Q&A: Hanif Abdurraqib
Hanif Abdurraqib is not only one of my favorite writers—you *have* to read his essay collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and his A Tribe Called Quest retrospective Go Ahead in the Rain—he’s one of my favorite thinkers, too. No matter the format, whether it be poem, podcast (Lost Notes is amazing) or social media riff, Hanif brings an electric energy and a surgical wit to the proceedings. A few years ago, for GQ, I was tasked with answering an impossible question. And whose counsel do you think I sought out as I searched for the answer?
Abdurraqib is a hoop-head, and I’d been wanting to interview him for the newsletter ever since I started it. Also, he has a Jayhawk connection—he grew up four houses down from Kenny Gregory in Columbus, where Abdurraqib still lives. We spoke last week about the state of college hoops, the ‘90s, the redemption Andrew Wiggins and more. On Hanif’s behalf, I’ve donated this week’s share of proceeds to Verge.fm, an new upstart radio station in Columbus.
I admire that you watch hoop at all levels. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with college basketball.
HANIF ABDURRAQIB: I'm someone who grew up in the golden era. My biggest intro to college basketball was the Fab Five. I lived through the Fab Five era and lived through the great North Carolina eras. I really loved a lot of those Kansas teams. I was deeply connected to Kansas because Kenny Gregory played there—he’s from my neighborhood. I grew up four houses down from Kenny Gregory. I had some connections to Kansas because of that.
One issue about the modern game is that no one stays in college enough anymore. And I’m fine with that. I don’t think we we should institute a rule that makes players stay longer. But I think that that's a part of the problem.
You know, I went back organically a few days ago to look at the NBA drafts from, like, ‘95. I was writing something about basketball and I went to go look at Michael Redd’s draft and then I kind of fell down a rabbit hole of other drafts. And you look at those drafts, the top picks are juniors, seniors, sophomores at the earliest. The first pick of Michael Redd’s draft was Kenyon Martin, who was a four-year player. I think the thing is you have to have guys who stay so rivalries get built organically.
If you look at the ‘97 draft, the lottery had like eight seniors or nine seniors and only one freshmen. It’s such a start contract to this past draft, where Obi Toppin was talked about like he was a senior citizen… and he was like 22. That’s bananas to me.
But what I miss is some of the real… you know how much I loved hating JJ Redick in college? He just kept coming back like Tyler Hansbrough. People just kept coming back and I got to revel in hating them because of their return, their inevitable returning. I've liked Texas college basketball for a long time. The great Texas year was probably the Durant year. And it was always so clear that there was just like one year—this was it. It was over. And I know that Rick Barnes era had a lot of good.
I think the thing with Texas and Shaka was that some patience with system was required. That's another thing about college basketball though, right? It’s going to take five seasons to install a system because it's such a transient space. It’s not like the NBA where you can download a system into some foundational players who are under contract to be for a certain amount of years. And that’s just tough.
What’s something you would change about the style of the college game?
HANIF ABDURRAQIB: Part of what I'm thinking about has to do with experience, which is getting guys who can play uptempo without being sloppy. I think that's another example of having guys on a system and having guys that can play. For me, the most exciting college basketball teams of my life were all high tempo to the point of almost ridiculousness. I think my favorite kind of college basketball player is a volume-shooting guard too who is not volume-shooting to the team's detriment. Someone like Jimmer, he was someone who was must-watch because his misses were thrilling. Marshall Henderson to some extent, but he wasn’t exactly helping those teams to victories.
The women's college game has such intensity among the fan base because these players stay and there's a connection that’s built. I lived in Connecticut during the Breanna Stewart years and it was incredible. On game days, you couldn't even navigate the campus area. It reminded me of when LeBron was in high school in Akron. Stewart had built up not only this level of goodwill, but this level of excitement. And so I, I think some of that is important too, and I know I'm kind of being redundant, but a lot of it is “Can you download a system that is thrilling to watch and can you continually bring in players who can play it well? And can they play it well enough to stick around?”
We’ve talked a little about changing the style and pace of the game. Would you do anything to change the tournament?
HANIF ABDURRAQIB: The tournament is still thrilling to me. There’s something revelatory about the year-end tournaments. Like we saw with the NBA bubble last year—that had that NCAA tournament feel. It’s so funny to me, because you can tell the NBA analysts who don't watch college basketball because they're the ones who are all like, “Well, why isn't Jamal Murray playing the way he did in the bubble?” and not understand that that's an entirely different world. You can tell that they don't know. They've never seen a tournament run like Kemba had, right? No one's asking, “ How come Kemba is not playing the way he did in the 2011 Big East tournament?” or whatever.
As a Wolves fan, you’ve been on the ride with Andrew Wiggins for a long time. I have to ask you about how you feel about his resurgence with the Warriors.
HANIF ABDURRAQIB: I've seen him up close the past two games because the Warriors played the Wolves twice in a row. The role he is in now has always been where he’s been at his best. When he was with the Wolves, I thought he was the most intriguing during the Butler year when he was, very clearly, the third option. Often the problem is that the requirement in Minnesota was that he'd be a second or sometimes first option and so much so that I feel like the Minnesota front office was more exuberant about the idea than he was.
Sometimes the eye test is the answer. Like what we're seeing right now—Wiggins was always going to be a guy who got 17 to 21 points a game. And the question was always going to be how efficiently and thoughtfully was he doing it? In Minnesota, the answer was… not that efficiently. Not very thoughtfully. He's not contributing anything else.
But at Golden State, he's playing defense at a higher level. I know there are like Minnesota truthers who are like, “He’s not playing that much better defense cause look at the plus minus or look at the blah, blah, blah.” I'm watching these games. We can do all the advanced statistics we want. And I'm not a non-believer at advanced statistics, but sometimes like you're watching the games and you're like, “No to that.”
He's just playing different defense for sure. He’s playing better defense and he is shooting smarter. He’s attacking the rim thoughtfully, which means to me that he's like sizing up his defenders and knowing where his spots are. In Minnesota, he would kind of just run into the lane and jump in the air and figure it out in the process, you know, while being cradled in the air, he would figure it out. He's not falling in love with threes. He's kind of not shooting nearly as many fade away long twos. I always liked Andrew Wiggins and I always wanted him to play better. Obviously I was frustrated with him, like a lot of the plans were, but this is a better fit for him.
I’m really interested in the top three guys from this year’s draft, but I’ve seen Anthony Edwards the least so far. Is he any good?
I mean, [last Wednesday night] he was incredible. But with Edwards, there’s an inverse thing where like the eye test maybe tells you less than the stats. Because I look at Edwards that it's like, wow, he's attacking the rim. He is clearly athletic. His first step is just lightening quick. He can get anywhere he wants on the floor.
But if you look at the stats and you're like, man, this motherfucker is shooting 30% from everywhere. Then you realize he falls in love with these step-back threes and it doesn’t add up He doesn't make them. During a game it’s like, “Oh, I've only seen him take a few of these, and he hasn’t made them, but he keeps shooting him.” And he look at the stats and you're like, maybe he shouldn't.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Listen to “Lost Notes” wherever you get your p’casts. Also, check out his robust and thoughtful playlist project 68to05.