Knicks Morning News (2019.07.24)

  • [SNY Knicks] Presidential candidate Andrew Yang rips Knicks’ team of ‘overpaid role players’
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 1:36:16 PM)

    Presidential candidate Andrew Yang — a big Knicks fan who was very active on social media leading up to free agency — is sounding off on the team again. This time, it’s all negative.

  • [SNY Knicks] Knicks F Julius Randle added to Team USA training camp roster
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 11:37:47 AM)

    Julius Randle — one of the newest Knicks — has been added to USA Basketball’s training camp roster for the FIBA World CUP, SNY’s Ian Begley confirmed on Tuesday.

  • [NYTimes] Presidential candidate Andrew Yang rips Knicks’ team of ‘overpaid role players’
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 1:36:16 PM)

    Presidential candidate Andrew Yang — a big Knicks fan who was very active on social media leading up to free agency — is sounding off on the team again. This time, it’s all negative.

  • [NYTimes] Knicks F Julius Randle added to Team USA training camp roster
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 11:37:47 AM)

    Julius Randle — one of the newest Knicks — has been added to USA Basketball’s training camp roster for the FIBA World CUP, SNY’s Ian Begley confirmed on Tuesday.

  • [NYPost] Knicks’ Julius Randle added to USA roster for FIBA World Cup
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 9:06:09 AM)

    The Knicks may get to see their biggest free-agent addition of the offseason in red, white and blue before he’s in orange, white and blue. Julius Randle has been added to USA Basketball’s training camp roster for the upcoming FIBA World Cup, The Post’s Brian Lewis confirmed. Several top players have withdrawn from the roster…

  • [NYPost] Marcus Morris denies Rich Paul nixed Clippers deal because of LeBron James
    (Tuesday, July 23, 2019 8:40:48 AM)

    The saga of Marcus Morris’ free agency was so strange that it almost had to have ended with him signing with the Knicks. Morris turned down $41 million for three years with the Clippers before agreeing to two years and $20 million with the Spurs. He then went back on that and signed in New…

  • 341 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.07.24)”

    I’m so tired of Andrew Yang looking like an underprepared idiot at debates and flubbing the one topic his entire campaign is supposedly about. Seriously can we just skip to where he’s a recurring guest on the joe rogan podcast and call it a day on him talking about anything other than automation.

    Mikal Bridges could miss the season due to injury and still have a better season than Knox.

    Knox: He can’t score, defend, pass, or rebound

    Knox supporters: He’s kinda okay at 3s!!!!

    Knox can rebound — can rebound like a demon, in fact. He just only seems to do it every third or fourth game. Getting his effort level to be more consistent isn’t the only problem he needs to fix, but it’s one of the bigger ones.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    Knox will rebound a little better when he gets stronger. Last year he was ridiculously underdeveloped relative to most NBA players.

    This is good for us as it’s probably going to help Randle’s reputation around the league. He should score at will against most teams in FIBA play and put up some nice numbers if he gets minutes.

    @6

    Wasn’t Marbury already on the Knicks when he played in 2004? Or did he come to the Knicks after the olympics?

    Seriously can we just skip to where he’s a recurring guest on the joe rogan podcast

    Hahahahah, I am reserving the right to put this burn out into the world on a wide range of soon-to-be-irrelevant individuals, bravo

    Wasn’t Marbury already on the Knicks when he played in 2004? Or did he come to the Knicks after the olympics?

    Yes, my bad. He came to the Knicks during the 2003-04 season.

    Knox was so awful for 2 reasons- he sucked on defense and he took a shit ton of shots at low efficiency. If he can actually become an efficient scorer he’ll be okay because his, uh, shot taking ability will be a good thing.

    Anyone getting real time info on Mueller’s testimony in Congress? The whole thing is so bizarre.

    Ok smart people of Knickerblogger.

    RJ’s free throw shooting percentage stinks. Is there any reason to think it won’t stink in the future? Any past examples of dudes who shot FTs like garbage in college then improved by a substantial amount? Give me a reason to get excited about RJ.

    If he was an 80% FT shooter he’d be a lot better prospect. Any hope of that happening?

    @14 Karl Malone went from 48.1 as a rookie and got to almost 80. His last year in college was 57.1. There are probably countless of others.

    In his 2nd year in college he was at 68.1. So he did have a history of mediocracy from the line.

    Ewing shot .635 in college and .740 in the NBA, and right from the start which is weird.

    melo went from 70% to 81%

    Yeah i mean lebron has always been a kind of crappy free throw shooter but has improved his three point percentage, he shot 67% from the line three years ago and 36% from three on 4 attempts a game…. Free throw shooting is weird for some guys, Tim Duncan shot 80 % one year but his career average is like 69%….. Westbrook’s free throw shooting has fallen off a cliff for the last two years for some reason….. it must be a mental thing, because there is always stories about how they are lights out in practice lol

    DeMar Derozan shot 64.6% from the stripe at USC and has been a career 82% in the NBA.

    Kawhi Leonard shot 74% in two seasons at SDSU and is now a career 84% shooter at the stripe.

    D Wade went from 69% to 78% between his freshman and sophomore years at Marquette, and then settled around 76% from the free throw line as a pro.

    Melo shot 70% from the line in college and got up to 81% as a pro.

    Malcolm Brogdon shot 80% from the stripe as a freshman and is now a member of the 50/40/90 club.

    Shooting is the easiest skill to improve upon. You can’t take shit rebounders like Porzingis, Marc Gasol, Andrea Bargnani, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Jaren Jackson Jr and expect them to all of a sudden dominate on the glass. You can’t expect tunnel vision Knox to eventually be a great assist man. But shooting? It’s the thing we should expect players improve on over time because it happens again and again and again.

    Getting his FT% up is going to be very important for RJ, because his best skill as a scorer right now seems to be the ability to draw fouls. That skill’s neutralized if he can’t covert at a good rate.

    my hope is he turns into derozan who shoots a lot of threes at a decent clip

    My hope is that he’s the perfect mix of Kobe, Bird and Kawhi.

    If he becomes a DeRozan who can and will shoot 3s, I’m happy but not overly excited. It’s a good player to have, sure, but one that is likely to be overpaid and not match his salary in terms of production. I’m waiting until preseason to see where he is for now.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    Anyone getting real time info on Mueller’s testimony in Congress? The whole thing is so bizarre.

    My new nickname for him is going to be Ferris Mueller.

    The whole thing has been an embarrasment for our country. Our country is lead by a bunch of incomptents, terrible human beings, bufoons, and their scummy worker bees in the media. Don’t even get me started on the IC. Some of those people deserve to be dealt with the way Italiians dealt with Mussolini.

    At least that makes them all highly qualified to run the Knicks.

    Anyone getting real time info on Mueller’s testimony in Congress? The whole thing is so bizarre.

    The man came across as a doddering old fool who didn’t know what Fusion GPS was FFS.

    The amazing thing is this fellow was in charge of the FBI for decades…. yikes!

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    My hope is that he’s the perfect mix of Kobe, Bird and Kawhi.

    Some of Kobe’s usage was role related, but he also had suspect shot selection. Let’s stick with Bird and Kawhi. 🙂

    I thought this ish was over with. So what’s going on now? An investigation of the investigator of the investigation?

    Julius Randle joins Ewing, Houston, ‘Melo, and Tyson Chandler as Knicks who have been members of USA Basketball. On the one hand, they seem to be scraping the barrel with this World Cup team, on the other hand as a Knick fan, I take what I can get. 🙂

    100%…baby steps…and, that is cool…

    I thought this ish was over with. So what’s going on now? An investigation of the investigator of the investigation?

    gotta admit though, the political entertainment value has been stellar the last few years…thank god it only involves the administration and future of our nation…

    @3 must’ve missed Knox breaking out at Summer League. Took smarter shots, shot better, was more physical, passed, and was effective on defence. Dude shut down fat Zion with 2 blocks on the fattie to boot. And then proceeded to repeat all of that for the rest of summer league.

    Knox is a perimeter player/scorer not too distant in style concept to KP. That kind of perimeter dweller ust isn’t going to get lots of rebounds due to reduced opportunities. If he gets to 5-6 per 36, I’ll be happy.

    Target per 36 numbers this season for Knox, IMHO, are 18/5/3 with a TS north of .500 and a +/- somewhere around -2 to -3.

    I guess I’m old cause I remember when overpopulation, global cooling, the disappearing ozone layer, the killing of the rain forests and global warming were all gonna kill us by the year 2000.
    I appreciate the audacity of now calling it climate change, because, well, the climate is always changing, so anything that happens is now covered.

    I feel a lot better that the Libertarians are telling me there’s nothing to worry about

    #McAfee2020

    “People said Durant was going to sign with the Knicks and that didn’t happen so obviously climate change is fake”

    I’m going to say something that nobody in the history of the internet has ever said before regarding what the climate will be like in X amount of years:

    I don’t know.

    mmmm, about to eat a burger…

    curse them cows, their delicious flesh and their flatulent ways…

    While the world can’t be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020

    But it’s still not as bad as Kevin Knox’s True Shooting Percentage.

    Dolan’s Razor: The Knicks land Giannis and the #1 overall pick in 2021 and then the world ends due to climate change.

    apocalyptic visions have been around since – forever…it seems to fit nicely with our relatively short life span…

    it’s not all grim news out there though…yeah sure, eventually – homo sapiens will fade in to the past…it’s inevitable…fortunately we got some big brains to counter act our nature to use and abuse…

    here’s a little grounded positivity for ya ras – GIS: The Intelligent Nervous System
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUD_p7TIiYg

    we ain’t all dead yet…

    @2for18

    I get that you are a Libertarian or whatever, but more importantly I think you are a troll.

    My whole thing about global warming/climate change is that even if its not “real” (it is) and even if its not caused by human activity (it is), why would we want to keep our economy so reliant on fossil fuels anyways? Renewable energy…solar, wind, etc…is so much cleaner and as the technology advances, eventually the cost of it is going to be less than fossil fuels. Plus fossil fuels are a finite resource. Eventually we will run out and as we get closer and closer to that date, even if its say 100 years away, the price of gas and oil is just going to continue to climb. Fossil fuels contribute to pollution, poor air quality, and line the pockets of the Saudi Royal family.

    If the US really got behind this stuff back in the 70’s, we could be so much further along than we are today. We could have invested not only in renewable energy but also in alternative forms of transportation, urban planning not revolving around the car (so people wouldn’t spend so much of their life commuting), etc.

    Its just dirty and messy and we can do so much better. But climate change has become so political that people who don’t believe its real are just dismissing alternative, clean energy because its liberal or whatever.

    Dolan’s Razor: The Knicks land Giannis and the #1 overall pick in 2021 and then the world ends due to climate change.

    Or Trump (now Presidente for life) hears chants of “Send Him Back” and deports Giannis back to Greece

    Dolan’s Razor: The Knicks land Giannis and the #1 overall pick in 2021 and then the world ends due to climate change.

    Since MSG is going to be underwater, we should probably start drafting man/fish hybrids whenever possible

    “Is he an amphibian” could become the new “does he have a long wingspan”

    Its just dirty and messy and we can do so much better. But climate change has become so political that people who don’t believe its real are just dismissing alternative, clean energy because its liberal or whatever.

    +1

    Since MSG is going to be underwater, we should probably start drafting man/fish hybrids whenever possible

    “Is he an amphibian” could become the new “does he have a long wingspan

    Haha! OR MAYBE the Knicks medical team already discovered how to implant fish gills into humans. Then management determined that journeymen power forwards would make the most willing human subjects and made sure to sign as many of those as possible. OK, I’ll stop.

    Or Trump (now Presidente for life) hears chants of “Send Him Back” and deports Giannis back to Greece

    Kamala 2020 for the sake of the team.

    @45 – Well said!

    why would we want to keep our economy so reliant on fossil fuels anyways?

    You and I don’t. Many politicians, lobbyists, industrialists, investors and financiers do. And there’s a large section of our world that self-identifies more with the kleptocratic executives of multinational corporations and hostile foreign states than the people they stand in line with at the grocery store.

    I’m endlessly curious about how salt-of-the-earth, back-woods, DIY-as-a-personal-ethos men and women can identify with people, like our current president, who have probably never tied a single bag of garbage or replaced a roll of toilet paper in their bathrooms. But somehow, the powers that be have pulled it off. It’s truly a marvel of social engineering.

