(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:24:26 PM)
Dwyane Wade knows David Fizdale from their time together in Miami and he believes the coach is changing the perception of the Knicks‘ organization. â??I think heâ??s already changed that perception. Players around the league want to play for Fiz,â? Wade tells Stefan Bondy of the Daily News. â??Now that doesnâ??t mean itâ??s going to […]
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 11:36:03 PM)
MIAMI — When the New York Knicks visit the Miami Heat on Wednesday night, the injury list may be more impressive than the players actually on the court.
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 3:45:00 PM)
MIAMI — When David Fizdale joined the Heat as an assistant coach in 2008, Dwyane Wade was already a Finals MVP and an All-Star, one of the true superstars of the league alongside LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
There weren’t many reasons for Wade to listen to a young, inexperienced assistant who…
(Wednesday, October 24, 2018 12:04:23 AM)
MIAMI — Knicks shooting guard Damyean Dotson felt he did all he could do in preseason to show coach David Fizdale he belonged in the rotation. It wasn’t enough. Dotson was the odd man out of an 11-man playing field, sitting out the first two games to start the season. It probably would be up…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 10:27:29 PM)
MIAMI — Tim Hardaway Jr. is well on pace for a career season. As the No. 1 option for the first time in his career, the Knicks’ 26-year-old shooting guard is averaging 27 points on 41.8 percent shooting through four games. Nevertheless, he wishes the wins had risen along with his scoring. After a 1-3…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 6:41:01 PM)
WASHINGTON — The temptation is there, of course. Patrick Ewing’s favorite part of coaching is seeing an idea in his brain become a habit in his players’ daily routines. Right now, as he tries to rebuild the Georgetown Hoyas to a program strong enough to lure the next Patrick Ewing, that is the key talking…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 4:56:25 PM)
We wanted to let NBA teams get a couple of games in before evaluating how “the market” is rating the league from top to bottom. Pro basketball lines are more volatile from day to day because of injuries, the fatigue impact of back-to-backs, and the relatively recent coaching tendency to rest starters on the second…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 4:13:13 PM)
MIAMI — Since taking over as Knicks head coach, David Fizdale has grown particularly close to Allan Houston, who is part of the team’s front office. Fizdale calls it “ironic” after he once despised Houston — the former shooting guard who once caused so much pain on South Beach. Tuesday, Fizdale was back at AmericanAirlines…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 6:55:33 AM)
Five takeaways from another “moral victory” as the 1-3 Knicks took the unbeaten Bucks down to the final 1:30 before being outscored 16-6 to close, dropping a 124-113 decision Monday night in Brew City. 1. The current starting lineup has one more game to prove itself, otherwise David Fizdale will change things up, likely at…
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:16:18 PM)
The Knicks new head coach is highly respected around the league, so much so, that Heat guard Dwyane Wade said the perception about New York is changing.
(Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:42:53 AM)
Clarence who? That was the message from Mario Hezonja after former Knicks executive Clarence Gaines Jr. ripped the small forward’s defense on Twitter prior to Monday night’s 124-113 loss to the Bucks.
[NYTimes] LeBron James and the Lakers are 0-3, and the Doubters Are Emerging (Tuesday, October 23, 2018 10:07:55 PM)
A brawl with spit. Suspensions. Bad defense. Misses by James. This is the Lakers, 2018.
82 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.10.24)”
Tonight is a good test. We’ve played two really good teams and two really bad teams, and Miami is sort of middling, probably in play for a 6-8 seed in the East. I hope Mitch gets some run vs. Whiteside!
I’ll be at the game tonight cheering on the Trey Burke show until we actually look like we could win at which point my mixed feelings will kick in.
This is by far the least expensive Knicks-Heat game I’ve attended since I moved to Miami 5 years ago. I guess that’s what happens when a mediocre team is facing an awful team.
Like others, I understand that implementing an offense with the current personnel comes with its challenges but I would like to see some more organization on that front. It’s nice to see that we’re currently in the top 10 in 3PA but there’s still entirely too much Burke/Trier ISO calls for my taste.
It’s early going, but it almost seems like the league has given up on defense this year.
And I don’t mean that teams aren’t trying. It’s seems more like coaches are cool playing guys who contribute offensively but are negatives on defense. (In that sense, we’re lagging with Lance and Frank in the starting lineup.)
