Recently, an article was published by the Worlwide Leader in Sports, “the evil-four letter network,” as they are affectionately referred to. The article was titled “The Truth About Kobe,” and was written as if the author had just blown the lid off of the greatest conspiracy known to man- ala the Di Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, popular conspiracy novels turned Hollywood.
The author puts forth a ton of statistics and rationales much of which I won’t bore you with here as his article more than accomplishes that for me. From the number of shots and the number of misses, to the percentages over time and even the number of times teammates were left wide open; the author asserts his position that as long as your mind is open to the numbers, “it has to be closed to the idea of Bryant being the king of crunch time.”
Now, before I divulge my thoughts on the subject, it might be a good time to remind you all that this is the same network that aired Lebron James’ “Decision” and created what they termed the “Heat Index,” on their main webpage. For the 2011 season they would be providing up-to-the-minute updates on every regular-season accomplishment by James and the Miami Heat:
Track the Heat’s Progress to 72 wins! (Which has since been taken down)
Real Time Coverage of Lebron James’ Season-Averaging Triple-Double!
24-Hour Coverage of Every Thing The Heat Says, Does and Thinks! (Okay, that one I made up!)
I could go on, you know. They really make no attempt to disguise just who it is they are rooting for over there…and to think journalism in this country used to pride itself on objectivity!
The irrationality of the article was beyond my imagination even as the topic caught fire and consumed national sports talk radio that afternoon.
Maybe the author had a point?
Maybe we should “respect the brute force of the numbers,” as his article pleads?
Maybe teams should ditch all the isolation plays and just run their regular offense during crunch time?
Maybe we should just forget everything we know about the game of basketball and listen to a number-crunching, ESPN columnist that has probably never played the game competitively.
Or, maybe we should go with our guts on this one.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TE3tUy6UMY
NEXT: The numbers don’t lie…or do they?
