(Let me pre-emptively say that this post was written in the spirit of friendly competition, plus a real disagreement.)
First off, let's give a warm RU welcome to D-League Digest, the TrueHoop Network's newest blog which happens to be about the D-League. Hey, that's what this website happens to be about! More D-League coverage and exposure is always welcome, especially if that coverage doesn't involve embarrassing, embarrassing publicity stunts that require an immediate apology from Dan Reed.
I think Henry Abbott's announcement put it best when he said,
From Hardwood Paroxysm, 48 Minutes of Hell and a lot of other blogs in the TrueHoop Network do a great job covering the D-League, but we're now stepping up our game with the addition of Steve Weinman's D-League Digest, which will be on the beat day in and day out
Hey, uh, that's great, Henry. Hi. We exist, too. And have for several years. (I'm also pretty sure that TrueHoop stopped linking to blogs outside of its network at some point, but I can't confirm. So at least this way he'll be talking about the D-League at all.)
Steve Weinman also got a warm welcome from NBA TV, which had him on for an interview. Let's take a look.
Two points. First, it appears that the "day in and day out" coverage will be three days in and four days out per week. (Hey Henry, if you need links on Tuesday and Thursday, we have them.) Second, let's dive into this "Romel Beck is like Tayshaun Prince" issue, which Matt over at Hardwood Paroxysm (disclosure: this blog's founder) agrees with. For your convenience, I thought I'd break them down in a handy chart form.
| Romel Beck | Tayshaun Prince | |
| Long arms? | Yes | Yes |
| Rebounds? | No | Yes |
| Defense? | No | Yes |
| Needs the ball all the time to score? | Yes | No |
Don't believe me? Take a look at their numbers. Prince's worst rebounding season so far saw him average 3.7 rebounds per 36 minutes, and his career average is about five. Beck, however, averaged only 2.7 rebounds per 36 last season, and that was in the D-League against lesser competition. It's entirely possible that Beck will develop some rebounding prowess, except that he's 27 years old and hasn't done it yet. Prince also has averaged 12 and a half points a game for his career on five field goal attempts. Beck averaged 16 points a game last year, but needed 10 and a half shots to get there. It's a bit harder to quantify defense, so we'll go with secondary, qualitative sources. According to DraftExpress, Beck is "a scoring machine who struggles on defense." His coach in Dakota, Rory White, has said that he needs to work on his "on-the-ball defense, help defense," which is to say he needs to work on all defense. Again I say, this is at age 27. Meanwhile, some blog says that Prince "makes things very tough on great scorers." Saying that Romel Beck is like Tayshaun Prince because they both have long arms ignores, well, almost everything about the two players' games.
We here at Ridiculous Upside look forward to the day in which we are invited on to NBA TV to discuss the D-League, such as how Rod Benson is like Brandon Jennings because they're both from California. Welcome D-League Digest!
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