It’s appropriate, then, that an offensive virtuoso like Jokic is the star of the early season. It also makes a guy like Kanter more valuable. I’d like to see Fiz employ some of the same schemes the Nuggets are using to minimize Jokic’s deficiencies and see how they impact lineups where Kanter is the 5.
When is fiz gonna figure it out that Timmy is our 6th man?
He shoots over the defense, gets himself cooking and is perfect for that role!
Start Dotson!
Tonight’s unexpected 30 pter vs the matador should come from “Rodney McGruder”.
Regarding betting line trends, the over unders are being set ridiculously high (often in the 230s), yet most of them seem to be going over anyway. The league is now the wet dream of Doug Moe and Dantoni.
Quite a night from Marvin Bagley. Did not see a five block night coming or that kind of efficient line….
@3
It’s really been this way. I watched almost the entirety of Sixers and Pistons yesterday and it was insane how many times guys like Embiid and Griffin simply received the ball at the 3 point line and went to the rim with the slowest moves ever. Of course they are talented players who can do that, but not so long ago they would get pummeled instantly if they tried that bullshit, now they nobody can put a body on them without it being called a foul.
You know, the Knicks gave up over thirty points in the first quarter of each of their losses. Last season I would have concluded our defense was therefore bad. But this season we play at a much faster pace, and scoring is up all over the league at least partially because of the new rules on fouls, so I honestly don’t know, was our defense terrible those first quarters or was the pace just fast, and actually we just didn’t score enough? What do you guys think?
We go fast but don’t hit enough threes and give up too many points. Then we make a run with smart subs and then can’t stop anyone from scoring
@7 I remember watching a Rockets playoff game with a friend of mine last spring and we said: “this is the NBA now: defenders desperately backtracking to avoid James Harden running into them so he can throw up his hands and get a foul.”
Now it seems they just cede the space.
So guys, I know Timmy is a matador, but let’s maybe grade him on a curve here. It’s a matador league right now.
Trading Timmy for an expiring is all the assets we need. Let’s not get greedy
Whether the league intended to or not, i think a lot of the rule changes and how they call the game has disincentivized players to play tough D… and its horrid… the way they call flagrants, the way 3-point shooters can draw fouls, really any jumpshooter puts on an act these days if they are taking a contested shot…its a leg kick, and arm flying and a subsequent stare down of the closest zebra… one on one defense is such a rarity… have offensive players gotten better, sure?… but there’s a widening gap… clearly, i think its gone too far…
@10
Really, it happened quite a few times with Embiid last night. He’s obviously super skilled, but he would get the ball at the 3 point line, drive super slowly with a shaky handle and euro step over a defender that had no interest of putting a body on him. I remember during the game thinking that Oakley would probably break both of his legs if he tried that move in the 90s.
I’m not a purist or super nostalgic of the gritty basketball, but these freedom of movement rules might have gone too far even for my taste.
Looking at Knicks team statistics for this season, the only things that stand out are that we take a lot of shots, our opponents get too many rebounds and we shoot badly on two point attempts. We get an ok percentage on our threes, and take a reasonable number of them. I don’t know what lineup change we could do to improve our two point shooting, but if we put in Vonleh instead of Thomas, maybe the rebounding stats would improve.
also from sixers game last night… blake griffin’s final drive to the bucket… Roco fouls him with a decent foul… but not nearly good enough to stop the and-1… you gotta hammer him… but if he hammers him… there’s likely a scuffle (cause EGO) and we have flagrant(s)
Main offensive issue: No one passes. (Burke, Timmy, Knox, Kanter, Hardaway, and THjr, and also Tim, Hezonja and Trier)
Main defensive issue: Having bad defensive players (same list? Also, the “good defensive players” aren’t even that good- Lance, Vonleh, Lee, and Mitch are not good)
Main other issue: No one can rebound other than Kanter and Vonleh.
Main overall issue: as usual, the extra pass will get the opponent a wide-open 3. THAT is our main issue.
On the one hand, Bruno, this should increase the value of an on-the-ball defender like Frank who can be effective without fouling. On the other hand, if he can’t attack defenses that are ceding space and running away from ball handlers, it might be impossible to carry him on that side of the ball. It’s a better time to be a matador who contributes offensively than a stopper who makes you play 4 on 5 the other way.
Dotson is an excellent rebounder for his position.
