First, a disclaimer: I am not a Duke fan. In fact, like many people, Duke basketball is a team I love to hate. I enjoy watching them choke in the NCAA tournament and probably always will.
With that out of the way, I believe it’s time for everyone to stop obsessing about Grayson Allen.
In Duke’s loss to Louisville Saturday, Allen got tangled up with UL’s Donovan Mitchell as both went to the ground. As Mitchell got up, he not-so-accidentally gave Allen an open-hand slap to the face.
Twitter erupted, with national media outlets posting click-bait headlines along the lines of “CLICK HERE FOR GRAYSON ALLEN’S LATEST INCIDENT.” I fell for the headlines myself, only to watch the video and see nothing more than a rough basketball play. Mitchell and Allen got tangled up fighting for a loose ball, something you’ll see at least a half-dozen times in any competitive basketball game. As for the slap, something tells me that Allen has taken much harder hits before, probably in the Louisville game alone.
Allen is a dirty player, and i’m not here to debate that. Tripping is so so lame, and the clear incidents on Allen’s record have earned him that reputation.
But choose any team in any sport, and you’ll probably be able to pick out a dirty player to a varying degree of dirtiness. People don’t just hate Duke because of their success, there’s also a reputation for dirty play that bothers some as well. The Blue Devils haven’t had a serial tripper before, but Allen’s general antics aren’t some new problem for Duke basketball.
Take the second most recent media-manufactured incident as further example of the ridiculousness of how Allen gets portrayed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMyk6LxTAzc
Allen crashes into the Florida State bench and slams into Seminoles assistant coach Dennis Gates. Predictably, “Grayson Allen shoves FSU coach” stories started circulating. Here’s Allen, a 6’5”, 205-pound young man running full speed for a loose ball. Does he extend his arms ito Gates? Yeah, it looks that way. Would it have been any different had he just collided with Gates or anyone else on the Seminole bench? Or is that just what happens in basketball games?
People seem to lose track of the fact that basketball is a physical game. Sometimes, guys fall to the floor and get elbowed in the face. Sometimes they end up hurling themselves into the first row of seats or the bench. They don’t, however, make a habit of tripping people. The two things are miles apart, and if the media can’t separate them, then that’s their problem, not Allen’s.
It should be telling that Gates himself agrees, as he tweeted this out after the game:
After the Louisville game, Rick Pitino went even further, defending not only Allen’s character, but the tripping incidents themselves.
“I happen to think it’s a reflex action like someone throwing an elbow,” Pitino said. “He’s a highly, highly intelligent young man. So why would you do it? I think he’s a terrific young man who made a mistake, and you know, he made three of them. But I think it’s a reflex action when he does something wrong; he’ll lunge out or he’ll trip somebody. But he’s a good person. I know he’s a good person. I checked it out.”
Allen will be booed and heckled mercilessly by opposing crowds for the rest of his career, as he was at Louisville Saturday. With the legitimately dirty actions we’ve seen from Allen, and his temper tantrum on the bench against Elon, it is no surprise that others would try to get in his head, and it’s probably deserved, too.
What Allen doesn’t deserve is the treatment by the media he is currently receiving. Scrutinizing every play Allen is involved in with a magnifying glass, including and especially the harmless ones that happen in every single basketball game is unfair and just plain lazy.
As Gates said above, it’s time to #givegraysonabreak.