Short Pitch: Occupy Cricinfo

Cricinfo, the arbiter of finality for all oval-based pub discussion, is a necessary evil.  It exists almost entirely to disseminate information about a game played where a cork ball enveloped in leather is flung at at someone wielding a ruddy great lump of willow.

The interweb - and through the magic of Google, its affiliation with ESPN and Search Engine Optimisation - is where an awful lot of us 6.8 evolved primates go in order to find out more.  As a case in point - Encyclopaedia Britannica last week published their final  - ever - hard copy of their 244 year old tome.  And ESPN Cricinfo, is often the first - and only - site you'll see.  Only cricket tragics know of sites like (the magnificent) Idle Summers. Click on Wisden's "Archive" and suddenly, you're linked to Cricinfo.  It is omnipresent, omniscient - and increasingly partisan.

courtesy: telegraph.co.uk

 The internet, by its very nature, is almost all partisan. from the most - eg. Sarah Palin's SuperPAC - through the intentionally "homer" (The Sports Guy), to focus sites like the (again excellent) Allhabs.net.  It is a simple matter of knowing your audience; only a few sites have managed to keep the hardcore fans satisfied while also expanding to encompass a broader, more global audience.  Even with a good product, expanding your "market" without offending your existing niche customer base is hard to do - ask Linux.


Given the nature of international cricket - where its largest audience is from one country - Cricinfo, especially since former UK editor Andrew Miller moved on to The Cricketer magazine, has become increasingly subcontinental and T20-centric in tone.  Perhaps this is because I view Twenty20 as the tabloid version of a beautiful, nuanced event, but the result is - and this is very much a personal opinion - as the site becomes more small-pages-big-print and divests itself of keen insight, I find there is little of interest on Cricinfo without serious searching.

(OK, you got me - I'm newspaperist).

This is (probably) simply a matter of catering to dominant market demands, but by doing so Cricinfo has become part of the internet's 99%.  With the needs of a diverse populace Because there is no other site with the ability/backing to present the information they do, it behoves Cricinfo to remain as impartial as possible.

Corporate responsibility is a funny thing.  If you ask any company what comes first, most will answer "our clientele" or "providing the best service".  However, that stands true until the company faces decreasing revenues or being left behind in the marketplace - where those statements of intent should read "our clientele, until it becomes inconvenient".

Adapting Cricinfo to suit the needs of remarkably diverse network of populations has to be more than providing tacit acknowledgement of what goes on in the cricket world that's not sparkly - because that already happens.  Personally, I'm not sure how to correct the problem.  However, what I do realise is that as others become equally unenamoured with Cricinfo's "insight", they'll begin to search the blogosphere and find the 1% like World Cricket Watch, 99.94 and Alternative Cricket.

The Return of "Smithy"

As I flicked past the A-League results page on ESPN Soccernet's page this morning, I chanced upon an odd name: a player named “Smithy” apparently started at centre-forward for the Wellington Phoenix in their match against Adelaide on Friday.

Screen dump from ESPN Soccernet

This struck me as odd, as the last guy to make it big in the world of football with that name was (sit down Alan Smith, it's not you) James Corden, who performed as Smithy the plumber for 2009 Comic Relief. It certainly wasn't him; nor was it one of those South American names that sound unusual to the anglophone (Vagner Love?).  Nor had Joel "Smithy" Corey switched codes.

It turns out on closer inspection that the mysterious “Smithy” is US/English footballer Alex Smith who was on the books at FC Dallas before appearing in Australia for Gold Coast FC, Sydney Olympic and recently the Phoenix. Nowhere can I find mention of him changing his name to “Smithy” so either the lads at Soccernet are having a bit of a joke, or there's something about the big Ginger fella we don't know.

On second thoughts, as a second-tier player in a relatively minor league, there's probably a lot about him we don't know.

Giving it a red hot go

by Balanced Sports columnist Ben Roberts

ESPN.com recently ran a story about Boston Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youklis, who they described as the definition of the 'blue collar athlete'. Youklis is a hitter not taken to niceties, he has a job to do every game and will give his all every time he steps up to the plate.¹ Working hard to make the pitcher work even harder and get himself on base, Youklis may not put up the performances that win awards, but he can be relied upon to get himself on base a high proportion of the time. Getting players on base is something my own San Francisco Giants appear destined to continue to fail at while they remain dedicated to sticking with the highly paid and under-motivated.

