David Kahn, the media, and cognitive dissonance...

Great quote, and I think a perfect description for where we WERE at. Kahn has us with 4 potential franchise builders (Al, Love, Flynn, Rubio), 3 first round picks, and cap room.

If McHale was still here, we wouldn’t have The Rube’s rights, we wouldn’t have Charlotte’s 1st next year, we would have signed Foye and Miller to way overpriced extensions, and would have finished with 35 wins and no future instead of 25-30 wins and a championship future…

IMHO

I find one thing to be true.

Your average journalist/blogger covering a national sport know less about your team than your average reasonably informed fan.

Journalists use the throw away line because they have neither the time nor inclination to do more research. And they figure, correctly, that they wont be rewarded for that effort in any event.

Bloggers cover up their lack of knowledge with clever chat and pop culture references.

In any sport I follow, I get the best, most accurate information and the most incisive analysis from people who live that team, be it the Wolves here or my Australian football team. If I want a general overview, I’ll read a news site. If I want the detail, I turn to the fans. They know.

Clearly stating weaknesses of Love and Jefferson. Which deals in the past he didn’t like. What he expects from bringing in Hollins. That he doesn’t know yet what to do with Richardson. What cap space plans he has. And so on.

That is both a good and a bad thing. You wouldn’t hear something like that from most GMs in the league, who seem much more trained in the art of saying little with a lot of words.

I have been posting here because I like Kahn and believe he is at the starting line to turning around a franchise that was one of the jokes of the league. As I have stated before, he is bold, honest and has a vision.

Using your definition of cognitive dissonance, “Cognitive dissonance occurs when pieces of information you encounter don’t seem right or don’t make sense. Usually, there are two pieces of contradictory information that seem unresolvable.” I do not think this has occurred yet for the TWoles . You need results for cognitive dissonance to occur. When you are bold, like taking Rubio, you are taking a risk and may be wrong. If the Rubio move does not live up to expectations there will be a temporary perception that nothing has changed for the TWolves. For the TWolves there will be cognitive dissonance when they are better. The risky Rubio move feeds the perception of a dysfunctional franchise. My own view is that the risk of taking Rubio was not worth the possible reward in this move. Does Rubio really have that more potential than Stephen Curry? Maybe. But two years is an eternity in basketball.

If cognitive dissonance is to occur regarding the TWolves you are going to have to wait at least two years. Even if Rubio turns out not to be the star Kahn hoped I believe you are still going in the right direction. You need results for cognitive dissonance to occur.

It’s why Canis Hoopus is on my short list of daily bookmarks and most national NBA coverage is not.

I used to work in newspapers and magazines and the old line is “Everything in the paper is 100% accurate, except the things that you were personally involved in.” I ended up being in some news stories and damn but if that wasn’t true. Suddenly I noticed the important details that were left out, the way a headline tilted perception strongly in one direction, etc.

It isn’t usually out of malice, just ignorance and short deadlines.

Narrative is one way to think of how teams or people get thought of, I like to think of it in terms of categories. We put people and groups of people in categories. Our brains would really struggle to carry detail about every person we now know of in this age. (we haven’t evolved to know thousands of people much less the hundreds of thousands of individuals we now read about each year).

It’s how you get things like Racism, and why we say things like “I like indie rock” or “Thai Food”. And I think it applies equally well to sports teams.

Clippers, T-Wolves, Grizzlies, Knicks – they’re all in the messed up franchise bucket. Each has slightly different modifiers (cheap owner, stupid former GM, total cluster f%^&, Isiah clean-up), but they get grouped in the messed up franchise category.

It takes time to get out of that category. But there is nothing a writer likes more than the “Wait a minute! The team that you thought was in category A, they’re now in category B – let me tell you about it…”

This would be what is called a “trailing indicator” :) It’ll take a good run of games, maybe a play-off appearance or a special player who excites the fans – but then these articles will start coming. When the first one comes to light we’ll see a whole wave follow very quickly after that.

So yeah, there is a real dissonance between what we see and what is being reported nationally, but if we’re right and alot of these moves make sense then this year or for sure the next we’ll see the tidal wave move in the other direction. And of course we could all say “See! See! We knew it! They were so dumb, they didn’t notice till now, but we called it back in the summer of 09’! Why is the national media so stupid?!?”

I hope we don’t write that, I hope we all just nod and smile at each other and understand that this is how national coverage works in a media system and that it didn’t mean much when they said what they said originally and it doesn’t mean much now.

It’s 2009 and the best source of analysis and coverage of the Timberwolves is Canis Hoopus and wherever Britt Robson is writing.

Let’s not live in the 20th century and think that national sports coverage is going to be nuanced or meaningful.

As a graduate with an advanced degree in psychology, I find it fascinating when people bring out the ole bloody rag called cognitive dissonance in order to prove that their cognitive dissonance is supposedly better than someone else’s.

But no better example of cognitive dissonance exists than the fixed judgment of Kevin McHale, a member of the Hall of Fame, a named member of the NBA 50 Legends, and the owner of several NBA championship rings.

