your friend Kim Jong Un to an American president (not a recommended stance in a debate, by the way), modern American history offers no shortage of presidents with blood on their hands, from Bush’s invasion of Iraq to Obama’s use of drone attacks to the succession of Democrats and Republicans who waged war in Vietnam for two decades. Saying “Bill Clinton had sex with his secretary,” aside from being factually suspect, is not a strong comeback when you’re being asked about Kim’s prison camps.

Continue reading World Wide Wednesday