ESPN Exaggerates Story For Cheap Clicks
Hyperbole is the skill of, or in writer's terms, the art of exaggerating for entertainment purposes. A person driving on the highway, passing people while going 68, is a boring story to tell. It's far more entertaining to say, "This maniac on the highway was going like 125 miles per hour."
The use of cheap hyperbole is the main ingredient for clickbait. A network or organization that reports on entertainment and sports (entertainment first in their name) will use the most silly and outlandish titles to get people to click on a story with no substance. A story, for instance, titled Victor Wembanyama's offseason transformation is scary for the rest of the NBA.
ESPN, the worldwide leader in "Gotcha" headlines, would have the prospective reader believe that the San Antonio Spurs star player showed up to camp looking like Shaquille O'Neal or Ben Wallace. Maybe Dwight Howard or Giannis Antetokounmpo? A few paragraphs into the article, the reader will discover that the 7'4 Frenchman put on 25 pounds over the summer.
Wembanyama weighed in at 204 pounds last season, which means he is now tipping the scales at 229. That's 229 pounds spread out over an 88" frame. The extra quarter of a pound per inch he packed on makes him less bulky than Shawn Bradley or Kevin Durant. Wemby's mass equates to 2.60 pounds per inch. At 6'11 and 240 pounds, Durant comes in at 2.89 pounds per inch, and Bradley at 7'6 and 276 pounds, weighs 3.07 pounds per inch.
The rest of the NBA is supposed to be scared of a stick figure transforming into a slightly thicker stick figure? Get real. Look at the mass of the other big men he will be banging with down low. Anthony Davis weighs 3.09 pounds per inch. Joel Embiid weighs 3.33 pounds per inch. Perennial MVP Nikola Jokic weighs 3.42 pounds per inch.
Who exactly is supposed to be scared of Wembanyama's transformation? The guy can still fit into the same uniform he wore last year. It's more likely that ESPN was scared that NBA readers wouldn't click on their article without a dash (or in this case, a bowl full) of that delicious article spice, hyperbole.
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