    2020 – Kamala wins; Trump buys Knicks/MSG; Knickerblogger strokes out.
    2021 – 2022 Knicks win title

    If Trump bought the Knicks, he’d try to make Ivanka point guard.
    She’d still be better than Frank.

    @50

    I really wouldn’t call it social engineering, more just capitalism working as intended. The politics of subjectivity are so advanced nowadays that barely any social engineering is necessary anymore, it’s just about maintaining control mechanisms and power relations and making sure just enough people are subjectively inclined to believe anything is the problem other than any sort of meaningful power struggle. So just insert immigrant, black, LGBT, scientists or anything else that can possibly be a cause for your struggles, and those people will eat it up themselves, you don’t have to even feed it to them anymore.

    After being drafted at No5 with reactions like: “WhAaAaAaAat ??!!!?? WHO is Scottie Pippen ?!!!??”
    And with a struggling rookie season with statline that whispers…”bust”
    being voted as one of the Best ever to play the game makes you skeptical about the “truth” behind some numbers and their prophetic ability.

    The name of the game is clearly:
    HARD WORK

    KKnox You CAN DO IT if you really want but you must try and try and try
    You’ll Succeed at last.

    We’d want to keep our economies reliant on fossil fuel because they are cheaper and far more reliable.

    Obviously we should use less but there are good reasons we don’t…

    So just insert The President, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, or anything else that can possibly be a cause for your struggles, and those people will eat it up themselves, you don’t have to even feed it to them anymore.

    So just insert The President, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, or anything else that can possibly be a cause for your struggles, and those people will eat it up themselves, you don’t have to even feed it to them anymore.

    “I mean, why is there no White History Month, amirite?”

    So just insert The President, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, or anything else that can possibly be a cause for your struggles, and those people will eat it up themselves, you don’t have to even feed it to them anymore.

    No, there are pretty good explanations for why those things should be considered serious problems.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    My whole thing about global warming/climate change is that even if its not “real” (it is) and even if its not caused by human activity (it is), why would we want to keep our economy so reliant on fossil fuels anyways? Renewable energy…solar, wind, etc…is so much cleaner and as the technology advances, eventually the cost of it is going to be less than fossil fuels.

    It’s a 100% certainty that we will continue moving in that direction, but it has to be done in an economically responsible way.

    Trump is putting jobs and the economy in the short term AHEAD of environment in the long term and some on the left are behaving like the boy that cried wolf destroying the credibility of people that are very concerned about the environment but want to move forward responsibly.

    I’m in that latter group and think both Trump and the all out deniers and many democrats are assholes.

    It can’t be a good idea to continue down this path, but it can’t be a good idea the throw the world into depression because you are an economic illiterate.

    It’s right when my team does it!

    I was taught by my uncle when I was a kid about politicians using polarization to keep us all at each other’s throats. Blaming “the other” for your problems and getting your 2 minute hate on is stupid and pointless, full stop.

    It’s right when my team does it!

    When you catch me supporting the next Democrat who tells non-white congress members to go back where they come from, I hope you call me on this.

    I’m in that latter group and think both Trump and many democrats are both assholes.

    This is such a perfect Libertarian answer.

    “Haha I’m not on either side, look how dumb all the dummies are and look how smart I am with my ivory tower ideology that I’ll never have to defend because it will never be put in place anywhere in the world. Oh, if only everybody were as smart and smug as me.”

    (pulls lever for Republican)

    I was taught by my uncle when I was a kid about politicians using polarization to keep us all at each other’s throats. Blaming “the other” for your problems and getting your 2 minute hate on is stupid and pointless, full stop.

    As my history-ignorant father did to me, your uncle was feeding you bullshit. But hey, I didn’t take some elder’s bullshit as truth, and so I, y’know, read stuff. Unequivocally: the polarization does not happen from both sides equally. And you keep parroting the same “principled” bullshit with total disdain for or ignorance of historical fact.

    I have been steering away from any political discussions here because this liberal amorality bores me to death, and well, I guess I’ll go back to worrying about RJ Barrett’s free throw percentage.

    Wake me up when we can have an informed discussion that doesn’t hinge on the question “does history exist?”

    Can we pick another team and dissect their roster and future assets and cap space? Someone pick a team for us to analyze. For fuck’s sake.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    @62

    You may not like the truth, but the truth is the truth.

    The republicans (especially Trump) are more interested in jobs and the economy right now than the environment in the long term and the democrat’s environmental policies and scare tactics are often terrible policy and counter productive even if well intentioned.

    There is a middle ground that will get us where we have to go without being too economically disruptive and corrupt, but it seems impossible to get there when people at the extremes have come to dominate politics and put winning and the destruction of the opposition above results for the country.

    As to voting, I started out as a liberal, moved to the middle in my late 20s, switched to republican when I started working on Wall St/began understanding business/and wasn’t poor for the first time in my life, abandoned the republicans when the neocon war mongers gained a lot of influence, switched to libertarian when I started understanding monetary policy better, and would classify myself as an equal opportunity hater of politicians, the media, and IC now. I feel as though at age 60 my education is finally complete. They are all scumbags and dimwits.

    I voted for 3rd party candidates in almost every presidential election except Reagan.

    So who you do vote for?

    The dimwits or the scumbags?

    How about the chicago bulls? they got some young prospects and a bunch of power forwards as well…. would anyone rather be them than the knicks? I think i like carter, markkanen and white better then our young guys….. I don’t think either of us got an potential superstars….. all their contracts basically are up after 2020 except for sataransky, thad young and lavine which add up to like 44 mil…. i think those contracts are movable as expirings… thoughts??

    @ Strat

    would you honestly classify Elizabeth Warren as a dimwit or a scumbag? If so why?

    We could analyze how the Hornets reached the point where they are right now, proving that winning 32-38 games every year makes your franchise a very desirable place for free agents who put a premium on going to teams that have been competitive!

    @Strat

    Also if you live close to wall street congratulations on making such principled stands in Presidential elections where your third Party vote had such high stakes and was a sharply felt rebuke to both the dimwits and scumbags.

    Want a change of subject? I recently uploaded my first boardgame to BoardGameGeek.com. It’s a tactical game of medieval battles. Seriously. I read lots of books and list them in the game rulebook.

    Now, my historical setup for Agincourt 1415 is not conventional, so perhaps one might derisively label me a “revisionist historian.” 🙂

    Check it out? Looks like 6 people have downloaded my game so far, but no comments, yet:

    https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284731/bravely-their-battles-hastings-1066-and-agincourt

    This discussion certainly proves a point one of my dearest friends always used to say: you can’t be a libertarian without having some crazy levels of narcissism.

    @76

    That looks really cool clashfan, I’ll check it out when I’m back home!

    For the record JK, I voted for Ross Perot in my first presidential vote, then took a couple of decades off from voting, then voted for Gary Johnson last time.
    Ima bet you’ve voted straight Dem.

    and Cock, my uncle had more smarts and sense in one pinky than you ever had. Throwing around insults, and having access to a Thesauras doesn’t make you smart. You remind me of the poser in the bar from Good Will Hunting who memorized a bunch shit and thought he knew everything.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    @ Strat

    would you honestly classify Elizabeth Warren as a dimwit or a scumbag? If so why?

    lmao

    She’s a mixed bag for me. I see a lot of promise when it comes to Wall St corruption (which is biggie for me), but I haven’t started paying a lot of attention to the specific policies of the democrat field yet. It’s too large. Most likely, she’ll be too far left for me on economics/business.

    The only one I’m sure of is Biden. He’s a scumbag. 🙂

    I like Tulsi Gabbard on foreign policy. She’s not a naive appeaser, but she also doesn’t want to get overly involved in the affairs of others trying to impose our will with the military. I want to stay strong and tough, understand that we have enemies and that there is evil in the world, but live and let live unless we have to get involved. Most of the left is too naive, but the neocons never saw a brown country they didn’t want to bomb. They are total unrepentant scumbags. The thing is, I don’t know much else about her yet. I may hate her in other ways.

    @78

    And yet you assume people you don’t know and have never met outside of here don’t know shit and are simply parroting something they’ve read somewhere. But I guess to be a true libertarian you do have to assume you’re smarter than everyone else, so it kinda fits I guess. At least strat has the age old argument of “I’m old therefore I know”, which is incredibly stupid but also somehow somewhat socially acceptable.

    @Clashfan

    Game looks awesome! I’ll see if I can find a friend to play it with. Feel free to pitch us a bit more on the mechanics or your thought process.

    Maybe we can get a review post on KB. Would be a nice change of pace from the offseason discussions…

    The other day posters on this blog were calling Silverman “brave” for his hit piece on Mariano Rivera.
    I just want to give a shout out to 2 for 18 – I think he is brave for coming into this overriding liberal minded space with his comments. Inclusion and tolerance for opinions other than your own is good.

    The folks who believe Knox can turn it around are brave too. So far there isn’t much in his play to suggest that, but I’m a Knick fan so I sure hope he does.

    I don’t see this team winning more than 26-28 games next year despite the apparent upgrades to the roster.

    @82
    Thanks!

    I’d like to do some short videos on how the game plays, etc., like you can find on Youtube for many games, but I don’t have a good camera or tripod. There are lots of games on medieval battles, but I wanted to do something different, for better or worse, as you’ll see in my notes in the rulebook.

    BTW, the first two battles here are really good for solitaire: each has an army on the static defensive.

    and Cock, my uncle had more smarts and sense in one pinky than you ever had. Throwing around insults, and having access to a Thesauras doesn’t make you smart. You remind me of the poser in the bar from Good Will Hunting who memorized a bunch shit and thought he knew everything.

    Haha, so you’re Will Hunting in this analogy? That’s fuckin rich, bud. It’s kinda odd to be married to a woman who’s got prodigious math gifts a la Good Will Hunting (one of her favorite movies, for very personal reasons!) and be referred to as that particular character.

    Apparently in this bit of slash fic, the pompous ponytail Harvard bro discovers that Will Hunting had gotten his number instead of Skylar’s, and [spoiler alert] he and Matt Damon are going to bone hard for the rest of their lives. I kinda like this. Going to break up the monotony of the rest of my workday.

    Inclusion and tolerance for opinions other than your own is good.

    Being tolerant of political opinions posited without a shred of evidence qualifies as good? Please, tell me about how the Klingons won World War 1.5 so I can tolerate your opinion.

    If I were attacking an opinion for the sole reason that it is not my own opinion, you’d have a point. That is never the basis for a valid refutation.

    Tulsi Gabbard has plenty to hate but the most important reason is that she is for all intents and purposes out of the running. I don’t think Warren is as far left as you fear, she mostly likes markets, she just thinks we need to align their interests to outcomes that serve the common good.

    @82
    Thanks!

    I’d like to do some short videos on how the game plays, etc., like you can find on Youtube for many games, but I don’t have a good camera or tripod. There are lots of games on medieval battles, but I wanted to do something different, for better or worse, as you’ll see in my notes in the rulebook.

    BTW, the first two battles here are really good for solitaire: each has an army on the static defensive.

    Use your phone and buy a $10 cell phone tripod. They work great and your phone will take perfectly good 720p video. I’d even edit the video for you if you needed help with that, so long as you do some groundwork to keep it concise and pointed.

    @51, I would bet bigly that if Trump bought the Knicks they’d be bankrupt in 5 years. Caveat: my projection model might be over reliant on past data.

    Elizabeth Warren is a former Harvard law professor. You may very well disagree with her, but she’s certainly not a dimwit.

    To my understanding she’s far left on social policies, similar to Bernie minus the burn everything down sentiment. She’s made some statements that she’s going to implement protectionist policies that help rural Americans retain jobs, an early bid for crossover appeal to Republicans. She wants to cancel student loan debt, appealing to younger voters.

    NyTimes has a good summary of her position. I’m not advocating for her, but just thought I’d drop the info here in case anyone was interested.

    @51, I would bet bigly that if Trump bought the Knicks they’d be bankrupt in 5 years. Caveat: my projection model might be over reliant on past data.

    Do you remember the NYT investigation that showed that Trump’s personal losses accounted for over 1.7% of all personal losses in 1994?