I can’t even imagine how many points Jordan would score with today’s rules and pace. I would think he’d average 50 if he wanted to. He’d either shoot 30 FTs a game and foul out half the other team, or he’d matador his way to the basket at will.
This is like how the league was before the merger when guys like Elgin and Oscar were putting up insane numbers, except they didn’t have the 3 or touchy flagrants.
I remember in 2010 when we signed Amare and Felton. The first 10 games or so that team kind of struggled and on offense STAT and Felton rarely tried the pick and roll and the few times they did it looked bad.
I had season tickets then and I remember about 10 games into the season at a home game they executed a pick and roll beautifully. From then on they did that a bunch of times every game to perfection.
The point is that offensive sets, even basic ones, take time to master. Even a simple pick and roll takes time between two players to develop the timing of it, etc. Give this young team some time. We don’t have a lot of pass first guys for sure but this stuff takes more than one preseason especially when the team is full of young players. They’re in great shape, they run, they fight, and the defense is surprisingly good considering their pace. I like what I see so far even tough I know the L’s are gonna pile up.
The new defensive rules are a joke but they’re following the NFL path, give the masses lot of pointz and fuck the purists/advanced fans, it’s call entertainement baby.
Joel Embiid is a clown, a great player (when healty) but a clown nonetheless. Try something like this with Oakley or Xavier McDaniels and you’ll be in an hospital bed before midgame.
Wetbandit, we are actually 16th in the league in assists. But I agree about the rebounding. Z-man, Dotson may be good at rebounding, but he gets so few minutes I don’t think it makes a difference to the Knicks’ team stats. Would you rather play Dotson more or Vonleh more if you were to make a change?
McGrady came out saying he would score 40 a game in today’s NBA and it’s hard to disagree with him to be honest. When guys like Mirotic are putting up 35 point games like it’s nothing, those Uber talented scorers could probably reach this level if they focused on it.
I would still rather have an excess of offense than an excess of defense, simply because it’s more fun to watch. But there really needs to be some balance about it sometime soon or it will become the Harlem Globetrotters every game.
But it’s very few players on the team that actually pass. Burke is the only player to average above 5 assists/36. Frank hands off to start a play, but doesn’t actually assist all that much. Baker is the same. Vonleh is O’quinn2, and passes well. That’s about it. Timmy passes some, but soaks up more usage on iso plays.
I mean, look at this list of players who are ISO-heavy: Hardaway, Burke, Knox, Kanter, Hezonja, Trier. That’s a whole lot of minutes.
Aren’t NFL ratings going down every year? I gave it up 6 years ago. Although I confess I have occasionally checked back in this year to look at Saquon Barkley highlights.
I’m a sucker for the NBA, though, so I’ll put up with this.
I also an excited about going to my first live Knicks game in over 10 years. This team has a ton of holes, but i’ll be damned if they haven’t been fun to watch this year.
I’d be interested to see Dot replace oft transparent LT. He looked aggressive coming off some screens in the Bucks game which was a nice contrast from Lance playing decoy boy (and failing, because, well, he sucks) in the corner. With very little talent there’s not many options to shake up the lineup, but outside of moving Timmeh to the bench, which won’t happen, what else can we do?
I gave it up on the NFL too.
I’m old school, grew up with LT’s Giants, and I hate the “free offence” rules but my primary motivations were “socio-political”.
In a short time they had the Rice’s scandal, the brain damage scandal, the Kap situation and a POTUS encouraging teams to fire employees because they had the insolence to express their opinions.
I don’t think NFL ratings are going down for “scoring” reasons.
I’m a sucker for NBA, but not for the Harlem Globetrotters (or NBA All Star Games), there’s a limit to the free offence that I could bear… 🙂
I think a lot of people who gave it up for socially conscious reasons may actually underestimate the role that the deteriorating product played. My last straw with the NFL was when I was analyzing the municipal debt of Minneapolis and I saw the extent of the damage that the NFL did to that city and state by diverting public funds to the private coffers of their cartel. But frankly if I was still in love with the game I may have let cognitive dissonance do its thing.
As much as we hate Dolan, I appreciate the fact that he’s never forced me to ignore the fact that the basketball team I love has extorted my city for money earmarked for education, healthcare, employee benefits, etc. $1 billion in renovations to the Garden funded entirely by the MSG Corp. And not in some phony way like the Yankees and Mets did, either. But to be honest, if he did, I probably would find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce my discomfort.
