And Now for Something Totally the Same

Bill James says something to the effect that, contrary to being impersonal and antiseptic, numbers/stats can actually be very helpful in constructing a narrative for the player to whom they belong. I forget the exact examples he cites – it’s in Scott Gray’s The Mind of Bill James, if you’re a literate English-er – but the idea is that, especially in the context of a career, numbers have the ability to reveal something concrete about a player that we might have only suspected anecdotally.

It’s with that in mind that I’d like to talk about another way in which I heart Rudy Fernandez, and value him above all other humans, including both myself and my other self.

But first, a little history. When Michael Lewis’s Moneyball came out, and when sabermetrics began to really make it big, what everyone in the whole world began to realize is that certain players – players who, before, maybe didn’t seem so valuable – well, now they seemed really valuable. Why? Because these players were taking walks and, as a result, they owned on base percentages well above their batting averages. Not overnight – but maybe, at least, over a long fortnight – people (including Carson Cistulli) realized that there was actually this group of players out there who, because of their patience at the plate, were actually way better than they seemed. Because OBP was not a part of TV broadcasts, though, and because the internet was a little less cool, their (ie these players’) talents were somewhat hidden.

Case in point, the Greek God of Walks Kevin Youkilis. Despite batting only .317 in his first year in the Red Sox organization, he actually sported an OBP of .512. That’s about a 200 point difference! Compare that to Stuffy McInnis, for example, who in 1915, playing for Philadelphia, batted .314 but with only a .339 OBP. That’s only a 25 point difference. Of course, this is not to pick on Stuffy McInnis, who I’m sure was a decent man and good with children. What it does suggest, however, is that these players possess a skill set (ie plate discipline) that is both totally peculiar to baseball and not immediately apparent given traditional metrics. This select group of athletes have figured out a way (were preternaturally destined?) to be good at their sport in an unexpected, but still totally relevant, way. It’s an attractive, very Enthusiastic quality we’re talking about here.

Well, it was around the same time as Moneyball, maybe a little later, that I began to play WhatIfSports (WIS) Baseball. WIS, in case you don’t know, is basically like World of Warcraft for baseballing nerdbones. In the original incarnation of the game (which has become a little more complex in the meantime), you got 80 million “dollars” to build a team of 25 players from all over history. Each season of every player’s career was assigned a worth, in dollars, and you (the General Manager!) were able to pick from all of these to build an uberteam.

Quickly, my favorite type of players to draft became those who sported the biggest difference between their AVGs and OBPs. Eddie Stanky, Max Bishop, Mickey Cochrane: these are the players who I salvaged from years past and who became, to me, emblems of a new archetype: players who, not out of sheer athletic ability (represented by AVG) but by something more smarty-pantsy (represented by OBP minus AVG) saved the day and got (to first base, via a walk with) the girl. Whether these players were actually the most valuable in the WIS universe was of little concern to me after awhile. Rather, they began to represent something to me – something I aspired to become, if not by means of baseballing excellency, then at least in the things I myself was working on. Like video games. And, sure, poems-writing. And, my all-time fave, spirited banter.

Well, what I want to tell you is that this type of player is not unique only to baseball. You see, thanks to its own recent breakthroughs in quantitative analysis – thanks largely to Dean Oliver and John Hollinger – basketball now offers up an analog archetype. Of course, while there’s no OBP in basketball, there is something close, and it’s called True Shooting Percentage (TSP). TSP is a metric that accounts for a player’s three point and foul shooting, on top of his FG%. Three pointers and foul shots made are sort of like the base on balls of basketball. Until recently, fans have recognized their importance, but there’s been no way to express their worth in any meaningful way. Thus, the players who, to date, have excelled at both of those skills while posting low FG% (compare to low AVGs in baseball) have seemed, perhaps, a little underwhelming and have received, perhaps, less attention than they deserved.

The formula for TSP is [PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA))], the 0.44 accounting for the fact that, in this stat that’s based on PTS/Possession, free throws sometimes come in the AND-1, or other, varieties. League average for TSP is about 8 points better than FG% (around 53%), but some players – those aforementioned players who excel both at drawing and making free throws and also making three pointers – can exceed that 8 point gap considerably. Those are the players who, like their baseballing cousins, possess a skill set both peculiarly appropriate for their sport and, until recently, totally ignored by the basketballing community.

To derive the best of these sorts of players, we can do a similar thing as for baseball. Just as, before, we took AVG from OBP (OBP – AVG), we can take FG% from TS% (TS% – FG%). For lack of a better term, and just because I like how it sounds, let’s call this a player’s Crunk Quotient (CQ).

Well, guess who’s gone and posted himself an all-time-great CQ in his short tenure in the NBA? I’ll give you a hint: his name rhymes with Beauty Gernandez, he plays for the Portland Trailblazers, and I’ve already confessed my undying adoration for him. Can you guess? Did you say Rudy Fernandez? If you did, you were correct!

