Reel Talk: The Corbin Smith Review Of Online Basketball Highlights

The NBA watched the flower of easily accessible full-motion streaming video as it blossomed on the Internet and, when every other pro sports league said "nah," decided instead to let it spread. Instead of spending its precious legal resources tracking down amateur cultivators on YouTube, Vine, DailyMotion, Twitter, Overdrive, NeoPets, and other video streaming websites, the league let the clips stand where they lay and work as free promotion.

The consequence of the NBA's laissez-faire approach to the distribution of its intellectual property is a deluge of fan-made highlight mixes, Vines, recaps, whatever. If you have a love of the NBA, a nicer computer than me, and a marginal sense of editor's rhythm, you can squeeze out a Bradley Beal highlight mix and get 20,000 people to watch it in the course of some idle YouTube cruising.

A medium that generates this much traffic and interest deserves, even demands, to be examined with a critical eye. And I believe that I have been called, by God, to become that eye. And so, I will be reviewing the latest highlight mixes and ephemera every week, here at VICE Sports, scrutinizing this body of work and evaluating its aesthetic, narrative, and moral qualities.

To the task!

Your 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers! — John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann)November 4, 2015

It is not often we see an analogy as elegant as this synecdoche of the entire enterprise of the 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers. It appears that JJ Hickson inbounds the ball to ball to Gary Harris, who streaks down the floor and dunks the ball in transition. In this one action, a whole universe of malfeasance emerges:

ONE: Kobe Bryant tries to match up with Harris in the backcourt for the sake of putting a press on. Unfortunately, he is now old and slow, and is almost immediately overwhelmed by Gary Harris's demonistic on ball speed. His little phantom push in Harris's back at the halfway point would be tragic were the player doing the pushing anyone but Bryant, who has become a walking comedy of hubris in old age.

TWO: Brandon Bass also fails to stop the ball, though, in fairness, he had a very small sliver of time to step in the way and he honorably jogs out the dunk into the lane. Jonathan Papelbon would approve.

THREE: Once the ball gets into the backcourt, Jordan Clarkson has a chance to either stop the ball or set his feet to take a charge or just foul Harris altogether. He considers these options and decides to go with "ineffectual swipe."

FOUR: D'Angelo Russell watches the whole thing happen from the other side of the floor. He makes a SLIGHT acceleration when he realizes it's going to become a dunk, but quickly realizes that executing a chase-down transition mugging would be unsafe, expensive, and maybe even impossible.

FIVE: Julius Randle balls his fists near his groin as if he was thinking about MAYBE taking a charge, but he relents when he sees that he is not even remotely in position. His hands then turn from charge-fists into turned up palms, as if to say "Oh, that was not what we were supposed to do, not at all."

A mess of gambling hubris, ineffectuality, insufficient athleticism: it is the entire Laker defense in a little swirling Christmas globe. An excellent Vine on the whole, although it does tell a little fib: that didn't really happen on an inbounds. JJ Hickson just batted the rebound so far afield that he ended up tapping it back inbounds to Harris after Clarkson missed a long two.

Also worth mentioning: everyone on the court is wearing special NBA issued socks that are meant to pay tribute to service people, except Kobe, who has no time for long socks fucking up his long established playing silhouette.

GRADE: 9/10 COMMEMORATIVE SOCKS

The Editor is truly author of any highlight mix. The editor begins with a passion for a player or performance, then takes that performance, strisp its context bare, and reforms it into its own story, wherein the subject couldn't miss and was delivering pinpoint passes all night.

It is a venerable abstraction, to take the whole wavy mess of a basketball game and refocus it into a positive tale of casual athletic dominance, but not an entirely truthful one.

Where can we find truth away from watching an entire game? Can an average person even properly evaluate a game with their untrained eyes? Probably not. So, we must turn to the ultimate abstraction to gain any understanding of a player's achievement. We turn to numbers.

(Via ESPN)

In sitting and observing the line for nearly an hour, which is the proper amount of time a critic must be engaged with a piece, I could not bring myself to be moved in any single direction. I see the three pointers made, five per game on ten attempts, and I am nearly inspired, as if I walked into my bathroom and there saw a mighty she-bear rise up and hold her whole power and heft on her two legs. I think, "There has been nothing like this in my bathroom before"—the bathroom, you have gathered, is a metaphor for the entire NBA—"and I am afraid it will kill the entire league. The man to whom these numbers belong is, simply, a Godzilla man, and there is nothing anyone will be able to do to stop him or his terrible will, not until death's cold hand is on him at last."

But just as I am being moved in one direction, I feel the creep of anesthetizing intellectual feelings. "Regression is coming. No one can do this forever. The NBA will fix this performance, sooner or later." I feel my disposition sour. Looking at this statline for an hour straight has only subjected me to the wanderings of my own mind. If you like your own internal wanderings, I recommend it. If not, wait a month or so, for a larger sample size and less uncomfortable feelings.

GRADE: F(rightening)

This was a rank disappointment. A young player notching a career high should be a joyful celebration, dunks and ill-advised jump shots galore. It should touch the viewer's mind like a powerful drug, a hallucination of a world where anyone could be a superstar. Here, Gordon scores a measly 19 and gets fouled a lot.

The most blood-boiling moment in the mix comes at about 00:15: Gordon drives to the basket, right into a waiting Dwight Howard, who commits a clumsy flagrant foul. Why was Dwight putting a light hurt on Aaron? Does he fear a Magic team that is good without him? Is this violence all he has left? Does he dream of breaking into Mario Hezonja's fuck mansion and taking his life to keep the Magic mediocre, so that he will be forever remembered as their last decent player? None of this truly involves Aaron Gordon. He couldn't manage to be the most interesting person in his own mix.

It ends with the following exchange from the announcers:

"Gordon has a career high 19 points tonight!"

"Ohh, and we're not done! Aaron Gordon just getting loose!"

A Fox Sports flag flies across the screen. The mix ends. He was not just getting loose. That was all he had to offer.

RATING: 2/5 from the line.

This week, Andrew Wiggins dunked on Paul Millsap. If you're looking to relive the magic by watching Andrew Wiggins Dunks on Paul Millsap, don't. The clip is only four seconds long, not NEARLY long enough to really take in the play. It also appears to have been shot on a phone. One can occasionally appreciate that bit of handmade highlight charm, but the decision to abandon the subtleties of room noise and dunk the whole thing in a measure and a half of dubstep is a mistake. The viewer thirsts to hear, AT LEAST, the conclusion of the second measure! Does it go: "Wah-wah-wah-wahwahwahwah" or does it take a "Wah-wah-wah-wah-WAH!WAH!?" You can never know. It's horseshit. Do not watch this video.

RATING: 8 piles of horse shit (Out of 13 possible maximum piles)

Friend to all Seth Rosenthal shared this ELECTRIFYING homemade Kristaps Porzingis highlight last night, and I honestly cannot recommend it enough. Young Lurch barrels down on Carmelo Anthony's missed three point attempt like a skinny little bulldozer, pushing a small pile of big, muscular men forward in his wake.

It is a six-second argument for the power of momentum in moving mass. The way the announcer is taken by surprise is fabulous. He's still watching the damn three pointer and then, all of a sudden, BAM, THE BULLZINGER! Just a fabulous highlight, in a terrific package.

GRADE: GRAND DINGZINGIS (Four Dingziners scored on one at-Krisbat)

And that's it. Until next week… KEEP HIGHLIGHTING!