Alright, so I was rummaging through my e-mail and found something I wrote in August 2011 to the top female sports journalists in the country - what’s interesting is one of the top female journalists happens to be Lesley Visser, but I didn’t get in touch with her, sadly. What’s even cooler to note is how much has changed over the past six months. Amazing. This is what I want to do. I’ve truly found my career, and it feels simply great.
My name is Ajeeta Khanna and I am currently a senior attending University of Central Florida. My story is a long one, so I hope you don’t mind taking some time to read this.
Here are a few things I’d like for you to know about me:
My parents were born in India. They immigrated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada - where I was born - and then we all moved to Orlando when I was about 3 years of age. Both have completed up to graduate school and beyond (mostly in India, and my father finished the last bit of his education in Canada). My father is a certified veterinarian and has his own practice and my mother is a florist who owns her own business - both in Orlando, Florida. I also have an older brother who is an immigration attorney in Tampa (he is 30 years old) and his wife just completed her residency in child/adolescent psychiatry at the University of South Florida. As you can see, pretty much everyone in my family is having a successful career along with an excellent standard of living.
It might sound a bit immature for me to say this, but I blame the fact that because of my Indian heritage, I felt more “obligated” to pursue a career that’s more lucrative or rather prestigious. Growing up, I felt as if my parents laced some strange type of latent pressure on me to become a doctor. They never said I had to become a doctor, however, I believe it was more “assumed”. In order to make them proud, I figured I should somehow aim for a career in the medical field due to the deteriorating economy. So, I decided to follow the pre-medicine route and major in something related to the subject of matter: molecular biology and microbiology. I’ve pretty much taken over 50% of the pre-med courses and I’ve done well in most of them. While my strengths remain in science and math, there is however, another quality within me that I never really thought I’d bring out until recently; and that’s writing.
As of a week ago, I decided to change my major at UCF from molecular biology & microbiology to journalism. You might be wondering, “Well, that’s quite a jump”. The truth is, it really isn’t much of a leap to me personally. I’ve always found a sheer enjoyment to write whenever, wherever, however, whether it’s in a diary, a blog or even a research paper. Throughout grade school and part of college, a few of my teachers and professors here and there would use my rhetoric as a prime example of how students should be writing. It was in a mere way a confidence boost for me knowing that my writing is considered solid. I know I may not have the “best” writing out there, but it’s still a learning process for me and it will forever remain to be one of my top priorities until I die (of old age hopefully).
So I told my parents about this change and they certainly did not take it lightly, specifically my dad. He kept asking me “How much of an income can you earn with a degree in journalism?” I replied with “Dad, I know I want to do this and I don’t care how much it pays me. If I love doing my job, the money will come on its own when others can see that there is a visible passion.” He also felt that the change I implemented is an escape route to not work hard.
The point I’m trying to make is, I love writing. But not only do I love writing, I happen to love sports. Basketball for the most part, although, I am familiarizing myself with the many other sports out there such as football, baseball, hockey, etc. that way I feel comfortable to critique with what’s going on in the moment. Every day whenever I have the chance, I read articles online, I watch ESPN, I’d post on online sports forums such as RealGM (many of the users on there are males, yet surprisingly they were impressed with what I had to say) and at times I’d try communicating with credentialed writers here and there. I just have this desire to absorb whatever sports knowledge it is that I acquire all in like a sponge. It fascinates me. From the statistics of any given game to the plays, it simply never ends for me.
Sometimes a few of my friends would seriously say, “You should really consider becoming a sportscaster or a sports writer/journalist. You could become renowned because you’re a female and not many females are into sports. And secondly, you are Indian. How many female Indian sports journalists are out there? Probably a few, but it’s rare.” Then I was frequently asked by some, “Why are you striving for medical school when all you’re interested in is sports?” I’d quickly respond without a full-hearted interest, “Well, it will help me earn a living…” Time after time I was asked the same thing and I eventually got sick of answering the question until realized that I don’t have a genuine answer as to why I want to go to medical school. I felt confused for the most part. And I was having second thoughts on whether if I am doing what I want to do, or if I am doing it to impress others.
I kept thinking to myself “Am I truly happy with all of this? Do I really want to put up with the grueling schedule of medical school? Or have to be locked down in school for the next 10 years of my life? Do I want to be in debt due to medical school loans?”
No. To every question.
Then why should I lie to myself and to others?
That’s when I decided to switch my major to journalism.
