How long was Rasual Butler holding the ball for? Was it for a a full five seconds? Less? More? There’s a report he asked the referee to count out loud, which probably wasn’t enough. And for what it’s worth, he shouldered the blame, but that’s not what people will remember: they’ll remember him standing there, getting the ball for the first time all game, for what the NBA would later rule was 5.8 seconds, failing to get the ball in bounds.
That’s not fair to Butler, and it's the wrong thing to take from Sunday's game; which was, even after 48 minutes, exactly the best kind of game the Raptors could have played this season.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Flashfact: Lana Del Ray, marked for death
Ripping off one of my favorite Lester Bangs headlines only felt appropriate for this, and not only because it also riffed on the name of Del Rey's album.
In at least a few ways the cycle around Del Rey's debut, which hasn't been out very long but feels like it's happened for months, is emblematic of music criticism right now as a whole: people rush to judge someone who's almost designed to be quickly judged. A question like "Is Lana Del Rey constructed by people to sell records?" isn't what people should be asking. The question should be if it's worth listening to, context removed.
The short answer: it's not bad, but it's not great either:
For the long answer, and some thoughts on why it doesn't matter if she's constructed to sell records, click here to read the full post at Flashfact.org
In at least a few ways the cycle around Del Rey's debut, which hasn't been out very long but feels like it's happened for months, is emblematic of music criticism right now as a whole: people rush to judge someone who's almost designed to be quickly judged. A question like "Is Lana Del Rey constructed by people to sell records?" isn't what people should be asking. The question should be if it's worth listening to, context removed.
The short answer: it's not bad, but it's not great either:
Google her name for a novel about postmodern hype and public relations. Listen to her album to be lulled to sleep. Watch her videos on YouTube to look into a cold display counter at a seafood market. She is a lot of things, all of them so concurrent to now: perhaps manufactured and coldly indifferent on stage but oddly compelling and worth looking at, even if only to grasp what lessons there are here.
For the long answer, and some thoughts on why it doesn't matter if she's constructed to sell records, click here to read the full post at Flashfact.org
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
The Good Point: Is Andrea Bargnani the NBA's most improved player?
There aren't many storylines - which aren't even a thing, really - around the Toronto Raptors, but there's one that I couldn't get out of my mind: what's happened to Andrea Bargnani this year. Over at The Good Point, I explain how he's changed from a black hole and why it matters:
In a year marked by some bad teams, the Toronto Raptors are one of the worst. This is not a new thing. They’ve been bad for years, with a defense more porous than Havarti cheese. Last year, they regularly allowed 120 per game, sometimes as much as 140. You don’t have to know basketball to know that’s bad.
The stats bear that out: the 2011 Raptors allowed the fifth most points per game, the fourth-lowest SRS and lost the third-most games in the league. And Andrea Bargnani, their much-maligned star, finished the season with just 2.6 Win Shares and a 16.4 PER, despite playing the second-most minutes on the team.
Things aren’t much better for the Raptors this season. They dropped eight in a row in January, are 8-16 and have the league’s second-lowest points scored per game (86.8). And that’s mostly because of Bargnani. I mean it in a good way.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tim Thomas' politics are a load of puck
We’re living in strange times. The 24 hour news cycle has been shortened to a half-hour wheel, the Internet demands 140 characters content now, now, now and there’s always, always a news hole to fill.
It means that even the most mundane becomes newsworthy.
Take the flap in Montreal, where Canadiens head coach Randy Cunneyworth takes flak for not speaking one language in a city that speaks two. Does it really matter? The team speaks English, the league conducts business in English but a wing of the local media and a large segment of the city’s population doesn’t. Never mind that the coach doesn’t actually talk to fans and that Cunneyworth could always bring a translator to media scrums. The Montreal media pounded that story and soon, it was drawing international attention.
And even now, weeks later, it’s still in the news cycles, thanks to some comments by Jaroslav Spacek. In Quebec, hockey has always had a strain of politics to it. And now, politics has met the puck head-on.
It means that even the most mundane becomes newsworthy.
Take the flap in Montreal, where Canadiens head coach Randy Cunneyworth takes flak for not speaking one language in a city that speaks two. Does it really matter? The team speaks English, the league conducts business in English but a wing of the local media and a large segment of the city’s population doesn’t. Never mind that the coach doesn’t actually talk to fans and that Cunneyworth could always bring a translator to media scrums. The Montreal media pounded that story and soon, it was drawing international attention.
And even now, weeks later, it’s still in the news cycles, thanks to some comments by Jaroslav Spacek. In Quebec, hockey has always had a strain of politics to it. And now, politics has met the puck head-on.
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