When I was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, a good buddy of mine asked me what the deal was with my constant ripping of Dan Shanoff. My reply to him was that Shanoff is a moron and that reading his “Daily Quickie” was, if nothing else, a cheap and easy way to make myself feel smart. When a Harvard-educated individual is given the prestigious position of writing a daily sports column on the world’s most influential sports media website, there is an implicit expectation that this individual would actually have a mastery of their subject matter. This is not the case with Dan Shanoff.
In today’s “Daily Quickie” Shanoff writes the following about Darko Milicic:
It’s not Darko’s fault he’s an NBA punch line. In fact, riffing off the ESPN Classic show, here are “Five Reasons You Can’t Blame Darko”
(2) Larry Brown: Brown hates rookies. He hates rookies without college experience even more. Dumars underestimated how much playing for Brown could (and would) constrain Darko’s development.
(And if you want confirmation of Brown’s contribution to Darko’s problems, just take a look at the young Knicks this season, the NBA’s worst team.)
(4) Pistons starters: For Darko’s 3 seasons in the NBA, Detroit has been a 3-time NBA Finalist. Four of the starters are All-Stars, with the 5th making a strong case. No young player would have wedged their way in, least of all one with as little experience as Darko.
(Make no mistake: If Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony were drafted by Detroit, Brown would have parked them at the end of the bench, and they would have had as little chance to crack Detroit’s lineup as Darko.)
I’ve picked two of Shanoff’s five points that I’d like to argue against…
1. With respect to point (4) above, I would request that Dan Shanoff have himself checked out for Alzheimer’s. Dan, as a sports columnist, if you can’t remember that Milicic was drafted TWO years ago and that the Pistons have only been to the last TWO NBA Finals and not the last three, you might seriously consider hiring a fact-checker or getting out of the sports game altogether. There are just some things you have to know. Even fourth graders know this stuff…
2. With respect to point (2) above, I know it’s very fashionable to rip Larry Brown right now because he’s done a terrible job in New York. I’ve been ripping him left and right and I know first-hand how badly he’s mismanaging the Knicks’ roster, especially in the context of the inconsistent playing time being given to the young players on the roster. But what happened in other cities before Brown coached the Pistons and what’s happening right now in New York are completely beside the point. The point is that while in Detroit, Larry Brown had exactly ONE rookie on his roster in 2004 and that rookie was an unseasoned 18 year old player from Europe. In 2005, Brown had two rookies (Milicic and Carlos Delfino). Given the extreme veteran makeup of those two Pistons teams, and given the small sample size (1.5 rookies over two seasons) how could Milicic (or another rookie, for that matter) reasonably expect playing time on a team that was built to contend for the NBA Championship?
Furthermore, now that Flip Saunders is in charge, why isn’t Darko receiving more playing time? Why does Shanoff conveniently exclude this from his criticism of Larry Brown or from his apologist’s rant on behalf of Milicic? Are we to believe that Larry Brown “ruined” Milicic for Saunders? If that is the case then why would any team trade for Milicic if he’s been ruined?
Also, one last point about Larry Brown…
Irrespective of the crimes he is perpetrating on the Knicks rookies this season, I would like to mention that his track record does not indicate a bias against young players. In fact, as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, several players with less than three full seasons of NBA experience played extremely prominent roles on his 50-win teams of the early 1990’s. The most notable among these young players, Vernon Maxwell, David Robinson, Sean Elliot and Rod Strickland, were all rookies or one-year veterans in Brown’s second season on the job (1990)
A similar example exists in Indiana in 1994 when, in his first year on the job, Larry Brown took the Pacers to the Conference Finals with rookie Antonio Davis, third-year veteran Dale Davis and other inexperienced players in the lineup. The same goes for rookie Tim Thomas who started every game for Brown in his first year in Philadelphia in 1998. Ditto on NBA Hall of Famer David Thompson when he was a rookie on the 1976 Larry Brown-led Denver Nuggets.