So far this season, Rudy Fernandez – a.k.a. the Majorcan Rocket – owns a .426 FG% to go along with a .616 TS%, for a 19 CQ. Only one (1) player in NBA history who’s played more than 500 minutes in a season has surpassed a 19 CQ, and that was Brent Barry with a 19.11 in 2005/06. Of course, Barry (whom I also unabashedly champion, by the way) only averaged 17 minutes and 5.8 points per game for San Antonio that season. Our Little Rudy is currently averaging 26.7 and 11.7 through 16 games played. The only player to really challenge that mark is Chauncey Billups, who twice has posted 17+ CQ seasons, averaging 36.1/18.5 in 2005/06 and 32.3/17.0 in 2007/08.

In other words, were he to continue playing at his current level, Rudy Fernandez would have basically the Crunkest season of all time – a fact which I think we all knew was true, but just didn’t necessarily know how to prove.

Signs of the Times

Cyril Northcote Parkinson was sort of the Malcolm Gladwell of the 1960s. A British naval historian by training, he expanded his scope of study to include what was at the time the new phenomenon of corporate bureaucracy. He was particularly struck by the apparent fact that, as they expand, bureaucracies inevitably ignore their original purpose and replace it with the pursuit of continued expansion. This is Parkinson’s Law, which is commonly articulated as “Work expands to fill the time available.” Bureaucracies are developed to increase efficiencies, freeing up more time to devote to “actual work.” But, the activity associated with maintaining the bureaucracy expands until there is no time available for what was once considered “actual work.” He applied his analysis to the fall of the British Empire–the Colonial Office grew exponentially, though the number of colonies in need of officiating did not. Eventually, it just turned into a bunch of ineffectual twits sitting around the Hash House dreaming up less and less real snipes for one another to harry after.

Parkinson also pointed out another aspect of the bureaucratic culture of the age–enterprises that devote a lot of time, energy, and money to constructing the ideal headquarters are doomed. He phrased it this way: “Perfection means finality, and finality means death.” Or, put another way: the only way to have the time to deliberate over whether the marble in the bathrooms should be Carrara or Parian is if you’re ignoring something really, really important. Like, just for instance, doing business.

The contemporary analog of this might be stadium naming rights. Take a look at some of the companies that have forked over tens of millions of dollars recently to have their names emblazoned over some playing field. It’s a list dominated by automakers, airlines (the American Airlines Center and the American Airlines Arena???), telecomm, insurance, and financial services. What do these industries have in common at this very moment?

In 2006, Citigroup agreed to pay the Mets $20 million a year for 20 years for the right to name Shea’s replacement, Citi Field. Now, that amount doesn’t really make a difference to Citi, though they might not want to express that particular fact to these guys. And, in an age where banking services are largely undifferentiated in the consumer’s mind, this might–might–be considered a reasonable marketing expenditure. But, but…it’s not just about the money, as ol’ Cyril would’ve reminded us.

No, it’s about a senseless, brainless beast that can do anything except stop eating. According to the Mock Turtle logic of an entrenched bureaucracy, that which can be done, must be done, and if it must be done, it must be important to do.

The good news? The citizens of New York aren’t the only ones unwillingly funding this boondoggle’s construction anymore. In addition to the $450 million the Mets already received from state and city funds (or, “free money”), you–yes, you!–are partially underwriting Citi Field thanks to the government’s taxpayer-funded bailout of Citigroup! With this liquidity infusion, Citi now has the cash to fulfill their obligation to the Mets. Awesome, right? I’m pretty sure this entitles us all to World Series box seats!

Just kidding. The Mets will never make the Series.

In Praise of Rudy Fernandez

Tolstoy writes at the beginning of Anna Karenina that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

I don’t care to comment at any length about this sentiment, except to say that a) I doubt its veracity and also that b) perhaps even thinking it’s true could be unhealthy. My sense is that people will take any opportunity to romanticize their flaws. Considering the popularity of films like Trainspotting and books like A Million Little Pieces—texts, that is, which explore drug use, depression, or just irresponsible behavior, in general—I think we can safely say that people are fascinated by human weakness.

Still, I’ll argue now and forever that the opposite should be the case. There’s a moral imperative, I will argue, to celebrate humans behaving well. It’s our responsibility, I will argue, to champion those who make the people around them feel more human—perhaps even divine.

Having said that, I’ve noticed something in my own feelings about great athletes—namely, that it is impossible for me to eulogize them (ie the athletes) in what I consider a satisfactory way, because, at root, I feel the same way about all the athletes I love. A poem I wrote some time ago about Jiri Welsch—and which you can read here, if you dare—deals with this issue. At the time that I wrote it, I was fantastically enamored of Welsch, a Czech player who spent some time with the Celtics. The grounds for my attraction are still not entirely clear to me, but undeniable still. Thing is, as much as I wanted to render my lovingkindness in print, it was borderline impossible. So, instead of writing a poem about Welsch, I wrote this poem about having just written a poem about Welsch. Hence, every section of the poem begins with some permutation of the line “When I finished my poem for Jiri…” The idea was that, being unable to write a poem about Jiri, I would write a poem in which I already had written one about him. It’s a total, utter case of wish fulfillment.

