My request isnt for a specific topic but for you to do a couple "old school" text heavy E1Ps with little clips. I love your writing and those old ones really helped me understand basketball in a whole different way. The vids are still great don't get me wrong, but I feel like I learned more with the old style. Would love to see one maybe comparing plays run this year with rookies to the same plays run with Hamptons five in years past. Show the differences and why they are or aren't working?
As you know I’ve been going the other direction for a couple of years, but I am taking your request seriously. I have to sort out in my head a bit how much of my move was the superiority of on-video notation and how much was Vox pushing me to move to video... :)
Facebook lied and tricked everyone into pivoting to video. I wanted to do more video anyway so I wasn't exactly crying about it. But it may have biased me
I'm interested in stuff on how the Warriors defend specific players or schemes. I think we've seen a lot of interesting stuff this season on that end already—like the super hard "star trap" scheme they used on Harden to great effect on Christmas as well as, to a lesser extent, on others to varying degrees of success. Doncic and Jokic for example struggled a little but managed to pass out of it to good effect; Lillard had no one on the depleted Blazers to count on so he broke the traps himself and got to the free throw line.
I'd love to see a more experienced/detailed "eye test" to see which new Warriors are smart defenders. To my eyes, seems like Evans, GR3, Damion Lee, and Paschall are pretty solid at making the right rotations, while Spellman, Chriss, Poole, and DLo are, shall we say, more of a work in progress. And Burks and Bowman are more in between. (Bowman's on-ball defense is intense, but he makes mistakes including some bad fouls, especially in his most recent couple games in SF.) Of course Draymond is as elite as it gets there.
Lots of good ideas here. Dubs have def been working on a gimmick trapping D which you call the Star Trap and exactly the different outcomes have been very interesting
My favorite things are detailed video breakdowns of in-game play. As long as there is a steady diet of that sort of thing, I'm ducky. It's the kind of thing you won't find generally on other sports media.
My idea is a little bit click bait-y, but I want to see y'all rank every player that has ever put on a Warriors' uniform with in-depth reasoning. It can be one player per post so we can see the list grow and change as players are slotted into the list.
I could see this really working well with a fan vote. Like an editors choice and the people’s choice. I’m not personally into ranking — too much time spent arguing over unclear definitions — but this could be a great way to get lots of different ways of appreciating players
Typographic note: I really like the serif typeface in this diary (though the letter-spacing needs to be dialed down just a bit). I think it's strong on several levels: (1) looks sophisticated, like The Athletic or the Ringer; (2) makes for a clear graphic departure from GSoM; (3) contrasts really well with the bold sans serif headers; (4) contrasts well with the sans serif of the comment section.
At the same time: Duby and Daniel's diaries are using sans serif. Which one are we going with? Fwiw, I vote serif!
I agree, I think the serif is far superior. The reason some are sans-serif is a temporary hack because Substack won’t let us make the serif version open to all commenters (only subs for now).
I would like to know more about Paschall's defense. He gets compared to Dray a lot, but a lot of metrics don't like him, and I'm just not sure where his defense ranks (it seems like there's a lot of potential at least). Thanks!
Defensive metrics take big, ideally multi-year samples to start normalizing. I'd take those with a massive grain of salt this early in Paschall's career.
Top four defenders in the NBA right now, according to DRPM: LeBron James (?), Alex Caruso (??), Jayson Tatum, Kris Dunn (???). LOL.
That is a great topic that I haven't been watching that carefully. My superficial impression is that I've seen him make some heady rotations, but somehow people seem comfortable shooting over him.
Jan 23, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball
As an OG that used to actually PAY CASH MONEY TO BUY MY MORNING NEWSPAPER its really not so hard to make this change. Took a leap of faith and signed up for the Athletic. Greatly enjoy it. TrueHoop is worth the small amount I pay for it each month.
You Eric have been some I've enjoyed and looked forward to for some time. It is just not a problem to financially support your efforts.
All the best to you and your LGW dudes for this new effort.
I signed up for Athletic but hate their app. I know they've been posting some of their podcasts (which IMO even better than Ringers) away from the app with some advertising and that has helped but whenever I go to their app I have yet to figure out to turn off the 'Play Next Podcast' function.
