Carmelo Anthony, originally uploaded by HUYFOTO.COM.
So I had this idea. For day 16 on our countdown 'til the NBA season, the day claimed by Carmelo Anthony, I would write about how said 'Melo has been a bit of a forgotten child since he got to the league. Such a thought reminded me of a David Bowie song, which then took me to the following nursery rhyme.
- Monday's child is fair of face,
- Tuesday's child is full of grace,
- Wednesday's child is full of woe,
- Thursday's child has far to go,
- Friday's child is loving and giving,
- Saturday's child works hard for a living,
- But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
- Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
In other words, ye heathens, you're gettin' two today because I got caught up in looking up these guys's birth-days and trying to come up with some significant conclusions. Obviously, the sample size isn't big enough for reliable statistical results, but the determining factors are qualitative in nature anyway. The real hump to get over for this study was the temptation to go astrological. That's been done and dead; it's the grounds for newspapers, not edgy blogs on the crepuscular outskirts. That's a good thing, Holmes. Anyway, we get some of that because it's inevitable that some guys born under the same sign (read: month) are similar. But we'll get to that. To begin.
The first and most salient point to this study is 'Melo. Dude's not a Thursday. He's a Tuesday. What does this mean? The rhyme says Tuesday's children are "full of grace." Sounds great, but how does it translate? Other Tuesday guys: Deron Williams, Amare Stoudemire, Ron Artest, and Lamar Odom. In my searches, I started with top players, meaning all-nba teams, overwhelming personalities, and the guys who have recently come or will soon be coming on this list. Of these initial players, these four joined Carmelo on the list of Tuesday children. Deron is the apt comparison. Williams and Anthony share a common thread of being looked over. Williams will seemingly never live down the comparisons to Chris Paul--though in head to head match-ups he generally comes out on top--and 'Melo has the LeBron comparisons to deal with. Tuesday's children have pretty steady careers, when all is said and done, but their "grace" is actually a euphemism for silently taking second shrift. These guys can't seem to shake off the shadows.
'Melo and Deron play nice with the rep, as they're fairly normal, well-adjusted NBA stars. See, most NBA players are born either in the December to January and sometimes February period or else in the May to July months. It's actually kind of striking, how regular this is. All the stars I looked at, unless otherwise stated, are born in these months. You have the stray Duncan in April (Taurus, fittingly) or Shaq in March (hello, Pisces)--if, by the way, you don't know your astrology, it's not hard to look up--for the most part, though, NBA stars tend towards those two periods of the year. Stoudemire, Artest, and Odom, however, are the odd November babies, and they're Tuesday boys too. Anyway, it explains the obvious difference between the Scorpios and Williams and Anthony. Still, the five of them share the shadow of more prominent personalities/talents, whether it's a rival on another team or Steve Nash.
Today, I fired my shadow., originally uploaded by frozenjester.
Monday is just about as good a day to be born on as Sunday. Fair of face? These guys are the stars who are a little more under the radar. They don't exactly get overshadowed, but they don't stick out and accumulate the accolades like the bonny Sabbath boys. Monday births amongst NBA stars include Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Tony Parker, Joe Johnson, and, incidentally, John Stockton. Shaq is also a Monday, but guys just don't fit any molds. The Pisces thing might be right on. Ah, I don't want to get into it.
Wednesday is supposed to be filled with woe. The incredible research tool of Wikipedia states that older interpretations have Wednesday and Friday switched. The wives' tales that these kinds of rhymes stem from were very concerned with the seasons, the way the world turned and how the stars aligned. If the days were switched, it must've been for good reason, because using NBA stars as our barometer sure makes a convincing case for Wednesday births leading to lives, if not exactly woe-filled, that are not bereft of hardship. And the Wednesday ballers bear the marks of this burden. They are: Kobe Bryant (Denver), Kevin Garnett (the first round), Gilbert Arenas (knee problems...zaniness...), Vince Carter (Dickensian expectations), Danny Granger (the Pacers...Granger's another quiet April man). Another Wednesday's child of note? Carter's landmark victim Frédéric Weis. Talk about woe.
Friday presented an interesting wrinkle to my examination of birth days for NBA players. There were no active NBA stars born on a Friday. I looked at over thirty of them, and none of them fell on a Friday. It's not to say that my investigation is by any means comprehensive, but you'd think there'd be at least one in thirty. Therefore, I decided to go back and see if the same held true for different eras. Thus, we came to the MJ is a Sunday and Stockton's a Monday factoids. I also found that fellow recent inductee David Robinson, along with legends Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Does that mean that the present-day NBA is less loving and giving? In an age where players are increasingly image consciousness, we might conclude as much. However, because I'm biased (and this study is so objective), let's keep caution out of the wind. Since there are so few Friday-born NBA stars, it makes more sense that superlative talents and personalities like Bird and Magic would provide the exception to the rule. Robinson works for this explanation as well. I will say that it must be hard being as loving or giving when your fame puts you under public scrutiny so often.
Saturday's Child Works Hard For A Living, originally uploaded by anji one.
With this in mind, I set about looking for NBA players who weren't as heralded. I looked for teams that were strictly middle of the pack. It wasn't an easy distinction to seek out; you want to have guys you can talk about, y'know? I settled on looking at a role player on the 15th and 16th best teams in the league, according to standing. These ended up being east coast teams, so I also looked at similar west coast teams. The records were a bit disparate, but consider it an adjustment. In this manner, I chose to look at Kirk Hinrich of the Bulls, Donyell Marshall of the Sixers, Carl Landry of the Rockets, and Erick Dampier of the Mavs. I thought it was a nice cross section of talents/skills/dispositions. Turns out, according to the rhyme, not so much. Landry and Dampier were Mondays. Hinrich and Marshall were Fridays. Turns out Fridays aren't so rare. There's a problem, though. Whereas the stars seemed to fit the rhymes descriptors, these role players don't seem to. Marshall and Hinrich both seem like generous and lovable guys, but wouldn't Hinrich be better suited as a hard-working Saturday? Marshall seems more like a Tuesday, while we're at it: never the hero, though he's saved quite a few days for his teams. Landry looks like a Tuesday too, and it occured to me that all role players might seem to be overshadowed from the distance of fan-hood. Still, I couldn't let it go. Dampier, a fair face? Something just didn't add up.
So I looked up Tim Thomas birth day of the week. Saturday. And that does it. There's no way this rhyme can be an accurate predictor if Tim Thomas is supposdly a hard worker. Still, a lot of the stars seemed uncannily suited to their birth days. Of course it doesn't determine your fate, but perhaps it does determine to what pitch whatever fate you eke out will be played. Perhaps Tim Thomas works hard at scamming teams out of millions of dollars. I looked into the rhyme's portents further, but none of it makes sense after Tim Thomas. If you care: Brian Cook is a Thursday's child; Devean George is a Monday; Cedric Simmons is a Friday; and Kareem Rush is a Thursday.
Carmelo Anthony, 2002, originally uploaded by mcdonaldsallamericangames.