    In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

    That was some crazy shit. It doesn’t seem possible, like Knox and Ntilikina taking 16.5% of the Knicks’ FGA but being responsible for so much of the team’s league-worst efficiency.

    Russ Buettner
    So now we can see from this entire period of time, 1985 through 1995, is that his core businesses lost $1.2 billion.

    Michael Barbaro
    Which is staggering.

    Russ Buettner
    It is a staggering amount of money to lose over the course of a decade. And keep in mind that when you lose money in a business, you can use that as sort of a credit against future income. You can earn that much money without paying any taxes on it for years to come. In 1990, he has $400 million in losses that he can use to write off income for the next 18 years. The next year, that grows to $665 million.

    Michael Barbaro
    In losses.

    Russ Buettner
    In losses that he can carry forward to write off income in future years. And we know from our prior reporting on this that that figure would continue to grow to almost a billion dollars about three years later.

    Susanne Craig
    And those losses were so big that, by 1994, they accounted for 1.7 percent of all losses declared by individual taxpayers.

    Michael Barbaro
    I just want to wrap my head around this. His losses that year represent almost 2 percent of all losses in the entirety of the United States.

    Susanne Craig
    Yeah, it’s incredible. There’s 114-plus million taxpayers. And his losses account for 1.7 percent of all the losses in America that year for individuals. That’s how big it was. It’s insane.

    @89 ha. Just as a thought experiment have any NBA athletes come out for the Donald? Like would he somehow be worse than Dolan or would bringing Rodman out of retirement actually be a good idea?

    @85 nah my Uncle is Will. I’m at the pool table shooting

    He was a great guy. Taught special Ed in the Bronx. Became a Dean. Taught me to stick up for myself. And unfortunately died at 39.

    @Jack Bauer – These guys aren’t liberals. But thx.

    How about this for a change of topic. Based on some rave reviews or whatever here I got Infinite Jest. I got through not quite 200 pages and cannot bring myself to pick it back up. The writing is certainly descriptive but the book just does nothing for me. Does it pick up steam a little further in, is it something you have to be under 30 to be in tune with or a regular pot smoker?

    Can we pick another team and dissect their roster and future assets and cap space? Someone pick a team for us to analyze. For fuck’s sake.

    i got a b-ball type thing that was on my mind: is there any other countries participating in the FIBA world championships that the US will need to watch out for?
    http://www.fiba.basketball/basketballworldcup/2019/groups

    @76 – clashfan to the rescue 🙂

    @96

    You’re ALMOST at the point where Infinite Jest starts to congeal into something magical. At a certain point in the book, everything starts to click and the book sort of turns into itself, it becomes compulsively, addictively readable. It’s my favorite novel of all time hands down.

    All of the various plot threads are hard to follow, until they aren’t. It’s wildly entertaining if you stick with it. Give it to at least page 400.

    I’m pretty underwhelmed with USA’s roster so I can see us struggling. Granted, I have no idea who is playing for other teams outside of Frank.

    Unfortunately Paul George’s injury is going to turn a lot of the better players off the event, for awhile.

    howdy bird…i was thinking maybe: spain, australia and canada…hmmm, i wonder why RJ isn’t playing?

    it seems like these world championships just don’t have near the appeal of the olympics for some of the athletes…

    i love international competitions like these – cool to see top athletes battling for their countries…

    edit: oops, forgot greece, giannis alone should make them a handful to deal with…

    Keep reading until it finally comes together at page 400 is a perfect summation of the best case argument for being a Knicks fan right now…

    To my understanding she’s far left on social policies, similar to Bernie minus the burn everything down sentiment

    Also

    – minus the anti-war sentiment (she voted for Trump’s military budget twice).

    – minus the unequivocal rejection of lobbyist cash (she raised around 15 million dollars of big donor money in 2018 to transfer around 11 million to her primary campaign and has already stated she will accept bid donor money in the general election).

    – minus the criticism of Israel’s inhumane assault and colonization of the Gaza Strip and West Bank

    – minus the unequivocal commitment to a form of single-payer healthcare (she’s waffled on Medicare 4 All multiple times).

    – minus the life-long commitment to far left politics (She was a registered Republican as far back as 1996 and refuses to say if she voted for Ronald Reagan).

    – minus the commitment to progressive activism (She went silent on the Sioux protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 despite falsely appropriating a Native American ancestry for affirmative action benefits).

    – minus the same commitment to progressive economics ( She has not signed on legislation to cap Credit Card interest rates at 15%, expand the estate tax, expand Social Security, or tax Wall Street transactions).

    howdy clash…just wanted to let you know how much i enjoy your posts – definitely have helped inspire me to stop talking about doing different things and actually get off my ass and take action…

    How about this for a change of topic. Based on some rave reviews or whatever here I got Infinite Jest. I got through not quite 200 pages and cannot bring myself to pick it back up. The writing is certainly descriptive but the book just does nothing for me. Does it pick up steam a little further in, is it something you have to be under 30 to be in tune with or a regular pot smoker?

    Keep going.

    @86 You know best about everything of course

    I know that not all opinions are created equally or worthy of the same consideration or respect

    World Cup for soccer is the Ultimate Tournament and one of the main legacy builders. Players are dying to participate.
    In basketball as we all know the Ultimate Tournament is the Nba league. The Best players of the world playing for HUGE money, fame and pride.
    Olympics and World Cup for bball are not exactly summer league but not also tournaments where the best players of the world give their 100% for the pride of their country.
    They’re definitely cool tho during a dry bball summertime….

    Infinite Jest starts to congeal into something magical. At a certain point in the book, everything starts to click and the book sort of turns into itself, it becomes compulsively, addictively readable. It’s my favorite novel of all time hands down.

    i like this game – my fave book all time: the moon is a harsh mistress

    ha…look at that, i was just refreshing myself on the book – i never even realized this:

    The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar colony’s revolt against rule from Earth. The novel expresses and discusses libertarian ideals. It is respected for its credible presentation of a comprehensively imagined future human society on both the Earth and the Moon.

    hmmmm, maybe this libertarian stuff ain’t so crazy…

    World Cup for soccer is the Ultimate Tournament and one of the main legacy builders. Players are dying to participate.

    what up knick knower…actually caught one of the recent club v club matches last night (Atletico Madrid versus Guadalajara), for a zero – zero game it was pretty damn entertaining…

    as a kid i was glued to the olympic competitions, but, yeah over time the one to watch now is most definitely the futbol world cup…

    Jowles, my wife has a decent camera that shoots video. I’ll play with it and see what it does.

    Geo, thanks. I’ve got a bunch of projects in varying states of development…it took retiring from full-time teaching to give me the time to start getting stuff done. So, now the two Mind Carnival videos are done. Next, three games to get out there…then there’s several works of fiction I have in varying states…
    🙂

    If you’re looking for something stylistically easier but sober and heavy, try Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending or Coetzee’s Disgrace.

    @108
    Hi man !
    World Cups or as also called Mundials are the ultimate fun for soccer fans but unfortunately they come every 4 yrs !!!!
    Next closest to these in fun and competition are the European Team Tournaments especially the one with the teams that won the championship in their country the previous season.
    Most soccer stars are playing on euro teams but not all.
    Copa Americas are also pretty good too.

    I don’t think sober and heavy really captures how grim Disgrace is. That’s a tough book.

    Thanks Jowles. I just walked in and turned on my DVRd Tour de France and realized I should be last person to complain about things that are long and not immediately understandable

    just curious…how did you find this site ‘knew your nicks’?

    i’m trying to remember when i first came across this site…i lurked for years, but, i think i first found this place through posting and toasting…i haven’t visited there though for a couple of years…

    i liked posting and toasting and thought it was really funny at times, but, just got hooked on the posters here cuz it reminded me of that old cop show: homicide, life on the streets – just gritty and real…

    Ooh, baby, I like it raw

    – isn’t 112 years old

    Hey, he’d be a younger President than the one who Elizabeth voted for the 80s, without the dementia.

    If anyone is into biographies I am currently reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. It’s extremely well written and breezes along through a sweeping narrative of 20th century South African history.

    @51

    If Trump buys the knicks it’s more likely the Association goes bankrupt. USFL New Jersey Generals.

    Infinite Jest is definitely worth it coming from a non smoker. There is stuff about addiction and recovery but I don’t think you have to have literally been there for it to be impactful. It certainly was for me.

    I would also recommend Murakami’s Wind-up Bird Chronicles.

    Hey, he’d be a younger President than the one who Elizabeth voted for the 80s, without the dementia.

    Reagan was 69 when he was elected. Bernie would be 78.

    @115
    Remember finding KBlogger during Melo trade. I was pretty pumped up for the chance of the knicks to be really good after 150yrs but saw that there were fans that they weren’t so fond of the trade.
    That was it ! I had to sign in immediately and defend MeloEra !
    History proved pessimists right once more as we all know but… we’ve always have Brokeback-Melo Era- Mountain….

    You can say what you want about Melo’s career but no one has lined Mike K’s pockets with Internet moola like Me7o.

    All time leader in web clicks generated…

    🙂

    Bernie serves mainly to shift the overton window away from its current location over the far right, which none of the other dem candidates have the stones to do.

    Reagan was 69 when he was elected. Bernie would be 78.

    Ah, good catch.

    Bernie serves mainly to shift the overton window away from its current location over the far right, which none of the other dem candidates have the stones to do.

    Yep, but the reason ain’t because of stones, its because of where he gets (or doesn’t get) his money from.

    Although Wallace was himself a depressive, tennis-playing, weed-addicted cool-guy uber-nerd with a grammarian mother and plenty of romantic dysfunction, there’s far too much to the novel’s range of character psychology and emotional expressiveness than any one person could have personally lived. And by extension, you don’t need to have been an addict or grammarian or tennis star to understand the humanity just oozing from each page. Wallace was as empathetic a writer as I’ve come across, and he does it with a inimitable style (though plenty have tried, including in some prose poetry I had published in upstate’s yuppie mag Chronogram some years back) in all his works but his first, which is unabashed The Crying of Lot 49 pastiche.

    His non-fiction is a great way to experience that voracious mind without the enormous commitment that is Infinite Jest. (“How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” should be required reading for people who look to star athletes for insight into their own greatness.)

    I’ve read all of his fiction, and I’ve read that the Pale King, at 500 pages, was only about 1/3 complete. I wish the guy weren’t dead, but man, I don’t know how I would have felt about 1500 pages in that world of drudgery and tedium.

    IJ has a reputation of being challenging to read but that is really only true of the first part of the book. After a while certain main narratives start to take priority and it all gets pretty breezy to read in my opinion. It’s long, so it’s a commitment in that sense, but I found it much easier to read than Gravity’s Rainbow, for instance. I’ve tried and failed with that one a few times.

    Michael Schur is an Infinite Jest fanatic, and he founded Fire Joe Morgan, so that guy needs to be my best friend.

    Brief break from poli sci and lit classes to acknowledge another massive shit on our team:

    So ESPN asked 20 coaches, executives and scouts from across the NBA about what happened — and what lies ahead…
    3. What was the worst move of the summer?
    Knicks offseason – 6
    Ricky Rubio to Phoenix – 6
    Terry Rozier to Charlotte – 4

    The criticism of the Knicks came on multiple fronts. First, after they struck out on superstar signings, they settled for middling players, rather than using their cap space to take on bad contracts and add draft assets.

    “Some people were like they did a good job keeping their powder dry, but I don’t even like [Julius] Randle, so I don’t get what they did,” an Eastern Conference executive said. “I guess it was better than spending $80 million on two free agents. But that’s like saying you’re eating healthier because you didn’t go to McDonald’s for lunch and Burger King for dinner.

    “Yes, you’re eating healthier — but only because you couldn’t eat worse.”

    Additionally, the Knicks were knocked for signing several players — Randle, Taj Gibson, Bobby Portis and Marcus Morris — who all play power forward. The glut of big men could potentially stunt the growth of last year’s No. 9 overall pick, Kevin Knox, and second-team all-rookie selection Mitchell Robinson, who plays center.

    “The Knicks’ five-big attack is confusing to me,” one Eastern Conference assistant coach said.

    Reads a bit like… Knickerblogger. Now back to class…

    J R by Gaddis was one of those books that did and probably still would make me feel like I’m wayyyyyyy out of my element.

