Acquired Posting

In Which I Give Chuck Klosterman The Fire Joe Morgan Treatment

Chuck Klosterman wrote a post on Grantland with a list of who he thinks are the 50 best college basketball players of all-time. It’s a fun read, meant to provoke some debate of a good-natured sort and what-have-you. However, there are so many Klosterman-y moments sprinkled throughout that I started emailing—with the subject “Ooooh, boy”—my very-unsolicited criticisms to Deadspin wunderkind Jack Dickey, who is also frequently befuddled by the man we call (56% affectionately, mind you) Chuckles over GChat. These are those emails, with some things added to clarify, reference earlier things, etc.

Context: I am in the midst of an all-nighter for no reason whatsoever other than I kept watching movies last night—and Daylight Savings, woo!!! That probably accounts for 70% of the crankiness—and the fact that I am arbitrarily assigning percentage points to unquantifiable things, much like Chuck Klosterman is often wont to do.

Someone asked me to do this, after I tweeted about it, so you can all blame “Someone” if this takes up a lot of space in your feed.

There is no picture with this post because it’s really too-easy to attach an unflattering picture of a person to a blog post and appearance has no bearing on ideas, man.

I am not going to get into omissions because that’s as much, if not more, pointless than this whole exercise. So, let’s just get going because I am rambling.

“I think that — in both scenarios — the collegiate experience amplifies how important life feels, which means the emotional memory matters more than the technical details. I also think a big part of fondly remembering college — and, by extension, the sensation of loving college basketball — is related to the notion of selective nostalgia: In both instances, you spend a lot of time half-remembering noteworthy people you only knew in passing, and the hazy impermanence of those relationships somehow makes them more retrospectively satisfying.

[This is a complicated way of justifying my composition of a list.]”

No, Chuckles, that is a complicated way of justifying any errors in this list (I imagine).

[His criteria]

[Editor’s note]: I’m Just going to copy straight from the source email because I think it’s funny given what followed.

I am not intending to live-email this post, but his criteria is so groan-inducing-ly Klosterman-y. I mean, c’mon:

“You can disagree with the logic of my argument, but it’s not really based on logic, so your argument will fail.”

[Drinks]

“[Gerry McNamara’s] four-game performance in the 2008 2006 Big East tournament was more extraordinary than Billy Owens’ entire career.”

Come in, come in, Easily Googled-Fact. Wow, you made good time.

“36. Adam Morrison (Gonzaga, 2003-2006): He had the best Maui Invitational ever, and a mustache that failed. What’s more collegiate than that?”

Uh, 35 other things if the sequencing of this list is to be believed? Or is the post over already? Christ.

“You know, I have no idea if Rice hooked up with Sarah Palin in 1987. But if he did, I’m happy for both of them. Let’s assume the rumor is true: Why is this information remotely controversial? They were both adults. They probably had a lot in common. They were in Alaska. They were not in the town where Footloose happened. What, exactly, was the espoused atrocity here?”

[Ignores man made of straw] If I had to venture a guess, and I’m just spit-balling here, I would say it’s her steadfast refusal to back down from the “abstinence-only sex-education programs” thing. Just a guess.

To be fair, I get what he’s going for here. It’s salacious, yes, but hypocritical politicians are hypocritical politicians.

“22. Khalid El-Amin (UConn, 1997-2000): Did you ever play intramural basketball against a short, fat, confident kid who kept driving the paint and effortlessly scoring over every clown who tried to stop him? And no matter how hard you played him, he never seemed excited or intimidated or even particularly interested?

-snip-

El-Amin was the NCAA version of that unstoppable fat kid.

El-Amin was the NCAA version of that unstoppable fat kid who never seemed excited or intimidated or particularly interested because he was supremely toasted, Chuck.

That ‘99 UCONN team was pretty good though, have to give him that even though we all know the real reason that team was great rhymes with Vake Joskuhl.

“In the original draft of this story, I also argued that Carr was “the main reason UCLA’s 88-game win streak ended.” This is not true, since Carr had already graduated. But perhaps his memory provided motivation?”

This is meta-trolling, right? Just Inception-ing the haters, right? If this was on Twitter, it would be a joke from the #KlostermanPassages game. No way that isn’t a goof.

“[Hank Gathers was] absolutely the greatest player who ever died during an official game.”

You have to get up pretty earlyIt takes a lot of work to sound glib while mourning the loss of Hank Gathers. But, here we are.

“10. Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina, 2005-2009): Hansbrough was the basketball equivalent to Tim Tebow, but he arrived a year earlier. He prepared us for Tebow. He was the pre-Tebow. He was the Prebow.”

Chuck Klosterman either hasn’t seen a Tebow Broncos game or hasn’t seen Psycho T play for the Pacers. Alternately, Hansbrough didn’t really dominate the college game the same way Tebow did. But c’mon, Hansbrough is going to be a NBA rotation player for a while, Tebow is going to be switched to fullback or the Arena Football League. Yes, yes, “he’s talking about college” but he confessed to using hindsight earlier so this is a garbage comparison.

“5. Ralph Sampson (Virginia, 1979-1983): Absolutely the most skilled 7-foot-4 player of his (or any) generation, particularly if you like your 7-4 center to occasionally play shooting guard.”

I’m getting nit-picky—I never said I wasn’t going to be, jerks—but Rik Smits was better, and never lost to Chaminade. And isn’t that how tall Bill Walton, who is coming up on the list, is, allegedly?

“one could make the argument that perceiving “Lew Alcindor” as a separate entity from “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” is essentially a question about the definition of personhood.”

FUCK YOU.

Sorry again, Jack.

So yeah, that’s the end of it. Read this if you’re looking for a proper skewering of Mr. Klosterman.

1. shoalsonfire liked this
2. wentdog liked this
3. underscoredmatthews posted this