Explain One Play is really special. I'm someone that likes to know how things work. EOP has almost been a textbook. It might be easier to digest as text with clips interspersed between video clips. However you choose to do it, education on the basic and advanced concepts particularly in defense are very interesting.
In the end... just keep going. When you would take some time away from GSOM I would worry that you had moved on to something else and that would be a loss to all of us GS fans...
Many thanks for the encouragement. It’s reactions just like this that keep me going on it... I’ve gone back and forth on the text v video thing. I know now that video annotation is essential. And once you’re doing that, maybe wrap it into a single movie...? But I also miss the density of text. So it’s work in progress
Jan 23, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball
Thanks for saving at least one tiny little corner of the Internet. I believe in you guys!
I’d love to see the Apricot treatment on the evolution of DLo in the Warriors motion offense. It’s probably too soon to get a comprehensive look, with all his injuries and the splash brothers being out but I think there’s still a lot there to discuss.
What’s interesting tho is that the original Smallball Death Lineup (Steph, Klay, Andre, Dray, Harrison) plus Bogut, Shaun, they learned it well enough in the first month, and within a half year they were really on it. Just very brainy players.
YES. I have a lot of thoughts on that. But the lack of, shall we say, intensity to win has made the game plans kind of weird. I don’t know whether to do a mega piece on it or a series of little pieces. Mega will be maybe better, little means it’s more likely I’ll actually finish
Damn... had to wait to get the funds together to pitch in, but finally I am a subscriber.
LGW subscriber since Day 3 sounds good enough...
WEEK ONE subscriber! Still a gutsy move. But if you and Abaddon disagree on something, I gotta go with A, sorry they got here first... hahahaha
If I disagree with Abaddon I will keep my mouth shut because I am probably wrong.
But heck yeah, WEEK ONE baby!
E1P/Apricot is not the only reason I subscribed, but it's a big reason. Happy to be along for the ride!
Hey, you made it over here! Great to see you! < insert high five gif >
I can’t get enough of Klay’s exploits. How about his 52 points against the Bulls?
Oh wow thank you! I started my day watching this. What could be better?
Okay, special upload just for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohiuHuWJQI4. How's THAT for quick service?
My request isnt for a specific topic but for you to do a couple "old school" text heavy E1Ps with little clips. I love your writing and those old ones really helped me understand basketball in a whole different way. The vids are still great don't get me wrong, but I feel like I learned more with the old style. Would love to see one maybe comparing plays run this year with rookies to the same plays run with Hamptons five in years past. Show the differences and why they are or aren't working?
As you know I’ve been going the other direction for a couple of years, but I am taking your request seriously. I have to sort out in my head a bit how much of my move was the superiority of on-video notation and how much was Vox pushing me to move to video... :)
Man honestly never knew that they were pushing that type of content. Thought that they just kinda stayed out of the way
Facebook lied and tricked everyone into pivoting to video. I wanted to do more video anyway so I wasn't exactly crying about it. But it may have biased me
No (real) pressure of course but the consideration is much appreciated!
I'm interested in stuff on how the Warriors defend specific players or schemes. I think we've seen a lot of interesting stuff this season on that end already—like the super hard "star trap" scheme they used on Harden to great effect on Christmas as well as, to a lesser extent, on others to varying degrees of success. Doncic and Jokic for example struggled a little but managed to pass out of it to good effect; Lillard had no one on the depleted Blazers to count on so he broke the traps himself and got to the free throw line.
I'd love to see a more experienced/detailed "eye test" to see which new Warriors are smart defenders. To my eyes, seems like Evans, GR3, Damion Lee, and Paschall are pretty solid at making the right rotations, while Spellman, Chriss, Poole, and DLo are, shall we say, more of a work in progress. And Burks and Bowman are more in between. (Bowman's on-ball defense is intense, but he makes mistakes including some bad fouls, especially in his most recent couple games in SF.) Of course Draymond is as elite as it gets there.
Lots of good ideas here. Dubs have def been working on a gimmick trapping D which you call the Star Trap and exactly the different outcomes have been very interesting
My favorite things are detailed video breakdowns of in-game play. As long as there is a steady diet of that sort of thing, I'm ducky. It's the kind of thing you won't find generally on other sports media.
My idea is a little bit click bait-y, but I want to see y'all rank every player that has ever put on a Warriors' uniform with in-depth reasoning. It can be one player per post so we can see the list grow and change as players are slotted into the list.
