Tangent Alert: sports figures ARE public figures

I received an e-mail from the bloggers @ Hugging Harold Reynolds and they pointed me to their post on Sports Figures at the RNC. (If you don't know what the RNC is then you are just not 'there' enough to deserve to vote) Among those ex-jocks (or current jocks) who spoke was none other than Thurl Bailey. (Who had a great NCAA career and a solid NBA career for our Utah Jazz -- his life outside the game has been quite fulfilling as well for Bailey who is a pastor and member of the LDS, and was part of a great singing bible video where he plays the part of Goliath) This got me thinking . . . aside from how it is super de rigueur now to be politically active (e.g. black athletes saying that they are for Obama . . . riiiiight, because those guys feel the same way about his energy policy or ideas about stem cell research as he does) professional athletes have been relatively mum about issues for quite some time.

Perhaps this is due to how these guys don't want to go out of their way and tell the world how they feel for fear of losing money somewhere down the line. LeBron James has a great platform to make some change in the world because of his fame and popularity, though he's been focusing on making money for Nike and Microsoft instead. (Quite similar to how Jordan was such an icon that he could have done so much more, but instead chose to party it up while selling shoes to make himself independently wealthy -- Julia Roberts gave more money to help with Katrina than he did, and she never sold one sweatshop created shoe in her life)

The opposite happens to be people who talk too much, among this list are guys like Shaq (Kobe, how does my ass taste?), Ron Artest (who is smart, but not wise) and most recently, Josh Howard (who doesn't salute the flag). Sure, some guys like Charles Barkley can say anything he wants without people really being upset anymore as he's a caricature of who he used to be. While others like Rasheed Wallace are known by reputation alone, and his interview responses have been given with the cadence and passion of someone who had just had a full frontal lobotomy -- yet he is vilified in the press for his explosive expressiveness.

That said, behind sports individuals being highly guarded now with what they say and do (thanks John Rocker!) the major issue appears to be a lack of desire to do what previous eras of sports figures were willing to do. Namely, be public figures.

I remember watching those old NBA ads that were public service announcements, you may remember the ad of Mark Eaton talking about child abuse. I remember that one, and that was from back when sports figures were not afraid to actually take stands on things. Older guys, like Dikembe Mutombo, are concerned with the world that they live in and try to use sports as a starting point towards greater things. Few others look at sports as a launching pad, but rather a privilege that they use towards fame and wealth.

Some guys like Kobe (with large conflict diamond in ear) and T-mac have spoken out about Darfur in recent months, though when someone less famous (Ira Newble) tries to actually do something that gets to the root of the problem, he gets the cold shoulder from the ever image conscious NBA. I guess the whole point is to avoid controversy, and in doing so, professional athletes are encouraged to avoid doing anything. That's like cutting off the leg to get rid of an infected toe. Which is a very safe, but ineffectual way to be a public figure.

Things to look for this season: Ronnie Brewer

For those who don't know, Ronnie Brewer is the son of former NBA Player Ron Brewer (Sr.); and currently is the starting shooting guard for the Utah Jazz. Ronnie is a special type of player who was touted in college to be able to play the 1, 2 and 3 on the pro level. So far -- in my obviously unprofessional assessment -- he's basically an NBA three with limited range. Or at least, that's what he has so far shown as a member of the Jazz. Now, before you all accuse me of suggesting that Brewer is nothing more (or less) than an athletic, young dunker in the mold of David Benoit or Blue Edwards let me finish.

The Heir	The Air	The flair

In the Jazz system he is a finisher on offense who is not called upon to really do to much playmaking (unlike Jeff Hornacek who got his fair share of assists playing the 2 in Utah), and his outside shot is decidedly 'shaky' right now. Ronnie does have three point range, but let's be honest, the other team would rather leave him open at the three point line than suffer a worse fate by allowing Deron to drive into the lane, or leaving Memo open from three.

He is very young and athletic and still learning the NBA game. Right now in the Jazz system he can be masked and be plugged into the shooting guard role; though I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mind having a bit more distance shooting to compliment Brewer's flat out insane FG% -- last season it was only 55.8%. There are two reasons why his FG% is so high: he doesn't trouble himself with jacking shots out of his comfort zone and he makes the shots that he takes; and secondly, he doesn't shoot it from that far (59 total career three point shots attempted). Really, this is because he has a career three point shooting % of a sub-Harpringian 18.6%.