    Took a Pynchon class in undergrad (in addition to four other English and history seminars that semester). We read GR and Against the Day while I worked 5 hours every weekday evening in a data entry tax processing job. Probably the worst 4 months of my life.

    The Knicks’ offseason was a failure, but it wasn’t crippling. I wouldn’t agree that it was the worst overall offseason, even though I’ve been highly critical of it.

    You could probably argue that Westbrook to Houston was a worse move — they could have gotten more complementary players with that haul of assets, and now you have an albatross contract that you paid like eighty draft picks for. So you pay to get him, and likely, you pay to get rid of him later. I do not see how he plays without the ball in his hands. It’s going to be a weird and potentially catastrophic thing to watch.

    The Nets made that big splash, but I think that history will look back on that day as a crippling trade. And when they underachieve in 2020-21, watch them package every future asset they have to make another splash. It’s going to be hell if they’re anything worse than a 53-win regular season team — which looks highly likely, even in the East.

    It been awhile, twenty years since i read it , but my take was he cut off the last hundred pages or so and stuck them in front. That it was the protagonist having a bad trip just before the start of college. Infinite Jest that is.

    Spoiler alert!

    He wanted it structured like a Sierpinski triangle. But yes, the first scene is the chronologically last scene IIRC

    The Knicks offseason was really bad only in comparison to expectations. Otherwise it was just mediocre.

    Like we didn’t give a huge contract to Harrison Barnes or anything like that.

    Zippy,

    Thanks for posting the note about the ESPN article. It does read like Knickerblogger. I agree about the glut of big men. I’m wondering if our management made a bunch of offers and was surprised when they all accepted. That said, we will probably be a decent team in the front court and it will be nice to be decent at least somewhere.

    I’m not so sure I agree with the criticism about not taking on bad contracts for assets. “Assets” in this case surely means picks, not players. The picks would almost certainly be protected so that they were late first rounders at best. And the bad contracts available were surely multi year deals for players who aren’t good. So the Knicks chose to gamble with a bunch of players who might be worth renewing instead of gambling with late first round picks. The risks of getting players that don’t contribute are probably similar for either strategy. So I don’t see this as a failure or horrible strategy.

    None of this explains hiring Gibson though.

    The Knicks offseason was really bad only in comparison to expectations. Otherwise it was just mediocre.

    If our franchise had been run by talented and brilliant GMs with a long track record of success, I would yield that our offseason was “just mediocre.” But when judged through the lens of the doomsday scenarios the Dolan’s Razor crowd expected, I would describe it as “relieving,” or “encouraging” or “refreshing.”

    -No albatross max contracts
    -No draft reaches (for, say, Reddish)
    -No ridiculous overpays beyond 1-year deals
    -Shrewd trade up in 2nd round deal
    -Randle is a solid signing
    -Enormous cap flexibility maintained beyond this year

    There were better moves/non-moves to make for sure, but not doing the worst possible things while doing at least some good things is okay by me for now. It’s a shame that it’s unrealistic to expect more.

    @129 – I read Gravity’s Rainbow three times. I didn’t understand it the first two times.

    The off-season was a disappointment. I expected more. The front office really got played but they have a really difficult job having to overcome the Dolan effect.

    Talking about Trump’s business losses is like Republicans talking about Obama’s college grades. Trump is still:

    A. A billionaire.
    B. President of the United States.
    C. The banger of more hot chicks than probably this entire board put together, even with the musical contingent.

    Mike

    Talking about Trump’s business losses is like Republicans talking about Obama’s college grades. Trump is still:

    A. A billionaire.
    B. President of the United States.
    C. The banger of more hot chicks than probably this entire board put together, even with the musical contingent.

    Mike

    Lol this is a new board low

    I agree. The story actually makes the Knicks medical staff look good. They figured this out when either the Piston’s or the Laker’s medical staff or both did not.

    I’m sure Trump banged more chicks than I ever did, because if he ever banged one he’s ahead on the race.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    I’m sure Trump banged more chicks than I ever did, because if he ever banged one he’s ahead on the race.

    lol

    @Ntillakilla 102,

    So Warren has essentially the same platform as Bernie but may actually be electable. Got it.

    Hope everything is good with Mike and no new post is just due to the summer doldrums.

    I think it’s fully automated. Mike K. might read threads less often than we’d think.

    I think so to. I suspect that if there wasn’t any new story about the Knicks, his automation may not know to start a new thread.

    Talking about Trump’s business losses is like Republicans talking about Obama’s college grades. Trump is still:

    A. A billionaire.
    B. President of the United States.
    C. The banger of more hot chicks than probably this entire board put together, even with the musical contingent.

    Sure but has he banged more hot chicks than Bobby Portis? That’s what we should really be debating.

    Bobby Portis punched a 7 feet tall Serbian guy and wrecked his face so much he spent a long time rehabbing. So I guess in the macho men rankings he’s definitely ahead of Trump, more or less chicks notwithstanding.

    I just want to point out to the haters that Hitler was still:

    A. A billionaire (according to the Smithsonian, the Nazi party stole at least $7B in assets from Jewish citizens).
    B. Fuhrer of the Third Reich.
    C. The banger of more hot chicks than probably Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Mahatma Gandhi put together.

    Talking about Trump’s business losses is like Republicans talking about Obama’s college grades. Trump is still:

    A. A billionaire.
    B. President of the United States.
    C. The banger of more hot chicks than probably this entire board put together, even with the musical contingent.

    Re-written for clarity:

    A. Trump is a trust fund baby
    B. Trump is a trust fund baby
    C. Trump is a trust fund baby

    No matter how many hot chicks Trump bangs, he’ll always be sexually frustrated because he can’t bone his own daughter. Also, I’d be willing to bet Trump is practically celibate since becoming President. You think Melania is catching any of that mushroom d these days? I don’t.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    Personally, I don’t think you should compare how many chicks one guy has banged to another unless you consider other aspects of the banging.

    Some guys bang a lot, but they are less efficient lower quality bangers.

    Some guys are super efficient high quality bangers, but they barely ever bang. Those guys are role bangers.

    You have to look at both the usage and efficiency of the banging, but most formulas fail at it because they can’t handle some of the issues from bang to bang. Stats help, but you also need to use common sense and the eye test.

    I’ve always been a rim running guy myself, so I’m an advanced stats darling probably. I just hope they ignore my lousy DBPM.

    Seeing as it came up in the context of how well Trump would run the Knicks, I think bringing up his history of running businesses, often into the ground, seems fair. Also I very much doubt that Trump is liquid enough to buy the Knicks and given Deutsche’s recent setbacks and the rest of the banking industry’s unwillingness to offer him credit based on aforementioned previous defaults, I don’t think he would be able to buy them, at least not as the lead investor…

    Only way to save this summer is if Epstein and Dolan are on tape pissing on Russian prostitutes and high fiving each other. Silver and the rest of the governors tell him to sell and Steinbrenner family purchases the Knicks. Much much better than signing KD and Kyrie.

    @156 Bruno

    That was equal parts TMI and hilarity. Well done. Though I question your long term willingness to stay close to the box.

    Still waiting for the Melania having an affair with a secret service agent story to drop.

    Damn Trump, Bolsonaro, now Boris Johnson, I think I need to reset my prior on how much people just want to blow it all to hell.

    Yeah, but what’s his VORBOHC? VORBOHC = Value over replacement banger of hot chicks

    May I suggest we invent a new stat the… BANG. It’s a measure of the projected per seasonal value (Bang for the buck) of a player’s salary/projected production. I’ll leave it to the matherati to decide on the formula.

    I would guess that DSJ leads the team in DBPM. Young, good looking, and constantly looking for his own shot. He probably averages 5.5 DBPM.

    Dames Banged Per Month?

    That is a lousy stat that favors the high volume bangers. We should focus on bangs above replacement (BAR).

    Unless efficiency is your thing, and True Banging % is your stat of choice.

    Never mind I thought DBPM = defense so lousy DBPM is the bottoming equivalent of Enes Kanter. Now I’m not sure anymore

    My gf is Israeli and kids go to Israeli school in NYC and it was well known Melania was seeing an Israeli security agent for the their ambassador to US.

    Unless efficiency is your thing, and True Banging % is your stat of choice.

    True Banging% under rates volume scorers. Just like wingmen are important for helping increase your TB%, the Kobe assist, where you strike out and your friend picks them up right after, leads to better overall scoring for you and your friends. Doesn’t account for your obnoxious hitting on them driving other guys away

    I don’t want to spoil the fun here and I don’t think it’s gone too far yet but this quality talk about human beings is approaching PUA scumminess…

    Anyone know if Dolan hung out with Jeff Epstein

    I found:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/business/bid-for-new-york-magazine-a-dance-of-money-and-ego.html

    Mr. Zuckerman’s group includes Nelson Peltz, a billionaire investor whose Triarc Companies owns Arby’s restaurants; Jeffrey Epstein, a money manager with his own claim to the billionaires club; Donnie Deutsch, chief executive of Deutsch Inc., who sold the advertising agency for hundreds of millions of dollars several years ago; and Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax films.

    James L. Dolan, chief executive of Cablevision Systems, the owner of the cable television provider as well as Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, is no longer a part of the current bid. But Cablevision maintains an interest in the magazine’s Web site, and other members of the group say he may come in later.

    Hmmm… Dolan… Epstein, Harvey Weinstein… the owner of Arby’s, and Donny Deutsch (who appears to be clean but is patently a douche).

    @159

    I promise I’ll improve, so maybe Minnesota will give me a max when my rookie contract is over like Wiggins.

    @ DS

    Not a fan of any of those guys but I don’t think that particular connection is very meaningful. I hope Epstein gives any information he has and then faces justice for what he did, but I’m really not sure how to think about these reports he may have tried to commit suicide… I don’t feel bad for him at all but I wonder if it means he is more or less likely to talk.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    #1

    The people with connections to Epstein is like a Who’s Who of business, politics, entertainment, and major media. The depth of each connection is the question mark, but unquestionably a LOT of them knew exactly what was going on and looked the other way even if they weren’t actively involved with his underaged women. They had to know because even I knew about this guy years ago. Powerful people kept it as buried as possible – including the media.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    #2

    It’s understandable (but not excusable) that no one was willing to potentially ruin their own careers and businesses by coming forward. We saw that repeatedly with the Weinstein case where even women looked the other way. But I’ve been waiting patiently for years for someone to do a through investigation. When I read the Miami Herald story, I celebrated hoping that would break the damn open. We’ll see.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    #3

    I have no real issue with consenting adults paying for various “services”. But when you are recruiting and exploiting kids and young teens all bets are off. I’m hoping all of them pay the price.

    Edit: sorry for breaking it into 3, but I was having trouble getting what I wanted to say past the censor. lol

    @Strat

    Not sure what you mean by “understandable but not excusable”? If you knew about Epstein “years ago” are you excused for not doing anything about it?

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    Not sure what you mean by “understandable but not excusable”? If you knew about Epstein “years ago” are you excused for not doing anything about it?

    My knowledge was based on scattered media reports from years ago. I have no first hand knowledge.

    What I am suggesting is no one in a position to do so dug into the story to find out why he got a sweetheart deal, who the regular passengers on his plane were, who spent a lot of time on the island, what the girls were saying etc…to rally blow up it until the Miami Herald did it.

    I blame the media for that.

    There also had to be people at the parties and gatherings that initially may not have known, but came to know as a result of the contact.

    No one gives a crap what I say. But if you are a Hollywood celebrity, politician, Wall St tycoon, major business leader, and well known news personality and knew, well, then you looked the other way.

    Maybe Dolan will write a song about how he should have known about his buddy Epstein

    My gf is Israeli and kids go to Israeli school in NYC and it was well known Melania was seeing an Israeli security agent for the their ambassador to US.

    Not surprising.

    While I hate the injection of politics on this board, this thread was simply hysterical. Bruno, you’re in the lead with post #144. Oakman is not far behind with post #164.

    As for the Epstien stuff, I hope all scum who decided that it was OK to not speak up are tarred and feathered and drawn and quartered. There’s nothing lower that child molestation. That goes for every priest, scout leader and little league coach that took advantage of a child.

    In Knicks related news, I didn’t realize Mitch was added to the USA Select team (the team that scrimmages against Team USA). This could be huge for his development. Might actually learn some good habits! Very excited about this.

