Analytics has become the antagonist or protagonist in sports, depending on who you ask. As such, it has provided sports media figures with endless fodder—arguably more than the actual games.
Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce debated the validity of stats on New Heights all the way back in 2024, while Troy Aikman bashed analytics and The Ringer’s Kirk Goldsberry took over the University of Texas’s new AI analytics initiative just last week.
Blake Griffin has been observing it all, and he emptied his notes folder on the second episode of The Stepback with Blake Griffin.
Last week, I reviewed the premiere episode of Griffin’s late-night-style sports talk show. Excuse me while I cringe in the act of quoting myself, but I praised Griffin for his refreshing approach and declared that he repositioned the bar for athletes-turned-media stars. With his second episode, Griffin proved not only that his debut was not an anomaly, but also that he is becoming the most fascinating figure in sports media.
To open the episode, entitled “Analytics is Winning. But is the Game?,” Griffin said, “Coming into the NBA, I knew my strengths as a player. Passing, rebounding, and of course, charming the pants off the referee. But I kept working and developed a midrange shot that was respectable. And that was right around the time that analytics came in and decided the midrange shot was the worst shot in basketball, which is a really cool thing to hear about the skill you’ve spent the last four years of your life developing.”
While starring for the Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons (and later the Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics), Griffin was also developing a skill that automation can’t touch: comedy. And all these years later, he’s parlayed that skill into hosting a talk show like a seasoned pro.
Back on The Stepback, Griffin conceded that analytics is not inherently “a bad thing,” but it also shouldn’t replace human excellence. “[Analytics] is just knowledge,” he said. “It’s important to remember knowledge is no replacement for wisdom. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”
From there, Griffin took viewers back to the 1998 Oakland Athletics, “the origin of modern analytics,” best documented by Michael Lewis in Moneyball, and walked everyone through what began as an innovate approach devolving into a mind-numbing crutch— and “why we went from searching for overlooked talent to manufacturing complete uniformity.”
There have only been two episodes, but it’s maybe the best sign that by the end of each episode, I’ve found my lists of Griffin’s best jokes and best points to be equal in length.
Best jokes?
- “They were just able to see value that had been overlooked, like in a ’90s teen movie, when a girl would take off her glasses and become magically hot.”
- “Sorry, that’s Brad Pitt as Billy Beane. And can I just say? Extremely generous casting. We don’t all get the luxury. For example, here’s the guy who played me in the FX series Clipped.”
- “If you don’t know about sabermetrics, congrats! You’ve probably had sex before.”
- “There’s an optimal age between 26 and 27, and when you’re past it, you’re not veteran. You’re a depreciating asset who gets traded to the Pistons. Probably. It’s OK. I’m laughing about it. It’s fine. I enjoyed my time there.”
- “The entire sports movie industry would completely disappear. Rudy? Rudy would be an analyst! And Field of Dreams? Kevin Costner would have been taken to a mental institution the second he started mowing down high-yield corn stock.”
Best points?
- “What started as innovation became imitation.”
- “Look at the NFL. For decades, fourth down meant one thing. Punt the ball and play defense. It was safe. It was traditional. But suddenly, going for it on fourth-and-short wasn’t a desperate gamble anymore. It was mathematically the correct choice. That’s the standard now. The thrill is gone.”
- “So they’re modeling the game after the stock markets. It’s a great idea. Let’s make baseball even more boring. But the logic is basically the same: find inefficiencies, exploit them, repeat. The only difference is, you’re not shorting the housing market, you’re shortening a career.”
- “Sports are great because of what shouldn’t happen. The impossible catch, the miracle shot that goes in, a second-round pick who doesn’t fit the model and gets selected during a Taco Bell ad but changes the game anyway. We don’t watch sports because they’re predictable; we watch because they’re not.”
- “Just to be clear, no one is saying to get rid of analytics. We should use all the information we have. But we do need to stop treating optimization like it’s the entire point of sports. Take it from Art Howe, the manager of the A’s during the Moneyball era: ‘I believe in people more than numbers.’”
Early ratings and viewership numbers for The Stepback are strong, but the show is worth believing in because of its unabashed human creativity and unique tone.
Who wants to tell sports media executives that showmanship doesn’t have to come at the expense of smart commentary?
As previously noted, analytics is far from a fresh topic in sports, but Griffin’s authentic approach renewed the conversation. His jokes didn’t undercut his expertise, but rather underscored that he is a trustworthy narrator. In other words, it’s obvious that Blake Griffin actually cares to know what he’s talking about. While he’s educating his audience on the subject at hand, he’s incidentally exposing how rare that is in mainstream sports media.