From ESPN<\/a>:<\/p>\n \nThe mission was to find black folks who spend anytime talking about advanced analytics, whose conversations are framed by \u2014 or even casually include references to \u2014 win shares or effective shooting percentage, WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) or points per 100 possessions. It\u2019s a failed mission so far. Totally empty. Conclusion: Advanced analytics and black folks hardly ever mix. Set aside the tiny handful of black men who make a living somewhere in the sports industry dealing directly with the numbers and there is absolutely zero mingling.<\/p>\n Log onto any mainstream website or media outlet (certainly any program within the ESPN empire) and 30 seconds cannot pass without extreme statistical analysis, which didn\u2019t exist 20 years ago, hijacking the conversation. But not in \u201cBlackWorld,\u201d where never is heard an advanced analytical word. Not in urban barbershops. Not in text chains during three-hour games. Not around office water coolers. Not even in pressrooms or locker rooms where black folks who make a living in the industry spend all day and half the night talking about the most intimate details of sports.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take the Golden State Warriors locker room, for example. I thought the complete stiff-arming of the statistical revolution might very well be generational. Old black folks don\u2019t, but younger black folks might.<\/p>\n Wrong.<\/p>\n I asked Draymond Green, the Warriors star whose new-age game is constantly being defined statistically, if he engages in any advanced analytics conversation either professionally or personally. His answer was emphatic.<\/p>\n \u201cNo. Neither. Professionally, I play completely off of feel. I hear people discussing my game in terms of all these advanced numbers. I have no part of it,\u201d Green said. \u201cEven paying attention to it, from a playing standpoint, would make me robotic and undermine my game. I\u2019m supposed to step back behind the line in real time to avoid taking a \u2018bad two\u2019? That\u2019s thinking way too much. I don\u2019t get the fascination at all.\u201d<\/p>\n …My friend Larry Irving, a black Stanford lawyer and the most rational person I know \u2014 except when it comes to his New York Knicks fandom \u2014 said our complete withdrawal from statistical analysis is based on our emotional tie to the game.<\/p>\n \u201cSports is emotional. And analytics represent the absence of emotion, the antithesis. Nobody gets into sports to be dispassionate. And it just seems to me we are the feel it, smell it, touch it people,\u201d he said. \u201cWHIP and WAR [wins above replacement] and win shares are completely antiseptic. I mean, the coach may use analytics to confirm, but you mean to tell me Knute Rockne couldn\u2019t tell whether the boy could play without some advanced analytics expert telling him?\u201d<\/p>\n The thing is, that could also open the door to the issue of emotion vs. intellect. That is a thin and sensitive line to navigate, especially given the outrage people of color feel when others suggest we\u2019re more emotional than rational about sports. But it\u2019s an inescapable subtopic if dealing with 360 degrees of this. Without question, the emotional appeal of sports resonates with black people, whether we\u2019re talking about the first end-zone dancers, the first high-five, the guttural releases after dunks and quarterback sacks and even putts made, that simply weren\u2019t a noticeable part of sports before the emergence of the black athlete and legions of black fans who followed. It would take a greater and more in-depth discussion than this to figure out the reasons we, black people, are most attracted to sports other than the winning and losing, and where the emotional connection is on that spectrum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Comments at Steve Sailer<\/a>:<\/p>\n * Your general point is correct<\/a> about Negros\u2019 feeling of entitlement to control white language, but in this case there may be an additional factor. I\u2019m not watching the series, but yesterday on the golf course an avid Warriors fan, 84 years old, told me that Adams has regularly been blocking Green\u2019s shots. Blacks feel that b-ball is \u201ctheir\u201d game, thus for a White to block a Black star\u2019s shot is an unforgivable affront. I first saw this in a high school game in 1971 in SF, when a 5\u20194\u2033 black point guard slapped a white forward\u2019s face after getting his shot blocked. It\u2019s possible Green cares less about being called a monkey than about being \u201cshown up\u201d by a stale pale Australian.<\/p>\n * Whitlock was dumped from ESPN after failing to get The Undefeated off the ground after 3 years.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t much care for Coates either:<\/p>\n SN: Why is there acrimony between you and celebrated author\/journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates? Did you make a mistake with him in your recruiting effort for \u201cThe Undefeated?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Whitlock: Glad to clear this up. I was brought back to ESPN in August of 2013. I reached out to Coates via email in November of 2013. We had a brief 15- to 20-minute phone conversation. I was effusive in my praise of his writing talents. He expressed he was uninterested in leaving \u201cThe Atlantic.\u201d It was an exploratory, respectful conversation. I had no job to offer at the time. I wasn\u2019t authorized to hire anyone. My first priorities were Jesse Washington and Mike Wise, two of my collaborators. It wasn\u2019t until the Fall of 2014 and the new fiscal year that I was given the greenlight to hire anyone. My first two hires were Amy Barnett and Danielle Cadet. My next hires were in December of 2014 when I began reporting to Marie Donoghue. That\u2019s when we were able to land Washington and Wise. In May of 2014, I emailed Coates to tell him how much I enjoyed \u201cThe Case For Reparations.\u201d I asked him to do a podcast interview. He said he would try to accommodate my request. It didn\u2019t happen. I left him alone. Zero hard feelings. In 2015, stories started popping up referencing his friends\/surrogates about how he turned me down for a job and how I offered to triple his salary. Then he later analogized me to a drug dealer during a radio interview. Then I made the mistake of purchasing and reading \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d his bestselling book. It\u2019s a hopeless, God-less, Marxist book that allegedly is written for the edification of young black people. Any understanding and appreciation of the magnificent and courageous African-American journey is respectful of our relationship with religion and a Higher Power. What\u2019s between the world and Ta-Nehisi Coates is an understanding of the power of prayer, hope, faith and Jesus. Feeding young people a beautifully written and seductive hopeless ideology is wishing destruction on them. The book helped me fully understand what he represents. Coates\u2019 pro-black shtick is how elitist, Talented Tenth-believing black people try to be pro-black. They use their platforms to whine publicly about the harrowing, state-sanctioned plunder they suffered while purchasing a $2 million home. That\u2019s not hate. I live a pampered life, too. I just try to have enough self-awareness to know my 1-percent problems are unworthy of a full column on a major media platform. I thought and think Coates would benefit greatly from working in a black media environment. His ideas need to be vigorously challenged by black people, particularly those of us who realize the danger of separating faith from fate.<\/p>\n * I follow Nate Silver on Twitter. You\u2019d think that maybe people in love with data and statistics would have heretical thoughts, but whenever he gives his opinion it\u2019s all racism this and sexism that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shorter Michael Wilbon: Blacks aren’t good at math. Prefer feels. ESPN has dropped its middlebrow Grantland approach and gone instead with the black Undefeated site. From ESPN: The mission was to find black folks who spend anytime talking about advanced … Continue reading ![\"steven-adams-kicked-draymond-green\"](\"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/steven-adams-kicked-draymond-green-300x226.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n“Draymond Green playing by feel<\/a>.”<\/em><\/p>\n