This is an example of why role matters when you are looking at stats.
IMO, Frank is getting fewer assists because he’s playing off the ball more. As a result he has fewer opportunities to earn an assist. On the flip side, because he’s handling the ball less often he’s getting fewer TOs. IMO, he didn’t suddenly get worse at assists and better at TOs. To be honest, he could better or worse at one or both. How could we know so soon? It’s hard to know because his role changed.
The real issue is whether we are better off with him having the ball more often because imo he’s a very good passer. What he’s not good at is penetrating to create opportunities for more meaningful passes.
I like him with the ball more. He’s still such a zero scoring, at least if he’s making nice passes he’s adding something on offense other than standing in the corner or somewhere else not getting the ball.
Football is one of the biggest public health crises we face as a nation. You’ve got over a million kids playing a sport that’s known to irreversibly damage the brain, and billions upon billions of dollars depending on its continued existence. It’s a total farce to allow it to continue in schools, but this is the U.S.A. we’re talking about.
Maybe T-Mac would score 35 PPG in today’s NBA, but the implication is that he was just sooooo much better than anyone is today, which is fucking ludicrous. These old fuckers need to shut the fuck up about how much better they are than the current batch of players. They only get away with it because they, like a Bayless or SAS, never actually have their feet held to the fire on their nonsense.
Let me sit here and tell you about how I could have been a rock and roll superstar if only I had been born in the 60s instead of the 80s. Oh, you don’t believe me? Prove it’s not true, atheists.
My opinion of Dolan may be changing. He’s starting to remind me of my brother. My brother has Asperger’s. With Asperger’s you can be productive and successful in some ways, but utterly clueless in other ways, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships (like making friends, dealing with co-workers and employees, the media, etc…) It would not shock me in the least if Dolan is actually a pretty good guy with a mild social developmental disorder. He may not understand that some of the things he says and does are a problem for other people.
@31
I think that’s just called being obscenely wealthy
Jowles, do you want alcohol banned as well? Nah, that would be silly, since you like alcohol.
It’s fun to argue about because there are truly no right answers, so I don’t mind it much. I actually think that younger folks tend to be dismissive of past greats just as much the past greats make outlandish statements. They look at old film clips and find the game slow and methodical with lousy defense and no ball skills. They don’t get how restrictive the game was back then, how nearly all players played 4 years of college basketball under traditional/tyrannical coaches, how “Harlem Globetrotter” antics would not be tolerated by coaches, teammates, opponents or even fans, how poor the training, travel, medical and dietary support was for players back then, how players had to work regular jobs during the off-season, etc.
Bill Russell and Wilt (or even Jerry West) didn’t grow up practicing 3’s from childbirth, so who knows how good they would have been in the current era?
Anyway, it doesn’t bother me when McGrady and others make outlandish statements. In his healthy prime, he certainly would be an MVP candidate in today’s game, or in any other era. Would he have averaged 40? Who cares?
More disingenuous bullshit from you? Surprise!
Do you really think that adults consuming alcohol is the same as 8-year-olds slamming into each other to play a sport that has been conclusively shown to cause CTE?
Can you see the difference between the two things, or do you actually think that a 30-something consuming alcohol is the same as a fucking child being enabled by adults to play a sport known to damage brains, especially during critical brain development years?
GET THE FUCK OUT.
Tell me about how NAMBLA is a fully consensual organization, while you’re at it.
If you give a monkey a typewriter and infinite time, he will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare by accident.
Laugh all you want, but Dolan is getting better and I think he might be on his way to becoming a good owner. If he ever gets the right people below him (and Mills, Perry, Fiz may be them) I wouldn’t be shocked if he undergoes a complete perception change like old George Steinbrenner did when he got Cashman and Torre. I’d much rather have Dolan in charge of my team than the spoiled Steinbrenner brats who are intent on ceding every inherent advantage the New York market gives them while Boston wins a world series with $50 million more in payroll.
Note that getting better does not equal redeeming any of his past transgressions.
Equating child molestation to playing football is ridiculous, even for you.
How about soccer? Millions (edit – lol not millions, but in the thousands. let me see if I can find numbers) of kids get concussions playing soccer. Should we ban that too?