Now that I’ve changed up everything, I realized I’m probably going to have many more obstacles in this career path than I imagined. And it was all because of what was said when I watched the NSSA’s “Women In Sports Media Issues”. Honestly, I stayed up until 3 in the morning watching the conference via Vimeo. I admired every bit of it because I felt the same way Katy Brown did when she was discussing her hurdles. It was the fear of what men will think of us when we have something to say, whether we’re critiquing or expressing our knowledge in regards to sports of course. I recently asked a male sports journalist who happens to be a Northwestern alumni himself on some advice, and to be honest, he was not helpful at all. My gut instinct was he may have felt intimidated by my knowledge and/or threatened by my ideas to become a sports journalist.
I always felt hesitant to ask a male sports journalist on their career path and what not. But after watching the conference, it dawned upon me that I could possibly ask a few of the female sports journalists for some insight without discomfort or the feeling of being judged. What was your career path to get where you are? How did you do it all? Do you think you can provide me some encouragement because I honestly feel alone in the entire process - I feel nobody understands this desire that I want to become a sports journalist. And that because not many females are in this area, what am I to do? I truly need help. I’m pretty much lost in a whole new world; however, I want to learn everything about it. Do you mind being a mentor to me? I don’t know if I am asking the right way to do this, I figured I’d provide you all the information you need to know to help me.
Dear Dwight Howard,
Loyalty.
You either have it.
Or you don’t.
If you’re really that impatient to pack you bags, then I am sorry to say you are truly the man-child that Adidas labeled you to be.
My argument is that IF Dirk Nowitzski waited for the best surrounding pieces to fall through and ended up with a championship, then why can’t Dwight? What’s the rush to jet to a different city? If you like Orlando, then stay here. Don’t be a suck up. The hypocrisy bleeds through your academic background. Logic, Dwight, do you have any?
Yes, there were some first round upsets for the Mavericks like the 2007 eighth-seed Golden State Warriors featuring a savvy guard-forward team (Monta Ellis, Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, Stephen Jackson, Mike Dunleavy, Mickael Pietrus, Matt Barnes, Al Harrington, etc.) And the Magic recently went through something similar in last year’s playoffs. But it’s okay though. It happens.
Having expectations to get back into the Finals like that isn’t the easiest task - it’s a crapshoot - sometimes teams can click at any given moment during the playoffs.
What I don’t understand is the statement of “not having enough time to gel” especially with new personnel and making that as a blanket excuse to look elsewhere to play, Otis Smith made the decision to swap some important role players a year ago but now Dwight is exploring his options in teams that want him, which clearly, if you were a GM, something like this shouldn’t even be happening. But that’s not Otis’s fault. He did everything you asked for. He brought back pieces that you demanded.
And now you’re backing out saying that you want a trade.
Sorry Dwight, your ego is beginning to look as big as LeBron’s and it has outgrown in Orlando.
If that is your wish, so be it. You will face much more scrutiny and it’s something that Magic fans would hate to see. Even with all the “Stay Dwight” campaigns to all the angry fans tweeting their laments to convince you not to flee.
So what if management screwed up?
It happens.
Business can be a hit or a miss like an attempt to bank a three point shot at the end of the buzzer to tie the game. You can’t just point to management blaming them as the scapegoat.
They tried.
And because they tried in the end it’s the effort that counts, as vague and silly as that sounds. Strike while the iron is hot - that’s how a trade works. If a team can win a trade by a landslide, then the GM has to be doing something right. Whether those players or if the franchise player can get along? Well, that’s their problem whether they underperform, achieve, whatever it comes down to (like listening or tuning out of the coach’s game plan).
Either way, they put pieces around you to help you get far. You didn’t even NEED that many pieces either! That Finals run in 2009? You didn’t have Jameer Nelson next to your side; you had Rafer Alston. You also had Hedo Turkoglu presenting himself as the primary ball handler. And Rashard Lewis who was at the time the go-to scorer. Courtney Lee may have missed that critical layup, but he’s a dime a dozen. Which is why Otis Smith decided to swap him, Rafer Alston and Tony Battie for Vince Carter and a backup for Rashard Lewis, Ryan Anderson. Otis also brought in Matt Barnes AND Brandon Bass, giving the team much more depth - a necessary quality to be a competitive team.
And still your Magicians ended up with a 59-game winning season (2009-2010) where your team swept two teams out of the postseason. What’s funny is the Magic pretty much saved YOU from your foul trouble during the first round against the Bobcats. But then Orlando faced a veteran-savvy, more experienced Celtics team with Kevin Garnett rising from the dead just to defeat you guys.