Despite being an Australian and therefore morally (and spiritually) bound to never allow Americanisms to enter my vernacular, I have to defer to Uncle Sam in this instance as I reckon their word for the type of player Youklis is just about perfect. Youklis is a 'Gamer'. A gamer relishes competition and the heat of the moment when they need to be relied upon. They 'have a crack' or give it a 'red hot go' always and this is their strength.

On one of the few televised games of Major League Baseball that enter the Australian airwaves I was able to watch Youklis and his Red Sox play against the New York Yankees that included another player who works hard at bat and maybe (at least to my untrained eye) meets the definition of a gamer, Nick Swisher.² Swisher like Youklis makes the pitchers work to his strengths and does not tire of doing the un-dramatic such as drawing walks.

I remember watching the NBA during the Michael Jordan era and being surprised that among the flashy skills of players like Jordan, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, or Tim Hardaway here was this white guy³ making all-star teams and holding his own. This white guy was Chris Mullin, and he was a gamer too. Mullin's gamer effort was as much about his work on the practice court as it was in game play. In honouring his elevation to the Hall of Fame Grantland.com called Mullin a dying breed, a rarity not blessed with natural athleticism who made the grade. Mullins drive to succeed and develop his skills took him to the top of his sport.

Jumping across to the most notable of the world games leagues the EPL and we find gamers there too. Unlucky not to secure all the major individual awards for last years Premier League, Scott Parker proved to be a larger than life character for West Ham as they fought to retain their place in the top flight. Parker routinely was the only reason why the Hammers managed to secure points throughout the season because he was always up for the fight and was willing to grab his team mates by the scruff of the neck to do likewise. Unfortunately it was all in vain⁴.

Newcastle's⁵ Joey Barton is another player always up for the fight, though he is an example of erring on the side of going over the top, and probably the aging Phil Neville. Both players were potential targets of both North London clubs who need hardening up this year if they stand any chance of finishing above 5^th and 6^th in the league.

You may begin to get the feeling that the definition of a gamer is restricted short on natural talent or natural athleticism but gets the most out of what they do have. This is not true. Moving to our third continent we find a phenomenal gamer who has both the huge amount of natural talent, and athletic capability.

Chris Judd in 2011 continues to prove that he is the best player Australian football has currently, and will finish up at the very least in the top ten of all time. All followers know how amazing his skills are and his athleticism and strength are amazing, but his insatiable desire for the contest is what drags him to be a cut above the rest. West Coast won a premiership because of him, and Carlton stand a chance of winning one in the near future for the same reason. Take him out of either team and they may still be a chance, but I reckon he almost doubles the chance of any team he plays in.

Looking back into history you find Michael Jordan, the greatest on the hardwood of all time and a serious gamer. Take the opportunity and watch his 'flu game' in the 1997 championship series against Utah. The only reason the Chicago Bulls won that game was Michael Jordan. Illness stripped him of his usually immense physical capacity, yet his drive to win dragged his team over the line. Even the greatest of skills and athleticism can get taken to the next level.

I love watching these players in any sport. They are the reason why we as spectators enjoy the contest. I wrote recently about my favourite cricketer of all time Allan Border, without him I would not have witnessed the great success of the Australian cricket team.

We owe these gamers the most respect in the games they play.

1 First time in my life I have ever used this phrase literally rather than figuratively.

2 Previously only notable to me for appearing in an episode of 'How I Met Your Mother'.

3 With a buzz-cut tribute to Dolph Lundgren.

4 Trouble is that no matter how great Parker was, Avram Grant was more than equally bad.

5 Just.

The ICC's Best Test XI?

So on the occasion of the two-thousandth Test match, the ICC has taken it upon themselves to right royally arse it up once again.

To celebrate the two-thousandth match in the most honoured form of the sport, the celebrated accountants who today control cricket decided to celebrate by announcing an XI comprised of the best players ever to play Test cricket. A great idea, good publicity and rightfully commemorating the best to grace the arenas. The team was announced the weekend before the match to great fanfare and instantly the enormous errors of judgement inherent in the selection process became obvious.

Awesome, but best ever?  Only maybe.

Those named should almost be ashamed of their selection and those who missed out should let rip with a relieved sigh. Why? Because an honour which should be immense has been turned into swill. The ICC, with their infinitely clear vision, opened selection to an internet-based popular vote. While generating remarkable website traffic and the trending hash-tag #ICCTestXI - publicity you can't buy - it also produced results biased beyond all common sense and by anointing the team selected by the fans, the ICC has spat in the face of cricketers like Sir Garfield Sobers, Malcolm Marshall, Keith Miller, Jack Hobbs, Harold Larwood, Bill O'Reilly, Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards.

