Knicks Morning News (2018.08.05)

  • [NYPost] Ex-Knicks guard sees trait that can make Kevin Knox a star
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 3:13:54 PM)

    The personality differences between father and son are striking, according to Charlie Ward. The elder Kevin Knox was a brash 6-foot-3 wide receiver at Florida State. Kevin Knox II is a 6-9 forward out of Kentucky — the strong, silent type whom Ward believes has the mentality to become the Knicks next “superstar.” On draft…

  • [NYTimes] Trump Mocks LeBron James’s Intelligence and Calls Don Lemon ‘Dumbest Man’ on TV
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 7:40:24 PM)

    The president lashed out at the N.B.A. star and the CNN anchor after they criticized him in an interview.

  • [NYDN] Blue Ribbon panel begins review of NYPD disciplinary system that has proved resistant to change
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 3:00:00 AM)

    As the blue-ribbon panel created by the city’s top cop to review how the NYPD punishes police for misconduct begins its work, history has shown that the disciplinary system is stubbornly resistant to change.

    Way back in 1972, for example, the Knapp Commission — formed to probe a police bribery…

  • [NYDN] How the yellow cab went belly up: Uber has accelerated an economic crisis decades in the making
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 2:00:00 AM)

    For 100 years, New York City cab drivers have served as “encyclopedias of the city.” They drive fares from home to work, to shopping, to train stations and airports.

    Along the way, they have dispensed pearls of wisdom about life, jokes, political banter and commentary on restaurants, bars, films…

  • [NYDN] To diversify schools, reimagine G&T: A bill to expand segregated programs moves in exactly the wrong direction
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 2:00:00 AM)

    As the debate over admissions at New York City’s specialized high schools rages on, the latest idea for addressing the dismal lack of racial diversity at these schools is a new bill in the state Senate to expand gifted programs in elementary and middle schools. Supporters pitch the bill as an alternative…

  • [NYDN] Stop thief: Trump and Republicans are doing far too little to thwart 2018 Russian election meddling
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 1:10:00 AM)

    When he’s not casting doubt on findings that nail Russia dead to rights on 2016 election interference, President Trump makes sport of his predecessor’s failure to disrupt that meddling.

    Obama “did NOTHING about it,” Trump says, ignoring the fact that Obama did, in fact, urge Vladimir Putin to stop….

  • [NYDN] Cuomo in church: Leave the Pope out of it, governor
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 1:05:00 AM)

    Thursday, just after the Pope declared the death penalty against Catholic teachings in all circumstances, Gov. Cuomo seconded the notion. And reminded us of the hazards of invoking religious leaders when making public policy.

    Declaring himself “in solidarity with Pope Francis,” New York’s progressive…

  • [NYDN] Hit the books, mayor: Reading coaches aren’t working; try something else
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 1:00:00 AM)

    Two years ago, Mayor de Blasio set an eye-popping goal: to get all second-graders — 100% — reading at grade level by 2026.

    Fewer than 43% of third graders passed state English tests in 2017, a jump of about two percentage points over the previous year.

    At that rate, it would take until, oh, 2045…

  • [NYDN] City officials misled N.Y. congresswoman on lead paint in public housing
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 1:00:00 AM)

    The city misled a congresswoman about its decision years ago to ignore federal guidelines on dealing with lead poisoning of children living in public housing.

    In an October 2016 letter obtained by the Daily News, then-Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye attacked a Daily News report on lead…

  • [NYDN] CARIBBEAT: Councilman Jumaane Williams’ bid for New York lieutenant governor in Democratic primary faring well in recent Siena College poll
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 1:00:00 AM)

    What’s the state of City Councilman Jumaane Williams’ bid for statewide office? Not bad, says a recent poll results that place the New York State lieutenant governor candidate close to his incumbent rival.

    A recent Siena College poll put Gov. Cuomo substantially ahead of his Democratic primary…

  • [NYDN] Readers sound off on yeshivas, the Pope and smoking
    (Sunday, August 05, 2018 12:00:00 AM)

    In defense of my kid’s yeshiva

    Brooklyn: As a member of the Hasidic community who attended a yeshiva and who chooses to send my children to the same yeshiva, I am deeply hurt by the allegations from Naftuli Moster in his Aug. 1 Op-Ed (“Stop the yeshiva slow-walk, mayor”) that these schools are…

  • [NYDN] Ackert: Yankees sorely missing big bats as their offense comes up empty again against Red Sox
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 10:10:00 PM)

    There was Aaron Judge on the top step of the visitor’s dugout Saturday evening, on edge watching every pitch along with everyone else in Fenway as the Yankees’ bats desperately tried to stay alive.