    Everyone knew about Weinstein years ago – I even heard about the McGowan incident – but “doing something about it” isn’t so easy when it’s the victims who have legal rights, not the people who hear things, and if the victims don’t want to take action, there aren’t a lot of other paths. And given how cops treat women who have been raped, I can’t blame any victim for keeping her mouth shut – particularly when Weinstein had so much power for so long. The cynic in me thought the dam burst on him only because his power had waned, making him vulnerable; I didn’t recognize the beginning of a whole movement!

    Of course, when the victims are kids, ffs, then it’s a million times worse. A friend who’s served time said that pedophiles are seen as the lowest of the low in prison, since many cons themselves have been molested. So they are often beaten, sometimes murdered. That was my first thought about his “attempted suicide.” My second was, oh, right, there are a lot of important people who would want him eliminated before he rats them out for being in on it…

    Beautiful world.

    I hope some videos leak of Mitch swatting the shit out of Team USA’s shots.

    This seems to be reoccurring internet story.only the guinea pig name gets changed.

    Are we sure Mitch isn’t already better than these guys? I’m underwhelmed.

    Team USA Roster:

    Jaylen Brown
    Marcus Smart
    Montrezl Harrell
    Mason Plumlee
    Julius Randle
    Thaddeus Young
    Kemba Walker
    Jayson Tatum
    Kyle Lowry
    Khris Middleton
    Brook Lopez
    Harrison Barnes
    Andre Drummond
    Kyle Kuzma
    Donovan Mitchell
    P.J. Tucker
    Myles Turner

    So Kyrie just released a Spongebob Nike shoe line. I guess that’s an underserved market (?) but what a weird guy…

    for those of you with kids – do you remember the first time you sat down with your child to watch some spongebob, and, then thought – what the fuck is crazy shit???

    What an overrated hack.

    .@NateSilver538: "Medicare For All Isn’t That Popular — Even Among Democrats"Latest @nytimes poll: 86% of Democrats support "having a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, in which all Americans would get their insurance from a SINGLE GOVERNMENT plan."— Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) July 25, 2019

    @194 I’ve seen some polls where even a slight majority of republicans support it.

    So Warren has essentially the same platform as Bernie but may actually be electable.

    There isn’t one aggregate poll where she outperforms him in the primaries or the general election despite having appropriated much of his platform and message. The only area where she is more “electable” than him is with the older white professional college educated voters who gobble down whatever wonkery she throws out.

    I love how DSJ is able to jump up real fast and then slow down super slow like that in mid air and then speed up again last second to dunk it. Why doesn’t he do that in games when I watch?

    i thought we were all in on biden for the win…maybe harris as his sidekick…

    @194 I’ve seen some polls where even a slight majority of republicans support it.

    Yep. And overall support for the measure has stabilized over 50% since 2017. Imagine if the supposed sources of statistical impartiality Nate Silver removed their lips from health care and pharmaceutical lobbyist buttocks and stopped gaslighting American voters about Medicare 4 All with misinformation. The support would even be greater.

    i thought we were all in on biden for the win…maybe harris as his sidekick…

    Wall Street certainly is.

    NEW: Biden, Harris and Buttigieg rack up donations in the second quarter from big bank executives on Wall Street. At least 15 leaders from J.P. Morgan, Goldman, Citi and Morgan Stanley gave to the three 2020 contenders. https://t.co/2aAkDzwJG0— Brian Schwartz (@schwartzbCNBC) July 25, 2019

    I’m heading to Italy for the last two weeks of summer. If anyone wants a break from politics I’m down to crowd source opinions from all your experiences. Especially you, Farfa.

    I’ve been to Italy before, mostly to the north and usually during winter and spring. Specifically looking for southern Italy and summer ideas.

    I’ve been to Italy before, mostly to the north and usually during winter and spring. Specifically looking for southern Italy and summer ideas.

    Northern Italy has become a new hotbed for ultra-right wing nationalist politics there.

    Great news about Mitch on the select team.

    I love Italy! Been there twice. I went as far south as Naples and the Amalfi coast. The highlight there for me was Pompeii. As a Knicks fan, I just can’t get enough of ruins.

    When you’re in Rome, plan to spend a night out (dinner, drinks) in Trastevere. Also, if you want to go to the beach, take the train from Rome to the beach. You’ll pass a huge area of ruins, Ostia. Yeah, ruins.

    I’m heading to Italy for the last two weeks of summer. If anyone wants a break from politics I’m down to crowd source opinions from all your experiences.

    Northern Italy has become a new hotbed for ultra-right wing nationalist politics there.

    that’s some funny shit right there…

    When you’re in Rome, plan to spend a night out (dinner, drinks) in Trastevere.

    As someone who did this a couple of years ago, I wholeheartedly concur! We stayed in an airbnb in Trastevere and walked everywhere. It was a blast!

    To a Bernie Bro, everything sucks except Bernie. It’s a cult-like mentality. Even Elizabeth Warren is a corporate whore! She voted for Reagan or whatever,

    Pathetic.

    despite not really wanting to ever leave the house, this Italy talk has me wanting to hit the road…

    have a safe trip hubert, I’m sure you’ll have an absolute blast…

    As a Knicks fan, I just can’t get enough of ruins.

    Boom!

    My mother’s family is from Italy, but I haven’t been in 20 years and will not dare say a word with Farfa on the board…

    The most recent ex-Lady Jowles, who is an extreme social liberal and would probably qualify as a SJW, took a vacation to Northern Italy, fell in love with a Brazilian man living there, began a long-distance relationship (as ill-advised as shacking up with me), and found out on her return trip — after a transatlantic flight, mind you — that he vocally supported Jair Bolsonaro and Matteo Salvini, among others. Just desserts, Caroline!

    I have an Irish surname but I grew up mostly with my Italian family, and spent lots of time with my great-grandmother when I was a little one. She was from Positano, one of the most beautiful places in the world and one of Italy’s crown jewel coastal cities. She was from a huge family, I think there were like 15 brothers and sisters or something insane like that, and she was the oldest girl. I have lots of extended family there still, 100 years after she left to come to America. Three of her sisters founded the restaurant Tre Sorelle, which is still in business in Positano today.

    I’ve never been but I’m dying to go.

    @210

    Ouch, that has to hurt. Badly.

    @209

    Haha! But honestly, you can find a castle in ruins in Italy more often than you do playing a random Diablo-like action RPG.

    Hubert, it all depends on which parts of Italy you intend to visit and how long you’ll be able to stay. Feel free to hit me up at my email address amm.simone.ferrari@gmail.com for a detailed list of tips on where to go and what to see!

    I’m just very glad I wasn’t here to waste my time responding to a troll trying to argue for Bolsonaro and I only read it now, right as I’m going to sleep and I can’t bother to answer, specially when the last phrase of the study he himself posted argues Bolsonaro’s gun policy will make things worse.

    Nah. I’m sure all those Bolsonaro voters just weren’t quite as intellectually and morally enlightened as Ol’ Jowles.

    You’re a caricature, bro. Your opinions are so fucking facile that it makes me think you’re on here to be a parody of a populist.

    MBunge is one of the audience members in the final scene of The Wolf of Wall Street

    Posting from the last day of my own Italian trip so here’s my two cents: Trastevere is very nice, it feels like it’s been lifted out of another time.

    My favorite neighborhood in Rome was Monti, it felt a bit more local but still close to the Coliseum and Forum. Monti is also where I ate best – check out Ai Tre Scalini for dinner.

    If you go to Naples, L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele is special, one of the oldest and best pizzerias in Naples. There’s likely to be a crowd ahead of you but it moves quickly enough and it’s worth the wait. Pompeii is also incredible and Capri is one of the most beautiful places in the world if you have the time but it’s probably it’s own day trip.

    Also, look out for train strikes. They are apparently a regular occurrence and naturally it fell on one of my travel days here. They are announced in advance and taking a bus between cities only added 90 minutes to my trip and at a fraction of the cost.

    I’m sorry to make a personal attack but the fact that you sign your name at the end of each post might indicate you’re old-fashioned.

    Whoops I read JK’s post parodying Mike and thought it was actually Mike. Apologies. I guess “snowflake” is a trigger for me.

    Whoops I read JK’s post parodying Mike and thought it was actually Mike. Apologies. I guess “snowflake” is a trigger for me.

    My condolences….

    Interesting piece this morning on The Ringer about the next Siakims, listing the Cruise Mitchell as one of the five possible up-and-comers this year.

    @223 – They pointed out that Cuban Mitchell Crisis had fewer missed FT’s and FG’s combined than block shots. So far, he’s more likely to block a shot than miss a FG or FT. That’s silly.

    @Don Nelson – is the garbage strike still going on in Rome? Awful/bearable?

    Interesting piece this morning on The Ringer about the next Siakims, listing the Cruise Mitchell as one of the five possible up-and-comers this year.

    I know we did the “find Mitch a nickname” thread about two weeks ago, but I can get behind (anti-aircraft) Cruise Mitchell. Cuban Mitchell Crisis isn’t bad either. Technically he was born in Louisiana, which is about 1000 miles away from Cuba, but that’s within Cruise Mitchell distance so that works too.

    @ 181 Strat (sorry for the delayed post but just realize this was caught up by the censors)

    What I am suggesting is no one in a position to do so dug into the story to find out why he got a sweetheart deal, who the regular passengers on his plane were, who spent a lot of time on the island, what the girls were saying etc…to rally blow up it until the Miami Herald did it.

    I blame the media for that.

    You are free to blame the media if you want. But what do you think are reasonable expectations of the media? Investigative journalism is super expensive. Journalists have no subpoena power to make people talk to them. If victims don’t come forward or want to remain anonymous, do you really blame the media for not publishing claims that are near impossible to substantiate with the tools at their disposal? Especially when those claims will be damaging to the subject of the story, and may result in liability for the publisher?

    I love when KB starts chatting about travel. I take notes like a fiend!

    I did a brief study abroad in Italy in college. Trastevere was a really charming place for a night out. Florence was my favorite city – I enjoyed how walkable it was.

    also re: Mitch nicknames

    MITCHELL DEFENSE SYSTEM

    INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MITCHELL

    @Ntillakilla

    You love Bernie. That is great. I think he would do well as president and I think the electability concerns are overblown (though not nonexistent). Bernie is great at making things simple and selling his plans, which is a huge part of being a successful president. I hope you engage in the democratic process enough to actually see what the other candidates are about and how well they align with what you want out of government.

    Yeah, was contemplating ICBM. A bit long, but certainly apropos.
    He’ll likely always be Mitch or MitchRob, which I think is fine. However I appreciate that there are about 20 good nicknames we can switch through as we see fit in the moment.
    It’s really interesting to watch him slowly ascend from totally under the radar to widely acknowledged low-level potential star. Can’t wait to see where it goes…

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    You are free to blame the media if you want. But what do you think are reasonable expectations of the media? Investigative journalism is super expensive. Journalists have no subpoena power to make people talk to them. If victims don’t come forward or want to remain anonymous, do you really blame the media for not publishing claims that are near impossible to substantiate with the tools at their disposal? Especially when those claims will be damaging to the subject of the story, and may result in liability for the publisher?

    The Miami Herald managed just fine when they decided to actually pursue the story and break it open.

    My personal faves:
    Blockula
    The Kraken
    Blocktopus
    Knickerblocker
    Skynet
    Lob Jam

    Mitchin’ Impossible

    NYDN is gonna steal the hell out of this

    By his Twitter handle, seems like Mitch like “Savage” as a nickname…Doesn’t really work, does it?

    Imagine being a Knicks and Mets fan and suffering double the misery. Couldn’t be me.

    A Game of Thrones theme might work…possibilities?
    Drogon
    Viserion
    Dracarys
    The Mountain
    The Night’s Watch
    Wildfire
    The Night King
    Valyrian Steel

    @241 I’ve always had an aversion to dynastic teams. But at least I was around to relish both Knicks and both Mets championships and the only Jets trip to the super bowl.

    Given the change in hairdo, how about Orange is the new Block?

    ok i’ll stop

    My personal faves:
    Blockula
    The Kraken
    Blocktopus
    Knickerblocker
    Skynet
    Lob Jam

    *Robin-Son of Blockula
    Starring Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr

    @246

    You promised to stop. Now we have to consider Block the Casbah, Block On, I Love Block and Roll…

    Given the change in hairdo, how about Orange is the new Block?

    ok i’ll stop

    Netflix and (Mit)Chill
    Sexually Trans-Mitchell Infection
    Swat Family Robinson

    OK I’m done now

    @241

    Imagine being a Knicks and Mets fan and suffering double the misery. Couldn’t be me.

