Journalism Runneth Afoul Over Globetrotters And Big Five
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Journalism today, is largely a joke. Stories are fabricated from thin air. Very thin air. Air so thin that brains ding out. “Writers” play copy cat. One will write a story and others will jump on the bandwagon for their version of the same story. It’s a habit that has taken over our media, and the consequences of riding story coat tails can create huge fabrications from the truth that spread like wild fire.
That is the case this morning.
Over at KUSports… this made their headlines today:
“College basketball coaches adapt Jayhawks’ go-to play”
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2014/apr/08/college-basketball-coaches-adapt-jayhawks-go-play/
The story was a spin off from a “Dead Spin” story published yesterday. Some journalists, obviously, didn’t perform their due diligence on this story.
First… here is where the story started:
“How A Clever Kansas Play Went Viral And Took Over College Basketball”
Let’s take a pop quiz. How many people in here think Self’s “chop” is his own? We’ve been told that it is his on numerous occasions.
Maybe it is a generation thing… but many of us used “the weave” way back in our days… like in the 60’s. This “weave” or “chop” is not new to basketball.
Let’s now give credit to who may be the original authors of the “weave” or “chop”…
The Harlem Globetrotters deserve the credit for spreading the weave all over the world.
But you don’t have to take my word for it… go to this link and click on the video clip and watch one of their variants of the weave performed in 1958. Granted, this variant is slightly different from what Kansas runs… but the Globetrotters did the Kansas variant, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Globetrotters
Or here you can see a little weave by the Globetrotters in 1950:
The clip footage didn’t show long weaves, but they did often perform long versions of the weave… exactly the same weave as used at Kansas.
Who invented this basketball move credited to Kansas and Bill Self?
My guess… it goes back to 1926 and Abe Saperstein in Chicago. It was the forerunners of the Harlem Globetrotters… the Savoy Big Five.
They were looking for ways to entertain the crowd and differentiate themselves from the traditional game. They needed crowds to fill the Savoy Ballroom, so people would stay after for dances.
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@drgnslayr That’s funny. Almost every game this season, I found myself humming “Sweet Georgia Brown” while watching one of our games.
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My bad… what they are showing isn’t long enough to weave. It’s the simple Celtic hand off.
Still… we haven’t innovated anything.
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@drgnslayr what are you talking about? Did deadspin say Self invented the weave? I didn’t see that. Didn’t it come from Iba? As for the chop, you didn’t say who invented it.
I saw the trotters back in the day and their weave didn’t look like ours.
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I thought they were talking about the weave… that was the basis of my thread. After further review of the footage online it’s just a simple hand off. My bad. But what they show is something that has been around as long as the game.
Naismith probably invented it.
I did a quick search on youtube and put in Celtic hand off… because I recall them using it a lot and I found that clip. Same dang thing they showed which Self calls the “chop.”
I got off base with the weave, because that is something previously mentioned as Self’s… when it clearly is not. I think I jumped the gun because it has bothered me for years… people claiming the weave is from Self.
Here is the claim Self invented the chop:
“The play, known as “Chop,” was created by Self prior to the 2006-07 season.”
http://regressing.deadspin.com/how-a-clever-kansas-play-went-viral-and-took-over-colle-1560429435
I guess we can say the word “chop” in reference to this basketball move is Self’s. The actual move goes back to probably Naismith days.
Turns out to be a bonus thread because both the weave and the chop were exposed as old hat!
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The Celtics video you posted is from 2013; the “chop” was supposedly implemented in 2008. Maybe the Celtics are also using the Chop…:)
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There were some old clips mixed in their, too… I thought of them because I remember when they ran it commonly in the 80’s.
They ran that for Bird almost every other play. He’d pop around one of those moving ball screens (that is what they are), turn and nail the 3.
