Analytics has been the #1 topic among NBA talking heads today, after Charles Barkley and Rockets general manager Daryl Morey got into it via Twitter and Inside The NBA during TNT’s Tuesday night double-header. Barkley isn’t a fan of advanced metrics, and let the stat geeks of the world know how he felt. The backlash was swift and severe (just Google “Charles Barkley” if you want to read approximately 894 responses to the mini-beef). On Wednesday, SLAM interviewed one of Barkley’s main rivals, Karl Malone, about his health campaign to combat hypertension, and the subject came up. As you can imagine, Malone wasn’t to fond of advanced metrics either.
SLAM: It’s funny you mentioned analytics, because last night that came to the forefront last night when—
KM: Can I ask you a question?
SLAM: Sure.
KM: Enlighten me on analytics. I’m a country bumpkin. Please tell me what that means, pertaining to my sport. Enlighten me and let me give you my response.
SLAM: It’s just a deeper way of looking at statistics, valuing numbers that aren’t necessarily in box scores. They’re supposed to encourage efficiency and smarter basketball, so like, advanced stats would generally value three-pointers and shots around the basket over long two-pointers.
KM: Can I tell you something? When you find the guy, whoever invented that word, if he wants to debate me, please let me know. I want to talk to him about the analytics. You cannot tell me—you know what? My memory’s coming back to me a little bit. Someone told, I forget which player it was, that you don’t need a mid-range game. I want to say somebody said that to Kevin Durant. Are you kidding me? I will kill you with a mid-range game. That’s the analytics? That’s what they’re talking about? How many games are they playing? And how many games are they winning? When you find that person [who invented the term “analytics”], please get in touch with me so I can debate him. Just go play and get rid of all that.
Malone also weighed in on the state of the game, noting that players take more time off these days.
SLAM: A lot of this generation of players grew up watching you—do you see your game in any of today’s NBA?
KM: Well, better. Like as far as power, LeBron. But I didn’t jump like Blake Griffin. I didn’t shoot like Kevin Durant. But I see some guys doing it. I just like guys who play hard. I want to pick up my program and everybody that I came to see play, I want to show up anywhere—at home or on the road—and I want to see them play. I don’t want, “Oh, I’m gonna take this game off.” And then, all the geniuses of the world telling guys they shouldn’t do [certain things on the court], and they’ve got the analytics of basketball, which I don’t even know what the heck that means, but they’ve got that going. It’s like, suit up, get in the weight room, get bigger and go play. We’ve got more injuries now—shoulders, groins, all that kinda stuff. Please. Just go play. What if our soldiers or our first responders were like, “Oh, I’m sorry! My shoulder! My back’s sore! My groin hurts!” Come on, really? It’s called playing basketball—that’s all we wanna see you do.
At least Malone has a leg to stand on in that regard. In his 17 seasons with the Utah Jazz, he only missed 14 of a possible 1,362 games, only once — his rookie season — averaging less than 34 minutes per game.
[SLAM, photo: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images]
