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John Smallwood, Meet Facts
By Jim Adair
Published:
Mistakes happen. I make them all the time. Some commenters have pointed this out. But what I do on a daily basis is nothing compared to the fact-vomit that John Smallwood spat onto the Internet today.
Smallwood’s column was about the influx of foreign players at the top of the NBA draft. It’s been up now for about three hours, and I took the liberty to do some editing and fact-checking where whatever editors are still employed at Philly.com did not:
Bennett was taken first overall in 2013, and Wiggins in 2014. Also, if we’re gonna nitpick, Karl-Anthony Towns having immigrant parents does not actually apply to anything here. He is not a foreign player. If we’re gonna go that route, Ben Simmons’ father is American. So is Wiggins’. So are they American? [Editor’s note: Nice use of “I have nipples, Greg, can you milk me?” logic here.]
After naming about a dozen foreign players eligible for this year’s draft, where they play, and where they’re from – which had to take actual research – Smallwood finished with this:
Sorry for highlighting the typo. I told myself I wouldn’t. It’s Exum, not Exxum (though you should have gone all the way with Exxxxxum). Also: TOWNS IS NOT FOREIGN. His mother is Dominican, he was born and raised in New Jersey. You can’t get more American than being from New Jersey. Doesn’t anyone listen to Bruce Springsteen anymore?
Saying both Saric and Stauskas were draft picks in 2015 (actually he says Saric got picked roughly 90 years into the future because he’s a Terminator) is obviously, blatantly wrong. They were both picked in 2014. I’m beginning to think Smallwood hit his head somewhere along the line and lost a year. While we’re talking about this, I know they’re foreign players, but comparing Stauskas, Bennett, and Wiggins with Simmons, Embiid, and Saric seems a little off. Those first three aren’t American, but it’s Canada. It’s RIGHT THERE. When I think international players, I don’t think Sauce Castillo. Well, wait, maybe I do. But still…
UPDATE: Someone went in and cleaned Smallwood’s piece up, without mentioning it, and still left some errors behind. They fixed Saric’s draft year, didn’t change “iwith,” and still have Stauskas’ draft year wrong. “Exxum” also remains:
It should also say “acquired” not “acquire.” Finally, one we even missed on the first go around (and Philly.com has yet to notice), Smallwood misspelled the names of Klay Thompson and his father Mychal:
When he's not writing about sports here or ranting about them on Twitter, Jim is probably watching X-Files on Netflix or drinking a beer somewhere. Jim has nothing against hockey, it's just not his style. He once met Duce Staley at a Sixers game.