The 5: Steve Kerr smoking pot, John Wall exploding, and the point of exposure

When Steve Kerr said (or, as many reported it, “admitted”) he has used (or, as many reported it, “tried”) marijuana twice in the last 18 months, his comments drew reaction from plenty of people around the league and from those who cover it. John Lucas, a former basketball player who spent a good part of the 70s doing cocaine, went on some incomprehensible rant about how Kerr using medical marijuana made him a hypocrite or something.

Kerr, who used pot for relief from debilitating back pain, quickly found the irony in the headlines that ensued. As Kerr told the Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps, he does “find it ironic had I said, ‘I’ve used Oxycontin for relief for my back pain,’ it would not have been a headline.” Kerr is absolutely right and, because he’s much better and more qualified to talk about the use of pot for pain relief in professional sports, I’ll let him explain why he’s right:

"“I was a little surprised at the fact it became kind of a big deal. The conversation was really about pain relief in professional sports. The context of our conversation and my response to your question was about how professional sports should handle pain relief for players. I thought it was … interesting. Because of the way the world works, the way the media works, what is a very serious conversation about pain relief turns into the headline “Kerr smokes pot.” So, I guess that’s the world we live in. That’s fine. But I’m actually kind of glad it became an issue. It’s a very important issue to talk about. Having gone through a tough spell over the last year with my own recovery from back surgery, and a lot of pain, I had to do a lot of research. You get handed prescriptions for Vicodin, Oxycontin, Percocet. NFL players, that’s what they’re given. The stuff is awful. The stuff is dangerous. The addiction possibility, what it can lead to, the long-term health risks.”"

Kerr’s first point, the point about how the media works, is correct. Absolutely correct. The second point, though, that it’s become an issue, is unfortunately wrong. Save for a think piece here and a water cooler conversation there, this hasn’t and probably won’t result in any meaningful conversation.

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Not while the league is run by owners who made fortunes running companies and players are paid more by advertisers than those owners. There’s simply too much perceived risk. If you’re Adam Silver, you are in charge of a league that had to overcome a reputation of substantial drug abuse in in the past, arriving at a clean reputation and a huge new television deal. You need the innards of America to watch the NBA, and too many people still view the devil’s lettuce as a sin. In other words, the NBA will keep messing around with draft lottery reform before they talk about allowing marijuana into the league.

More to Kerr’s point, it’s funny what tends to gain exposure. Kerr using marijuana is largely inconsequential. As he said, “the conversation was about pain relief in professional sports.” That’s the adult conversation that should be had, rather than the very teenage conversation of “Dude, did you hear Steve smoked weed?”. Unfortunately, the latter is an easier conversation to fit into the space between commercial breaks than the former.

Klay 60

During the Golden State Warriors’ win over the Indiana Pacers, Klay Thompson scored 60 points in 29 minutes. Sixty points. Twenty-nine minutes. I’ve never done 60 of anything in 29 anythings!

For a man who did not plan on sacrificing s–t, Thompson’s s–t was put to good use that night. As you may have read already, he only did it on 11 dribbles and, while that’s not as impressive as it is novel, it’s a lot of fun to talk about.

This was a winning night. And it was, because the Golden State Warriors won. Not that it mattered. The Warriors win all the time. Thompson didn’t play for much of the second half, so people wondered if he could have gone for 80. If the Warriors should have let him try for 80. Those were the headlines. The Warriors winning was the subhead.

Ball to Wall

So, if winning is so much less important, why didn’t we talk nearly as much about John Wall’s 52-point outing this week? Wall’s Wizards lost the game, but we’ve already established that’s less important than oodles of points. Let’s compare the stats:

Thompson: 60 points on 21-of-33 shooting, 8-of-14 from 3-point range, 2 rebounds and an assist in 29 minutes.

Wall: 52 points on 18-of-31 shooting, 5-of-8 from 3-point range, 8 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals in 42 minutes.

Wall scored eight fewer points on two fewer attempts while affecting the game more with his passing and rebounding and defense than Thompson did. All things considered, it was one of the better box scores of the season. And while it was talked about, it wasn’t talked about like Thompson’s game. The story from Wall’s night was not how good he is, but that he’s too good for the Washington Wizards.

Thompson’s Warriors beat the Pacers by 36 points. Thompson could have scored 23 fewer points and the Warriors would still have won the game. They didn’t need him to do that, but the Wizards needed every single point from Wall to even make its loss to the Orlando Magic a game. And yet Thompson’s night gets more love.

The Love we want

When Kevin Love was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, basketball nerds everywhere Tweeted super nerdy things like “OMG can’t wait for those outlet passes to LeBron, tho” myself included. It’s what we wanted to see and recently, like against the New York Knicks lately, we saw it again.

Never mind that Love missed 10 of his 16 shots and had as many turnovers in the game as he had assists (two). We didn’t see that. We see what we want to see.

This could be a bigger deal

The weird saga of Donatas Motiejunas took another turn as his team, the Houston Rockets, decided to match the four-year, $37 million offer sheet he recently signed with the Brooklyn Nets.

That’s not the weird part. The weird part is that Motiejunas, a role-playing power forward with back problems, is holding out and decided not to report to Houston for his physical. He hasn’t played this season because before this he had yet to reach a contract agreement, and now he’s crossing his arms and saying “uh-uh.”  The Rockets plan to keep him, so this has turned into a stalemate, apparently over an extra $6 million.

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As weird as this is, it’s not a story to the non-League Pass subscribing population. Could you imagine if this were, like, anyone else? Obviously it would be huge if this were LeBron James or Kevin Durant or something, but it would be a big story if it were even an almost-Super Star like Wall or DeMar DeRozan. The exposure of the same story with a different central character would be dramatically different.

I get it, the actions of those players have far more wider ranging consequences than those of Motiejunas. Moreover, people know the names and know the faces. No one has to explain who, just what. Like pot and Oxycontin. A complicated subject becomes much easier to talk about, especially in the minutes between commercial breaks.