Defending Dahveed

There's a fortune inside your head /All you touch turns to lead You think you might just crawl back in bed /The fortune inside your head

You know you're just a mama's boy/ Positively unemployed

So misunderstood

Wilco, Misunderstood

A theoretical: If you moved to, like, New Jersey or some metropolatin exurb up north, would you change the way you dressed or acted? I got a friend who made such a move recently.

Last I talked to this kid, he was having trouble. He couldn't really find the right crowd to run with and kept having girls "scooped right out from underneath" him. The only reasoning he could come up with, and I tended to agree with him, was because he refused to put product in his hair, or wear jewelry or sport the omnipresent backwards fitted flat-billed hat.

Anyhow, I couldn't help thinking about that as I read the Ole Miss message boards yesterday following our 10 point loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville. The problem with Ole Miss's effort yesterday, according to everybody with a keyboard, was David Huertas.

Understand: our problem wasn't that Mac White and DeAundre Cranston got pwned by an Australian guy on the boards all game. It wasn't that Vandy shot 67% from the field in the second half. What it was was that damned David Huertas and his 19 points that only accounted for 30% of our offense.

Before I get too deep into this, I'd like to address the fact that Forward Rebels is just as guilty of Hurt-us-cising Dahveed as anyone else. We've got an "Is David Huertas an Alien?" tag. We're culprits. BUT, there's a big difference in having a cheap laugh at a guy's goofiness and actually believing he's what's wrong with our team. Make no mistake, David Huertas is the MVP of this team, and I'm not so sure that's simply by default by virtue of EP and Warren's injuries.

But its his goofiness that leads to all the negative pub he gets. Or more accurately, its his Puerto Rican-ness that makes him stand out. Just like I wouldn't put product in my hair if I lived in State College, PA, Dahveed is not going to quit scowling when things go wrong on the court in Mississippi.He's not going to quit being abrassive to opposing players and referees.He's not going to quit being overly dramatic when trying to draw a foul.

It's easy to see, after watching the international players in the Olympics this past year, that Huertas' style of play is 100% FIBA, which is to say that morally its a lot closer to soccer than it is to the NBA. The players wear their emotions on their sleeves. They take dives. They generally cut corners that American players wouldn't.

This phenomenon of villifying your star isn't exclusive to Ole Miss. The Yankees do it with A-Rod (and have long before A-Rod's recent troubles). Nevermind the fact that Alex Rodriguez puts up MVP like numbers in New York. Nevermind that he's the best player on their team. He dates movie stars and hasn't won the World Series, so he's the problem with the team. He's not a "True Yankee" like Derek Jeter.

Likewise, if Dahveed had gone down with an injury early in the year, leaving Chris Warren to lead a group of freshmen into SEC play, and then Warren had a poor start to the game against Vandy, I don't think anyone would've put our failure to make the NCAA tourney on Warren's shoulders. I saw multiple threads on the Spirit and Rivals boards yesterday doing just that to Huertas. Why? Because Warren is essentially emotionless on the court and hustles his ass off. Huertas grimaces, he scowls, he smiles, he talks shit in Spanish, he isn't totally submissive to the coaches.

But he's also the best thing we've got right now. Terrico's had an excellent three or four game run, but David's still averaging about 20 a game - and that's from the first game on. While his slow start did play a factor into Saturday's loss, it wasn't the reason we lost. It was maybe 9th on the list, and remember that Nos. 1-3 are "knees" and No. 7 is probably "Saddam Hussein".