Every time I read "he had went" or "I had went" in a sports story or a news story I cringe. How hard is it to use the "to go" verb correctly? Consider the following: "Reid was a big reach who wouldn't have stood a chance of being drafted had the Thunder not went out on a limb with him." That is what one unidentified sportswriter wrote--not in a blog post, not in a tweet, but on a respected news outlet (FOXSports) presumably after having passed the piece by an editor or two.
I'll admit that a verb conjugation error (not to mention the "out on a limb with him" metaphor mashup) in a wrapup story assigning grades to all the NBA teams for their performances in the draft isn't going to cause any harm to the language, but it would have been a nice touch if Fox had gone out (or is it "went out"?) and drafted a competent copy reader who knew standard journalistic style and how to employ it.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Reynolds Harbinger of NBA Draft Trend
Item from Miami Herald, "Villanova's Scottie Reynolds has become the first AP All-American since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976 not to be taken in the NBA draft."
A 34-year streak is broken. Bear in mind, this is a 4-year player (point guard) who averaged 18.2 points as a senior, has not been seriously injured, and as a point guard had a positive 1.24 assist to turnover ratio in a big-time college program (Villanova). First team AP All-American. Either this is an anomaly, or it is the harbinger of a trend.
The first senior player taken in the draft went at number 23. Two data points do not a trend make, but the phenomenon of college seniors faring poorly in the NBA draft has been inflating for some time. As the one and done draft pick numbers have dramatically increased, the later-year college players entrances into the draft have concurrently fallen.
What does this mean for college basketball players in the US? It means more and more of them will go to Europe, Taiwan, China, Korea, South America, Africa, Australia and elsewhere in the global bball arena. As the global rise of high-level basketball continues its explosive growth, the market for experienced, so-called “high Basketball IQ” players increases with that growth. Tools a successful four-year player in any college basketball program bring with him are a “high basketball IQ” and a high-level skill like scoring, rebounding, shot-blocking, playing defense, running a ballclub on the floor or some combination of all these. Any on of those characteristics makes him a commodity worth having in nascent basketball regions.
On the other hand, there will be some who, like the Boston Celtics great point guard Danny Ainge, drafted in the old third-round (now somewhat optimistically called “free agency”) will rise to elite levels in the NBA. These “diamonds in the rough,” guys like Scottie Reynolds could be, will find a home either somewhere in the NBA, Chinese Basketball Association, Developmental League, or in the other exponentially expanding international leagues. But NBA Gms and Coaches , as coldly analytical as they all are and must be, still look for diamonds in the rough. Ainge now the Celtics GM, for one, knows and understands their value all too well.
A 34-year streak is broken. Bear in mind, this is a 4-year player (point guard) who averaged 18.2 points as a senior, has not been seriously injured, and as a point guard had a positive 1.24 assist to turnover ratio in a big-time college program (Villanova). First team AP All-American. Either this is an anomaly, or it is the harbinger of a trend.
The first senior player taken in the draft went at number 23. Two data points do not a trend make, but the phenomenon of college seniors faring poorly in the NBA draft has been inflating for some time. As the one and done draft pick numbers have dramatically increased, the later-year college players entrances into the draft have concurrently fallen.
What does this mean for college basketball players in the US? It means more and more of them will go to Europe, Taiwan, China, Korea, South America, Africa, Australia and elsewhere in the global bball arena. As the global rise of high-level basketball continues its explosive growth, the market for experienced, so-called “high Basketball IQ” players increases with that growth. Tools a successful four-year player in any college basketball program bring with him are a “high basketball IQ” and a high-level skill like scoring, rebounding, shot-blocking, playing defense, running a ballclub on the floor or some combination of all these. Any on of those characteristics makes him a commodity worth having in nascent basketball regions.
On the other hand, there will be some who, like the Boston Celtics great point guard Danny Ainge, drafted in the old third-round (now somewhat optimistically called “free agency”) will rise to elite levels in the NBA. These “diamonds in the rough,” guys like Scottie Reynolds could be, will find a home either somewhere in the NBA, Chinese Basketball Association, Developmental League, or in the other exponentially expanding international leagues. But NBA Gms and Coaches , as coldly analytical as they all are and must be, still look for diamonds in the rough. Ainge now the Celtics GM, for one, knows and understands their value all too well.
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