Goooood gravy, this was an awesome read, a fantastic take, and it's great for self-examination. I have to bury my phone in the ground for several hours during drafts, just so I don't see who is getting drafted before they get drafted. Let's all just back up a little bit. We don't have to go back to NO news, just back off to less news.
Now, if we can just work on those non-stop screaming heads, who used to just be talking heads, on sports talk shows. Can we find a modern version of "The Sports Reporters," please? My Sundays used to start off juuuuust right.
Agree majorly with the draft hot take. Find it particularly irritating when there are players who have some positives but they’re terrible shooters and a draft analyst hand waves and says “if they can develop their shot…” Very few players do make a major swing in their shot yet DT acts like it’s a common occurrence and regularly get excitable over empty calorie scorers in college who don’t have an outside shot.
Also the point about bayesian updating can be extended to NBA watchers too - frequently a player has a hot shooting/performance period and consensus seems to switch (Jalen Green end of last year, potentially Josh Giddey since ASB, etc.) Obviously it would be cool of these changes were legitimate but I feel like very few NBA pundits get how totally expected it would be that out of all the NBA players a few would have a hot streak (particularly on tail end of season where opponents might not care as much.)
My favorite thing about Shams is reading the fluff/compliments he has to attach to his tweets in order to get the news 10 seconds before everyone else.
As someone who spends too much time on social media I honestly find this sort of funny.
Today I learned that the "Blazers have 35 victories, a 14-win improvement so far – and are 22-16 since Jan. 19 while ranking top-5 in defensive efficiency during that span." IMPRESSIVE!
This is worth tens of millions of dollars to ESPN's bottom line though, I guess, so you gotta do what you gotta do to be first.
This is a really good read — got into Draft Twitter (expanding my Substack to post draft stuff too). Some great “Draft Twitter” people, even some on here.
@kalidrafts, @loganpadams, @chipwilliamsjr, and the people over at No Ceilings as well
Great post! The Bayesian thinking point really resonated. As someone who engages in basketball scouting, I stopped consuming "Draft Twitter" a long time ago. I had a few niche accounts I followed, but as you mentioned, most of them are now working for an agency or a team.
Another thing I’ve found valuable is consuming material outside of basketball. Right now, I’m reading a book about British Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, specifically those who lived in Maryland. The book dives deep into how people sympathized with and rationalized their loyalty to the Crown.
It makes you realize how disillusioned people can become—how they resist change and would rather endure hardship by forming regiments of loyalist soldiers. Now, what does that have to do with basketball? Well, it’s that so much in the sport is universally neglected, regardless of topic. Basketball is one of the easiest sports to understand—besides soccer, it’s “put a ball in a peach basket.” Most people can grasp the basics, unlike football where you need to understand a lineman running through the B gap or how a linebacker sets contain to stuff a run. Or baseball, which has been broken by analytics to the point where the ball is rarely in play.
So when we read stories or histories about loyalty and resistance to change, it helps us understand why the current basketball landscape is the way it is. It’s also why athletes often avoid discussing politics—they’ve transcended the need to care. And it’s why cynicism and partisan interest are blatant, while wealth inequality rivals 1700s France and the Gilded Age.
The bigger question is: why would they change it? Do leagues really need to keep growing? Couldn’t they just focus on the product, reinvest in grassroots development, and build long-term dividends by making the game more accessible to play and watch? A DTC model through FAST channels like PlutoTV could bring in new fans.
But late-stage capitalism, since the nuclear age, made it possible for a president to be gunned down on live TV, for leaders to lie, steal, and corrupt systems for personal gain—yet as long as the stock market’s booming, the bills are paid, and our vices are within reach, most people shrug and move on.
The same dynamic has seeped into sports. ESPN is slowly leaning conservative, peddling misinformation and reactionary content to stir emotion and create "buzz," while leagues participate in sportswashing. They're slowly killing one of the last meritocracies in society. If you're not the child of a former athlete or from a wealthy family—who can fund your training, keep you from having to work in high school, and drive you cross-country—you won’t have a fair shot at becoming an athlete.
This is the result. Newsbreakers were killed the same way newspapers were. Rather than securing their base, they let people leave, overspent on overhead, and now—why read a newspaper when the internet is free? Why pay a subscription when I can get the story elsewhere? Why watch a full NBA game when I can catch highlights? Why actually scout when I can skim Twitter? Why hire a journalist when a high schooler or college intern will write 30 articles a month for free—until they ask for pay and get replaced?
It’s the cycle. They don’t want to change it. They keep the public and the league at arm’s length.
Loved this.... and it was all those people years ago who flat-out don't watch the NBA who swore to me that Adam Morrison was the next Larry Bird. But if you watched the NBA, it took watching about one Morrison game to know they were wrong.
