What Makes This Piece Good, Vol. 3: Sally Jenkins on Kwame Brown's Growing Pains

I thought he was on a roster last year, but I guess he wasn't. It says a lot about the lack of big men depth in the NBA when Kwame can hang around the league for 12 seasons.

 

For some reason, this Sixers SB Nation site decided to do a brief oral history of Kwame's time with the team. Collins still has regrets about how he coached him it seems.

http://www.libertyballers.com/2013/11/24/5139664/the-complete-oral-history-of-kwame-browns-time-with-the-philadelphia-76ers-sixers

 

Jordan is quoted in the story.
Several times. And I don't think he offered much.
Where did I say she had "great access?"

From reading that profile, it appeared to me that the Wizards didn't do their homework, or did shoddy work in evaluating Brown. I think that's is a downside for the organization.

Jenkins' story is fair to Brown and favorable to the Wizards.
As far as access ... How many agents would talk this openly - on the record - about their clients?
Head coaches? Maybe or two.
But an agent?
An organization? About a player they are trying to develop? A No. 1 pick at that.

 

After reading this last night, I had to look him up to see how long he lasted in the league. I forgot he had a cup of coffee with the Sixers.
Like you, I'm amazed he lasted 10 years, with the numbers he put up.

 

Collins is a better interview than most NBA coaches, but he's clearly smart enough to want to let everyone know how much of a project Brown is. It's the same for the manager/agent. They wanted it known how much transition Brown was dealing with, that would explain why he didn't do anything as a rookie.

 

The day he retires, it would be fascinating reading, heck it could even be a book, if he would open up to her about everything he learned over the years.

I actually give him credit for staying around this long. Heck, he's made $64 mil playing hoops across 12 seasons. That's pretty amazing when you think about it. No way does the kid she wrote about in that profile make it 12 years. He matured somehow.

 

I remember this story when it came out. For some reason, the detail about the rumpled suits int he corner of his apartment always stayed with me.

Collins is an interesting guy. When he was with the Sixers, his off-the-record conversations were legendary among the beat corps (and horrifying to the PR guy). He would literally talk for an hour, very candidly, about everyone -- one former Sixer in particular, who shall remain nameless.

And I agree with the thought that he brought Kwame back because he wanted to make amends for the way he coached him as a rookie.

 

I have a question about the writing of the lead, I loved the middle part, and didn't like the tag quote.

Do you think Jenkins actually watched and saw kids trying to jump from searing, tar-coved roads onto grass patches? Or is that something she could have/would have just come up with on her own based on the conditions of the day(s) she was there?

I've sometimes wondered, in the past, about leads like this, and about writing license, and how much of it reporters might take in order to/because it would make a well-written/well-crafted lead. It isn't made totally clear whether what Jenkins described actually happened, and the obvious usage of the scene as a tie-in to the next graph seems almost too good and perfect.

This seems like the type of thing that someone acknowledged as a good, veteran, high-level writer might get away with more than would a lesser/less recognized one -- much like Jenkins' stuff apparently not being touched, even if a seeming lack of editing did leave several dangling participles and poorly structured sentences that just needed some simple copy editing.

The emotions spoken of, described and felt are so relatable, and great. You can almost feel Brown growing up, or trying to, or, at least, wanting to, and you can feel, by turns, the frustration, warmth, care and coldness of his coaches and teammates.

I would have deleted the last tag quote. It's weak and doesn't exactly fit the ending in the stand-on-my-own-two-feet kind of way that I think was probably intended. The story would have completed better and stronger by just having ended it with the line above the final quote.

All this said, as someone who never had any professional exposure to Brown, I found him to be quite open and honest, and very smart and articulate -- so much so that, after a while, I found it a little hard to believe he was really actually quite that naïve and lost as he seemed.

It must have been the writing.

 

WriteT:

Because the story ran in the Wash Post Magazine, not the paper, it almost certainly would've need to have been fact checked, which means (at the least) she'd have to produce some sort of passage in her notes describing how that information/anecdote was acquired.

I certainly can't say one way or another, but it seems like quite the quirky thing to just pretend you saw.

 

That's good to know. My experience is primarily in newspapers, and I've only written three relatively short, straightforward things for magazines.

I didn't mean to imply a pretense or make-up of anything, just that a good writer probably could see/look at a scene or set of circumstances -- in this case, a really hot day, with kids trying to ran/jump really fast along searing, tarred pavement -- and imagine it happening without it really having done so.

And sometimes, when I've read things, I've wondered if that's occurred. It's not something that most reporters/writers could get away with, but I think some of the big-name ones could, and I've wondered, sometimes, if they have.

 

I'm guessing David Vann's piece in Esquire about the NIU shooter was fact checked too. Didn't stop him from writing a lede based on his own imagination.

 

This is just a note to Double Down: Don't be discouraged henceforth from posting links to longer pieces to be discussed just because the response was less and slower in coming than on the first two examples.

You never know why, and there can be any number of reasons, up to and including the story subject/topic itself.

But also, sometimes, as in my case, it's just because we'll need/want more time to read/digest longer pieces, and to critique them, if we're to try to do it in any kind of thoughtful manner. So, we purposely may wait until we have a good, uninterrupted chunk of time for it. That's what I did, and because I was busy, I took a couple days longer in getting back to this link than I might have with a shorter piece. I'm guessing I might not have been the only one.

This the kind of writing/discussion all reporters/writer who want to grow and develop need most and that they usually don't get much help with in a busy, daily newsroom, so don't be dissuaded from it by a little less, or a little slower, participation.

These are great threads, and any engagement on them is good, and can grow. That's a good thing.