    I don’t have to imagine it. Jets, too. Actually, I now have some hope for the Jets going forward, but the Mets are going to be mediocre to bad for the foreseeable future, back to looking up at a talented Atlanta Braves team that will likely dominate the NL East for the next few years.

    I’m bracing for Brodie’s next awful decision. It is really amazing how bad his main offseason moves have panned out…but not totally surprising. The Cano trade where Kelenic was dealt away has the potential to be the worst trade in Mets history.

    I didn’t see anything as bad as the worst photos in news stories but yeah, there were some trash piles around and we found ourselves watching rats weaving in and out of a dumpster for a few minutes during an evening walk. Though, I live in SF where the streets aren’t exactly pristine so it may not have fully registered.

    I’d still like to go back but maybe not in the summer, the heat was brutal.

    Idk if this has been covered, but there’ve been a lot of shirtless pics of Randle on Instagram lately…

    I seriously mistook him for Deontay Wilder. The dude is absolutely yoked. Doesn’t mean he’s going to become a top-10 player or anything, but it’s good to know he’s putting in serious work.

    The unbelievable thing about the Cano trade is that the Mets have an absolute stud second baseman on the roster who makes league minimum. McNeil has played about a full season in MLB now and has racked up 5.5 WAR. For league minimum. He has slashed .336/.393/.493 in 151 games.

    Better go out and get a real old and expensive second baseman doe, and move the hitting machine who makes league minimum all over the diamond because really the first priority should be to solve problems that don’t exist. Oops, can’t afford to extend Noah Syndergaard now because we traded for the washed up second baseman whose contract runs for four more years! I’m sure we’ll come out ahead on that one, sure seems like a virtual lock that Robby Cano will give you more WAR in his age 37-40 seasons than Noah Syndergaard will in his age 27-30 seasons, I mean DUH.

    Brodie Van Halen should be banned from baseball entirely, like Shoeless Joe Jackson style.

    The Mets had a decent base of talent before Brodie fucked it up. They had Alonso, McNeil, Nimmo, Conforto and Dom Smith as guys at the MLB level making peanuts, DeGrom, cost-controlled Syndergaard and Wheeler in the rotation, and a blue chip prospect in Kelenic, along with some other decent prospects like Dunn, Gimenez, Anthony Kay… it wasn’t a disastrous situation. The only real bad contract on the books was Cespedes.

    Now they have the Cespedes AND Cano contracts on the books, Kelenic and Dunn (TWO first round picks!) are gone, and Syndergaard and Wheeler likely out the door, likely for peanuts in return because BVW is a moron. It’s safe to go ahead and tune out for a long while now.

    Basketball used to be ever so slightly above baseball in my rooting interest. Now the gap is enormous. I’d rather watch a Knicks summer league game without Mitch on the roster than a non-playoff Mets game. Some of it is the hideous dysfunction of the Mets FO, but the game has gotten boring to me.

    If it’s Block Lobster somebody else would have to be Love Shake, Private ‘Zo/Channel Z.. Frank and Knox could combine for Deadbeat Club..

    Dolan is rightly lambasted but there is a counterpoint to the Knicks in the Rangers. The Wilpons are easily the worst owners in NYC, in all of baseball, maybe of all North American pro sports. Corrupt, cheap, and stupid is no way to go thru life.

    By his Twitter handle, seems like Mitch like “Savage” as a nickname…Doesn’t really work, does it?

    Since it is a joke about a not particularly famous rapper (21 Savage, with Mitch therefore being 23 Savage), I tend to think it’s one of those things where he regrets picking it as his Twitter handle now.

    Since it is a joke about a not particularly famous rapper

    Top 10 songs on Spotify have over 2 billion plays cumulative

    Since it is a joke about a not particularly good rapper

    FTFY

    @249, Clash i feel you, especially cuz the wound is fresh and will only get worse as Cano ages, Diaz flames out and Kelenic and Dunn. in the Seaver and Ryan trades, Mets gave up a Hall of Famer for nobodies and are right now the worst trades in Mets (and maybe league) history. Compare though to the Seaver and Ryan trades, this is only worse if BOTH kelenic and Dunn go supernova.

    Top 10 songs on Spotify have over 2 billion plays cumulative

    Is that counting Post Malone’s “Rockstar” as a 21 Savage song?

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    Frank——->The Awful Tower

    Still growing as of this morning. 🙂

    Just for shits and giggles I pulled up Tatum’s and Barrett’s freshman year statistics at Duke:

    Tatum TS%.566 BPM 7.5 Reb. 7.3 Assists 2.1

    Barrett TS% .532 BPM 7.7 Reb. 7.6 Assists 4.3

    The TS% difference is significant, but so are the assists. The key to RJ’s success will be making 3 pointers. If he can hit those at a decent clip, he’ll be a really good NBA player.

    @d-mar

    There really aren’t many players for whom that’s not the case. Klay Thompson is a near-useless ball handler and a terrible rebounder, but he’s valuable to the Warriors because he’s an elite three artist.

    @don Nelson – thanks. Almost went there next month for a college visit with my daughter, but decided to postpone to the fall.

    The Awful Tower – I love Frank, but that did make me laugh!

    @206

    As someone who did this a couple of years ago, I wholeheartedly concur! We stayed in an airbnb in Trastevere and walked everywhere. It was a blast!

    I stayed in an AirBnB there too. What a great apartment. BTW, that’s how I travel. AirBnB all the way.

    We were there in early May. On a Wednesday night, at 1 am, it was as rocking as St Marks place on a Saturday night. No joke.

    BTW, I’m going on vacation too those last 2 weeks in August too. But I’ll be going to Israel and will do the full circuit. I do a lot of travelling. Whenever I’m asked “what are the best places in the world to visit?” I always say that every person should visit Rome and Jerusalem in their lifetime. And to answer the obvious follow-up question, yes, it’s absolutely safe. The US is a much more dangerous place to be.
    I’ll see you at the Airport Hubert!

    French Prince of Bel-Airball

    Now you’re getting a little bel-abored.

    This is probably just a fantasy, but if Frank plays the one and can shoot threes, very few opposing point guards are going to be big enough to stop that shot. I know that’s not anyone’s idea of a modern point guard, but I think it could work with the right players around him.

    Frank can’t dribble or penetrate, and he has been the single worst shooter in the league over the last two seasons. It is a fantasy, my dude.

    Sorry Jowles. You’re wrong. Knox was the worst shooter in the league. Don’t take that away from Knox.

    @geo thx for bringing up Heinlein. Made me go back and start rereading him. I had forgotten he was the one who came up with TNSTAAFL, a classic libertarian saying, among other gems.

    Disclaimer: I’m not labeling geo as a libertarian.

    Re: Mitch’s nickname

    Blockness Monster
    NORAD

    I’d also say 21 Savage is really well known in the younger generation. So I’m not sure he’d be against keeping that.

    This is probably just a fantasy, but if Frank plays the one and can shoot threes, very few opposing point guards are going to be big enough to stop that shot. I know that’s not anyone’s idea of a modern point guard, but I think it could work with the right players around him.

    If only there were some geometric based offense where he could play the 1 and only shoot 3’s, hmmm… I think we tried this.

    To your point tho, Frank shot incredibly well, over 50% from 3, in the Euro under 19 tournament playing the 1. I think because of the reason you gave. Sample size disclaimer.

    Disclaimer: I’m not labeling geo as a libertarian.

    it is all good 2 – 4 – 18…it’s funny though – now knowing that the moon is a harsh mistress touches upon some libertarian concepts helps me to understand the term libertarian a whole lot more…

    fuck, who knows – when the lights are down and i’m all alone – maybe that is me…

    life is short and not always so easy…i try to make a habit of not judging others for their thoughts and beliefs, cuz – well, seems mostly pointless in the grand scheme of things…lord knows some of the shit that rolls off my fingertips probably don’t sit so well with everyone…

    actions though are a different matter…seems more than fair we should all be judged for those, during our time here, and, for whatever comes next…

    having served uncle sam – what really turned me on to heinlein was reading starship troopers and all that talk about:

    citizen’s rights = citizen responsibility/service…

    not a single doubt in my mind – i’d vote for that each day, every day…

    On another note, definitely looking forward to FIBA. Since the Knicks suck so bad FIBA may be the most fun I have watching basketball.

    Finally got around to looking at some rosters, not all are up yet.

    – USA has the most balanced squad

    – Serbia looks scary with Jokic, Boban at C

    – France could pull it out just with Gobert’s dominance on D

    – Spain is aging, Willy H. may get a lot of burn

    – Russia usually punches above their weight

    – Greece has the Antetekuonmpo bro trio. May be the most fun to watch. Thanasis may suck, he’s damn athletic.

    – Canada, RJ!!! Brazdeikis??

    – Lots of former/current Knicks, it’ll be fun to check up on:

    * Mindaugus Kuzminskas
    * Georgios Papanikolau (remember we drafted him?)
    * Louis Lebeyrie
    * Rudy Fernandez
    * Willy Hernangomez
    * Thanasis Antetekuonmpo
    * Frank Ntilikina
    * R (no) J Barrett
    * Danilo Gallinari
    * Julius Randle

    Good post geo.

    Is the high school Antetekuonmpo playing? I’d love to see this
    .

    Is the high school Antetekuonmpo playing? I’d love to see this

    Unfortunately, no. Its Giannis, Kostas, and Thanasis.

    Also, I realize I probably spelled half–AKA all–those names wrong in my last post.

    Georgios Papanikolaou was definitely in New York a few decades ago and we owe him much for keeping women healthy and alive by inventing his famous Test Pap but we drafted Kostas Papanikolaou.

    lol, I mixed up the names after seeing both Georgios Printezis and Kostas on Greece’s roster. Both were technically on the Knicks, but never played. We traded them to Portland for Kurt Thomas and Ray Felton’s 2nd stints. (I looked this up, but vaguely remembered Georgios’s name). Kostas was out of the league after two Frank/Knox-esque shooting seasons. Georgios never played an NBA minute.

    So add Georgios Printezis to my list of former Knicks in the World Cup.

    Printezis was selected by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round, with the 58th selection overall of the 2007 NBA draft. The draft rights to Printezis were then acquired by the Toronto Raptors, in exchange for their second round draft pick in the 2008 NBA draft (Spurs used that pick to draft Goran Dragic, and immediately traded Dragic to the Phoenix Suns to acquire the draft pick they used in 2009 to draft future NBA All-Rookie Second Team member DeJuan Blair).[14][15] On January 20, 2011, the Toronto Raptors traded his draft rights to the Dallas Mavericks for Alexis Ajinça, a conditional second 2013 second round draft pick, and cash.[16]

    On December 10, 2011, the draft rights to Printezis were traded to the New York Knicks, along with Tyson Chandler and the draft rights to Ahmad Nivins, in a three-way trade. The Mavericks received Andy Rautins from the Knicks, and a second round pick from the Washington Wizards. The Wizards received Ronny Turiaf from the Knicks, in addition to a Dallas 2012 second round pick, a 2013 Knicks second round pick, and cash considerations.

    In the summer of 2012, Printezis turned down a one-year contract offer from the Knicks, that reportedly was for slightly more than the minimum NBA salary.[17] On July 16, 2012, his and Kostas Papanikolaou’s draft rights were traded to the Portland Trail Blazers, in a deal that sent Raymond Felton to New York.[18] On February 21, 2013, his draft rights were subsequently traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder, in a deal that sent Eric Maynor to the Portland Trail Blazers.[19] On July 15, 2014, his draft rights and Thabo Sefolosha, were traded to the Atlanta Hawks, in exchange for the draft rights to Sofoklis Schortsanitis, cash considerations, and a trade exception.[20] On July 9, 2015, his draft rights, alongside a 2017 second-round pick, were traded to the Spurs, in exchange for Tiago Splitter.[21]

    What a crazy circle. Journeyman that never left home.

    Yall are on your off-season A-game. Best blog in America. Coming up with a new advanced stat called BANG was just priceless.

