Presented Without Comment to the Basketball Nerds of the Board

RaceBannon

Zach Lowe is a gaseous windbag

CheersWestDawg

I think we need to find gasoline and a match for this thread.

WilburHooksHands

RoadDawg55 said:

I would like to hear how I'm wrong about the typical worthless, stat nerd Grantland article. DNC? Anyone? Buehler?

"You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an asshole."

Fire_Marshall_Bill

I'm with RD. I've probably only looked at Gland 5-10 times ever, but the 15% of the content that's good is drowned by the 85% that's dorks writing lengthy articles and useless pop culture crap.

BallSacked

Zach Lowe is a windbag dork that writes TL;DR garbage. I generally like Grantland but that place sometimes thinks way too highly of themselves for a blog that writes about sports and TV sitcoms. You're not the New Yorker for fucks sake. Simmons talking about Oscars likes he's Leonard Maltin - FO; DIAFF wannabe hipster.

The reductionist take on the game of Basketball and the need for analytics is LOL. I'm sure YMCA all-stars here said similar things about baseball and analytics in the 90s. These teams are printing money and throw a million or two a year at analytics to get an edge in a hyper-competitive sport. I'm sure it has real value to them winning and managing their assets.

RoadDawg55

I read Grantland sometimes, but it's mostly terrible. Most of the time I look at the headlines and skim through TL, DR articles. Sports articles that over analyze everything. I actually enjoy the pop culture more than their spots.

Wesley Morris is the worst movie critic I have ever read. Is the movie entertaining or not? Enough with the bullshit about how many black actors there are, how gays in movies are portrayed, and all the bullshit psych-analysis of every character.

And the 2015 version of Simmons sucks. I was a big fan in his early days. I liked the knowledgeable fan with some humor and pop culture mixed in. Now, he's a whiny cunt who acts like he's such a rebel for not always toeing the line at ESPN. Part of it is the backlash of fame, but his writing sucks compared to his past work.

I don't think analytics are worthless. Far from it, and front offices should use them. Advanced plus-minus and finding out statistical evidence of what the best line ups to use is kind of obvious stuff. Zach Lowe and Grantland overdo it. Formulas and obscure stats are not needed to know who the best players and teams are.

Charles Barkley was wrong when he ranted about Morey and stats geeks, but in his rant, he had a point. The Rockets have gotten better because they acquired James Harden, Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Corey Brewer, Ariza, etc. You can use a bunch of stats and bullshit, but it's really that simple.

RaceBannon

RoadDawg has Grantland dialed in

Citrus4Troogs

I've enjoyed bits and pieces such as Andy Greenwald's Breaking Bad recaps last year, but most of the site can be pretty accurately be described as TL;DR

Having Bill and Wesley Morris talking about the Oscars on ESPN in the middle of weekend was odd, sort of like when MTV dropped the pretense of showing music videos. Bill's writing peaked when he wrote about his dog passing away.

BallSacked

Citrus4Troogs said:

I've enjoyed bits and pieces such as Andy Greenwald's Breaking Bad recaps last year, but most of the site can be pretty accurately be described as TL;DR

Having Bill and Wesley Morris talking about the Oscars on ESPN in the middle of weekend was odd, sort of like when MTV dropped the pretense of showing music videos. Bill's writing peaked when he wrote about his dog passing away.

I figured that was ESPN throwing him a bone after he got suspended and even before that booted off NBA countdown. My guess is Bill bitches about Espns investment in GL & 538 a lot these days. His web traffic is actually pretty mediocre. Wouldn't surprise me if his bullshit gets called one of these days and he gets booted from espn permanently.

doogsinparadise

Everyone knows who the best players are, analytics are to find guys 3-8. Christ, it's getting to be like preschool paste eating around here.

Edit: Tell the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, etc that analytics are overrated and largely driven by nerdy slapdicks. It's almost like some of you haven't heard of synthesizing differing modalities of data.