Bob Brookover doubled down on idiocy.

Reader Mike, from over at Green Legion, sent Bob Brookover a strongly-worded email in response to his column in which he admitted to having never seen Markelle Fultz play a basketball game… before writing a tome about how the Sixers made a bad trade up to number one to get him. Eight days later, Brookover responded:

I said I never saw him play a game, which I would guess that most of the fans who are blindly excited about the deal would say the same thing. Surveyed about 20 or so at a wedding reception I attended during my vacation and they all said they had never seen him play a game. I watched his highlights. I’m skeptical of highlights.

Never question the wisdom of 20 wedding-goers two and a half cocktails deep when passing judgement on professional basketball transactions.

Somehow, the ignorance of Brookover has only grown based upon his admission that he watched Fultz’s highlights. I mean, credit to him for loading up a few clips– it’s much more work than I thought he did for the piece. But the hilarity of someone admitting that they have never seen someone play a game and then saying that they don’t put much stock in the highlights upon which they based their entire opinion on said player is so deliciously rich it should come with a surgeon general’s warning. Never mind the fact that Brookover comparing himself to his audience and 20 random people at a wedding only confirms his laziness. Brookover is the one WHOSE JOB IT IS to watch the teams and players he’s charged with commenting on. That would be like a doctor not knowing the side effects of a particular drug he prescribed and then explaining away his ignorance by saying that none of his patients knew about them either. WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY? Brookover writes about three columns per week. Could he not find the time to cram a few hours of game film in there?

Brookover went on to say that he still prefers the notion of an extra first round pick, which is a reasonable argument. Then, of course, he said he thinks Fultz is going to be a good player, this based on the highlight videos he had just discredited two paragraphs earlier.

And though many of us I’m sure watched the same Fultz highlights that Brookover did, there are many, many other videos with much better in-depth breakdowns of his game. Say nothing of the fact that getting your hands on full-game footage is not very difficult nowadays. It took me about 20 seconds – quicker than polling 20 people! – to find a bunch of more thorough Fultz videos:

https://youtu.be/fPzc9dKgHuI

https://youtu.be/VC-6zvhqkMQ

Oh wait, look!, FULL GAMES:

https://youtu.be/lKTPj9h6q7k

https://youtu.be/mAjGHQF6sFM

Not that hard.