The point isn’t to prove that Larry Brown loves young players. It’s merely to point out that a lot of times in sports, fans parrot back “facts” based on what they have heard from “trusted” sports information sources such as ESPN without checking to see if those facts are correct.
In today’s “Daily Quickie” Shanoff writes the following about Darko Milicic:
It’s not Darko’s fault he’s an NBA punch line. In fact, riffing off the ESPN Classic show, here are “Five Reasons You Can’t Blame Darko”
(2) Larry Brown: Brown hates rookies. He hates rookies without college experience even more. Dumars underestimated how much playing for Brown could (and would) constrain Darko’s development.
(And if you want confirmation of Brown’s contribution to Darko’s problems, just take a look at the young Knicks this season, the NBA’s worst team.)
(4) Pistons starters: For Darko’s 3 seasons in the NBA, Detroit has been a 3-time NBA Finalist. Four of the starters are All-Stars, with the 5th making a strong case. No young player would have wedged their way in, least of all one with as little experience as Darko.
(Make no mistake: If Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony were drafted by Detroit, Brown would have parked them at the end of the bench, and they would have had as little chance to crack Detroit’s lineup as Darko.)
I’ve picked two of Shanoff’s five points that I’d like to argue against…
1. With respect to point (4) above, I would request that Dan Shanoff have himself checked out for Alzheimer’s. Dan, as a sports columnist, if you can’t remember that Milicic was drafted TWO years ago and that the Pistons have only been to the last TWO NBA Finals and not the last three, you might seriously consider hiring a fact-checker or getting out of the sports game altogether. There are just some things you have to know. Even fourth graders know this stuff…
2. With respect to point (2) above, I know it’s very fashionable to rip Larry Brown right now because he’s done a terrible job in New York. I’ve been ripping him left and right and I know first-hand how badly he’s mismanaging the Knicks’ roster, especially in the context of the inconsistent playing time being given to the young players on the roster. But what happened in other cities before Brown coached the Pistons and what’s happening right now in New York are completely beside the point. The point is that while in Detroit, Larry Brown had exactly ONE rookie on his roster in 2004 and that rookie was an unseasoned 18 year old player from Europe. In 2005, Brown had two rookies (Milicic and Carlos Delfino). Given the extreme veteran makeup of those two Pistons teams, and given the small sample size (1.5 rookies over two seasons) how could Milicic (or another rookie, for that matter) reasonably expect playing time on a team that was built to contend for the NBA Championship?
Furthermore, now that Flip Saunders is in charge, why isn’t Darko receiving more playing time? Why does Shanoff conveniently exclude this from his criticism of Larry Brown or from his apologist’s rant on behalf of Milicic? Are we to believe that Larry Brown “ruined” Milicic for Saunders? If that is the case then why would any team trade for Milicic if he’s been ruined?
Also, one last point about Larry Brown…
Irrespective of the crimes he is perpetrating on the Knicks rookies this season, I would like to mention that his track record does not indicate a bias against young players. In fact, as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, several players with less than three full seasons of NBA experience played extremely prominent roles on his 50-win teams of the early 1990’s. The most notable among these young players, Vernon Maxwell, David Robinson, Sean Elliot and Rod Strickland, were all rookies or one-year veterans in Brown’s second season on the job (1990)
A similar example exists in Indiana in 1994 when, in his first year on the job, Larry Brown took the Pacers to the Conference Finals with rookie Antonio Davis, third-year veteran Dale Davis and other inexperienced players in the lineup. The same goes for rookie Tim Thomas who started every game for Brown in his first year in Philadelphia in 1998. Ditto on NBA Hall of Famer David Thompson when he was a rookie on the 1976 Larry Brown-led Denver Nuggets.
The point isn’t to prove that Larry Brown loves young players. It’s merely to point out that a lot of times in sports, fans parrot back “facts” based on what they have heard from “trusted” sports information sources such as ESPN without checking to see if those facts are correct.
No comments:
Post a Comment