Dolan has done pretty well (but not great) with the Rangers, so who knows? In any case, things are looking up more than they have in a long while. Sadly, we’re one big screw-up away from several
more years of torment. Here’s to hoping that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a long freight train of losing.
Soccer is the largest cause of head injury among girls….I’d ban it just because it’s boring as f**k, but that’s just me.
nfl ratings are rebounding a bit this year…
https://www.thewrap.com/nfl-ratings-improved-over-2017-first-six-weeks/
no doubt the kaepernick situation cost the league many many millions…the price of the league office botching a situation that badly…
plus, no secret – eyes are continually switching to non traditional media outlets…you tube and twitch are no joke…
OK, that took a couple of seconds:
Football, a sport most typically associated with brain injury but also has a high number of total injuries due to its being a collision sport, was fourth on the list of concussion as a percentage of total injuries, behind girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball and girls’ basketball.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/recruiting-insider/wp/2017/03/27/girls-soccer-has-highest-concussion-rate-of-high-school-sports-study-finds/?utm_term=.0e603762f1ba
Nearly 3 million players aged 7 through 17 received ER treatment for soccer-related injuries in the 2000-2014 study. The overall rate of injuries, which takes into account soccer’s rising popularity, more than doubled to 220 per 10,000 players in 2013, from 106 per 10,000 players in 1990. Researchers did not have enough data to calculate 2014 rates.
More than 200,000 concussions or head injuries were treated in emergency rooms, or 7 percent of injuries. The rate jumped to almost 30 per 10,000 people in 2013 from just under 2 per 10,000 players in 1990.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/youth-soccer-injuries-soaring-including-concussions-heres-why/
i did not know that…
https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/soccer.html
it’s been a very long time, but, i remember if the ground was wet outside and you played – the ball felt like a freaking brick if you hit it with your head…
i’m surprised they left out bicycling and skateboarding…
man, what kids are out there doing rodeo?!?
Yeah, youth soccer probably shouldn’t have headers as part of the game. So? What does that have to do with the million kids playing football right now?
And what’s the relationship between reported injuries and actual injuries? Football has a culture where men die from heat exhaustion on the field, where concussed QBs are put in a dark closet to rub some dirt on it, where admitting that you’re injured means you might permanently lose the job that you worked hard for. You really expect me to believe that soccer, a sport widely played by both sexes, is MORE dangerous than football because of ER admission rate? How fucking stupid do you think I am?
Whatabout whatabout whatabout whatabout
The thing is that in soccer contact to the head is something accidental, in football it’s literally a big part of the game and something that was celebrated for a long time, the big hits etc. It’s definitely not the same thing.
Every sport, specially when it comes to peak performance athletes in elite circumstances is inherently unhealthy. Guys like Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt literally destroy their bodies to achieve peak performance in competition and are certainly much less healthy than they could be. However, football as the biggest contact team sport is clearly the worst of the bunch by far, and something really should be done about it.
worse than rugby?
played the sport when i was 18, lasted all of 4 games before i got injured (torn deltoid)…
best after game get together though of any sport i ever played…lot’s of pub time, beer and singing…
Jowles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo
?
Rugby players are the toughest MFers around.
Boy 2for18 really whiffed on interpreting the data in the article he posted
So tempting…..
But wait, he understands math!
@41 – here’s the thing, though, 2-for-18: CTE has nothing to do with concussions. You develop CTE as a result of repetitive, non-concussive head trauma. Concussions just speed up the process. All the girls playing soccer who don’t get concussed aren’t suffering repetitive head trauma. Most of the boys playing tackle football are.
It’s really hard to make an argument in favor of letting children play football, and if Jowles didn’t say anything, no one here would. So come on. Stop pulling each other’s hair already.
@41
I don’t think this quote does for you what you want it to. If there are 10,000 concussions in football and 50,000 of all other injuries, then ~16% of football injuries are concussions. If there are 1,000 concussions and 3,000 of all other injuries in girls’ youth soccer, then 25% of all girls’ youth soccer injuries are concussions, ranking them higher on the list. Without additional context, it’s a meaningless stat to this discussion.
The jump in reported concussions could be explained by a greater awareness of the need for medical treatment after a head injury. It doesn’t necessarily follow (or even make sense) that those sports have become 15x more dangerous in the last 30 years.
misinterpreting data is a big part of what we do here
To be clear, of course you’re all correct that football is dangerous. So are a million other things. I disagree that it should be banned.
