Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86703 posts
Wed Feb-15-17 05:41 PM
6. "One of the most accomplished basketball players ever, no question." In response to Reply # 0
If you want to talk "greatest," then that opens up a different can of worms, obviously. Same way that Christian Laettner is pretty obviously the most accomplished basketball player on the men's side in the modern era, but could he beat one-on-one X, Y, or Z? But it's a team sport, so whose supporting cast was better? If Brittney Griner was on that UConn team with Geno, would the results have been the same for her? One wonders.
But I know you didn't make this post seriously. This reply isn't for you. It's for the people who actually give a shit about what they post.
Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86703 posts
Tue Feb-21-17 11:51 AM
12. "I read a pretty great argument for her..." In response to Reply # 11
... that essentially said that Stewart was the more accomplished player, but she didn't have that type of take-shit-over personality that Taurasi had, and that even though the writer's brain said Stewart was better, his heart said Taurasi, because no one would ever replace that feeling of watching her play and talk shit as you sit and think, "holy shit, I've never seen a better women's basketball player than this." I thought that was a pretty convincing argument.
14. "Doesn't that argument depend too much on being elegantly expressed?" In response to Reply # 12
Like, Roger Angell making Roberto Clemente sound like some kind of aloof-but-lethal Babylonian god is pretty much doing the same thing as some doofus on twitter saying that Bryce Harper's swing gives him a boner. The doofus, I mean. Not Bryce Harper.
It's the grand, writerly version of "the eye test" and, in a sign that hypocrisy is the only real form of intellectual freedom, one that I'll happily trot out in support of my favorites. But the problem is that it doesn't work if somebody doesn't express themselves beautifully.
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Frank Longo Member since Nov 18th 2003 86703 posts
Tue Feb-21-17 05:45 PM
15. "It's possible Harper's swing gives Harper a boner too, I reckon." In response to Reply # 14 Tue Feb-21-17 05:46 PM by Frank Longo
>It's the grand, writerly version of "the eye test" and, in a >sign that hypocrisy is the only real form of intellectual >freedom, one that I'll happily trot out in support of my >favorites. But the problem is that it doesn't work if somebody >doesn't express themselves beautifully.
Yeah, and while this writer (I completely forget who it was) probably wasn't the most elegant to put fingers to keyboard, it still felt like an argument I rarely hear in terms of the "greats" nowadays. So often, people boil it down to "well he has X number of titles/MVPS/seasons of batting/shooting/throwing X amount of runs/points/touchdowns" and so forth. They look for the quantifiable, some sort of "definitive" logic formula.
I like that this writer didn't try to work backward toward a solution, citing the categorical advantages Taurasi may have in box scores or season averages, the way I feel that so many probably would. It intrigued me as someone who casually watches women's basketball and saw both Taurasi and Stewart play... as I, too, felt that Stewart was an exceptional talent... but Taurasi was straight-up larger-than-life.
This can obviously also work the opposite way, as some of the most irritating college basketball writers I know stick primarily with platitudes like "this is what this player does!" and other such cringeworthy phrasing. But that's where the elegance you referenced comes in, of course. Sadly, writerly elegance for my favorite sport feels like it's in relatively short supply.
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