    MBunge, I don’t know how serious you are about your three “facts” about Trump, but let me share a personal story:
    When I was a teen, I was basically thought of as an undesirable guy, despite busting my ass at Stuyvesant, because I wasn’t as socially adept as my brother and step-brother. I had no interest in doing “man” things like playing sports – especially basketball (though I enjoyed watching). My dad couldn’t understand – he routinely put me down and made me feel like shit because of it. They both played ball, had a bunch of friends, learned to smoke weed and routinely attracted girls (and started cutting school and ultimately got left back in their senior year). So as an adult, when I’d have sex with a woman (which I over-prioritized), I felt more relief than anything, because I was “proving” that I was desirable man. It wasn’t until 5 years ago that I had a breakdown and realized chasing the pimp life isn’t who I am. Had I not resolved that within myself, I would not be with the love of my life today.

    I got the best “chick” by finally putting those nagging voices aside. So miss me with that “he bangs more chicks” bullshit. You wanna fall for Trump’s allure of being a man’s man, go right ahead. You’re another one he’s pulled the wool over on.

    I’m endlessly curious about how salt-of-the-earth, back-woods, DIY-as-a-personal-ethos men and women can identify with people, like our current president, who have probably never tied a single bag of garbage or replaced a roll of toilet paper in their bathrooms. But somehow, the powers that be have pulled it off. It’s truly a marvel of social engineering.

    So. Much. This.

    Put it this way: I’m an African American who’s a landlord, has followed Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad teachings and read The Four Hour Workweek, and I have more in common with Trump than those folks do. Plus I wonder how many of those people knew of Trump before The Apprentice?

    The Infamous Cdiggy @293 thanks for the personal story. Over prioritizing sex and then feeling more relief than joy or love is probably more common for men than we’re willing to admit.

    @293

    Great post. I don’t think it’s a stretch to see Trump’s behavior (cough cough narcissistic p.d.) and surmise that he has never experienced anything like romantic love. Because it’s all about him in the transaction, always.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    I’m endlessly curious about how salt-of-the-earth, back-woods, DIY-as-a-personal-ethos men and women can identify with people, like our current president, who have probably never tied a single bag of garbage or replaced a roll of toilet paper in their bathrooms. But somehow, the powers that be have pulled it off. It’s truly a marvel of social engineering.

    This is not complicated.

    As a kid, I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Queens. Some of us went on to college and became white collar workers, but most became auto-mechanics, plumbers, electricians, cab drivers, housewives etc.. I remain in touch with many of the people I grew up with.

    Virtually every one of those blue collar workers is a registered democrat. Many still live in NYC. They virtually ALL voted for Trump.

    In conversations with them, it always comes down to the same things. (This is THEIR analysis, not mine. Don’t bother shooting the messenger.)

    1. Trade – Every single one them thinks free trade failed miserably in practice for 10s of millions of Americans. DT’s rhetoric on how the US is getting screwed, attempts at new trade deals, pressure on companies to stay in the US, and for people to buy American all resonates (some of these guys liked Perot also).

    2. Immigration – Most are sons or grandsons of immigrants that came to the US legally. They all hate “illegal” immigration. They want a secure border and the immigration system reformed so people come to the US in an orderly fashion and get assimilated like their families did.

    3. Social Issues – Most have moved left on social issues with life experience, but none has moved as far left as some of the democrats. “batshit crazy” is a term used.

    They don’t identify as democrats, not because they changed, but because the democrats changed. Trump moved left & away from the typical free trade, open border/cheap labor republican positions.

    A long-ago ex of mine actually worked as Fred Trump’s counsel in the days where young Donald was just starting out and her anecdotes about the so-called “short-fingered vulgarian” corroborate Cdiggy’s hypothesis. Donny would routinely proposition her and other female associates at the firm with offers of putting in good words with the senior partners. As thirsty as my ex was for upward mobility( we parted ways because she thought my financial ceiling did not match her aspirations), she and the others found him utterly resistible. His verbal charm being akin to Enes Kanter’s defense.
    It wasn’t until the younger Trump started gaining some independent recognition after his father’s political connections paved the way for the Grand Hyatt hotel that he was able to gain some traction with some ladies.

    @304

    Just as I love the inside scoop on whichever basketball player it was that DRed was smoking weed with in a college dorm in Austin, I love posts like this. Bring ’em on.

    The most complicated issues for me re: foreign policy are:

    Trade in general
    Middle East
    Environmental stewardship
    China and Russia

    I don’t know nearly enough to say with any confidence what our country’s positions should be, especially with regard to the Middle East and Israel (totally conflicted as a non-practicing Jew)

    But I do have some guiding principles:
    -consumers should pay the true price of what they consume…factoring in defense, environmental costs, subsidies, foreign aid, worker exploitation, etc. For example, there is simply no way that a gallon of Poland Spring water should cost more than a gallon of gasoline.
    -the most lethal chemical to ever exist is testosterone
    -religious fundamentalism (largely steeped in testosterone-driven behavior) is an affront to intelligence and wisdom. If God exists as a supremely intelligent and wise entity, religious fundamentalism is an affront to God. I’m pretty much an atheist but believe strongly that the universe is a product of intelligence, right down to the physical laws that govern it.
    -We know enough and have enough to provide everyone with the means to live a reasonably happy life.

    -We know enough and have enough to provide everyone with the means to live a reasonably happy life.

    +1 to literally all of your post

    Did you listen to this episode of The Daily?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/podcasts/the-daily/hiv-aids-cure.html

    The ending brought me to tears, and it speaks to your point about having enough (at least here in the U.S.) to provide for a healthy, stable life. But it’s clear — we choose not to. Extend this to drug treatment, re-education of those left behind by the changes of industry, homelessness, or even the litter piling up on our sidewalks and in our streets — we choose not to.

    I’ll comment as briefly as I can on the 3 topics, trade, immigration and social issues even though I have a very different view.

    Trade – TPP and NAFTA type trades are ways to gain market footholds which ultimately are good for Americans.
    Immigration – I agree with the GOP party platform: “”Resolved, That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources, and increase of power to this nation, –the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, –should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.” What? That couldn’t be the GOP platform? It was. In 1864.
    Social – Everyone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm someone else. I believe all people should be treated equally. That does not mean I think reparations are due to the descendants of slaves or that we must have a gay character in every TV show. I think there are people in every stereotypical classification that hates people unlike them. That “hate” is what I hate.
    Z-man added the Israel-Palestinian issue. Wouldn’t it be great if they just decided to stop hating each other?

    The problem in this world is hatred. If you hate. I hate you. And I hate that about me.

    And it’s a terrible choice…not only on ethical grounds, but in that it winds up costing us more to not make this out guiding principle. A well-educated person is less likely to either sponge off the taxpayer or vote for politicians that support corrupt policy.

    An excellent example is the tobacco and fast-food industries. We’ve made some strides, but these industries continue to create enormous health care costs and the related worker productivity costs that are paid by the taxpayer. If corporations were required to pay the full price of their products, and then pass those costs along to the consumer, then consumption patterns would change in a way that benefits all of us. If the fossil fuel industry (producers and consumers) were responsible for paying the cost of all of their products to the environment and to our defense budget, not to mention associated health care costs, maybe we could actually start funding a 21st century mass transportation system.

    I’m far too uninformed to understand the nuances of these things to the point where I could say “here’s how to do it!” And aspects of my lifestyle is so contrary to these principals that I am easy to label a hypocrite. For example, I’m an abject carnivore who drives 30-40K miles a year, most of them by myself in my 27mpg Subaru Forester.

    But for all my many faults, I’m very proud of my work, as the middle school I am responsible for running is among the most diverse and progressive schools in the world, largely because I defer to the judgment of several women on my staff (one in particular) and essentially try to support them and stay out of their way.

    @309 Zman

    I agree generally with your point that the costs of gasoline are not well reflected in what people pay at the pump, but can you please drop the Poland Spring thing, it drives me crazy every time I read it because it totally obfuscates and weakens an otherwise cogent and good point. Maybe it has rhetorical power with some audience but I hope this board is not that place and to me it is claptrap at best.

    You talk about factoring in all the costs, the cost of a gallon of individually packaged Poland Spring has very little to do with the price of gas pumped up from a tank. Retail markup for shelf space often commands a margin of double the wholesale price. Gas stations often make ten cents or less per gallon on gas. Poland spring has brand value while most consumers don’t care what brand they put in their car, going by price or whatever station is convenient to their route. Most loyalty of regulars comes down to experience in the convenience store, which is actually where most gas stations make money. Then you add costs of individually packaging each gallon, transporting them that way in a heavier and less volumetrically efficient way than if it was just in a tanker like gas. To me it is just a bad example and invites skepticism that has nothing to do with your actual point.

    @310 my point is that one is a readily available renewable resource for which there are many lower-cost alternatives and no deals with the devil (gov’t subsidies or toxic relationships with corrupt and immoral foreign governments) yet it still commands a higher price than a substance that costs a fortune beyond the already much high price of production (drilling, transporting, refining, transporting again, pumping.) Most consumers don’t give a fuck…they just want cheap gas, heating oil, fossil fuel generated electricity…fuck the environment and the oppressed women and minorities in oil-producing countries.

    It’s not that water costs too much…it’s that gasoline costs way too little. A gallon of gas should probably cost between $10-20 if its true cost was paid by producers and consumers. If that were the case, people like me would be more than happy to take public transportation than drive, corporations would be far more likely to factor energy and transportation costs into where they locate their factories, automobile manufacturers would be far more likely to produce super high efficiency-low environmental impact vehicles.

    @Zman 309

    the most lethal chemical to ever exist is testosterone

    This is also claptrap. Humanity, culture, intelligent life as we know it would not exist without Sexual dimorphism. So arguably a lack of testosterone would be a greater loss than its presence. Why is adrenaline not the most lethal? I hate stock phrases that sound good unless you actually think about them. I wish people would make their actual arguments instead of just relying on pablum. Especially on a forum like this one where I like to imagine we respect each other enough to not think we can pull wool over each others eyes.

    Why should we pay for water? I’m guilty. The only reason is convenience. We could just as well use a water filter. I worked for a telecom company in the late 90’s and they participated in several auctions where they won (at a multi-million dollar cost) the rights to control certain bands of the electromagnetic spectrum .

    Did our forefathers in 1776 realize we would be selling air and water? Resources that they thought were free? Things have changed a great deal since then.

    Racial grievance politics and white identity is central to Trump’s appeal. It’s naive to pretend otherwise. It’s not like Stormfront and white nationalists and the Proud Boys and 4chan care about trade policy. Those groups all love Trump because he sends the clear message that he is fighting for the white man. He has a long history, from Fred Trump not renting to blacks, to the Central Park Five, to “Mexico sends rapists,” to “very fine people on both sides,” to “go back to where you came from.” His stans eat all this stuff up with a ladle. He just “tells it like it is” as far as they’re concerned.

    I’m not saying 4chan and Stormfront make up most of Trump’s base. They don’t. But it’s telling that those groups are so enthusiastic about him. He’s playing a concerto on the old dog whistle and it’s music to the ears of a lot of people.

    It’s not that water costs too much…it’s that gasoline costs way too little.

    I agree with all your points about gasoline. I just think water has nothing to do with it and bringing up Poland Springs is pointless and weakens your argument. Why not just say the gas parts. Every time you say that line people just say “I get free water thank you very much”. It’s like you just want to give them an opportunity to not listen to your actual point and write you off so you can continue to talk past each other. Why?

    BJ I’m not trying to make airtight arguments, and there is some metaphorical language built into everything I’m saying. You seem to get some sort of intellectual kick out of nitpicking semantics and such rather than argue for or against the essential point (e.g. would you be happier if I used a gallon of milk or a gallon of orange juice rather than a particular brand of water). Ditto for the testosterone thing. To me, it just makes you sound dumb and petty and clutters up the discourse. If you can’t surmise that what I’m really saying is that throughout history it has been men that cause the vast, vast majority of death, destruction and persecution. It’s largely metaphorical language, but if it doesn’t pass muster with you, whatever.

    Stratomatic: Management consists of talent evaluation, fitting pieces together coherently, & contract/valuation level decisions. The Knicks are bad at all three.says:

    @317

    There are crackpots and scumbags on both the left and right.