I didn’t misinterpret anything. I posted articles backing up my claim that concussions are a big issue in youth soccer as well.
I agree with THCJ that to compare football to alcohol is disingenuous. Alcohol is illegal for children. Football is not. I have no problem with full contact football in college or the NFL. The problem is high school and pee-wee full contact football. If grown men want to do something dangerous I am on board, they have the maturity and perspective to make that decision in the same way they are allowed to drink.
The football problem is an easy fix switch it to non-contact in pee-wee and high school. At the very least pee-wee football needs to be abolished, pee-wee football is absurd.
Thanks. Good distinction.
@55 Fair enough. Good points.
@47
I mean, do you watch soccer? The only contact to the head that is a part of the game are headers on the ball, and I’ve never seen in 30 years of watching soccer someone get a concussion from a header. People get concussions on accidental head contact while jumping for the ball or falling down or even taking a kick to the head, but my point is that those are accidental occurrences. In football, tackling with your head is a part of the game and something that happens intentionally multiple times during a single game. The key thing is repetitive blows to the head, not any blow to the head ever.
I could be walking in the streets, fall down and hit my head on the ground, and no one is banning walking around or saying there’s no way to avoid it. But football is obviously a very specific case of a sport in which the danger is an inherent part of the way people play the game, and even of the way to play that has been celebrated for years as the exciting / correct way to do it. No one ever did a compilation of big hits with the head to other players in soccer.
My understanding is that people are getting concussions, particularly kids and particularly girls, due to heading the ball, not just from running into each other.
Headers in soccer cause more brain damage in women than men, new study says. USA TODAY Sports’ Martin Rogers reports on the concussion crisis that continues to hover over the beautiful game. … They found eight brain regions damaged by soccer heading in women and only three in men.Aug 2, 2018
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/injuries/2018/08/01/einstein-soccer-study-headers-brain-damage/851472002/
Mahy, along with 97 other amateur soccer players, underwent MRIs as part of the Einstein Soccer Study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an ongoing effort that hopes to determine the extent of brain damage from head injuries in soccer.
The study found that women who headed the ball a similar number of times to men (ages 18-50) in a 12-month period exhibited five times more extensive brain tissue damage than men.
Saying “this should be illegal” and “this should not be illegal” is generally not an issue when bright reasonable people look at accurate non politicized data and try to find compromises that are in the best interests of children, adults, and society as a whole. If it’s a reasonable position most people will be on board.
The problems occur when people (at either extreme) want to impose their own standards and values on other people and there isn’t a strong consensus on what to do. That creates conflict. It doesn’t even matter who is right. There’s a greater principle underlying how to handle it. You either value freedom or you don’t. I might personally think boxing should be made illegal, but I would never in a million years want it banned unless the vast majority of people were on board with me. If I believed strongly it should be banned, then it’s on me to convince most people why I am right. Until then, freedom outweighs my personal views.
It might take longer to implement change by making the standards for change tougher, but it reduces the chances someone will want to impose their values on you when you disagree strongly.
Does anyone else find it at least somewhat amusing or ironic that pre-legalization DraftKings and its ilk were arguing “we are not gambling” and now their radio ads all contain a “if you have a gambling problem” not to mention use the word “bet.”
I mean, I don’t know. It’s something I’ve heard of for some time, and there seem to be a ton of studies about it, some of which I’m sure are contradictory. I’m surprised a soccer guy like yourself hasn’t heard of this. Maybe it’s just an American worry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/well/heading-soccer-ball-children-kids-concussion-brain.html
According to studies of experienced adult soccer players, heading can generate impact forces almost equivalent to those of a helmet-to-helmet football tackle. But less attention has been directed at heading by young players and the attendant cognitive effects, if any. Last year, however, researchers in Puerto Rico gained permission to work with 30 boys and girls there, ages 9 to 11, who played in a local youth league. (Children this age are allowed to head in Puerto Rico.)
Yeah, of course it’s gambling. Saying it wasn’t gambling was silly. Just like making it illegal is silly. But now that the State is making sure they’re getting their vig, it’s all good lol.
This is surprising from you, Bruno, as it is as nonsensical of a statement as discussing basketball based on the eye test. Concussion symptoms often do not exhibit themselves until well after the event. Girls are especially at risk via headers because their neck muscles are less developed, and this is shown to be the leading cause of concussions among young female athletes.
