I'll make all these points before I make my point.
* Yes, Jason doesn't have a quad at the moment
* Yes, that makes him unlikely to medal at the big competitions as of now.
* Yes, he probably knows that, hence him working on the quad.
All that said, I feel like Jason gets misplaced as JUST/ONLY a "artistic skater whose skating is lovely to watch." Yes, while that is also true, I think there's quite a bit of nuance that is missing when you place him in the "fan favorites category."
As far as the judges are concerned, HE is not just nice to watch, he is top class in artistry and in basic skating skills. At Worlds last year, he had the fifth highest PCS score in the FS, beating both Boyang and Nathan. At Lombardia, he was within 1 point in PCS of Shoma's 5-quad FS, and even overtook him in a few categories.
I suppose you can argue that USFS politicking helped him get some of that, but he's still getting these scores despite 1.) Not being USA No. 1 since 2015 and 2.) Being out for an entire year and having several bad competitions this past season due to injury and 3.) Not having a quad to give that extra PCS boost -- that's why it took him a few years to go from 75-90 as opposed to Nathan's PCS scores increasing by about 10 points in a single season.
And yes, he doesn't have the quad, but his other technical elements are solid, even that 3A that had given him fits for years. There's no doubt he takes longer to master the jumps than other skaters (he had a UR triple loop at Novice while Joshua Farris was doing 3-3s with lutzes and flips), but once he has them, he can pull out +2s and even +3...and this is
internationally, no US National judging required.
Yes BV is the easiest way to boost your score, but Jason's longtail strategy, which has existed probably as long as he been skating, is what keeps him within distance while he works on the quads. As Christina Gao's famous SP song states, he may remain
"Close without Touching", but it's not insurmountable for him to get past the "fan favorite/lovely to watch" category into a true
all-around world contender.
ETA: I will add that I'm not so naive to say that he did not receive some benefit from USFS promoting him or being from a big power skating country. I'm sure if he was from a smaller European or Asian country he might not be getting those scores. But that's a bit of a strawman argument.
ETA2: Since this is about Phil Hersh's article, I think the he is doing his job. While i wish he would maybe dig a little bit deeper in some aspects (like the point I made above), I don't find any of his points that objectionable. I do think that a U.S. medal (other than the team event) is not guaranteed simply cause, to our benefit, the fields internationally are so deep right now. I think men and dance are our best prospects, but not guaranteed.
Not exactly out of touch. (here is where jump lovers love to come in and go, oh, but dearie dearie me, he never came near the podium). But that’s not the point, the point is, did USFS “promote” (as far as I can tell, that means give scores at Nats) someone far above how international judges would score them? No, they did not.
