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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I love basketball for the poetry of the game, the narratives of the players, and the advanced stats. I'm very guilty of using advanced stats to contest other people's eye tests. Russell Westbrook is easily the worst great player in NBA history. And LeBron James is easily the most clutch playoff performer in NBA history. But I also believe that the analytics stats have seriously harmed the game by making the three-point shot more valuable than any other. So, yeah, I'll take the mid-range two over the corner three.

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Cam's avatar

Really excellent defense of the "eye test" and the "casual." I really do think that some of this whole stats obsession comes from two things that are making sports fandom worse (or at least more annoying): 1) hyper identification with executives over players. Young men watched Moneyball and played so much 2k that they have fetishized the idea of being one of the suits because imagining yourself as being athletic enough to be a professional athlete is "childish" (it is, but so is pretending to be the "boss") 2) sports gambling going nuclear and being a central part of everything in sports. Now these same guys that think they are smarter than everyone around them need to find some statistical justification for their daily bets. These bets are constantly blasted even on the broadcasts themselves as if they are an interesting narrative. But take a step back, sure lots of narratives within the sport are contrived or forced, but celebrity gossip and teams being symbols (like how the Celtics as an institution are a crime against humanity as a whole) give the sport meaning that boring recitations on if Anfernee Simons hit the over on Steals could never bring. These guys are supposed to be big figures we attach meaning too outside of how they can literally bring us/lose us money. I'll never forget crying as I watched Corey Brewer, Al Horford, and Joakim Noah beat my favorite Bruins team (Aaron Afflalo, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Jordan Farmar <3) in the national championship, I guess formative memories now can be that time 5 players you don't care about all coincidently had the same stats you predicted.

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