NBA makes the mountain out of Molehill, partially blames Buddy Hield

Remember when it was discovered that Buddy Hield's birthday was incorrectly listed on official NBA and Sacramento Kings' websites – with ESPN, Basketball Reference and Draft Express – and that this was reported as being any of those weird things that make oh sooooo cool? If the league is doing well, there will probably be a host of teams who will remember this story as being a lot less fun considering what the NBA wants to use this moment as a springboard, according to Marc Stein of New York Times.

Of course, the part that comes out of what Stein tweeted is not so much the age of the players – Hield, for what it's worth, insists that he has nothing to do with the bad year of birth – but a little on the heights. Lying at heights has been a staple in the league for a number of reasons, as Chris Herring has explored in the the Wall Street newspaper in 2016. The players do it in order to be able to integrate in the physical archetype of the different positions. Kevin Durant, for example, is ranked at 6 "9" because, according to his terms, "it's the prototype size for a small striker", although he's probably closer to 6 "11" . Kevin Garnett avoided being on the 7-foot list so he did not have to play in the middle and the teams played according to the wishes of both players.

This does not mean that this new rule destroys a long-standing institution that is sacred to the sport, but it is unfortunate that one of the funniest things in the league must go away because of fuzzy administrative concerns. Although Stein notes the story of Hield, the most likely cause of this situation is that the game wins more and more points in the world of basketball. In fact, Matt Moore of the Action Network reported earlier this month that it was a shared sentiment among coaches and executives he spoke to about this new push for team building. transparency.

Personally, I look forward to the league, at the behest of bookmakers around the world, beginning to demand that the medical history of all players present be communicated to the crowd before learning.