The team features aggressive and enduring batting, a skilled all-rounder and devastating bowling. What it lacks, however, is credibility due to the populist selection policy encouraged by the ICC. Although the XI selected would be highly competitive against any other "Best of" team, the results are swayed to the Internet generation and to the subcontinent. This is to be expected given India's population and the popularity of cricket within. But for the ICC to come out and then anoint these players as the best ever to play reeks of pandering to the whims of their clientele.

When ESPN Cricinfo selected their best ever team last year it was done so according to a selection panel of respected, educated voices. The fans got their say, able to select their teams and compare. When the NBA marked it's fiftieth anniversary with the "Fifty Greatest players in NBA history", the list was compiled by experts - so too, was the AFL's Team of the Century. The greatest blunder here isn't that the public were consulted, it is that ONLY the public were consulted and now the ICC will consecrate these eleven players as the greatest. This devalues the contribution of every single player to grace a field before 1980 because the people who voted are swayed by recent memory, youth, YouTube and covered pitches.

Leaving aside the fact that comparing players across eras is a futile exercise because of the changing face of cricket over time, it's errors of judgement like these which make it seem the ICC has sought public debate and promotion at the expense of Test cricket's rich, textured history. It's eminently possible that voters didn't even know of Bill O'Reilly or Herbert Sutcliffe. Being selected to a commemorative XI should be amongst - if not the - greatest individual honour a player can receive. When a deserving player - Sobers, for example, a unanimous selection to the Cricinfo team - is ejected in what amounts to a popularity contest, the flaws in the system laid down by the ICC scream like Bruce Reid after he snaps in half.

Every player who made the list, with the exception of the statistical anomaly Bradman, played within the last thirty years. This most damning evidence is proof enough in itself how swayed to the modern the voting has been - no matter how talented this era's the players have been. In a "Fan's All-Time XI", sure, I'll buy that - but then to be named the best ever by the game's governing body? The ICC, never a stranger to populism, has taken another step towards joining FIFA in the abyss.

Kapil Dev's finest moment.  True to form, it's not in a Test match.

Finally, the ICC must concede than any popular vote put up by it has to be tempered with the knowledge that India will dominate. While Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar rate as amongst, if not the, best candidates for their positions - though you'd have a hard time convincing me - Kapil Dev, very good player that he was, does not. The players in front of him (Sobers, Miller, Botham, Imran Khan and even Hadlee) were all vastly superior. This reflects strongly the 1.2 billion Indian obsessions with cricket - it has seven times the voting power of the next most populous cricketing nation, Pakistan, 25 times that of South Africa and 255 times the voting power of New Zealand. Of course the voting is going to be swayed.

Having backed themselves into a corner, the ICC will crown these players as the best the Test format has ever seen. Under the outward guise of inclusivity, the never-ending hunt for publicity has created a team which almost - but not quite - completely fails to resemble the best ever. Without using adequate foresight, they've smote another blow to cricket tradition.

But this is the ICC. What more could we expect?

Book review: The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons

The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons of ESPN, has been reviewed on our affiliate website Books with Balls, where we review the books that guys with chest hair read.

Or anyone, really, but you're definitely not going to find Jackie Collins there.

The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons at Books with Balls.

It's all your fault, Carmelo Anthony.

Since the trade in which the New York Knicks acquired Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks have won only seven of seventeen contests. Their loss last night at home to Orlando took them below .500 on the season (35-36) and for the first time since they were 8-9 on November 27th. The blogosphere is now asking if the trade was in error, especially given the price the Knicks paid - Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, two second round picks and a first rounder.

Early in ESPN's telecast, broadcaster Mike Breen mentioned Nueva York's recent 1-7 record and was interrupted by his colour commentator, former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy, who blurted out "You can't put everything on one guy. Is it's Carmelo Anthony's fault that Chauncey Billups had eight turnovers? Is it Carmelo's fault that Toney Douglas shoots one for twelve"?

In short, Jeff, we can. It may not be entirely accurate, but it's possible.

'Melo decided that there was only one place he wanted to play, New York, to play with Amar'e Stoudemire and for his hometown team. Though popular opinion had the Nuggets preferring the New Jersey Nets trade offer, Anthony steadfastly refused to commit to extending his contract in Jersey and publicly nixed any other potential relocations by doing the same. A further complicating factor included Anthony wanting (needing?) to sign a new contract in-season (rather than after the season) because delaying until northern Summer would cost him somewhere in the region of $20 million. In that scenario it's eminently possible he would have signed for whoever threw him the most money and unlikely to be in Manhattan.

