First there was the blog named FreeDarko. Titled in honor of
the seven feet of Serbian sadness that is NBA draft bust Darko Milicic,
the collective of FreeDarko writers gleefully dismantled the rigid
parameters of sports journalism with absurdist observations and
superior statistical analysis. Once you witness FreeDarko’s astute
observations on basketball, all other coverage seems as bland and
expendable as a week-old box score.
But what followed was even more incredible: a book entitled
FreeDarko Presents the Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac:
Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today’s Game. This majestic shot across
the bow of sports journalism focuses on the NBA as a rotating galaxy
built to house the various personalities that exist within. Throughout
Macrophenomenal, the players—ranging from household
institutions Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, to those possessing
intriguing skill sets, like the speed of Leandro Barbosa or the height
of Yao Ming—are masterfully examined and re-presented with a
textbook clarity. Their abstract glimpses into the sport of basketball
are just what casual NBA fans need to re-associate themselves with what
is happening on the hardwood; for us longtime fans, beaten down from
years of empty coverage from local hack sports columnists and the
useless buffoonery of sports talk radio, The Macrophenomenal Pro
Basketball Almanac is reason to believe once more.
The head of the FreeDarko collective, Bethlehem Shoals (the
ridiculous nom de plume of Seattle resident Nathaniel Friedman), took
time to discuss turning a blog into a book and the long-lost record
collection of former Blazers/Sonics player—and flattop
enthusiast—Detlef Schrempf.
Nathaniel Friedman will read from The Macrophenomenal Pro
Basketball Almanac at Powell’s City of Books (1005 W Burnside) on
Monday, February 9, at 7:30 pm.
MERCURY: Were you concerned that transferring
something as free flowing as the blog into a book would lead to a lot
of compromising?
BETHLEHEM SHOALS: There were so many steps, so many discrete
chapters, that by the time we got someone to buy the book we had
absorbed things we’d been told by other writers and by our agent: We
would have to compromise and not do the weirdest possible thing on
every page. But then when we actually sold the book, our editor said,
“We just want you to do your thing, just like the blog.”
When I read some of the essays now, I cringe, because a lot of it is
exposition; the blog is written as if every person who is reading it
knows every single thing about the NBA. I think it’s because that’s
where my brain is most of the time, but it’s also very deliberate how
insider-y we can be. Basketball books, they don’t sell very well, so
the worst thing we could do—on top of this being a weird
book—would be to make the book hard to get into. So we had to
figure out how we could do what we wanted to, and still make it
accessible to other people who wouldn’t necessarily care about
basketball. We try to talk it up as a book for people who are really
into sports, or not into sports at all. There’s so much information in
the book that’s presented in such a way: here’s what you need to know,
why it is, and here is a wacky drawing.
What’s your take on media access? Does sticking a mic in the locker
room grant you any additional knowledge you couldn’t just get from
watching the game at home?
It’s a necessary form of journalism—but it’s true that it’s
really hard to get good material from the players. The thing about
basketball is that a lot depends on what kind of mood the players are
in. I mean, a lot of the players are really stupid, but it’s not like
they don’t think about basketball, or about their team. It’s really
just about them liking you.
Let’s talk about the most important subject ever: The long-lost LP
collection of Detlef Schrempf. You know where it’s located?
This reminds me of the time I mentioned that [Orlando Magic guard]
J.J. Redick had a water sports fetish [which was a joke]. I mentioned
that offhand without realizing it was exactly the kind of thing that
everyone in the world would want to know.
There’s a goofy model and hobby place sort of near the University
[of Washington]—his records are located there. There are dozens
of records; German pressings of folk rock and really campy, self-aware,
German hard rock, I really should go back and buy some of it. I can’t
imagine this being stuff he would have listened to recently or
anything.