    With two outs and the bases loaded, unfortunately for the Yankees all the injured Judge could do…

  • [NYDN] Eli Apple tussles with Evan Engram, later limps off practice field with knee pain
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 10:10:00 PM)

    Eli Apple got both reprimanded and injured during Saturday’s practice, and the Giants have to hope both Apple’s behavior and left knee hold up, because they need his A-game desperately this season.

    Most urgently, Apple hurt his left knee and had to be helped off the field after getting his feet…

  • [NYDN] Zack Wheeler is brilliant again, Jeff McNeil chips in four hits as Mets beat Braves, 3-0
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 10:10:00 PM)

    Zack Wheeler, unlike his rotation mate Jacob deGrom, got some run support Saturday night. As it turned out, all he needed was one.

    Wheeler was brilliant for the second straight start, going seven innings, striking out nine and allowing just three hits and no runs as the Mets bounced back to beat…

  • [NYDN] NYCFC allows goal in 87th minute, forced to settle for draw with Whitecaps
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:20:00 PM)

    Little used Erik Hurtado scored in the 87th minute off a precise cross from Brek Shea, and the Vancouver Whitecaps rallied for an unpredictable 2-2 draw with New York City FC in front of an announced crowd of 20,802 at Yankee Stadium.

    The result spoiled the debut of NYCFC forward Valentín Castellanos,…

  • [NYDN] Daily Horoscope — August 5, 2018
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:00:00 PM)

    Via Tarot Astrologers

    General Horoscope for August 5, 2018

    We swing into action before analyzing the alternative solutions, especially as an awkward Mercury-Pluto alignment challenges us to logically express our feelings. The Moon, Pluto and Venus create a Grand Earth Trine that hides our vulnerability…

  • [NYDN] Black cop feels Blue over injustice in the system
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:00:00 PM)

    Who polices the police?

    Matthew Horace asks this in “The Black and the Blue,” his book about America’s justice system, or, maybe, if you’re an African-American man, the injustice system.

    If you’re black, Horace writes, you run a far greater risk of being stopped by police officers than a white…

  • [NYDN] EXCLUSIVE: Sex probes shrink in city schools under Mayor de Blasio, even as number of staffers grows
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:00:00 PM)

    Education Department officials have probed fewer cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in city schools under the de Blasio administration, even as the agency’s number of employees has ballooned.

    The sex-probe stats were released as Mayor de Blasio faces growing criticism over the city’s…

  • [NYDN] Justice Story: Revenge killings stir victim-notification laws
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:00:00 PM)

    Revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold. But for Charles Rodman Campbell, nearly six years behind bars turned his desire for vengeance into a boiling rage.

    Not long after prison doors opened for him, he took off to settle the score. His targets were a woman and her child.

    Around…

  • [NYDN] GRIDLOCK SAM: Big sports mean big traffic
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 9:00:00 PM)

    Aug. 5- Aug. 11

    ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING RULES ARE IN EFFECT ALL WEEK

    Get ready for some football, adding traffic turbulence to New Jersey commutes. MetLife Stadium hosts two football games this week — three if you count what we Americans call soccer.

    Real Madrid plays A.S. Roma at MetLife Tuesday…

  • [NYDN] Off-duty EMT unhurt in Queens carjacking
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 6:35:00 PM)

    An off-duty city EMT was unhurt Saturday after being taken for a ride by a trio of carjackers in Queens, sources said.

    The 44-year-old victim was leaving work at the Fire Department EMT station at 222-15 Merrick Blvd. in Laurelton at about 1:40 a.m. when he was accosted at gunpoint by three men.

  • [NYDN] LeBron James is ‘working to do good things’ in eyes of First Lady Melania Trump, which goes against President Donald Trump’s comments
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 6:05:00 PM)

    At least one Trump has the good sense to support LeBron James.

    First Lady Melania Trump’s spokeswoman released a statement on Saturday that defied the President’s derogatory comments about the NBA superstar Friday night.

    “It looks like LeBron James is working to do good things on behalf of our…

  • [NYDN] Venezuelan government says President Maduro safe after drone attack
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 5:50:00 PM)

    CARACAS, Venezuela — Drones armed with explosives detonated near Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an apparent assassination attempt as he delivered a speech to hundreds of soldiers that was broadcast live on television, officials said.

    Caught by surprise mid-speech, Maduro and his wife, Cilia…

  • [NYDN] Police move to clear rowdy protests in Portland, Oregon
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 4:15:00 PM)

    Small scuffles broke out Saturday as police in Portland, Oregon, deployed “flash bang” devices and other means to disperse hundreds of right-wing and self-described anti-fascist protesters.