I could see this really working well with a fan vote. Like an editors choice and the people’s choice. I’m not personally into ranking — too much time spent arguing over unclear definitions — but this could be a great way to get lots of different ways of appreciating players
Typographic note: I really like the serif typeface in this diary (though the letter-spacing needs to be dialed down just a bit). I think it's strong on several levels: (1) looks sophisticated, like The Athletic or the Ringer; (2) makes for a clear graphic departure from GSoM; (3) contrasts really well with the bold sans serif headers; (4) contrasts well with the sans serif of the comment section.
At the same time: Duby and Daniel's diaries are using sans serif. Which one are we going with? Fwiw, I vote serif!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/style/typography-font-design.html
I agree, I think the serif is far superior. The reason some are sans-serif is a temporary hack because Substack won’t let us make the serif version open to all commenters (only subs for now).
You are why I subscribe. Write what Apricot wants to write.
You are a champion. I'm just relieved you didn't request "Write something Apricot can't write" and explode the world with a logical paradox
I would like to know more about Paschall's defense. He gets compared to Dray a lot, but a lot of metrics don't like him, and I'm just not sure where his defense ranks (it seems like there's a lot of potential at least). Thanks!
Defensive metrics take big, ideally multi-year samples to start normalizing. I'd take those with a massive grain of salt this early in Paschall's career.
Top four defenders in the NBA right now, according to DRPM: LeBron James (?), Alex Caruso (??), Jayson Tatum, Kris Dunn (???). LOL.
And DRPM has famous blind spots for people like Klay who dont rack up box score stats like REB, STL, BLK
That is a great topic that I haven't been watching that carefully. My superficial impression is that I've seen him make some heady rotations, but somehow people seem comfortable shooting over him.
That totally jives with what I've seen. You can see why I want to know more :)
I wouldn't have joined LGW if Apricot wasn't on board. You are a living legend, sir!
As an OG that used to actually PAY CASH MONEY TO BUY MY MORNING NEWSPAPER its really not so hard to make this change. Took a leap of faith and signed up for the Athletic. Greatly enjoy it. TrueHoop is worth the small amount I pay for it each month.
You Eric have been some I've enjoyed and looked forward to for some time. It is just not a problem to financially support your efforts.
All the best to you and your LGW dudes for this new effort.
I signed up for Athletic but hate their app. I know they've been posting some of their podcasts (which IMO even better than Ringers) away from the app with some advertising and that has helped but whenever I go to their app I have yet to figure out to turn off the 'Play Next Podcast' function.
Yes I can't stand the Athletic app and I uninstalled it. It constrains the view so awkwardly
You are a legend. Any requests for future coverage?
Explain One Play is really special. I'm someone that likes to know how things work. EOP has almost been a textbook. It might be easier to digest as text with clips interspersed between video clips. However you choose to do it, education on the basic and advanced concepts particularly in defense are very interesting.
In the end... just keep going. When you would take some time away from GSOM I would worry that you had moved on to something else and that would be a loss to all of us GS fans...
Many thanks for the encouragement. It’s reactions just like this that keep me going on it... I’ve gone back and forth on the text v video thing. I know now that video annotation is essential. And once you’re doing that, maybe wrap it into a single movie...? But I also miss the density of text. So it’s work in progress
“Bitch Better Have My Money” kept ringing in my ears each time the please-subscribe window appeared, so here you go...
Haha, sorry that nag screen is there, but it’s built-in by Substack... and I hope we will earn your support!
Thanks for saving at least one tiny little corner of the Internet. I believe in you guys!
I’d love to see the Apricot treatment on the evolution of DLo in the Warriors motion offense. It’s probably too soon to get a comprehensive look, with all his injuries and the splash brothers being out but I think there’s still a lot there to discuss.
Steve Kerr sez that it takes 2 seasons to learn offense.
What’s interesting tho is that the original Smallball Death Lineup (Steph, Klay, Andre, Dray, Harrison) plus Bogut, Shaun, they learned it well enough in the first month, and within a half year they were really on it. Just very brainy players.
YES. I have a lot of thoughts on that. But the lack of, shall we say, intensity to win has made the game plans kind of weird. I don’t know whether to do a mega piece on it or a series of little pieces. Mega will be maybe better, little means it’s more likely I’ll actually finish