- Ronald Martinez, Getty Images
I was mostly done researching and thinking my way through the elements of a planned two-part preview of Saturday’s game — one part meant to post Thursday morning, with a second part following Friday morning — and had begun the writing process Wednesday night when my laptop decided it had had enough. I lost everything. I’ll spare you the details of how this post came to be — a planes, trains, and automobiles of compositional technologies — but suffice it to say this isn’t quite what I’d intended.
The problem did heighten an issue I grapple with quite a bit: How much should I “show my work,” in math-class terms. I’ve always consulted statistics as a necessary companion to personal observation and other forms of information. Concepts such as pace, usage, efficiency, and other building blocks of “advanced” statistics are not new trends in this space. Often I cite specific numbers to support claims. But sometimes the math is left in the background, an unstated element that helped form an opinion or hone an observation.
I’m not sure which is preferable — some readers like to follow the data; others, I’m sure, grow weary of too much statistical recitation. So I try to find a balance. And this time, with research lost and limits of time and technology weighing against a recreation, I may not show much work. Just know that when I say that Kendrick Perkins is killing the Thunder or that Scott Brooks should really consider using more small-ball or that Jerryd Bayless may be hurting the Griz defense more than helping the offense that there’s something backing all of that up.
So, here’s a somewhat truncated and considerably less precise first installment of my planned twelve takes. Part two will post later in the day Friday if things go well or Saturday morning if they don’t.
1. New Nickname Alert: This has no bearing on the outcome of the series, obviously, but I took great pleasure in the TNT postgame show after Game 2, when Charles Barkley christened Zach Randolph with a new nickname, “Ol’ Man River,” in reference to Randolph’s “old-man game” and the way he keeps rolling along against younger, more athletic competitors. (They get weary, and sick of trying.) This is even more perfect than Barkley knows, given Memphis’ perch on the river the song refers to as well as the song’s own treasured history in Memphis. It’s too bad we can’t have James Hyter bless this with a FedExForum performance.
This isn’t the first time, incidentally, that a national broadcast has made a brilliant musical reference with regard to the Grizzlies — or to Randolph, to be specific. In the 2011 playoff run, there was a package on the Randolph and Gasol combo — before first-round, Game 2, I think; I can’t remember the network — to the tune of John Fogerty’s “Big Train (From Memphis).” This was also perfect. The rumbling, locomotive imagery and insistent, old-fashioned rhythm matching Gasol and Randolph’s rumbling, old-fashioned style.
It occurred to me, thinking of the late Hyter, that perhaps if the Grizzlies advance we could get Fogerty in town for a Griz-specific update of his song: “Big Spain (From Memphis),” anyone?
