12-year phenom .. or not

Neat, interesting story of the day ...

I think the kid is more marketing than anything.. How he got this much press is kind of a mystery to me.




http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/meet-the-most-marketed-12-year-old-basketball-player-in-the-world/2167460

 

I hate people like this more than anybody in the world. (Almost.)

Nobody has had the cajones to point out that what the kid is playing on is not a "varsity basketball team" in almost any legitimate definition of the word.

The story quotes several opponents from bigger and, apparently legitimate, varsity teams, which played this ding-dong outfit and beat them by 60 points or more. A common theme seems to be, "we could have beat them much worse but we didn't want to pick on the little kid."

My bet is that if dad continues his hype/hullaballoo traveling road show, this will become less and less common and more people will say, "fine, fuck it, let's beat these fuckers by 100 points and more. See how many highlight videos the Golden Child ends up on after we strip him of the ball 25 straight times down the court. Let's run his 70-pound ass through some picks. Let him try his darling little waist-high push shot after we send our 6-4 kid who can jump over to smack it down his throat."


Maybe I should start sending videos of my second-grade twin nieces to People Magazine.

 

When the story was posted on MaxPreps.com, I was skeptical about the whole thing. I didn't know enough about that area to know what kind of league that high school competes in, but you could tell by the videos that they posted that everything wasn't completely kosher.

The bad thing is that SO many outlets fell for the story and didn't even bother checking to see if the kids were legit before just calling them the next great things.

 

The videos themselves are a tipoff to anybody who knows anything about HS hoops that the whole thing is fishy -- and then you also have to remember that they undoubtedly selected the most 'legitimate' and 'competitive'-looking clips they could find for the 'highlight reel.' Undoubtedly there are hours and hours of video on the 'cutting room floor' which look even more ridiculous.

 

That's what got to me; how many of these outlets perpetuated the hype. Without looking into the substance. Of course, maybe that's not part of their job.

 

The non-sports outlets, you can kind of shrug it off, but for things like MaxPreps which purport to have some credibility in terms of actual information, it's nuts.

 

When has MaxPreps ever been useful as anything other than a schedule database?

 

If Downey Christian School in Orlando needs to suit up 4-foot-9 12-year-olds to play varsity high school basketball, ya know what?

Downey Christian School in Orlando should not be playing varsity high school basketball.

And I wouldn't mind at all, as Starman offered, if some 6-4 kid repeatedly slapped shots off this kid's head to make that clear to the adults.

 

Well, they're really not.

 

Probably not. But are we sure from that story? Maybe Florida has the same problem as Texas, where you sometimes get terrible private-school matchups. (Remember 102-3?) Maybe the 6-4 kid slapping the ball away is really decent. Or not.

 

Author seems to have it right ... well-marketed, but average right now. Puberty tends to be the great equalizer.

 

Readers don't care about errors.