Things were going fine in the next regular season too. Cruising with a 15-4 record if I recall correctly, and then majority of your teammates caught the flu. So it was a bad time. And then things kind of fell from there going 16-9. Everyone looked at this team and thought it was old, decrepit and worn out, which is probably the reason why Otis decided to shake up the roster.
You got Hedo Turkoglu back. “He’s the reason why we got into the Finals.” as you once said.
You got Jason Richardson, who’s a lot younger than Vince Carter, has fresh knees, can shoot the 3-ball.
You got Earl Clark. Raw talent and a hard worker.
You got Gilbert Arenas who obviously had no visible impact for the team and was the $20 million 6th to probably 12th man in the rotation. Literally rotting on the bench with his banged up knee. Yet you took shots at Stan for not “utilizing him properly” - I’m sorry but are you delusional, Dwight? You wanted a player who hobbled more on his knee and has not played organized basketball in years?
Now all you want is a superstar to help you. So to do that the Magic would have to get rid of a ton of their roster including important role players to acquire such “help” that you desire.
You said you want to win. Well here’s some old news for you: you’ve been winning games in the last 4 years with Stan Van Gundy as your coach.
You claim to love the city of Orlando, yet you still want to be traded.
How much of a leader are you though? A true leader shouldn’t give up so fast. If you were that much of a competitor, I’d have expected you to have that edge like Tim Tebow or even Kobe Bryant. Playing through injuries, through sickness, or through whatever it is to win a game, that’s how it should have been.
If there’s one thing that the Magic organization did wrong was they did not discipline you enough.
You’re a baby and are looking even more spoiled than I imagined you to be.
And Dwight, while you are sipping some of that Gatorade, I’ve got one question to ask.
Loyalty, is it in you?
So is it Dwight Howard’s fault for not getting his team over the hump in last year’s playoffs?
In a way, yes.
And in a way, no.
NBA veteran Shaquielle O’Neal thinks highly of Howard, although he did have a few constructive remarks on how Howard should progress his game.
“Well, he’s a great player, but he’s at the point in his career where he’s starting to get criticized and bashed about winning. Can’t do it by yourself you know, they need to get some great players around him…if Dwight is going to have the ball a lot he needs to do a better job of getting people involved. You know, he’s very, very offensive minded.”
Perhaps Howard didn’t trust his teammates after the blockbuster trades went down in Dec. 2011.
“Every great championship team in the last 10 years has had a great one-two punch,” O’Neal stated. “And right now for the Orlando Magic, they have a one-punch, so if they could bring another high quality player and convince everybody that ‘Hey, we have a chance of winning a championship,’ then he may change his mind.”
Although Howard is the team captain and voice of reason, he did not necessarily “lead” his team any further than the first round of the 2011 playoffs.
“If you look at what happened last year in the playoffs versus the Hawks, the Hawks said ‘Okay Dwight, we’re not going to double you, we’re going to let you get 30, we’re going to let you get 40, but we’re going to shut everybody else down,’ O’Neal said. “What I did when I was younger was I kept guys like D-Scott involved. I had to touch the ball first four or five times, but then I would draw a kick just keep everybody on it. So if he’s going to touch the ball a lot, he has to keep all the shooters involved, and you know, when you’re the leader of the team, you have to do that because you can’t win it by yourself. You can score 40 every night, you can score 30 every night, but you will not win a championship unless everybody is involved.”
The pressure is insurmountable for GM Otis Smith. Howard’s free agency has been buzzing since the offseason and the lockout; the nonsensical trade rumors have not even marked the beginning of what could be another bizarre pool of free agency for 2012.
“My advice to them is to give whatever he wants,” O’Neal said. “He’s a great big man and he’s still young. He has about 10-12 years left. You always must build your franchise with a big man, so whatever he wants, whatever he needs, they should supply him with it. If not, then he will probably look elsewhere. If I were a general manager, I would make sure he wouldn’t look elsewhere.”
But after all, it was Howard who insisted the team needed a new look and he even claimed in July 2011 that he didn’t get the opportunity to voice his opinion to management:
“I wanted to be more part of the process a little more,” Howard said in a radio interview with 790 The Zone in Atlanta. “I had to step out on the court and I wanted to make sure that the people I played with wanted to go out and play hard every night. My only issue was the fact that I didn’t really have a chance to be involved, but I think with the guys that we brought in we still have an excellent chance of winning, but we all have to be on the same page.”
