Editor's Note: Johnny Hatchett should be writing his MA thesis. Instead, he is mumbling to you about Saint Drew Brees. Also, he is drinking tea. Yup, Johnny Hatchett drinks tea.
Sure, Steve Nash is a great point guard. Yup, he dropped 21 dizzying assists on LBJ's Caveliers. & yes, Drew Brees has had a couple of nice seasons as an NFL quarterback. Far be it from me, a novice bloggers with no readers, to trash the abilities & successes of either of these men.
What concerns me is not that these two men - for all the right reasons - are media darlings. By all accounts, Mr. Brees has his priorities straight. He's winning in/for/with & living in & loving the city that wants him.
What does concern me is the level of hyperbole expressed during the love fests held for these two men's performances; both, it seems to me, have been overvalued by pundits, while the contributions of their teammates remain overlooked. This overvalued star / undervalued team is especially troubling considering that both Nash & Brees play "pure" positions.
What I mean is a bit obvious. Yes, both Nash & Brees play important positions for their respective team. Both control the movement of the team's offense; both "manage" the game-play on their respective playing surfaces. At the same time, these are positions for which teams (supposedly) and media mouths (frequently) look to fill with "pure" players. Nash, by all accounts, is a "pure" point guard; he plays that position how it has historically been played - by passing the ball first, shooting second. While we rarely hear the term "pure quarterback" used by media mouths, it exists, of course, in the eternal "pocket passer," who differs from hybrid quarterbacks or running quarterbacks.
Skin color might play a roll in all of this. In case you haven't noticed, Steve Nash is a quite-white basketball player; born in South Africa, raised in Canada, schooled at a public, west coast university, this white man succeeds at playing pure point while equally famous, African-American counterparts - A.I. & Stephon Marbury, being the least "pure" & most notable examples - fail. Brees is also a white man & he just so happens to be one of the few, high profile white men who ran towards New Orleans over the last few years.
SO: both are white men who (purely) play positions that have recently come under media & cultural scrutiny because of the "impurity" of alternative ways of playing them.
(Please keep in mind, dear non-reader, that I'm not claiming that race is a determining factor in these men's successes. They are great athletes. Nor am I even claiming that race is the determining factor in the consensus about their performances. I'm just saying it's there & it's worth thinking about.)
Like Nash, Brees is largely credited with "turning around" a wayward franchise. For example, my non-reader can witness John Levin, of Slate.com, giving all the credit for the Saints' good fortunes to Brees & Coach Payton.
Yes, it's true that Nash & Brees both joined franchises that were going through, to put it mildly, "growing pains." But, by overemphasizing these men's values, we've largely ignored the following:
- Both Nash's & Brees' former teams improved the season after they left. The Mavericks' won six more games in '05 without Nash than they won in '04 with him. The Chargers', of course, are now the finest team in all the land. (To their credit, the Suns' improvement with Nash & the Saints' with Brees was greater than the improvements of their former teams.)
- Both teams added & developed new talent into addition to these players. In '04, the Suns had an NBA-quality point-guard (Starbury) for only 34 games of the season. Amare, after winning R.O.Y. the previous season, played in only 55 games. The team's 5th best scorer was Casey "Who?" Jacobsen. Even Tom Gugliotta logged hundreds of minutes for the '04 version of the Suns. In '05, the team's new point guard (Nash, of course) played 75 games for them, Amare played in 81 (& turned into a scoring monster), &, with the addition of Quentin Richardson & Nash, the Suns cut 1,100 minutes from Jacobsen's playing time. Also, it's worth noting that the Suns' won 44 games in '03. (So, yes, they still won plenty of more games with Nash, but they probably weren't as bad of a team without him as their '04 win total suggests.)
In addition to adding Savior Brees, the Saints' added Coach of the Year Sean Payton & super-rookies Reggie Bush (10th in the NFL in receptions, 2nd in yards after catch) & Marques Colston (11th in the NFC in receptions, 15th in yards after catch). &, thanks to the health of RB Deuce McCallister & Bush's presence, the Saints' scored 19 rushing touchdowns compared to 8 the previous season. On the defensive side of the ball, the Saints' logged 13 more sacks than in 2005, with 6 more forced fumbles, & 1 additional interception.
What this all means : The Suns are a fantastic NBA team with Nash. The Saints are a good NFC team with Brees. BUT, these men have not single-handedly saved their franchises. It is convienent & easy for sports media mouths to heap the credit on these two; by signing with their respective franchises, they were major additions to their teams' rosters. Moreover, both put up monster numbers at glamour positions. But, as usually is the case, the convienent & easy narrative of an individual player's role in a team's successes is partial & largely ignores the important additional additions, developments, & contributions of other players on that team.
Moreover, by speaking so frequently, consistently, & hyperbolically about white athletes who play positions that carry a lot of racial baggage, the sports media mouths do, I think, open themselves to critiques of their intentions. While it is not inherently racist to award Steve Nash the Most Valuable Player award, nor is it to stick Brees' name in the running for NFL MVP, it is also not absurd that some would wonder about the motivations & underlying messages of the praises these men receive.
peace love gap,
Johnny Hatchett
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