In sporadically regular installments, OtB brings you a long-form joint re: NBA and its ontological extension unto all of sport. Epochrypha: writings or statements of questionable authorship or authenticity, but always impassioned and always with an eye on the times we're spectating in. Enjoy.I've taken today off in order to complete some grad school writing, but first I have to get some of these thoughts off my chest, where they breed. Yesterday, though, at the day job, I went over this quote with my students: "All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in." -Toni Morrison, 1998
Now, this quote is obviously sardonic and offers a biting critique of those who wave flaming swords at the entrance to Eden (not quite as entrancing as the Miles Davis impersonation the archangel Gabriel better be playing if I ever make it to heaven, eh? but it’s a nice story sandwiched between two gates). Id est white-separatists. And I appreciate it on that level. At the same time, I also think it can be important to keep the human actually outside the heavenly. For the sake and integrity of both. This has to do with advanced stats and reality, but first I have to drop a bit more lit on you.
Look, Borges wrote in "on exactitude in science" of a fake empire where the cartographers made maps so detailed they were exact replicas of the land they were meant to chart. Associated Content puts it nicely: "This made the perfect map perfectly useless." At the time, cartography was a much debated and controversial revelation, like phrenology or genetics. How far can you go before you're playing God? But, then, are we not also always inundations of representation? Does not our every word leer with symbolism, standing in place of that to which one is referring? As they say, the devil's in the details. And it can be seen in the much debated and controversial revelation of today: advanced statistics in basketball.I've been thinking about this while watching the first throes of the post-season. I've been thinking about the purpose of the more and more telling statistical measures in comparison to the descriptions we put down in words. (For more on words vs. numbers and the conflation of such, see: gematria) Okay, they're both the attempt to recreate what goes on in sports. But, and this is not a rip on statistics, the one attempts to boil down games to their essential parts, while the other attempts to exult and extend that which has already been experienced. This was never more apparent than in the casual mention by some analyst that stats could one day replace the games completely. You take chaos theory and any other advanced mathematical conceptions you want to throw out there and, in theory, you could predict what the game would be without actually playing them. Of course, such a thing is said in jest. Still, it's chilling. A breather:
I’ve been wanting to run this (and I was reminded by that beer bottle throwing incident) for a hot second now. Why, because it somehow elegantly (praise Oldman, please) documents what goes on in a "train wreck." How people react to disaster, and how war stimulates an economy. Oldman's character Zorg posits that "life...comes from destruction, disorder, and chaos." He takes an empty glass (not half empty, mind you) and breaks it. He then goes on to explain that this simple act of destruction foments all kinds of heated and fecund sweepings of life. It's not Kierkegaard, I know, but bear with me. See, me? I think it's those invisible, never idle hands that make the world go round. They create the details. They type blog posts, just like this. Zorg? He's like the Kobes and Lebrons of this world (of basketball blogging), the Shaqs that break backboards and twitter about it, if you will. Me? I'm like the little Sasha Vujacic that sweeps up the broken glass.
Who else makes up these invisible hands? The statisticians. The John Hollingers and Kevin Peltons of the world. But also the guys who hand stats to EJ, Kenny, and Charles; the guys who look up the random stuff that comes up when Reggie and the Czar are letting hypotheticals fly. The 15 guys who work under Daryl Morey organizing databases. The ball boys. The guys who mop up the sweat when players fall to the hardwood, who keep the players from slipping and breaking their necks. The associated press writers who get no recognition for the recaps and releases they write. The guys who arrange highlight reels, in game. The cheerleaders. The fans. The stranger next to you who high fives you when D-Ho brings the hammer of Thor down. And Henry Abbot's right. It's not Dwight that makes the game for you (okay, it kinda is); it's the guy you don't even know, but with whom you form a strange kind of bond. It's that guy, that shared experience, which makes the games great.
This is why I think Outside the Boxscore and blogs like it are so important. And I know self-aggrandizing outfits generally dress up the navel gazing thing by looking around for people to whom they might glorify their navel, but look. My esteemed (by me, at least) colleagues don’t do this, and I’m not only talking about us. I’m talking about the entire blogosphere. I'm talking about every team that has ever retired a jersey for the fans. I'm talking about the invisibles as mentioned above. It’s not like I think fans or sports writers are in danger of losing this, of losing their subconscious understanding of the intangibles that make sports great; I just think it’s important to say it’s important once in awhile. I don't want us to get lost in the details, y'know? Furthermore, as the cartographers, we must continue to understand that every map has a legend. A parting note."As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think." - Toni Morrison