I’m now finding myself with a similar inability to properly celebrate Portland Trailblazers guard Rudy Fernandez, the same guy who does things like

I assume that, so long as you possess even the tiniest capacity for awe, then Rudy Fernandez has helped you feel it in this video. In particular, his lefty floater off the botched alley-oop—that, and, of course, the bounce pass between the legs—these are examples of a highly-functioning human demonstrating totally conspicuous acts of wit and imagination. They are manifest physically, sure; but, they are metaphors for what any one of us can (what I would like to) do intellectually.

But what else is there to say about Rudy other than “That’s great!”? How do you write about him in a way that could conceivably add to his incredibly apparent greatness? William James, FC Happold, and Abraham Maslow all write that one aspect of religious experience is its noetic quality. In mystical states (call them peak experiences, if that makes you more comfortable), one feels access to a type of knowledge that is not got-at by discursive thought. The mystic acts without self-consciousness. Many athletes report instances of flow—essentially a secular description of that same thing: a total involvement in the activities, a sense of mastery, a lack of self-consciousness. Rudy Fernandez embodies these traits conspicuously.

To re-introduce Tolstoy, I’d like to think that it’s not true that happy families are all the same. That seems uninteresting to me and, again, merely a penchant we humans have for finding something important in our own flaws. That said, it seems like it might be impossible to say anything very interesting about greatness—greatness in the form of Rudy Fernandez, for example. Perhaps all we’re able to do is bear witness to it. Perhaps all we can say is, “That’s what the best case scenario is” and then move on.

Forgive Us Our Chest Passes

So the NBA season is 1+ week old. Perfect time to roll up the e-sleeves and start doing some previewing!

Here are 10 things to look forward to:

-Expect Amare Stoudemire to achieve what Buddhists refer to as ‘Paramita,’ or total fantasy domination. After banishing the Indiana Pacers beyond the spirit world, Amare will proceed to cast off his ego, ascend to the Realm of Evermore, and spend eternity contemplating new nicknames for Shaquille O’Neal.

-Look for lifelong absurdist theater buff Stephon Marbury to stage a one-man Off-Broadway production of a long-thought lost Samuel Beckett play. Reviewers will agree that, while Steph quite accurately captures the bleak realities of the destitution of man, his head tattoo is totally bonkers for reals.

-As foretold by the Havamal Sagas, Greg Oden will be hanged from Yggdrasil, the world-tree, and pierced by his own spear in order to gain the wisdom necessary to rule the god-domain of Asgard. He will be inactive for 2-4 weeks.

-Chris “Birdman” Andersen will return from a 2-year drug suspension to provide high-energy minutes off the bench for the New Orleans Hornets.

-With the conviction of crooked, game-throwing ref Tim Donaghy removing any taint of bias from the NBA’s officiating crews, aggrieved fanbases and unhinged sports radio hosts will be forced to find new scapegoats to assign blame for their teams’ woes. Leading candidates include: El Nino, atonal music, mysterious crystals made of unknown materials that reflect no light and steal your soul if you stare into them too long, that darned neighbor kid, the trickster coyote common to Native American myth, predatory lending practices, and nerds.

-Kobe Bryant will rewrite the record books, painstakingly, by hand.

-Following a championship which was due in large part to placing team success above individual achievements, the Celtics will further extend their selflessness. Kevin Garnett will block his own teammates’ shots to ensure everyone has the same season-end scoring average. Ray Allen will grow a beard and enroll at Harvard. Paul Pierce will sit out the regular season, take up residence above JD Salinger’s garage and, by way of explanation, say only, “It’s Veal Scalabrine‘s time to shine.” They will win the East.

-Dickie Simpkins will contact the Bulls about a possible comeback, confusing the front office as they had not yet noticed his absence.

-With zero points, zero rebounds, and zero minutes played, Michael Ruffin will be the first player to register an Efficiency Rating of ?. Thousand of years in the future, it will be determined that this unknowable, unpronounceable glyph is in fact the true name of God, and to utter it is to swim with all of humanity in a sea of undifferentiated consciousness. Expect Ruffin to be cut midseason in an effort to make roster room for a Development League call-up.

-LeBron James final stat line will also contain the solution to the world’s hardest sudoku puzzle.

My crystal ball is hazy and also it is in actuality an everything bagel with jalapeno cream cheese, so this session of soothsaying must draw to a close. As things are revealed to me throughout the season, I will be sure to share them you. Stay tuned for future insights!