The Ball Briefing: Dunking On People On Twitter Doesn't Help You Enjoy Basketball
Reacting to the reaction against Nate Duncan's reaction to a nasty dunk, plus actual analysis of the dunk and stories you need to read.
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Maybe, we should all try to enjoy Anthony Edwards’s Dunk? by Alex Lange
There’s an old internet saying that I won’t even try to find the origin of. “There’s a main character on the internet every day and the goal is for it never to be you.” Last Friday night, Nate Duncan, the man behind the Dunc’d On podcast, found himself the main character of NBA Twitter. Everyone roasted him for this tweet in reaction to Anthony Edwards’ monster dunk on Yuta Watanabe. People roasting this tweet was so popular on Friday that “Nate Duncan” was trending in the United States on Twitter.
In case you are wondering what the hell I am talking about because you’re not as “online” as Gabe and I unfortunately are, good for you! First, let’s just all acknowledge that dunk is incredibly cool, if you want to analyze just how ridiculous it is you’re in luck because Gabe talked all about it in the Fast Breaks section. What I am unfortunately focusing on is what I think about the overall toxic reaction to a pretty rote and mundane tweet about Anthony Edwards stat-line in a losing effort against the Raptors.
Lots of people that I generally find very funny got off a lot of jokes at the expense of this tweet, which is fair because obviously the normal reaction to that dunk should just be “wow what an awesome play!” Then some people made the conversation about racial differences in watching and enjoying basketball, which just seems weird to me but I will fully admit I am not even mildly qualified to actually discuss. Finally the chorus of people who just chime on on everything insisted “no one cares” or just spouted boring insults, which in fairness to their awfulness is like 95% of Twitter at all times.
So many people wanted to make fun of the tweet that the main conversation online became about how silly the Duncan tweet was rather than how freaking cool that dunk is… which is supposedly what many of the people complaining about Nate’s original tweet were upset about. You know what is worse than one guy tweeting a stat-line in response to an awesome play? Everyone else yelling about that guy tweeting the stat-line. In your effort to prove how cool and down with that awesome dunk you are, you spent all night upset about the guy who tweeted out the stat-line? That just seems weird to me rather than just being like “what a dope dunk” and “what a boring tweet” and moving on.
Even weirder is that Anthony Edwards seems to agree with the general idea behind the tweet everyone decided to dunk on. "It was aight," Edwards said during a postgame interview following Minnesota's 86-81 loss. "I don't really care about the dunk, I was just hoping we were gonna win." That’s probably what you want to hear from the No. 1 overall pick if you’re a fan of the team right? All the people who fetishize competitiveness and killer mentality should be thrilled about this. Instead, this became some sort of weird referendum about the “right way” to watch and enjoy basketball.
It seems very obvious to me that there is no right way to enjoy basketball. I enjoy awesome dunks and dumb cool plays as much as anyone else. My favorite player on a team I have ever rooted for is J.R. Smith. I’m even wearing his jersey as I write this, but I also understand he did things that didn’t help his team win sometimes and I don’t mind if someone points that out. I’m not saying you need to be like me either, if you just want to enjoy cool shit you see that’s great! I simply would point out that you can really enjoy things that are imperfect and flawed and I have found that when you can acknowledge both sides of that you end up having a lot more fun.
Should Nate Duncan have tweeted that right after the Edwards dunk? Maybe not? I don’t really know or care. But I do know that everyone losing their minds about it was way worse than the actual tweet itself, which just contains the guy’s stats from the night in question. I imagine Nate Duncan had to be feeling something like this on Friday. NBA Twitter won the war of public opinion, but to everyone who spent their Friday night tweeting about how lame it was to not focus on a cool dunk and thereby didn’t focus on and enjoy that very cool dunk I submit a simple meme in response.
Fast Breaks by Gabe Ibrahim
We’re not done with the war crime committed by Anthony Edwards quite yet. Here are four of my favorite things about this dunk:
Edwards punishing Yuta Watanabe’s toxic masculinity. Fellas, it’s okay to realize a fruitless venture and not try to do it. Yuta had absolutely no chance at blocking that shot and contested it anyways to the tune of getting his soul ripped from his body. AND HE FOULED EDWARDS. Similarly, you probably need help lifting that fridge or changing a tire. Don’t be a fool and end up dead like poor Yuta. Just ask for help or bail.
The violence of this collision. As Alex put it, Edwards and Watanabe bounced off each other like two Dragon Ball Z characters in a fight. Very few great dunks end up with players falling in opposite directions, so it gives the dunk some uniqueness.
Malik Beasley calling for the ball as Edwards is jamming home the dunk of the year. Malik, my guy, there’s a time and a place.
No one helps Yuta up for a few seconds. I love this in part because it reminds me of Deandre Jordan ending Brandon Knight’s life and in part because you get the sense that Yuta’s teammates feared that he actually died and didn’t want to look into his lifeless eyes.
Jeff Bezos wants to buy the Washington Football Team. I could not imagine a more perfect fit for the WFT than Bezos, and that isn’t a compliment. He could worse than Dan Snyder!
We don’t talk hockey on Ball and Order because we don’t know much/anything about it. However, Connor McDavid making a Neymar move on skates has to be mentioned.
Lobbing Links
Stuff from us:
Gabe equated each WNBA teams’ free agency moves to Taylor Swift songs
We drafted our all-time NBA teams on the podcast. Things got weird as Alex drafted Joe Dumars ahead of Jerry West and Gabe paired mortal enemies Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan in the same backcourt.
Last week’s Ball Briefing comparing the Katie Lou Samuelson and Jrue Holiday trades.
Parents, sports psychologist helped Louisville's Dana Evans become a top WNBA prospect by Mitchell Northam
A nice look at Dana Evans’ growth as a player in the last three years at Louisville and why she stuck it out during a rough freshman year. Also she talks about the team’s sports psychologist, which is an increasingly important part of team success.
The Dominant Luisa Harris by Bria Felicien for Black Sportswoman
A profile about one of women’s basketball pioneers, Luisa Harris. She was a dominant big who had a nice shooting touch for the Delta State dynasty in the 1970s. I’m also interested in learning more about 4’11” Debbie Brock, who was Harris’s point guard.
Justin Fields is the latest Black QB to get hit with the useless 'one read' label by Steven Ruiz
Completely debunking the idea that Fields can’t read defenses or get off his first read. It shouldn’t matter anyways, but it’s silly and racist. NFL teams are among the dumbest businesses in the US for continually doing this stuff.