After six weeks of breathless anticipation, readers hungry for the "re-imagination" of journalism were finally treated to the first morsel of Ezra Klein's "Project X" when Matthew Yglesias dropped his first Vox Media-bylined knowledge bomb:
So far this season, Trevor Booker has been outperforming Nene in terms of True Shooting Percentage (.552 vs .524), Rebound Rate (15.8 vs 11.1), and turnover rate (12.0 vs 14.0).
Under the circumstances, it's really not clear to me that Nene ought to return to the starting lineup even if he does get healthy at some point.
In fact, even Kevin Seraphin (.550 / 12.8) has been outshooting and outrebounding Nene, albeit while committing turnovers at a higher rate. I don't think I would go so far as to suggest that Nene should be relegated to the status of fourth big man.
That's it. Maybe Yglesias is purging #slatepitches out of his system, posting his Vox-paid take on a Vox-owned Wizards blog.
Joking aside: Trevor Booker has filled in nicely for the injury-prone Nene. But Yglesias just compared Booker and Nene's raw stats without counting for Nene, as a starter, playing against better competition, which muted his stats. When you also look at their +/-, Nene's is +2.0 and Booker's is -1.1.
Always take the points, Matt.
Plus, the Wizards don't need to count on their front court for offensive production with guards John Wall and Bradley Beal's prolificacy each averaging over 16 points per game.
If "Vox is our Next" and is selling sports-flavored "#slatepitches," get in line. Grantland already has them beat.
Personally, I can't wait until Matt Ygleisis starts sharing tweets on what he had for dinner of the similarly Vox-owned Eater DC. The only thing dude knows better than economy is the Wizards and the only thing he knows better than Wiz is eating.