    They are always going to gravitate towards some candidate. IMO, you shouldn’t hold a candidate responsible for the racists, communists, neo nazis, terrorist sympathizers, actual terrorists, proponents and users of violence to address grievances, and other assorted crackpots that just happen to be more aligned with one of the candidates.

    You should however hold the candidate accountable for his/her own words and views (not taken out of context) and close associations.

    I personally also hold the media accountable for trying to politicize relationships that don’t exist in an unbalanced way to gain an advantage. But you probably already know I think the media (both left and right) is disgusting.

    I’m not saying 4chan and Stormfront make up most of Trump’s base. They don’t. But it’s telling that those groups are so enthusiastic about him. He’s playing a concerto on the old dog whistle and it’s music to the ears of a lot of people.

    100% agree. Trump has made it okay for white people to embrace deeply-held racist views. For example, northern whites saying that southern whites standing up for confederate monuments are only doing so because “that’s their heritage” seem to not be aware that millions of black southerners whose descendants suffered under slavery have a heritage too, and that hundreds of thousands of white northerners were killed or maimed at the hands of those confederate heroes. Not to mention that the vast majority of the monuments were erected in the Jim Crow era by a generation who deeply resented the empowerment of former slaves and descendants.

    They are always going to gravitate towards some candidate. IMO, you shouldn’t hold a candidate responsible for the racists, communists, neo nazis, terrorist sympathizers, actual terrorists, proponents and users of violence to address grievances, and other assorted crackpots that just happen to be more aligned with one of the candidates.

    Oh, they “just happen” to really, really like Trump, much more than they’d like a fellow like Mitt Romney, for instance. Just a total coinkydink. All the racially inflammatory language Trump uses surely has nothing whatsoever to do with that at all. Riiiiight.

    @317 I will defer to Jowles and his contention that the left in this country is far more interested in equity, environmental protection, and social justice than the right. For you to in any way dispute that is really incredibly sad. For whatever crackpots and scumbags exist on either side, it is a joke when conservatives continually raise the specter of Socialism as they are right now… not just the crackpots on the fringes, but mainstream Republicans. Why aren’t these same people calling for the elimination of Medicare as it currently exists? That’s socialism, isn’t it? How about the elimination of disability? Unemployment insurance? Publicly-funded education? Publicly-funded Police departments? OSHA? Why don’t mainstream Republican candidates publicly come out against all of these socialist policies?

    We are already a socialist country in many regards. The question is about degree. The absolutist labeling by the Republicans is just more dog whistle politics. There is simply no analog for that on the left except at the fringes.

    “Everyone can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t harm someone else.”

    …and so long as we have a very forward-thinking view of what constitutes harming someone else. For example, your smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day makes it far more likely that you or your family are going to require public assistance of some sort, or are going to drive up private health care insurance for non-smokers.

    “I believe all people should be treated equally.”

    I think equitably is a better word than equally. “Equally” is a buzzword for affirmative action opponents. See: Chief Justice Roberts. From my perspective, a middle school student growing up in poverty and neglect should not be treated equally to a middle school student growing up in luxury and privilege. He/she should be treated equitably, getting needed supports to overcome academic/social/emotional obstacles.

    IMO, you shouldn’t hold a candidate responsible for the racists, communists, neo nazis, terrorist sympathizers, actual terrorists, proponents and users of violence to address grievances, and other assorted crackpots that just happen to be more aligned with one of the candidates.

    Yeah, so, like–

    So here, I just wrote this down today. Hillary wants to raise taxes — it’s a comparison. I want to lower them. Hillary wants to expand regulations, which she does bigly. Can you believe that? I will reduce them very, very substantially, could be as much as 70 to 75 percent. Hillary wants to shut down energy production. I want to expand it. Lower electric bills, folks! Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick –if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if — if — Hillary gets to put her judges in.

    -Candidate Donald J. Trump, August 2016

    Every time you say that line people just say “I get free water thank you very much”

    Who gets free water?! Nobody gets free water! That is not a real thing.

    They are always going to gravitate towards some candidate. IMO, you shouldn’t hold a candidate responsible

    You absolutely should hold responsible candidates who seek out the adoration of groups like those. And why are communists on that list? Strange inclusion.

    You absolutely should hold responsible candidates who seek out the adoration of groups like those. And why are communists on that list? Strange inclusion.

    “I didn’t make them be the bigots, racists and neo-Nazis that they are! I just, y’know, sought their support to represent their interests! And then I stoked their paranoia to get what I wanted, too!”

    let’s inject some life…

    I’m kind of digging this thread that never ends…I can’t remember whom, but I know there is someone(s) whom cherishes a “clean” thread…

    it makes me wonder if our benefactors have forgotten us…have we been abandoned by our creator…

    I can imagine at this stage for many, it’s all about the basketball…the team…our team…

    had a chance to spend time with others to celebrate my friend…strong mom…took place at a mormon place of worship…I can’t remember the last time I stepped inside a church, it’s been a while…ben was a pretty agnostic person, but, his mom was tied to the church – very strong lady…not to get preachy (discussing religion is even less sexy than discussing) but, faith matters…particularly when shit goes really wrong…

    forgot who mentioned it, but, had a chance to say a few words and brought up the whole “cherish the day, tomorrow is not promised”…bit of a grim concept, but, a lesson this experience has reinforced…

    I don’t know the whole grief stage thing…for me it went: guilt, sorrow for myself, then more so sorrow for his family, acceptance, appreciation…

    this week though it’s been weird…I’ll be doing some random action, think of ben, and get mad…just pissed he’s gone…

    it was cool to see all the folks whom his presence impacted in such a positive manner…man, poor dude used to listen to all my life trials and tribulations and help carry some of that weight 🙂

    @321 – that smoker argument is totally unconvincing as it’s wrought with logical fallacies. It’s the type of argument that has to be eliminated from discourse but it’s the type of argument being used by politicians. It’s how we got to where we are.

    As for equal vs equitably, I meant equal in exactly that way. I am an opponent of affirmative action. I oppose anything that treats anyone differently. When a white teenager from a poor blue collar family applies to college and is rejected because a minority student with lesser grades needed to get in, you’ve just sowed the seeds that makes someone a bigot. When I say equal, I mean equal. Women should be paid equal to men. I should hire someone based on their qualifications, nothing else.

    been watching a wider than normal variety of different sport activities recently (watched some marathon thing earlier)…but, seeing how it’s about a 1,000 degrees outside, taking the opportunity to catch up on LEGION…

    been recording season three (I think I heard this season would be it), but, wanted to catch up and re-watch season two…

    I know we have more than a few long time comic book aficionados here…sometimes it hard to judge things properly cuz of the whole recency bias thing, but, I’m pretty sure that’s the best visual representation of what it feels like to be inside a graphic novel…

    I know different folks have different reasons for why they love comics, for myself – it’s been primarily for the visual nature of the medium…

    one of the reasons early spawn and the the age of apocalypse turned me on so much…it was new to me at the time…loved that glossy print…

    on episode 13 at the moment, one thing that has really stuck out to me, that I remembered from the first viewing – how absolutely indulgent
    the whole series is…

    there is just sooooo much there to consume with your eyes…the colors, the sets, the costumes…

    it’s like one of those Ben and Jerry ice creams that have a half dozen “different delights” stuffed in to them…so many flavors…

    oh yeah, not a bad soundtrack either…it’s almost impossible to imagine how they could have been able to match sound to sight…just really excellent…

    at least it works for me…

    oh yeah, up until now, gotta go with oliver as my favorite character…I wanna be half as cool as oliver when I grow up…

    Why aren’t these same people calling for the elimination of Medicare as it currently exists? That’s socialism, isn’t it? How about the elimination of disability? Unemployment insurance? Publicly-funded education? Publicly-funded Police departments? OSHA? Why don’t mainstream Republican candidates publicly come out against all of these socialist policies?

    These are the types of things libertarians would favor, depending on how far they would want to take it. Republicans love big gov’t as much as Democrats.
    For example regarding unemployment insurance, if the Gov’t didn’t provide it, then we could purchase it from an insurance company, using the money the gov’t takes out of our paychecks.
    Since you’re in education, maybe you can tell me the purpose of the Dept of Education, one of the many agencies I’d like to see eliminated. We went the first 200 years of this country without the Dept of Ed. Do you think we need it? If so why? What does it do?

    Feels like im in Betty Ford clinic and deal with my bball addiction….
    -Doctor, i have the impression that its 24th of July…. AGAIN !
    -Try to sleep and dream of Frank taking over Fiba World Cup.
    -i tried that but… i dreamt Frank as Jean Valjean fighting for Justice, Freedom and cheap Perrier against Monarchy guards and blonde supremacists !!!
    -Hmmm….Maybe you should drink a beer !

    We went the first 200 years of this country without the Dept of Ed. Do you think we need it? If so why? What does it do?

    Not very much these days, sadly.

    When a white teenager from a poor blue collar family applies to college and is rejected because a minority student with lesser grades needed to get in, you’ve just sowed the seeds that makes someone a bigot.

    Really?? Those are the seeds that makes someone a bigot? So I guess that before Affirmative Action policies started taking effect in the 60’s, meaning for the 100 years of Jim Crow where black Americans couldn’t go to most colleges (or public K-12 schools, for that matter) or get hired at most high-paying jobs, or play most high-profile sports regardless of whether they were vastly more qualified than some of their white counterparts, at least those whites weren’t bigoted. And of course, now that we’ve had Brown v. Board of Ed none of the damage to that community counts any more. Right.

    that smoker argument is totally unconvincing as it’s wrought with logical fallacies. It’s the type of argument that has to be eliminated from discourse but it’s the type of argument being used by politicians. It’s how we got to where we are.

    Smoking kills more people every year than guns, drugs, alcohol, cars combined. Lung cancer, almost always caused by smoking, kills more people than all other forms of cancer combined. My group health insurance costs treats a smoker the same as a non-smoker. However, life insurance costs actually DO charge a significant premium to smokers, keeping my cost down. Car insurance costs are higher for drunk drivers and people prone to accidents, keeping the cost to safer drivers down. I don’t see the fallacy.

    I still largely hate the Knicks and probably will for the foreseeable future, but I have fallen in love all over again with Z-Man on this epic, three day thread.

    Not very much these days, sadly.

    So we agree that for the cost of 60 billion they don’t do much. You could buy every homeless person in the country a house for that much. Boom we just solved the homeless problem.

    The problem is that the DoE is currently run by a scam artist who wants to turn public education into Amway, which is run by her family. So that’s why the $60B is being wasted.

    So does obesity

    that smoker argument is totally unconvincing as it’s wrought with logical fallacies. It’s the type of argument that has to be eliminated from discourse but it’s the type of argument being used by politicians. It’s how we got to where we are.

    Smoking kills more people every year than guns, drugs, alcohol, cars combined. Lung cancer, almost always caused by smoking, kills more people than all other forms of cancer combined. My group health insurance costs treats a smoker the same as a non-smoker. However, life insurance costs actually DO charge a significant premium to smokers, keeping my cost down. Car insurance costs are higher for drunk drivers and people prone to accidents, keeping the cost to safer drivers down. I don’t see the fallacy.

    I just love that Betsy’s brother was the CEO of Blackwater. You can’t make this shit up.

    We went the first 200 years of this country without the Dept of Ed

    Yes, and we went 200 years without the Department of Energy, too, but it would be catastrophically irresponsible to get rid of it. I mean, I’m pretty damn sure that you don’t know what the fuck it does, but I bet you want it abolished.

    Again: you know nothing of history, so you speak only from ahistorical principles. Easy to create a fiction, isn’t it?

    We had free market-inspired, for-profit, going-Galt charter schools run amok in Michigan under Betsy DeVos, a real libertarian idea put to the test. How’d that goink?

    Spoiler alert: fucking horribly

    I still largely hate the Knicks and probably will for the foreseeable future, but I have fallen in love all over again with Z-Man on this epic, three day thread.

    Right back at you, but alas, we’re a package deal. Tell you what, these boys are gonna win some fans back this year. Mitch will be the most lovable Knick since the 1990’s and he’s got some company. Tell you what, give it till Thanksgiving.

    Typical responses. Call me names. Change the subject. Don’t address what I said. It’s what I expect from partisan hacks. Thanks for not disappointing.

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