    Just before 2 p.m., police in riot gear ordered people to leave an area downtown, saying demonstrators had…

  • [NYDN] Photo of JFK with Marilyn Monroe hits auction block 56 years after her death
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 4:00:00 PM)

    JFK hid his affairs — and his official photographer hid this evidence of his most famous alleged dalliance.

    An original photo of President John F. Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe is on the auction block with a minimum asking price of $2,500.

    The shot was one of several taken by Cecil Stoughton, the…

  • [NYDN] Cuomo offers ‘thoughts and prayers’ as state squeezes NRA finances
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 3:55:00 PM)

    Gov. Cuomo says he’s fine with New York financial regulators putting the squeeze on the National Rifle Association.

    “If the NRA goes bankrupt because of the state of New York, they’ll be in my thoughts and prayers,” Cuomo said in a statement Saturday.

    The gun-rights group gripes in Albany federal…

  • [NYDN] The Madam, the Manafort and the Mueller Probe
    (Saturday, August 04, 2018 3:00:00 PM)

    Hopefully, Robert Mueller supplies toilet-seat covers for his legal team’s chairs because there hasn’t been this many porn stars, sleaze bags, swingers, strippers, spies and now a madam around since Eliot Spitzer was governor.

    You could get an STD just walking into the place.

    This past week Manhattan…

  • 109 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.08.05)”

    It’s good to be the king.

    If you asked Americans whether they would rather be a citizen or a king, 99% of each would pick king. They could could give you a list of people who would be first against the wall. That doesn’t mean they support absolute monarchy. And that’s not hypocrisy, that’s being able to distinguish what is good for you personally and what’s a good way to set up a society.

    Leftists don’t hate money or think all rich people are evil. That’s a cartoon you have invented. It’s easy to find hypocrisy in an opponent you made up.

    I am happy to provide you with a long list of rich people I don’t hate if you need references.

    Leftists know that money (acquiring resources) is a powerful motivator, built deep into human nature. That knowledge is how THCJ can be a leftist and also support capitalism. Capitalism harnesses that motivation to create ends that are generally good for society.

    But leftists support increased redistribution of wealth and societal investment because:
    1) Pure capitalism under invests in public his goods that make everyone better off. The most obvious example: public education. The economy massively benefits from an educated workforce. But in a “taxation is theft” world that doesn’t happen.

    2) It makes the world more just. Fairness is also a need rooted very deeply in human nature. But we have massive, massive amounts of evidence that people who start rich stay rich and vice versa. That leaves success up to the lottery of birth – not so different from feudal times.

    3) There is a good amount of evidence that capitalism itself works better – and delivers more growth for everyone – when there is more distributed consumption and investment.

    4) It increases society’s “general welfare.” The increase in Melo’s quality of life and happiness between $25m or $30m per year? Non existent. The increase in life for 500 poor families who each get $10k by redistributing that $5M? Massive.

    None of that has anything…

    “Libertarians are just Republicans who don’t want the stink of the word “Republican” associated with them.”

    This is the 2nd dumbest comment re: libertarianism from the other thread, so I’d like to address it.
    Three differences off the top of my head, before I have my coffee:
    – the ridiculous War On Drugs
    – the pointless wars and interventions in other countries
    – the cop sucking

    Republicans do often come with small govt rhetoric, but that’s all it is – rhetoric.
    Rand Paul is the most prominent libertarianish politician. I’d vote for him if given the chance, but that’ll never happen because he’s not demagogic enough.

    @ 1

    I’m not sure I concur with the first sentence premise in your # 2 graf, though I totally agree with the rest of the graf. see the Atlantic article linked on last thread. See also, Dream Hoarders by Richard Reeves for data. I would argue that is the lack of inherent fairness in man ( noblesse oblige heh) that negates actions for the common good and leads to taxation is theft mindsets.

    It was inevitable that the festering boil which is politics would infest our otherwise civil (LOL) discussions about basketball.
    But our idiot-in-chief went wack-a-doodle on LeBron. So be it.
    I’ll bare my soul. I’m a left-leaning centrist. Most of my friends are more conservative than me. I like my friends, even with their flaws. Being conservative isn’t the flaw, but why they are so is. Almost to the person, they harbor a measure of prejudice. They honestly don’t think they are prejudice. This is just one example, but when they say “That’s not a good neighborhood”, they’re really saying “I don’t want to be around the people that live in that neighborhood”. And there are other examples.
    I hate Donald Trump for everything that he is. I loved Obama for everything he was but I’ll say, with all honesty, that when I voted, it was a last second decision to elect Obama over McCain. I would vote for a healthy McCain today over Bernie Sanders.
    All of those conservative friends of mine call themselves libertarians. They are, for the most part, successful white people. What Libertarians really are, are selfish. They want to hold on to all of their money, believing that they can do better for themselves than the government can do for them. They believe that people should fend for themselves and not take handouts. Honestly, I believe in some of that.
    The “Rational Middle” believes that hard work reaps rewards. We want to encourage free trade and capitalism. We want peace and harmony but we also understand that there’s a need for strong security. I do feel the deck is stacked against the poor for the wealthy but LeBron found a path to wealth. So did Oprah and Don Lemon.
    But Trump is a far right Nazi that must be stopped. He is destroying the country and any rational person can see that. Anyone that defends him is on the wrong side of history. He is the devil. I hope that the harm he has caused is not irreparable.