My daughter plays high school volleyball at a high level. Even though a volleyball is much softer than a soccer ball, I’ve seen lots of girls get their bell rung (including my kid) by taking a high-velocity hit to the head. Most girls shake it off, some don’t and go into the protocol. But in that sport at least, the most common cause of concussions are either incidental contact with a teammate or with the floor. Headers in girl’s soccer are a special case, since it is an integral part of the sport. I wonder if the game for girls (and women) would change all that much if headers were eliminated as a legal play. Since I’m not a fan, it would make no difference to me…
@ 60 – what people who are fine with the Gov’t micromanaging people’s decisions don’t get is that when their team is out of power, the other side will micromanage them in ways they don’t like.
Best not to give the Gov’t that much power in the first place.
I think Bruno is so used to disagreeing with me that he had a mental lapse there 🙂
I have to say that a lot of professional soccer in Italy speak like they suffered many concussions, but I’m pretty certain there’s no correlation to headers.
In all seriousness, when I was a teenager I played a lot of soccer (yay for stereotypical Italian customs!) and headers were by far my forte, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never suffered a concussion. There are studies that suggest that kids shouldn’t be allowed to head the ball, and I think FIFA is moving in that direction, but I can’t see how we can compare football and soccer.
@64
You are right, I mostly zeroed in on the idea of professional male soccer in comparison to the NFL and yeah, it makes a lot of sense if you think about younger girls playing soccer specially. But there’s still a gap I see when the top athletes in the game, in football, with incredibly (over)developed physiques are still super susceptible to this kind of stuff while it’s very rare to see it on professional soccer. For kids I completely agree, makes a lot of sense.
Why does every thread that 2for18 comments on inevitably become a referendum on libertarianism
My understanding is that concussions are cause by the brain slamming into the skull due to differences in velocity. It might be that in boys/men, the neck muscles are strong enough to keep the skull and brain moving together, while in girls/women, there is more recoil. But the statistics seem pretty conclusive.
As to football, although I doubt a ban is coming any time soon, seems like things are going in the proper direction with a combo of better helmets, better rules, better protocols, and importantly, softer turf (a frozen field is like concrete!) Some risk will always be there, but if it can be brought down to the level of other full-contact sports, that would be awesome.
@68 do you think that headers on long kicks are necessary to the essence of the sport? It seems like a disposable play. I would think that headers around the net are less of an issue than those on the soccer equivalent of a punt in football.
I mean, the NFL has all but eliminated the kickoff return based on injury and it hasn’t impacted the game all that much…
This thread is going to give me a concussion…
It’s amazing how an innocuous comment starts these things.
Yesterday I compared the Bargnani and Curry trades to the Mantle v DiMaggio debate and somehow it became a referendum on political correctness.
Today someone compared the tight whistles of the NBA to the no contact rules of the NFL, and here we are again.
I even said James Dolan might be a good owner now and everyone was too busy googling the impact of 12 year old girls heading a soccer ball to call me a fool. I don’t ever want to say James Dolan is a good owner on a knicks blog without being called a fool!!
(Although, I do think he’s getting better.)
@73 You’re a fool, I tell you!
That said, I do kind of agree that Dolan is not actually that horrible as an owner at this moment in time. He still seems like an ass based on his past idiocies, but to his (dubious) credit the man has stayed away from micro-managing the Knicks.
@71
I think the game would be perfectly fine without them, but soccer is MUCH worse in terms of being averse to rule changes. It would have to be incredibly damning evidence that is 100% undeniable for fifa to even consider something like that. It would certainly change the game a bit but I think it would be for the best.
PED testing in American football is a joke, at the NFL, college and high school levels. A very high percentage of these guys are juicing at all three levels. Football is just a corrupt sport in general.
FIFA is worse than the NCAA. Which is hard for me to say.
They did do VAR for the WC. That worked really well in my book.
how in the world fantasy sports (GAMBLING) got legalized before weed is crazy…
VAR?
This. NFL viewership last year dropped less than overall TV viewership. Folks be cuttin’ the cord, that was the biggest cause of the decline.
@79
Video assistant referee, pretty much what the NBA has had for years but only for a very limited number of things (goals, penalties, red cards and a referee mistaking a playe r for another in the case of a send off).
Thanks