Michael Lewis' "The No-Stats All-Star"

Aside from all this being of your opinion, a piece of writing is not great or "terrific" when it willfully omits and twists awry. If the lily-painting does it for you, that's nice. Some want a little bit more.

 

The Brain Typing guy had nothing to do with statistics, at all. I would submit that a Brain Typing guy has more to do with a scout's gut instinct then a stat guy looking at shooting percentages and efficiency.

And the whole point of the "gut instinct" vs "actual production" is proving that the gut instinct is often wrong, and why a team like the Reds is so horrible.

 

Yao Ming and Tarcy McGrady played a total of 31 games the year prior to Battier getting there were a 50 win team the year prior to that.  Can we REALLY give Battier credit for those two getting healthy?  Did he nurse them back to strength?

And let's not even talk about his one start with the Grizzlies. 

And the "street" angle was Grade A pathetic as well.  A writer I know has already bebunked the drivel spewed from that article.  I'll post it tomorrow.

 

I don't think in reading this that Lewis intended to fool anyone into thinking Shane Battier was the entire reason the Rockets or Grizzlies improved X number of games between two seasons. Everyone understands injuries happen and rosters change. Explaining all the ways those teams improved besides Battier would have simply bogged down the piece, and needlessly repeated what most anyone would sumise: that Battier was an important part of two franchise improvements.

Yes, he could have mentioned the Yao and McGrady injuries. Yes, not mentioning them is convenient to his point. But does that really qualify as "Grade A pathetic"? Does it really ruin the whole piece?

 

I liked the article because I thought it shed some light on a good role player and what he does. I don't think it did a thing to show that Battier is somehow one of the best players in the NBA.

He's becoming one of those guys who's so underrated he's overrated. Ok, he's the second-best player on the team - although I wrote imagine a team where he's the best player - and the Rockets, by many accounts, are one of the most disappointing teams in the league this year with that 31-21 record. Does he get any blame for that? As a franchise player? Or is McGrady the scapegoat because he's over the hill and/or injured? Does Artest get blamed? Does Yao get criticized? Those guys do, and Battier doesn't, because they are the big dogs on the team and Battier's a supporting character. And I agree with that, Battier shouldn't get as much blame. Look at the criticism Garnett took for going years without getting out of the first round. As an apparent peer of Garnett's in that upper echelon of NBA players, should Battier be getting the same criticism? Of course not. Why? Because he's a role player. He's a younger Bruce Bowen, a taller Derek Fisher, a bulkier Tayshaun Prince, he's like countless great guys who do the little things in NBA history.

And speaking of stats, last year Dave Berri had Battier ranked as the seventh-best Rocket (I think Berri's conclusions are often ludicrous, for what it's worth). And PER often has Battier ranked low. So which stats do we follow?

I think you take all the data and just watch the games and it says the same thing: great role player. Every team would be better off if they had a Shane Battier-type player on their team. I'm just arguing with the idea of elevating that to mean franchise player. And if he really is a franchise player, let's seriously analyze those weaknesses - complete inability to create his own shot being the biggest - instead of treating them like they're sort of cute.

Battier's a great role player. It was a good story. It showed what great preparation can do, as far as knowing where offensive players are most successful. That doesn't make Shane Battier the Greek God of Deflections and it doesn't mean everything your teacher taught you about basketball is wrong and it doesn't mean I think Murray Chass and Joe Morgan are right about Moneyball. Baseball isn't basketball. You could have a potent - and unnattractive - lineup with 9 Kevin Youklis's in it. If you have five Shane Battiers running around out there, you're not winning a thing.

Unrelated note: Battier's in the discussions about the Nets and Rockets being involved in a trade for Vince Carter. Rockets want to get rid of McGrady and the giant fork in his back, but they apparently might be willing to give up Battier under certain circumstances.

 

A monkey could throw three pats of shit at a canvas, and someone will mistake it for Cezanne. Every time.

 

...or a Pollock.

 

You don't have to agree with every word of Lewis' argument (which is not that Battier is a franchise player, btw) to recognize that this story is an outstanding piece of sports writing. Detailed, provocative, enlightening, original. To call it drivel or compare it in any way to a monkey throwing shit at a canvas is just laughable.

 

I was prepared not to like it.

But it's a good story, aimed at a general-interest population.

It's not carved in stone or anything, nor does that seem to be the intention.

Probably, it's a 3,000 (4,000?) word book proposal.

 

Yeah, I should have made it clearer that Lewis hadn't written the franchise player part, it sprang up from others, which prompted my...drivel?

 

I didn't know the particulars of the Grizz or Rockets situations but this is basically one of the points I tried to make on page one. To each his own, I guess, but to me the story linked is sports' version of Pop Lit.

 

Gut instict of the good scouts rarely is wrong. A good scout understands what makes a player special and what makes a team work. Unfortunately, too many of them aren't good; it's amazing how many scouts in the NBA bow to peer pressure in conducting their work.