My Letter to Trey Kerby from Yahoo!'s Ball Don't Lie Blog

It has been pretty slow in the NBA this week, but this morning's Wolves Updates from SG included a link to an article from Yahoo!'s Ball Don't Lie blog by Trey Kerby, and his article genuinely infuriated me. I realize that this is just one of many uninformed, anti-researched, flat-out wrong articles lobbed out there by the media over the past year or so, but this one was so bad that I couldn't look away....you know, train-wreck bad. For some reason, I felt the need to respond to Mr. Kerby, and so I shot him an email (trey.kerby@yahoo.com, if anyone is interested). I have to confess that when I started writing, I wanted to stay professional and civil in everything I was writing (and therefore rise above the sarcastic tone that saturated his "article"). As I continued to write, however, my sarcastic side took over, and the tone of the letter shifted and became slightly less-than-professional. Then again, he's the pro, not me. I could have easily written my very own novella, but I settled for a lengthy letter. My actual letter, word-for-word, that I emailed to Trey Kerby is after the jump.

  I guess I'm not sure if you write all the material for the Ball Don't Lie blog on Yahoo! or if you simply edit the material that others write, but your article entitled "Even Kevin Love has no idea what David Kahn is doing" was distastefully misinformed. I will not question your ability to do your own research or formulate your own opinions, because as a compensated, "professional" blogger, I would assume that you had to do some of this in order to be hired for your current position. You certainly have every right to hold your own opinion, it just seems as though this piece was an insult to Kevin Love, David Kahn, the Timberwolves organization, the NBA, and whatever semblence of "journalism" remains in this country. It is inescapably clear that there was little to no research done whatsoever, and to fabricate an entire article off of someone else's interview question about an employer to this company's employee is ludicris. Outside of Love's quote, the rest of the article could have been pulled word-for-word from 14 months ago.  

First of all, the Minnesota Timberwolves have two healthy point guards on their roster. I am confident that I do not need to explain to you that that is fewer than nearly every other team in the league. Secondly, in Kurt Rambis' offense, shooting guards and small forwards are interchangable and simply referred to as "wings". I'm sure you have heard that term at some point in your hours upon hours of intense, grueling, basketball research. The only time when position matters for wings is on defense; therefore the Wolves have acquired wings who are athletic enough to guard opposing shooting guards (Martell Webster, Corey Brewer, and allegedly Wesley Johnson) and others who are long enough to guard opposing small forwards (Wesley Johnson, Corey Brewer, Lazar Hayward, Michael Beasley). Thirdly, Darko Milicic's contract is not ridiculous, and there are plenty of other articles and people that understand basketball, the NBA, and salary caps who can and have explained this using comparisons of the salaries of other centers in the league. For a quick summary by a fan such as myself, go here: http://www.canishoopus.com/2010/7/8/1559606/milicic-gets-20-million-haywood.  

Your fourth introductory point is...not a point. It is an absurd (not to mention incorrect) observation of David Kahn's supposed insanity. I'm glad to see that your idea of a key point in an article is that Kahn is always "talking crazy". Look up his resume...its much deeper than yours, I'm confident of that. I don't want to get into how wrong-headed it is to believe that Kevin Love should know "The Plan", or even speculate on what it might be, much less that David Kahn should be expected to divulge his plan to his most outspoken, media-friendly player. If you will recall, the organization forced him to close down his Twitter account last year. Do you think he was in the war room on draft night, or in the suite at Target Field on two seperate occasions when David Kahn was schmoozing David Lee and Anthony Tolliver? I suspect he was not.

Lastly, I do not claim to have more knowledge of the goings on in the NBA, or even necessarily basketball knowledge in general than you do. You get paid to write, and I do not. By definition, you are a professional, and I am not. That being said, I expect more. If I am going to take the time to read your blog, I expect it to be different. Not extraordinary or groundbreaking, but at least different from mass media opinion. At least not regurgitated (false) talking points from over a year ago. This does not require much research, but you would have to do a little more than read old mainstream articles. The piece should be embarassing to you, and you should take another look at the Wolves current roster. There are two players listed as small forwards, and three as point guards, one of whom is out until December. Funny how there are five centers listed, but nobody talks about that. The roster is extremely versatile, and I fully expect the Timberwolves to win 30 games this season. But that is beside the point: please stop insulting the intelligence of basketball fans everywhere and in the process, embarassing yourself and the company for which you work. This article is the laziest piece of "journalism" that I have seen, and believe me, Trey, that is high(?) praise. I would ask for you to construct a post acknowledging that two healthy point guards is quite simply not a "team full of point guards" (since, you know, they play with five players on the floor at a time), as you claim in your article, but I wouldn't want to insult your intelligence now, would I?  

Thank you for taking time out of poring over your NBA research to  read this, and "In the dismissive words of Chris Webber, "Good luck."