As far as starting shooting guards go, that's not that great. (Which is probably why I call his play so far in his career as that of a Small Forward in that Josh Howard mold . . . a slasher who is great around the basket and need to work to keep defenses honest from the outside) I'd love for him to become a 30% shooter from downtown, but I do not anticipate that from happening. He's never going to be a bomber from deep like Kyle Korver is. On the flip side, Kover is never going to go out and dunk on people, or you know, challenge shots.

Josh Howard is what some draft sites appraised Brewer to be like as a pro.	Korver is a great shooter,	though he's not great at everything that the Jazz need.

What are the three key things that we have to look out for this season from Ronnie Brewer?

1. More consistent Outside shot: It really is the 3,000 lb. mastodon in the room . . . in order for Ronnie to really earn more playing time in the fourth quarter he has to be able to maintain the good floor spacing that the Jazz need on offense. Right now Jerry Sloan finishes with Deron, Carlos, Andrei and Memo because they all are pretty diverse -- and he adds in Kyle Korver, who is a dead eye shooter from the line and from three. Brewer is a much better defender than Korver, but the current relative difference between Kyle and Ronnie's defense is smaller than the large gap between their relative offensive abilities. (55.8 fg% notwithstanding) That percentage is highly elevated due to where he gets those shots from -- shots that fail to exist in the 4th quarter for shooting guards.
2. Has to do more on offense than just dunk the ball: Essentially, for Brewer to get more than his 24 - 27 mpg he is going to have to bring a bit more variety on offense. So far his ball handling has been under-whelming. He was supposed to be a 1/2/3 coming out of college, yet I've only seen him make the most obvious decisions on offense when passing the ball to the open guy for the dunk. Hornacek and Stockton worked so well together because on the fly they could really alternate from passer to scorer. Ronnie appears to be the best passer out of the bunch of C.J., Kyle, Morris and himself, for what it is worth though. Once he gets more familiarity with the starters I'm sure Ronnie will end up getting more assists, but it's something he has to work on. He is supposed to be able to move with the ball, and create for others. So far I've only seen him score around the basket and hit an occasional set shot -- basically scoring in the exact same ways that Adam Keefe used to make baskets. Getting better from the outside will better allow him the space he needs to drive, though, so both problems are related to each other. Right now guys just sag off of him, and dare him to shoot it. Furthermore, he has to score the ball off of more than just dunks and lay-ups -- even if this means his shooting percentage will go down. The utility of this is that other teams have to defend him all over the court, and not just in the paint.
3. Better man to man defense: He's tall, he has a 6'11 wingspan, and he's fast. He anticipates passing lanes well, and is able to go north-south and east-west very quickly. He has the physical tools, but there's more to playing defense than just being there. (Otherwise Ostertag would have a few rings by now) If he can improve his man-to-man defense then marginal "stars" like Brandon Roy won't go off on the Jazz, and our team will get some more wins. There's nothing that suggests that he can't be a better defender . . . but at the end of last season on key possessions our amazing help defender (Andrei Kirilenko) had to be put on the other teams' best scorer -- which was successful only against guys not named Kobe. If Ronnie can be mentally able to check these guys without fouling, getting his confidence killed, or just being useless then Andrei can remain a free safety on defense getting deflections, double teaming and blocking shots. (Until we have a shot blocking bigman, we're going to need Andrei playing defense like that for us to be any good)

If you look at the huge jump Brewer made from his Rookie season to his 2nd Rookie season (i.e. last season when he finally got some time to play) you can assume that he's not done developing as a player just yet. I have high hopes for him, though I really wonder about where the playing time he needs is going to come from. After all, the Jazz aren't planing on paying C.J. Miles $15 million dollars just to hang out and give people high fives. Ronnie is no fool, though, and he knows that just because he is the incumbent starter does not mean that he's going to just be given that role next season. It's pretty obvious that he has to improve his outside shot, which will open up the other parts of his offensive game, and I'm sure that is something that he has focused on quite a bit this off-season. [For the record, Korver, Almond and C.J. all have picture perfect shooting strokes and have great range.]

Ronnie gets drafted, and people talk about his inability to really be a shooter . . . it's been 2 seasons now, he has to Improve.

That said, Ronnie is a very special player who has a great chance to help our team get to the next level. He's fast, he's athletic -- but we need to see three things from him this season otherwise we may just have to start dedicating a lot of our time towards making C.J. stronger or Morris Almond faster instead of holding our breath for Brewer to start shooting well.