With Howard’s birthday coming up in a few days, there may not be a better gift for him than bringing in superstar point guard Chris Paul, Deron Williams or even Monta Ellis.
Only time will tell though whether these scenarios pan out or not.
Why not this guy? Sure his last name might make you “question” or giggle a little (unless you’re a dimwitted fan of the NBA), but the former UConn baller gave the NBA and a handful of basketball fans a glimmer of hope with his profound versatility and undeniable athleticism - in other words, don’t let the name fool you for his game.
In fact, many analysts and scouting reports rumored him to be amongst the top-three candidates for the draft back in 2006. Unfortunately, Toronto blatantly screwed up that opportunity and wasted their precious 1st round 1st pick on a guy named Andrea Bargnani. What Toronto did was unforgivable. Which is why whenever I watch this video shot by a fan, no matter how many times, I’ll always laugh hysterically at it. I’ll show it later on since it will spoil the fun of this post.
But in the mean time, David Stern had a few words.
“With the 8th pick in the 2006 NBA draft, the Houston Rockets select Rudy Gay from the University of Connecticut.”
Now that is a steal. Not even just a steal, however a HUGE steal. If I were a Rockets fan, I would have been excited wet my pants to acquire some young talent especially after a fantastic season of diving in the dumps for a 34-48 record.
But no. The Houston Rockets, of course, did the inevitable, inevitably to shock the fans really. How wise it would be to ship this lanky small forward to Memphis for former Dukie Shane Battier and Stromile Swift? Shame on the Rockets’ management for pulling off this heinous crime.
They say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Maybe the Rockets franchise deemed Rudy Gay to be trash. It’s the year 2011, clearly Rudy Gay has been hot trash for the Memphis Grizzlies logging in a career-highs in nearly all statistical categories except points which is really so minuscule, you can’t help but say he improved in every aspect.
Even though Rudy Gay played 54 games in the 2011 season, I’d still consider him one of the best players from an overall perspective for his age and status in the league. He has yet to scratch the surface even deeper in terms of his potential - something we as observers, fans and a few analysts have probably caught ourselves saying too much.
Rudy Gay in transition defines another “poetry in motion” type of athlete. His leaps, ability to explode at the rim and speed are some of his notable strengths. He can be a prolific efficient scorer when he wants to be. He also has got some crafty circus shots up his sleeve. His individual defense however needs some honing, but he has the “tools” or rather the body to thrive as a good defender.
And whether he’s “fit” to play as a contributor instead of padding his stats remains to be uncertain. Yes, some consider him to be an excellent “team player”, although I still question this notion. Statistically speaking, his win-share for every 48 minutes is about 0.123; the league average is about 0.100. While this is a staggering improvement from his years before, it still doesn’t justify whether if he is actually helping his team or not. He is nowhere near being an outlier at his position with players like LeBron James or Kevin Durant in terms of win-share stats, but one could argue his individual game is somewhat comparable to Carmelo Anthony’s.
When you hear about teams being overloaded with talent, the Grizzlies are basically spot-on with this assessment. They are young (except for players like Zach Randolph, Tony Allen and Shane Battier) and are extremely versatile. What’s more interesting to note is the Grizzlies have benefitted down the stretch sporting a 15-10 record sans Rudy Gay (near the end of the 2011 regular season). Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, Mike Conley, OJ Mayo and recently acquired via trade, Shane Battier, have all gained more playing time due to Rudy Gay’s shoulder injury, which caused him to miss the last 25 or so games. As a matter of fact, I would argue that his injury has been more so of a blessing in disguise as he had supposedly earned the leeway to attempt on average 16 FGs per game, and therefore, his absence has affected the distribution amongst his teammates, more notably to players such as Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol (in a nut shell, they gain more touches). This Memphis ball club happened to be a tick above .500 sporting a 46-36 regular season record, and evidently it was just enough to steal the 8th seed against teams like the Charlotte Bobcats and the Houston Rockets. Never in franchise history have the Memphis Grizzlies been in the playoffs before.
This same Memphis team knocked off the 1st seed Spurs (second best record in the league) in the first round of the postseason. Took them on a ride for six games, but in the end, Memphis prevailed and it was well deserved.
Again though: without Rudy Gay.
Here’s something to gulp down on: Rudy Gay is owed about $69 million in about 4 years to come as he was offered the max deal ($82 million/5 years) this past summer. Quite an attractive atrocious contract, one would say. Especially for a guy who really has deemed himself to be “just another weapon” in the Memphis arsenal.