In almost the truest sense of the word, Carmelo Anthony wanted his cake and to eat it, too. The Knicks wanted him and were prepared to pay handsomely; Anthony wanted the Knicks and he wanted a maximum-dollar contract extension. The entire Melodrama (sorry) was engineered by Carmelo Anthony and his agent and it worked out well for the small forward - until the Knicks' form took a sudden turn for the worse. Mid-season trades usually mean one of two things for a team: a club could struggle to incorporate the player into their tactical schemes and form suffers; or the club is revitalised by the talent injection and start to win more games.

To go back to our initial question, can you blame all the Knicks' recent woes on Carmelo? Because Anthony orchestrated the entire scheme to play where and for the salary he wanted, he is indirectly responsible for the current New York Knicks playing roster. He forced Denver to deal him, and compelled New York to come and get him. The Nuggets then had the responsibility to get the best package possible, meaning rather than Danilo Gallinari or Wilson Chandler taking shots, it is Toney Douglas - an inferior outside shooter. Instead of Raymond Felton with the benefit of a training camp, it's Chauncey Billups charged with bringing the ball up the floor, a player trying to learn coach Mike D'Antoni's system on the fly.

In short, we can blame Carmelo Anthony for the Knicks' recent woes. It may not necessarily be entirely accurate, but the argument is there.

Book review: The Art of a Beautiful Game, by Chris Ballard

This review is a re-post of it's original entry from our sibling book review site, Books with Balls.

You may think that Dwight Howard's a monster rebounder because at 7 feet and one inch, 265 pounds and with steel springs for legs he's the NBA's most perfect physical specimen since Chamberlain.

But you're wrong.

Because Big Ben Wallace, the Pistons' 6'8 fireplug centre rebounds just as well, age and infirmity permitting. What Big Ben and D12 have in common is their uncanny ability to read direction, velocity and arc of the ball straight from the shooter's fingertips; analyse in a fraction of a second where the ball will impact on the hoop or backboard, and adjust their reactions to be where they need to be in order to pick up the loose ball. Kevin Love, the NBA's rebounding leader, uses the same principles and does it looking like a rec club baller, doing it for the love of the game. So much goes into the art of rebounding that Chris Ballard devotes an entire chapter to it in his book, The Art of a Beautiful Game.

When it comes to NBA journalism, Chrises seem to be everywhere. ESPN boast three of them: Messrs Sheridan (New York), Forsberg (Boston), Broussard (the key story-hound). Chris Ballard continues the tradition, though being a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. After covering the NBA for many years and through chats with players, formal and casual, he's pieced together a short-ish but beautifully crafted work about how certain players in the NBA are good at their jobs. Each chapter describes an aspect of the sport, from the high-profile shooters to the understated beauty of a perfectly-set screen. When it comes to a particular skill, who better to hear it from than the best? Ballard watches tape with LeBron, plays H-O-R-S-E game with Steve Kerr and his encounter with the World Free-Throw Shooting record holder, Dr. Tom Amberry. The "Big Kahuna of Free-Throw Shooting" set the record as a seventy-one year old in 1993, nailing 2750 straight free-throws before the gym in which he was shooting asked him to leave - they had to close for the night. And that's just the research he did especially for the book - also recorded are conversations he's had, professionally and privately, with the NBA's greatest. All go together to make an elegantly rounded picture.

Each chapter describes in detail the importance of biomechanics, athleticism, attitude and the ability to read play. Not just focusing on technical aspects, he describes taking a weeklong course at Coach David Thorpe's Florida training academy to see what devoted NBA stars get up to in their alleged down-time and a morning spent with a performance guru who works out players before draft day. And when Ballard's there, the reader is there: whether it's not kicking a leg out when shooting jumpers, out-thinking David Robinson in a battle for a rebound or trying to stop Chris Morris from getting arrested at the end of a long road trip.

What's most startling about his adventures and conversations is Ballard's writing style. As Howard is an artist on the boards, Ballard is with words. He writes so easily, fluidly and - there's no other word for it - beautifully, that the book is consumed within a matter of a few hours and leaves you slightly disappointed that it's finished; but therein lies more art, knowing when to finish.

The Art of a Beautiful Game by Chris Ballard scores footballs - an outstanding piece of literature.

