Smokin' Joe's Lament

Body punches don't play well with TV and radio announcers. That's why if you watch a fight on TV with the sound on, and the fight is between a short pressure fighter and a rangy boxer, you will probably be biased in favor of the taller, outside fighter.

I'm noticing this season that there is a similar problem in basketball with regard to post play. I'm listening to the Heat/Pistons game right now and Dr. Jack is beside himself talking about how great Dwayne Wade is playing, and he just said that "The Heat are getting the ball to Shaq, but Shaq is not having a lot of success."

Right now Wade is 5 of 11, and Shaq is 7 of 13. Having watched basketball, I know where Dr. Jack is coming from in his praise of Wade. Jump shooters just look more impressive than post players, so you can get carried away thinking a guy is having a great game when he's really only shooting OK. But give Shaq some credit. 7 for 13 is pretty good. You have to pay more attention than that.

I think that type of illusion's what sustains the careers of basically useless offensive players like Latrell Sprewell. Latrell could be a pretty good third option, and he's a good defender, but as a featured scorer he is awful, because he shoots like 42%, which just isn't the type of percentage you want to base your offense around.

Yet year in and year out there is always some team willing to use Spre and let him take 20 shots a game. I assume it's because Spre's 8 for 22 just looks prettier than some big guy banging around going 9 for 17. If a guy shoots 3 for 8 from 19 feet, it seems like he's shooting pretty well. But 3 for 8 sucks.

Joe Frazier had this same problem against Ali. Joe thought he probably should have won the second Ali fight, and if you watch the fight in real time, with the sound on, you wonder what the hell fight he was at. But if you slow it down, take the sound off, and really look, you can see he landed a lot of solid, clean shots to the body. They just don't look as good. Too bad for Joe.