With that being said, if Memphis has no use for him until the next season, he could serve as trade bait for other teams to relish on. The Orlando Magic could possibly benefit from this trade seeing that their 3 position has hurt them a lot during the regular season and from their early exit in the first round of the playoffs. And the Magic have been an awful team in transition, so he could be helpful in that area. His contract however is something to ponder about, and his recent injury also factors in. But, it’s worth a try to help the franchise from “aging” seeing that we’ve piled our roster with a flock of veterans.
After all, wouldn’t it be nice to see more fan-shot clips with moments like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK7lIjFsGvg
The seventh year veteran center who is currently 25 years old has just won his third-consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award. Nobody in the history of the NBA has reached that level just yet. Congratulations Dwight on your accomplishment.
Dwight truly is a once-in-a-generation type of player that you won’t come across in who knows when. It could have been Greg Oden, however his career has been plagued by injuries, which is pitiful. But what is just as much of a sheer disappointment is knowing that today’s league which thrives a wide variety of guards - that’s as close as choosing your favourite ice-cream flavour over the other - tends to get more favouritism over the big men. It is no surprise, guards today can compete against each other in matchups as well as different statistical categories (quantitatively). For instance, Derrick Rose averages roughly 25 points/game but his assist numbers are fairly above average (7.7) especially for a prototypical ‘pass-first’ point guard. But his turnovers are still an issue, albeit, a minor one. Chris Paul, on the other hand, makes his teammates look like perennial All-Stars due to his ability to dictate better offensive (and by better, I mean more efficient) decisions while protecting the ball more with his solid ball-handling skills. So naturally you’d expect his assist-to-turnover ratio to be overwhelmingly stellar. However, he scores on average 16 points per game, which is not bad at all. Which categories are the most valuable to a guard? Points? Assists? Steals? Because the definition of a point guard has changed over recent years, there is no say.
Even though basketball is all about “putting a ball in a hoop”, the nature of the game tends to get overlooked when you see a player simply just scoring. What I mean by that is, points aren’t everything. It’s about getting your teammates involved whether it’s an attempt to orchestrate an offense or playing solid team defense. You can score the ball all day long and STILL lose the game.
Prestigious centers that have an impact on both ends of the floor like Dwight Howard himself are truly a gem in this modern NBA-era. Unfortunately for Dwight, it seems that he is the last-man-standing in his own position with such fine prowess. The center position tends to cover all other “nearly” intangible categories that most guards really can’t flex such as high rebounding numbers per game, blocked shots, points in the paint and let’s not forget efficiency. Dwight is ultimately his own competition. The other big men behind him (far behind him) are Bogut, Bynum, The Gasol Bros., Horford, Jefferson, Noah, B. Lopez, Nene, Okafor, and sure, throw Gortat on the list for kicks (I excluded Bargs since he just doesn’t use his god-gifted length to hustle on the boards). All of these big men - no disrespect to anyone - do not have that profound interior dominance on the defensive end like Dwight. If you took him off the Orlando Magic, maybe then you’d understand his absence really is a gaping hole. The Orlando franchise knew what they wanted when they drafted Dwight Howard back in 2004 as the first pick in the first round.
What I fail to comprehend though is why the media has snubbed Dwight’s credentials too much, except for analysts like John Hollinger and Tom Haberstroh. Is it the fact that he has no real competition (such as a matchup) in his position? Or the fact that there aren’t many other ‘deep-impact-centers’ in the game today? Or is it the media exhibiting such cognitive dissonance?
Theoretically speaking, you keep Dwight in the game for 48 minutes without foul trouble, and he’ll easily convert those minutes into a win. He’s got that defensive edge over everyone today. You can’t stop him unless a referee tries to tame him by calling him out; and then again, most of his foul are cheap ticky tack fouls (in other words, you’ll witness a ton of flopping). That’s how good he is. He’s so good that I can’t find the best words to describe his amazingness. Granted he still has areas on his post-up game to work on a smidgen more, but overall he has polished himself a rock hard solid diamond. Dwight Howard IS the créme de la créme.
If solid centers are a shortage in the NBA, and if Dwight’s that one center where he has proven himself as an offensive/defensive juggernaut of all centers today in the current game while reaching nearly every statistical category except 3-pointers and assists possibly free throw percentage*, then I suppose he’s not playing MVP-caliber ball, right?
*note: Dwight leads the league in free throw attempts. His free throw shooting “woes” aren’t a problem if he’s drawing a wide margin of fouls (i.e. 10 FTAs or more).
scribble it down, at least you wrote something.
