Journalism today, is largely a joke. Stories are fabricated from thin air. Very thin air. Air so thin that brains ding out. "Writers" play copy cat. One will write a story and others will jump on the bandwagon for their version of the same story. It's a habit that has taken over our media, and the consequences of riding story coat tails can create huge fabrications from the truth that spread like wild fire.
That is the case this morning.
Over at KUSports... this made their headlines today:
"College basketball coaches adapt Jayhawks’ go-to play"
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2014/apr/08/college-basketball-coaches-adapt-jayhawks-go-play/ ↗
The story was a spin off from a "Dead Spin" story published yesterday. Some journalists, obviously, didn't perform their due diligence on this story.
First.. here is where the story started:
"How A Clever Kansas Play Went Viral And Took Over College Basketball"
Let's take a pop quiz. How many people in here think Self's "chop" is his own? We've been told that it is his on numerous occasions.
Maybe it is a generation thing... but many of us used "the weave" way back in our days... like in the 60's. This "weave" or "chop" is not new to basketball.
Let's now give credit to who may be the original authors of the "weave" or "chop"...
The Harlem Globetrotters deserve the credit for spreading the weave all over the world.
But you don't have to take my word for it... go to this link and click on the video clip and watch one of their variants of the weave performed in 1958. Granted, this variant is slightly different from what Kansas runs... but the Globetrotters did the Kansas variant, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Globetrotters ↗
Or here you can see a little weave by the Globetrotters in 1950:
The clip footage didn't show long weaves, but they did often perform long versions of the weave... exactly the same weave as used at Kansas.
Who invented this basketball move credited to Kansas and Bill Self?
My guess.. it goes back to 1926 and Abe Saperstein in Chicago. It was the forerunners of the Harlem Globetrotters... the Savoy Big Five.
They were looking for ways to entertain the crowd and differentiate themselves from the traditional game. They needed crowds to fill the Savoy Ballroom, so people would stay after for dances.