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The Downbeat #1763: The "I Dreamed a Dream" Edition

Power Rankings. Derrick Favors is annoyed. Quin Dreams. Karl Malone gets a basketball court. Australia creates basketball players. It's your Tuesday Downbeat.

By Yucca Man
Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

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It's Tuesday, so all your Power Rankings are do belong to us! Here's where the Jazz are

ESPN 13
Sports Illustrated 13
CBS Sports 14
NBC Sports 13
NBA.com 11
BBR (via SRS) 10


Average** 12.3

So, we all need to go send NBA our love and CBS Sports our hate. Here is Matt Moore's twitter handle to help you properly send him your ire: @HPbasketball

Haters

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Derrick Favors had a nice reaction to the NBA Players of the Week announced yesterday:

This is eerily similar to how he felt about the Team USA invitations:

We need us all to really deconstruct what the difference in total period counts between these two tweets means.

Also, it is probably annoying to get overlooked all the time. Especially when you outplayed one of the named Players of the Week (Drummond).

I hope Favors takes it out on Portland tomorrow in a "Mailman not voted to the All-Star Game level tantrum"

Snail

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As we all know, Quin Snyder has the best in-game photos. Here's a look at some of last week's best:

Quin Dreamed a Dream

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Congratulations to Karl Malone. Louisiana Tech game floor was named after him, and Kay Malone was, of course, proud of her boyfriend.

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The Guardian has a fantastic look at Australia's basketball training program, of which both Dante Exum and Joe Ingles are alumni. It identifies the nation's top teenage players, those with the most potential to compete on the international level and represent Australia well, and then trains them. I love their emphasis on developing the whole player:

"This place is designed to improve athletes without anything else involved," says Caporn, who came through the program himself and more recently was an assistant coach at Saint Mary’s College in California. "That seems really simple, but everywhere else I have been has had some other agenda – whether that is winning the professional season or creating opportunities for college scholarships. At the centre we are uninhibited by all that – we have a singular mission to develop great players."

A positive consequence of this non-results-driven system – Caporn jokes "my job does not depend on the weekend’s game" – is that players are taught to develop their entire skill set, not just positional attributes. Program graduate Bogut has previously spoken about the benefit of this approach to his later career, telling Bleacher Report: "I was taught to handle the ball at an early age. I was taught to be able to play all five positions as a young fella. Believe it or not, I used to shoot threes at a good clip up until I was 19 or 20".

I wish, so much, that American youth sports had this kind of an emphasis. I've seen firsthand the downside to emphasizing winning and perfection.

Go Australia!

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