Make no mistake, McHale made several dreadful decisions as the Timberwolves general manager. But those decisions were not made in isolation nor were they made entirely by Kevin McHale. Just as in the decision to hire Kurt Rambis, Taylor is more than a bystander franchise owner. Yet there is little scorn expressed about Glen Taylor in comparison with Kevin McHale the former general manager.

So, McHale is demoted. Owners don’t get demoted. McHale becomes coach as Taylor announces all decisions will be made by committee. McHale does an above average job as coach and is very well liked by the players. Doesn’t matter. The hate filled fans have cognitive dissonance. Anything McHale does as coach that is positive is discounted; anything McHale does as coach that isn’t positive is fodder for the cognitive dissonance mill.

Some (not all) of these negative stories are written by former McHale bobo’s. Somewhere along the line McHale took five minutes while he was with the Celtics to give someone an interview and now they are paying him back with negative stories and articles about how valuable Foye and Miller suddenly became…think Sid for one example.

While the double point guard thing could still completely blow up in our faces, I would relate a story I heard about a study done in Britain many many years ago.

A statistician went to a county fair and set up a table with some notepads, pencils, and a giant fishbowl on it. Behind was a dairy cow, and in front of him was a sign that said whoever could most closely guess the weight of the cow would win 50 pounds. So hundreds or thousands of people at the fair put in their guesses. At the end of the day the results were tallied up, and one guy came within 3 pounds of the correct weight and won the money.

Now, what is so important about this study isn’t that one guy was able to get within 3 pounds of the actual weight of the cow by just looking at it, but that when all the results of people’s guesses were averaged together, the collective estimate was within a half pound of the actual weight. Amazing, right?

The moral of the story, as it applies here, is that as a self selecting community of fans interested in the Timberwolves, our collective assessment of the team, of Kahn’s moves, and the general direction of the franchise is more likely to be more accurate than any one of our individual takes on the team. So yes, 2 point guards is actually going to be difficult and one of the them might need to play some minutes as a shooting guard (I think that’s a safe synopsis of the group vibe, right?). But, Kahn also did select two players with his first two picks who have the chance to be good to very good or great players in this league for a long time—players who should maintain their value (again, my synopsis of the group take on it). Any national media is at an inherent disadvantage because they can’t spend the time to find in depth articles from the Syracuse newspaper about Flynn, or crunch numbers from 82games, or compare Big Al’s production against other similar sized centers in the league, etc etc. Instead, they read and link to Souhan. Awesome. Way to reach for the cream of the TC columnist crop. But, even if we include their assessment into the hopper of actively engaged fans’ take on the team, the collective assessment will still be more accurate or to the point than any individual columnist or blogger or Hoopus reader.

the accuracy of the crowds guess on the cows weight could also depend on how much exposure the crowd as a whole has with cows. for instance, if the fair was held in the middle of dairy land, I would imagine that the avg of the estimates woudl be much more accurate then if you held the fair in the middle of say london or new york city. if for no other reason then there would be far fewer outlier guess’

This is peculiar stuff

While other teams have gained more attention as belt-tighteners, the T’pups have quietly joined their ranks. Trading Craig Smith just to be rid of a $2.7 million obligation to Sebastian Telfair next year has to qualify as a low point, and one gets the impression they’re pretty happy to defer a $3 million obligation to Ricky Rubio a couple years into the future. They dumped Mike Miller and Randy Foye, eventually acquiring a non-guaranteed player they can waive (Chucky Atkins), and their only foray into free agency was a low-wattage bid for Ryan Hollins.

If Al Jefferson returns to his All-Star-caliber level of the first half of last season it lifts Minnesota half a notch above doormat status, but the Wolves leaked a lot of talent since their strong January last season.

Each one of these trades, taken by itself, is a WTF kind of trade. I mean really, Foye & Miller for trash & the #5 pick?? Why would you trade ANYONE for Q Rich unless you know something most everyone else doesn’t?? All they are seeing are these little pieces popping up on the wire and they aren’t giving any thought at all to the big picture. I think thier thought is " what kind of team is this??" Heck, I’m working with a guy who thinks the Wolves have too many PG’s, just because we took four during the draft. I have told him the breakdown and what happened and how we actually need a solid vet PG and he just looks at me like “D%^&, are you stupid?!?” So I get where the national media is coming from and I wish, likebiggity, that we would get some positive national coverage. But then again, there is no bigger rivalry than Red Sox v Yankees. Just try telling that to a Cards/Cubs fan!!

I will say, though, that if we start the season with this roster and no Rubio, then the National media will say “Look at these moron’s. We told you they didn’t know what they were doing!!” and I may have to agree. I am confident, however, that the Kahn is not done.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-43-41/Ripping-the-Timberwolves-Down-to-the-Studs.html

This is exactly the type of article I was begging for when I wrote this. A thoughtful, yet appropriately skeptical, analysis of our off-season that breaks out of the “T’Wolves don’t know what they’re doing” mold. The first thing I have seen where the journalist actually considers things from a “Could this work?” angle rather than pontificating from a tired perpsective.

Henry, did you visit us here and read this? Either way, thanks for a fair assessment of our franchise. First one I’ve seen in a while.