If There's One Thing Grayson Allen Knows, it's Performative Contrition

Probably by now you’ve seen the latest shenanigan pulled by Duke’s not-so-sneaky senior, Grayson Allen.

This would fall into the category of “Classic Grayson.” This is a guy who has made a career out of doing shady stuff during basketball games and hoping to get away with it.

The trouble is, Grayson Allen is terrible at it.

For a long time there he kept tripping people and failing to make it look like an accident. He got taken to the woodshed by the public over that, issuing a series of what always seemed like earnest statements of contrition, only to blow it all later with another episode, like Don Draper getting hammered to his kid’s birthday party.

It’s gone so far that ESPN even did one of those soft-lighting, close-focus interviews with Allen, providing him the opportunity to advance the notion of himself as a reformed man.

But he’s not reformed. The only thing that’s changed is, Allen figured out he couldn’t get away with tripping people anymore, and he’s moved onto other disreputable tactics that he is equally bad at concealing.

So now he’s apologizing, again, because somewhere along the way he seems to have gotten the idea that an apology is just part of a routine that allows him to attempt chicanery like this while later, somehow, being credited for his nobility. 

Well, it’s not working anymore. Nobody’s ever been fooled by these dirty plays, and now the time’s up on the phony protocol that comes afterward too.