After seeing this article, I'm curious how you guys feel about local media piling on when one of our players gets embarrassed. I'm thinking why would our local media want to provide info on how to help celebrate a play that embarrasses one of our best players. Do you think it matters? Is it just freedom of the press, or should we leave that kind of thing to external media sources?
I don't live in Detroit (Australian), but I think it is pretty poor all around. Like sure, its a big and badass dunk. But it requires a pair of the biggest size to even think about contesting that, and that part is never mentioned. Which is really sad.
I think the shirt is funny in a "hate the game not the player" sort of way. The fact that that dunk is being soooooo celebrated is a microcosm of what the league has become. (man ...I sound like an old man) Knight showed some bawlz on that play. Jordan showed that he's athletic enough to dunk on a PG. Perhaps a t-shirt featuring caricatures of all of the Pistons who played in that game (EXCEPTKnight) wearing some cartoonish matador costumes might be more appropriate.
A Detroit media person could have done a story on the shirt being made. It should have been a mocking story of all that is wrong with the league and a celebration of how we have a player that is what all players should strive to be. The way the story was done goes to the ends of showing why local sports reporters are becoming a dieing breed. I want my local media to be PRO Detroit, without being the lap dogs of the clubs...
Well, its a pretty weak excuse for a t-shirt. Maybe if it was an elimination game of an important playoff series like the Tay block on Reggie Miller. They are lucky anyone is writing about them these days.
Its more a symptom of internet journalism. In traditional media, you have a distinct market...most of which should be local fans of a local team. With the internet, its all about hits and hits are from all over. I think the nature of the internet changes what journalism is all about. sad really.
For the most part I'd agree, I'd expect the slobbering over the dunk from internet folks and such, but to read articles on the Free Press and the News websites I found disappointing.
I'd agree with the internet journalism point, in that this really isn't a long form article. It's a blog post. If it was in print, it'd probably just be a sidebar. I really don't get the defense of Knight, who gave up a 3-point play. Being courageous doesn't absolve you from being embarrassed. There is no Adrian Wojnarowski article defending me for striking out at the bar!
If Knight ended up blocking that dunk, it would've been block of the year. I'm glad that it is the little guy with the big balls that's wearing the Pistons uniform.
I don't want you to take this personally, but I would never follow you into battle. Embarrassment doesn't matter to people who try to do great things.
One more thing. I don't want to get into who is a real fan, and who is not, and who is a real Detroiter (technically I am not) and who is not, but the Pistons have always had a reputation as a tough team, and what Knight did may make him a laughingstock in other corners of the league, but earned him a massive amount of credibility in Detroit with the fans. It's ok for your hero to fail if he lays it all on the line. That's what has always separated Pistons nation from places where they rely on superstars to deliver their entertainment night in and night out.
Looking on the bright side, the attention that the dunk on Knight generated made everybody forget about the other 17 monster dunks against us that game... and the left handed guide in and the doctor J baseline classic by Griffin. This game would be a good one to force the team to watch before the Heat game on Friday.
I'm overseas reader, why do I regularly log in to Detroit media sites and read their pro-basketball journals if I ain't for Pistons ?
I'm not always a fan of Marc Cuban, but he got this one right: Jason Terry, Brandon Knight praised by Mark Cuban for trying to defend dunks - ESPN Dallas
It's fine. I'm not the type of person to care either way. If he wanted to do a great thing, he could have read the play better (Did Brandon Knight make the right play to contest DeAndre Jordan's dunk? - SBNation.com). He could've taken a more aggressive angle towards Jordan and put him on the line (a poor FT shooter) instead of moving laterally and trying to contest him straight up. But he made the play he saw, gambled for a block and lost. He's the butt of jokes until the next big dunk (which already happened), and with the exception of highlight countdowns, will go back to being a distant memory in the collective conscious. That's he's courageous and competitive is fantastic. Those traits will likely continue to take him far in life. And sometimes it'll get him on a poster.
