It’s Just “Let’s Remember Some Guys”

The concept of sitting around with your pals and naming bygone, marginal athletes has existed for quite some time. Surely Roman citizens back in the day sat at the bacchanal reminiscing about gladiators whose careers were cut brutally short. But Defector's own Tom Ley was the one who gave that concept a name, first in a blog and then during deliberately tedious Facebook Live streams in the "pivot to video" panic of digital media circa 2017. "Let's Remember Some Guys," he said.

David Roth and Lauren Theisen went on to extend that same concept by opening packs of trading cards. The phrase eventually spread beyond the immediate Defector universe, and that's well and good. Remembering Some Guys is for the people. We recently made that phrase a focus of our fifth birthday, in partnership with Sports Reference, and we even had Sean Kuhn analyze the results of the Guy Remembering.

The value of the phrase is that it is irreducible. You might try to simplify it further, but it has already latched onto the basic metaphysical reality of Guys, floating in the ether, waiting to be Remembered. No reason to mess with it. Would you refer to your sandwich a "J&PB"? Simply use the smooth, accepted convention. It's there for the taking.

For that reason, it was so jarring to hear this phrase: "Let's name some guys—in memoriam—forgotten NBA guys." The culprit was Zach Lowe of The Ringer, speaking on a recent episode of his eponymous podcast with his colleague Chris Ryan. I enjoy Lowe's work in general, and his curated selection of Guys in particular. (Shoutout to Kyle O'Quinn, passing from the elbow.) But this syntax is unacceptable. They really Shamsy'd the phrase "Let's Remember Some Guys."

No need for novelty here. Simply go out there and consider the careers of Moe Harkless and Luke Ridnour. I promise it'll be OK if you just Remember Some Guys.