With injurious tackles, intent is irrelevant

In her blog piece “de Jong tackle devoid of intent”, ESPN's Rebecca Lowe has completely missed the point with regards overzealous tackling in world football. She describes it as “just one of those incidents”, while saying that Toon manager Chris Hughton was “more angry with referee Martin Atkinson about the penalty than the tackle”. There's no question Hughton would be more concerned about the penalty conceded - Managers focus on what they can control, rather than what they cannot.

Her next sentence however gives the game away. “I think the general consensus is that it was a bad tackle, but it wasn't intended to break his leg”. Of course it wasn't aimed at breaking Hatem Ben Arfa's leg! What ridiculous, fatuous nonsense! Rebecca Lowe has missed the point like an Asamoah Gyan penalty: very rarely will a player set out to intentionally injure another. It occasionally happens – a la Roy Keane and Alf-Inge Haaland – but the fact is Nigel de Jong has form for injurious tackles and as such intent doesn't matter. Either his technique is very poor, his decision making is very poor or he is extremely unfortunate. There is no middle ground. That Lowe suggests that players are now “afraid” to tackle because they risk a card is ludicrous given the voracity with which de Jong has challenged Alonso, Stuart Holden and now Ben Arfa.

To defend a player and say he shouldn't be punished because he didn't mean to injure someone is akin to defending a motorist who by poor driving ability breaks a pedestrian's leg. If you can't do something dangerous well, then you should use caution when applying that dangerous procedure, it's simple risk minimisation. More than that, it's plain common sense and common sense should always apply on the sports field.

A player who tackles poorly deserves to be punished, especially if the tackle seriously hurts another player. Calls for the tackling to be banned for as long as the tackled one are completely unworkable but without question a three-game ban is completely insufficient for a challenge of such magnitude and destructiveness. Repeat offenders, of which there can be no question that de Jong and Wolves' Karl Henry are, must be punished more severely by the powers-that-be. If that is a FA-sanctioned ban or their national team coach omitting them. Intent just doesn't enter into the matter – the result is all that matters. That being said, poor challenges often don't have such a traumatic result, so hindsight is very much the key action in play here.

Perhaps it would be best to assemble a matrix as in the Australian Football League. In such a system, challenges and offences are graded according to whether they are Negligent, Reckless or Intentional and punished according to a sliding scale. Another layer is added if a challenge is assessed as being Low, Medium or High Impact; in this system a player is punished more with a more serious injury. Should a tackle not be ranked as negligent, reckless or intentional then the impact would not count against the “offender” - take for example the Kirk Broadfoot/Antonio Valencia injury three weeks ago.

With this system, the AFL has stamped out a lot of head-high contact and the duty of care in preventing injuries and concussions rests solely on the defender. Many sports have the defender accountable for injuries incurred while guarding their goals, it's time for football to wise up and do likewise.

All time best? No way.

While doing my daily scan of ESPN's NBA page, I noticed their feature front-page article was one allowing the punters to pick their team's all-time franchise starting five. It proved an adventure for me as I – an extremely well-informed basketball fan – was forced to laugh at some of the selections made by fans worldwide.

After checking the results, I was amazed at who had made it into the teams selected. Flabbergasted. What it proved was this:

1. That sports fans have an incredibly short memory.

2. That the voters on the site have only a minimal idea of the game's history, nor the context that should have been applied when voting on the players.

3. Statistics matter, especially when evaluating players pre-1980, the modern era of basketball.

And

4. That these fans were voting just for the hell of it, swayed only by the one-line descriptions offered onsite.

I'm not going to say the exercise had any meaning – of course it didn't, apart from to pull in the casual browsers. But what really made me mad were things like (in no particular order):

• 55% of the vote for the best-ever Miami Heat Power Forward going to Udonis Haslem.

• Wes Unseld beaten out best Washington Wizards Centre by Walt Bellamy. In the same team, Bobby Dandridge – the difference maker behind the Bullets winning the title in 1978 and getting back to the finals in 1979 – got only 3.6% of the SF vote.

• Ray Allen's 86.8% vote for Seattle/Oklahoma City's best ever shooting guard became laughable when considered that the runners up – Dennis Johnson (6.4%) and “Downtown” Freddie Brown (1.2%) have legit claims to be the best guard in Seattle's history.

