A Note on Style and the Offseason
Tim and I have been a little quiet lately so I figured I’d check in. I am still planning on writing a rather extensive breakdown of the job Popovich did this season, but I’ve been flip-flopping on how to structure it (chronologically vs. thematically). Either way, you can expect the second installment some time in the next day or two.
Tim is a bit swamped with work, but have no fear, he will be all over the draft as it draws closer. The man is in love with idea of potential. I swear he enjoys the offseason more than the regular season because all there is to do is discuss what could be rather than what is.
From a writing standpoint, I find the offseason to be a complicated time. My editor jokes that I am a “New Critic” (a reference to the critical approach of literary figures such as T.S Eliot and John Crowe Ransom). Those who ascribed to the tenets of New Criticism were insistent that analysis be based only on the text itself, and not extra-literary sources such as biography.
Although I don’t take issue with other forms of sportswriting (as opposed to the New Critics, who saw themselves as existing in opposition to other forms of literary criticism), I do function similarly: I like to think of the games as visual texts that can be interpreted in and of themselves. When there are no games, difficulties arise.
In some ways, the absence of a “text” gives me the clarity of mind to explore other ways of interpreting the game. Some of the best writing I’ve ever done was for my HustleJunkie column over at HP, which I primarily penned during the offseason last summer. But even then my more esoteric posts were highly based on the physicality of the game itself and not epistemologically dubious subjects such as psychology. Anyways…
