My biggest gripe with today’s modern fan is this…… STATS, STATS, STATS. In my anti following the crowd head of mine, I hate it when guys and gals Stat drops. I think this new generation got hooked when Jay-Z said “men lie, women lie, numbers dont” This is when Stat mania took off. The early 2000s. Granted, if you make your money telling people stats for a living or have to provide actual substance of proof, I’m all for it. But let’s go through a scenario where stats are irrelevant in sports. We will use basketball. And let’s brainstorm this for a minute. (And for the irony, what the hell I’ll use a few stats or 2) About 78% of nba players are black. Out of this 78% of black men playing the game, more than half of them come from poverty, broken homes, the hood, projects, ghettos, etc. Do you think when they were playing pick up ball on the block or in the gym the first thing they say is “Ahh man my PER is very low and my defensive win share % is not up to par” Hell to the no, right. When your playing pick up ball, AAU, High school, rec league, church league etc you will think of 3 stats… 1. How many points did you have. 2. How many points did your man you were guarding have. 3 How much did you win or lose by.  I can speak of this playing in all of those platforms as a black man. (Minus AAU)

Now here’s the kicker. Growing up here in San Francisco Ca, we are known for being a soft basketball town. Hell San Francisco invented stretch 4s. It’s the only city growing up in the 89s and 90s where ulyou would see 7 footers playing soft as hell. Taking 3s. Playing outside the paint. Calling every foul. Crying. Bitching. Complaining. Now is that because San Francisco is 49% white, 33% asian, 10% latino, 6 % black, 2% other?? Meaning if you can’t get what these STATS are telling you lemme just flat out say it. Whites and Asians are softer when it comes to pick up games. Now go to Oakland moss wood park, go to detriot, Venice beach, rucker, etc you have some real ballers who are tough, talk trash, in your face etc. For us black men basketball is more than just stats. When I ball with my white and asian friends they all care about is stats. When I moved to the projects in 1995, basketball was the only way for me to eat. My mom would give me a $5 book of food stamps and I had to make that stretch for a week. So all us hood kids would play hunch (1 vs 1 vs 1 vs), put all of our food stamps in a pot and winner takes all. It was the only way to eat without selling drugs. I’ve had guns and knives pulled on me etc etc. But that’s why I play the game so hard. Like most black men in the nba. Balls out. (Iverson, Westbrook, draymond green, prime derrick rose, kd, etc) Do you think these guys had similar up bringing than I did? Better or worse ( hell use a Stat if u like, I know you want too. What’s your over/under hahaha) but my point is these guys who look like me, came from the same backgrounds as me, talk like me. They didnt care about any of that when your lights are off. They don’t care about usage % when you’ve been wearing the same draws for a week. But I wonder who does care about stats?? Advance stats, analytics and fantasy sports were a way for white collar guys to make billions of dollars off of black athletes. There I said it. Brothas in the barbershop are not talking about win shares. So next time you get into a debate about stats with a person of the fairer skin asks yourself this…

“Would they have the same argument if they came from poverty?”

Hmmmmm

Heart>Stats