My lead from tonight...

tl;dr

 

If I had ever done it in seven years of writing, I would have at least used the correct lyrics. It's "more, more, more," not "gone, gone, gone."

 

I took liberties... it's what happens when you try to capture the spirit of the thing

 

"Capturing the spirit" is a very subjective thing. A lot of your readers will love it and a lot (like me) will find it dense and unreadable. If you are okay with that, your call.

 

Not crazy about the Rebel yell reference but I have an even bigger problem with the cliched "drained another triple."


I'm also not sure if "spotted up" is the right term. I always think of spotting up as a guy without the ball going to a spot, and getting a pass for a catch-and-shoot.
A guy already dribbling doesn't "spot up," he might square up.

 

Not to open a huge can of worms here, but when it comes to gamers filed on deadline, I tend to go very light on the delete key.

Having done quite a bit of reporting and writing before joining the desk, my thoughts on editing news or sports stories goes like this:

1. The reporter was there; I wasn't.

2. His or her name is on the story; mine isn't.

That's not to say copy editors don't ask reporters to track down factual errors or to fix holes in stories. Obviously, that's our job.

But when it comes to matters of style or story angles, you don't rewrite the story for them.

 

I wasn't either, since it tends to lean as an ESPN term. But in two grafs like that, I just hate to use 3 pointer. Again.
Spot up to me was a sudden square up. Was way I've always used it.
But yours is an opinion I value.

 

Should the 's' on Jones have an apostrophe?

 

No. Unless Bob Jones is a slaveowner.

 

I probably would've used pulled up, but that's just a minor thing.

I'll be honest, I didn't get the musical reference, but I don't have a problem with trying it. I like to try things in stories and get away from writing a straight AP gamer.

I use musical/movie/pop culture references all the time in headlines because my paper is very loose in its headline style and encourages creativity.

 

I don't have a dog in this fight, but this offends me.

The lede/story was posted in Writers Workshop - a forum for feedback. If only some people's opinions are valued, why open it up to everyone?

From my reading, the people who would have used different words explained why. Nothing came across to me as condescending.

It's a forum for critiqiuing; take or leave what's said but just because you don't like what someone says doesn't mean it's not valuable.

 

Oh, yes, "the spirit of the thing."
I tend to think of "the spirit of the thing" as accuracy.