I find the disconnect over the David Thorpe chats intriguing. Some people love him and some people absolutely hate him. I happen to love his chats. I think a lot of people don't appreciate his style. People complain that his responses are too short. But he often says more in 3 words than many others do in a paragraph. A typical Chad Ford chat or J.A. Adande chat will only cover a few dozen questions, if that. Their answers may be longer, but they aren't necessarily "deeper" and their chats on the whole don't end up covering a lot of material. Thorpe, on the other hand, will get through 5 or 6 times as many questions. When you put all the questions together, you get a much more complete picture of the weekly NBA landscape. I think a lot of the depth and information in the Thorpe chats comes from the questions themselves, not so much the answers. People will ask questions about little things like how to improve so-and-so's shooting mechanics or so-and-so's compatibility playing under a certain coach's system. Add all those little bits of info together and you can really get some substantive depth about the dynamics of the NBA. The other chats only hit the major bullet points that are already in the news - sometimes exciting, but oftentimes kind of boring.
Anyhow, I'm not trying to convert anyone - I'm perfectly happy with the chats. If others don't like them, no love lost with me.
See, I think your theory is exactly what thorpe is going for but there are two huge problems. 1) Thorpe is a talent scout. He scouts talent, he knows little in comparison compared to Ford the Sheridan about 'rumors' or 'feelings inside the lockerroom', he knows about the mechanics of a jumpshot. Perfect Thorpe question: Rate the top 5 low post scoring centers in the league with justification. He too often however answers "What do you think Artest's rap career will bring to Yao Ming's soap opera aspirations?"
He's a talent scout, he should answer talent scout questions. Espn is marketing him as an 'NBA Expert'. He's a basketball talent expert, and its a huge difference that for me has made his chats unreadable.
Totally disagree with you there. As a talent scout (and a skills trainer), you could argue that he's much more of an expert than guys like Chad Ford. Look, I like Chad Ford. But I've also been to his little office at BYU-Hawaii where he teaches history or whatever - sure he's got lots of connections, but he's 3000 miles away from most of the action holed up in a tiny crappy office. What makes Ford such an expert? Or Sheridan? Or Adande? Thorpe spends the season traveling to games, generating scouting reports, working with players - he's in the thick of things all the time. His JOB is to help NBA players improve their games. You don't think that qualifies him as an NBA expert? He gets to see behind-the-scenes stuff, talk to players. His perspective is unique, informed and different. But at the same time, he doesn't try to be an "expert" about everything. Who is really qualified to comment on Artest's rap career anyway? Quincy Jones? He keeps the chats interesting and fun by taking some questions that are not about shooting mechanics and pick-n-roll defensive schemes. He answers with his opinion. If you follow the chats long enough, you get to know him a little, and his two words answers speak volumes. Oftentimes I totally disagree with him. But it's still interesting to me to know what he thinks. Anyhow...I'm obviously NOT preaching to the choir here.
Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I think that if he is as much of an "expert" as you say, then he simply is a horrible writer, because he does not do a good job at all of passing his expert analysis on anything other than training fundmentals (and even on that, I think he could go MUCH more in depth on, because he clearly knows a lot about it) to his readers.
His job is to share his knowledge with his readers, and it seems that most of his readers feel that he has not learned how to do it. I agree that it doesn't mean he doesn't know what he is talking about...it just means he is a crappy writer, and he should probably stick to training athletes.
