That's right NBA Draft fans, we've got an old fashioned donnybrook! A brouhaha between two of the NCAA's finest for the hearts and minds of the readers of this fine periodical. But before we get started, let me take this opportunity to thank the seven individuals who have recently visited this site from Turkey. Thank you. I don't know who you are, or how you ended up here, but I hope each and every one of you found whatever it is you were looking for.
Where were we? Two colossi of human strength and basketball ingenuity enter the flaming ring of fire, only one man leaves! But how to choose?
In my personal opinion (and hopefully yours as well) a large part of what makes sports great, and what makes being a sports fan fun, is the space it provides for differing viewpoints. Crazed soccer hooligans excluded. They may not take kindly to different view points.
In this day and age, sports debates are increasingly dominated by the friction between those who rely on statistics, and those who rely on watching games. Basketball is an unusually interesting case study at this point in time, as it has not been completely captured by the statistical revolution and reduced to a mathematical model. For more on this see baseball. On the other hand, basketball fans have been much more receptive to statistical analysis than football fans, who seem to view their sport as "unquantifiable," due perhaps to the large number of bodies on the field at once.
In the NBA, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and a stat geek's Hakeem Olajuwon may be a hardcore fan's Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje. That is, unless those two men are talking about Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje. They will speedily agree that he is, in fact, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje.Imagine two blind old men groping at a volkswagen. One thinks he is feeling a well-designed German automobile, unpretentious yet comfortably luxurious. The other believes it to be a a precision engineered European driving machine, sporty and classy all at once. Ok bad example. But you get the picture. Therefore, let us view examine Kemba Walker and Brandon Knight through a multitude of prisms, in order to avoid mistaking an elephant for a snake.
Prism 1: Winning
The average NBA fan calling in to a radio talk show is so overwhelmingly concerned with winning, you could almost mistake him or her for Charlie Sheen or DJ Khaled. In this worldview, when it comes right down to it some guys are winners and some guys aren't. This is what separates Michael Jordan from Karl Malone. What exactly comprises the magical winning potion is a combination of toughness, determination, wanting it more than the other guy, the ability to perform under pressure, Adonis DNA, and literally any other sports cliche you have ever heard.
Though I mock it, there is some truth to this world view. If you have ever competed against another person in anything, be it competitive hot-dog eating or ballet you know what competing feels like. And for that matter you almost certainly know what winning and losing feel like. On a very primal level, we humans want to avoid the pain of losing, and experience the joy of winning. For some, competition brings out the absolute best, for others not so much. Brandon Knight played one year of college ball, and did his fair share of winning. Kemba Walker won his last 11 games to take home the Big East and NCAA Championships.
Edge: Kemba Walker
Prism 2: The Stats
Unfortunately this prism is extremely cloudy. Check out the incredible similarities between Walker and Knight's 2010 college stats here. Walker took more shots than Knight, and therefore scored more, but efficiency-wise the two were almost identical. Knight boasted a true shooting percentage of 55.2%, versus 54.2% for Walker. Their rebounding, and assist numbers were also very similar. Finally, Walker (a Junior) predictably turned the ball over less frequently than Knight (a freshman).
Edge: Dead even.
Prism #3: Athletic Measurables. At first glance, prisms #1 and #2 appear to be diametrically opposed. On the other hand, at least they both involve playing basketball. Whether you prefer to look at a player's college winning percentage or his college three point percentage, you are making the implicit assumption that college basketball correlates somehow to pro basketball. Seems reasonable, no? Not if you are Jay Bilas, Chad Ford, and a host of other true believers in the cult of athletic measurables. These zealots take it for granted that NBA basketball is a unique game. It doesn't matter what you did at UCLA, or Maccabi Tel Aviv, the NBA is populated only with world class atheletes, and if you can't compete athletically you will not succeed. Let's go to the tale of the tape on Kemba Walker and Brandon Knight. Hardcore fans click here for a mind-boggling array of measurements. To summarize all that, Knight is taller, has longer reach, is quicker, and skinnier. Kemba Walker jumps higher.
Edge: Brandon Knight
So after all that what have we learned? People have different perspectives, and never, ever, EVER stray from the Conway method. Watch the highlights and you will agree that Brandon Knight looks like Rajon Rondo with a jumper. Kemba Walker? He looks good too. Kyrie Irving look out.Brandon Knight Highlights
Kemba Walker Highlights
Darko Time!
Next Up: Czech out Jan Vesely!
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