Goooood gravy, this was an awesome read, a fantastic take, and it's great for self-examination. I have to bury my phone in the ground for several hours during drafts, just so I don't see who is getting drafted before they get drafted. Let's all just back up a little bit. We don't have to go back to NO news, just back off to less news.
Now, if we can just work on those non-stop screaming heads, who used to just be talking heads, on sports talk shows. Can we find a modern version of "The Sports Reporters," please? My Sundays used to start off juuuuust right.
Great post, my man.
Agree majorly with the draft hot take. Find it particularly irritating when there are players who have some positives but they’re terrible shooters and a draft analyst hand waves and says “if they can develop their shot…” Very few players do make a major swing in their shot yet DT acts like it’s a common occurrence and regularly get excitable over empty calorie scorers in college who don’t have an outside shot.
Also the point about bayesian updating can be extended to NBA watchers too - frequently a player has a hot shooting/performance period and consensus seems to switch (Jalen Green end of last year, potentially Josh Giddey since ASB, etc.) Obviously it would be cool of these changes were legitimate but I feel like very few NBA pundits get how totally expected it would be that out of all the NBA players a few would have a hot streak (particularly on tail end of season where opponents might not care as much.)
My favorite thing about Shams is reading the fluff/compliments he has to attach to his tweets in order to get the news 10 seconds before everyone else.
As someone who spends too much time on social media I honestly find this sort of funny.
Today I learned that the "Blazers have 35 victories, a 14-win improvement so far – and are 22-16 since Jan. 19 while ranking top-5 in defensive efficiency during that span." IMPRESSIVE!
This is worth tens of millions of dollars to ESPN's bottom line though, I guess, so you gotta do what you gotta do to be first.
This is a really good read — got into Draft Twitter (expanding my Substack to post draft stuff too). Some great “Draft Twitter” people, even some on here.
@kalidrafts, @loganpadams, @chipwilliamsjr, and the people over at No Ceilings as well
The pull of finding fringe guys is pretty strong (I say this as someone who is a big niche prospect guy, even if they don’t make the NBA)😅
Great post! The Bayesian thinking point really resonated. As someone who engages in basketball scouting, I stopped consuming "Draft Twitter" a long time ago. I had a few niche accounts I followed, but as you mentioned, most of them are now working for an agency or a team.
Another thing I’ve found valuable is consuming material outside of basketball. Right now, I’m reading a book about British Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, specifically those who lived in Maryland. The book dives deep into how people sympathized with and rationalized their loyalty to the Crown.
It makes you realize how disillusioned people can become—how they resist change and would rather endure hardship by forming regiments of loyalist soldiers. Now, what does that have to do with basketball? Well, it’s that so much in the sport is universally neglected, regardless of topic. Basketball is one of the easiest sports to understand—besides soccer, it’s “put a ball in a peach basket.” Most people can grasp the basics, unlike football where you need to understand a lineman running through the B gap or how a linebacker sets contain to stuff a run. Or baseball, which has been broken by analytics to the point where the ball is rarely in play.
So when we read stories or histories about loyalty and resistance to change, it helps us understand why the current basketball landscape is the way it is. It’s also why athletes often avoid discussing politics—they’ve transcended the need to care. And it’s why cynicism and partisan interest are blatant, while wealth inequality rivals 1700s France and the Gilded Age.
The bigger question is: why would they change it? Do leagues really need to keep growing? Couldn’t they just focus on the product, reinvest in grassroots development, and build long-term dividends by making the game more accessible to play and watch? A DTC model through FAST channels like PlutoTV could bring in new fans.
But late-stage capitalism, since the nuclear age, made it possible for a president to be gunned down on live TV, for leaders to lie, steal, and corrupt systems for personal gain—yet as long as the stock market’s booming, the bills are paid, and our vices are within reach, most people shrug and move on.
The same dynamic has seeped into sports. ESPN is slowly leaning conservative, peddling misinformation and reactionary content to stir emotion and create "buzz," while leagues participate in sportswashing. They're slowly killing one of the last meritocracies in society. If you're not the child of a former athlete or from a wealthy family—who can fund your training, keep you from having to work in high school, and drive you cross-country—you won’t have a fair shot at becoming an athlete.
This is the result. Newsbreakers were killed the same way newspapers were. Rather than securing their base, they let people leave, overspent on overhead, and now—why read a newspaper when the internet is free? Why pay a subscription when I can get the story elsewhere? Why watch a full NBA game when I can catch highlights? Why actually scout when I can skim Twitter? Why hire a journalist when a high schooler or college intern will write 30 articles a month for free—until they ask for pay and get replaced?
It’s the cycle. They don’t want to change it. They keep the public and the league at arm’s length.
As always—fascinating read!
Loved this.... and it was all those people years ago who flat-out don't watch the NBA who swore to me that Adam Morrison was the next Larry Bird. But if you watched the NBA, it took watching about one Morrison game to know they were wrong.