I'd wager money that Strauss was browbeaten by ESPN into taking his controversial position just to stir up drama.
I had to look him up, because I was wondering who the fuck he was too. Apparently he used to write on Bleacher Report, so that should be a tip-off right there. He was probably just trying to make a name for himself by taking a controversial stance, but he wound up just looking like a dumbass. Like I've said before, in today's era of blogging and ESPN pulling guys straight off these half-ass websites, it's becoming harder and harder to trust anyone's opinions on ESPN. I know two former fraternity brothers who write for an ESPN affiliate, and their stuff's always getting on the ESPN main page. One of the guys didn't even really start watching basketball more than casually until college though. Didn't you used to have to have a reputable journalism degree and years of experience working in the industry before breaking through to ESPN?
That hits a big problem in Sports blogging now. To many guys who use weird ass stats to make an argument instead of using stats to back up an argument.
I'm sure at one point, but when the internet went big in the late 90s early 2000s that changed everything. ESPN.com used to suck in terms of breaking news. The website that I started writing for, Sportstalk.com, was one of the game changers for online journalism. Unfortunately the big crash in 2001 caused Sportstalk to basically give itself to ESPN for free and Chad Ford (one of the founders of Sportstalk) got a big contract and moved to Bristol. That's where ESPN Insider got its start. A chosen few of the Sportstalk staff went on to ESPN and started Insider. Most of them had zero experience in sports (including Ford). Chad Ford was a lawyer. He and Jason Peery started the website and brought it to prominence. I worked for ESPN from 2001 until 2006, but not as a writer. Insider changed editors in 2003 I think, and the new editor wouldn't let me write. He didn't like the idea of someone in their basement writing for ESPN
So in a nutshell, this is the dudes argument. #1 "If 80 percent of life is showing up, as Woody Allen claims, then that does much to explain why Damian Lillard has a firm grasp on this season's rookie of the year award voting." #2 "The two main advanced statistics, Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Win Shares, both dramatically prefer Davis on a possession-to-possession basis. Based on PER, Davis is leading Lillard 21.8 to 16.6, an enormous advantage. In Win Share average, Davis nearly doubles Lillard .159 to .091." #3 "Davis was billed as a defensive force, and his team has remained bad at defense. These are facts, and they might disqualify him in the minds of some voters, since he's not great on the end of the floor that made him famous. But I believe he should win this award for providing superior offense to Lillard's. What little improvement New Orleans has experienced has come at the offensive end. It has leapt from a 26th ranking in offensive efficiency last season to a league-average 15th. Much of that has to do with AD's efficient, effective play and his ability to pressure defenses with the threat of the lob dunk. His ability at the rim is no small thing, and his ability to make that part of the game look easy shouldn't work against him."
He is trying so hard to defend it on twitter too. It's like he thinks that Dame is getting the ROY nod simply because he played a lot of minutes and started every game.
Well, there's a reason he played the minutes and started. I'm not over here arguing for Wroten to be ROY on the grounds that he could have had better games if he played minutes. This guy's arguments are weak as fuck. He's trying to make a name for himself, but well, I guess it's worked, because now I know who he is, even if it's because I think he's a total dumbass.
Indeed, a priori arguments are extremely important. Not EVERYTHING is about statistics, but that said stats are important. My opinion is that I like to look at even more advanced metrics than just WS/PER/etc. 82games.com supports Lillard but Davis wins in the other metrics IIRC. There's nothing trollish about Strauss's position though, and people get a little too enamored with offensive players.
The thing for me is, nobody is arguing that Davis won't be a really good player, with the caveat that he has to be able to stay healthy. Greg Oden put up some amazing numbers when he actually played as well. It's the "staying healthy" thing that seems to get in the way. And I can't argue that Davis has a better PER, but to try to say that Davis is the superior offensive player is just asinine. Lillard has almost scored twice as many points as Davis this season. 1499 to 867. He's averaging nearly 5.5 points per game more than Davis. He neglected to mention that in his article. And, here's the best part, this bozo likes to talk about win shares but Damian has an offensive win share of 5.0 while Davis only has an OWS of 3.7. Davis has missed almost a quarter of the games. You simply can't give the ROY to a guy who has missed 20 games. It's ridiculous. This guy has it all mixed up. The fact that Lillard has consistently put up his numbers over 79 games is MORE impressive than Davis putting up decent stats over 64 games. Who knows, Davis might have the last laugh in the long run. He might turn out to be the better player before it's all said and done, but there's a reason why Lillard is the undisputed ROY right now and it certainly isn't because he "showed up".