• George McGinnis behind Jermaine O'Neal as Indiana's PF? Puh-lease. That Don Buse (0.6%) finished as Indiana's sixth best PG – with one sixth the vote of Jamaal Tinsley – makes one cringe. One of the bets defensive PGs ever (with Al Attles, KC Jones and Gary Payton) rating this low is a sin.

On only cursory examination, it's obvious that many people plumped only for names or statistics. Steve Kerr didn't even start at Chicago yet his profile since retirement (firstly on TNT and then as GM of the Phoenix Suns) means he achieved double the vote of John Paxson, by every account a smarter player and far superior defender; as shooters there really wasn't much difference. Basketball minds far and wide should worry that visibility is other only category on which players are judged, though perhaps Paxson's role in Vinny Del Negro's Chicago coaching cul-de-sac could also factor in. Players – genuine greats of the game like McGinnis, Unseld & Buse are by this measure, being treated only as average players.

You can be sure that many votes were “donkey votes”, chosen only to get to the end of the process, rather than having any meaning. But not to fear. To eliminate these we can simply assign the votes of anyone with less that 1.0% to the winner at their position, ie. Scottie Pippen's 97.1% would receive another 0.9% of the vote from Toni Kukoc and Luol Deng (making his final tally 98%) - and I challenge anyone, anyone to tell me Luol Deng's a better small forward for Chicago than Pippen. That ESPN's chosen to give everyone only one line of statistical and background information hardly promotes effective results. Ask any statistician and they will tell you “You use shitty data and you get shitty results”.

Secondly, I'm certain the voting was swayed by the less-informed masses selecting players not on being the best players for that team, but the best player who played for that team at any time. By logical extension, Paul Gasol suddenly has Dennis Rodman as competition for the Lakers' starting PF gig, and Tim Hardaway has to compare with Gary Payton. Perhaps the best example comes from the Houston Rockets. Clyde Drexler was dealt there in 1995 as the team made their way to the second of their back-to-back titles. If you take their entire careers, there's no doubt that Drexler was superior to the other candidates McGrady, Cat Mobley and Calvin Murphy. But could you honestly say that Drexler from 1995-1998 was a better player than Calvin Murphy, who gave the Rockets 12 years, 20ppg, all-star appearances and shooting for which most current coaches would give their left ball?

Another curious fact is the lack of respect afforded the 1970s. Long considered the dark ages of professional basketball due to the appearance of the rival ABA and the multitude of fights, drugs and excesses of the era, it appears the fine players of that time – Unseld, Dandridge, Buse and the Nuggets' Dan Issel – have suffered because of the league's lack of exposure. Rather than definitive players receiving accolades, poor substitutes and pale imitations get the kudos. Awareness of basketball in popular American – and let's be fair, in world – culture came only after the 1979 Indiana State/Michigan State NCAA Finals, which ushered in the Bird vs. Magic era and shortly after that, the Jordan era.

This is, however, the nature of the internet. To paraphrase that cinematic masterpiece Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - “The internet has given everyone in America a voice, and evidently everyone in America has chosen that voice to diss Dennis Johnson”. Because the net is only 21 years old, the internet generation is a young one, most of whom wouldn't even know Bobby Dandridge's exploits with the Bucks and Bullets – let alone even recognising the name. Couple this with the explosion of television coverage starting with the Bird/Magic era and suddenly the youth of today – and even those interested in sports history – have a much greater chance of seeing and being swayed by the deeds of the 1980s than even the 1970s.

This isn't the time for the Peak vs. Longevity debate. Or for Intangibles vs. Numbers vs. Impact. The point here is that this process is so subjective, therefore it's ultimately polarising. I'm sure if you took the most knowledgeable NBA fans and asked them for the All-Time Starting Five for a middle-of-the-pack NBA franchise, say the Bucks or the (Zombie) Sonics or the Bullets/Wizards then there would be discrepancies. Some value scoring, others defence, others great service.

Slowly, over time, I have come to realise that comparison between eras is simply a futile exercise. Without an educated populace, methods of comparison or ways of compensating for the changes in the rules of the games it becomes simply an exercise in popularity with the most likeable, approachable and best-remembered players receiving precedence over others with potentially superior bodies of work. Comparison is great for stimulating debate but no seriousness can be placed upon the results of any such exercise.

So why am I devoting so many column inches to the results of something ESPN must have posted simply for clicks and giggles? Because I feel for basketball history and don't want to see players who should remain all-time greats gets only a 0.6% vote. It goes against my sensibilities as an educated fan to think that 90% of people think Ray Allen was a better Sonic than Dennis Johnson.