    What I think is your bigger mistake, 2for18, and I swear I’m not being belligerent when I say it, is that you take some ideas that have many different layers and you flatten them as if they were simple world views and choices.

    Example: I’m about as anti-capitalism as you’ll find, I truly believe private property is the source of many of hunanity’s issues and I do not believe property is a natural concept, just that it’s been naturalized over years of psychological and societal development. That’s my ideal way of seeing the world: a situation where people matter more than things, to be very shallow in the explanation.

    However, I do get extremely happy when let’s say, a black trans person has monetary success and becomes recognized for their work. That doesn’t mean I’m a hypocrite; it means I’m a pragmatic. I understand my world view is very much impossible to achieve, I understand the world works in the ways it does and in this specific situations I try to balance the best I can my desire for a world closer to my world view with the harsh reality that this is the situation we are in, where monetary success is necessary to have a good and safe life.

    My pragmatism leads me to a fight against bigotry and inequality, because those are the things I grew up and live with. As a queer, latino son of immigrants, you just don’t have much of a choice. I don’t have the choice of sticking to my world view as a set of rules because survival and fighting for a better situation for me and my peers comes first. You treat it as if it is a choice, when it’s really not.

    You might think everyone’s fake and ignorant or hypocritical about this, and that’s your right. But I don’t have the luxury of viewing the world in this ahistorical way simply because I’m a pragmatic.

    GoNyGoNyGo @4, thank you for this post. Based on what you said I think I understand why you would vote for McCain over Sanders, but would you mind saying a bit more? (Personally I would vote Sanders over pretty much anyone else today.)

    I can’t wait to see this board go crazy when Donald Trump makes this inevitable tweet:

    “Mitchell Robinson thinks he can block shots but the second ademdment makes very clear blocking shots is antiamerican. Should go back to Costa Rica. I like Cole!”

    I was going to do a post making fun of libertarianism and all of its inherent incoherence but we just had a good moment and I don’t want to ruin it

    @1

    +1

    Glad I didn’t write what I wanted to last night… It is very difficult to write calmly about matters so fraught and personal; thanks to all here who have done so. Makes me feel just a tad more optimistic about the world.

    That and studies showing that altruism is as much a part of human nature as greed. We are hardwired for good as well as selfishness. It just doesn’t always seem that way.

    @4
    Like you, I generally stay out of the political flame wars. However, I mostly agree with your post. I consider myself moderate on most fiscal and foreign affairs issues, but “liberal” on most social issues.

    I guess I was largely shaped by my mother and my poverty growing up. I hated food stamps, school free lunch tokens, free powdered milk and the like. Yet, at the same time, I can’t imagine where I and my three siblings would be without welfare. I grew up in a single parent family where my father (a wealthy “conservative,” by the way) stopped paying child support back in the 70’s, despite being financially very able. We lived in a low-income housing project that had it’s share of violence and the like.

    Also, Pell Grants and some state money largely funded my undergraduate degree. I and all my siblings grew to be financially independent tax-paying citizens. Three of us have college degrees that were largely possible b/c of gov’t spending. I taught 29 years in public schools (and will be doing 3 more months filling in for a friend taking maternity leave next month).

    I guess this is why I have trouble with “conservative” and “libertarian” views. I realize that my experiences are viewed by many as merely anecdotal. I try to understand them intellectually, but I see an awful selfishness and hatred in a lot of what I hear, and Trump/The 45 seems to be the ultimate expression of all that.
    🙂

    If you want proof of how slanted our political discourse really is then I suggest you think about why people on the Left have to continually defend themselves from accusations of “hating the rich” while people on the Right are never pushed to defend themselves for “hating the working class” in an economic climate where 95% 0f income gains after the 2009 crash went to the top 1%.

    I guess I was largely shaped by my mother and my poverty growing up. I hated food stamps, school free lunch tokens, free powdered milk and the like. Yet, at the same time, I can’t imagine where I and my three siblings would be without welfare.

    Your anecdote matters, even if it’s not big-picture data. My mother’s family was a family of twelve that had to leave Yonkers in the mid-60s when my alcoholic grandfather got laid off by his construction-worker union. At that point, they weren’t yet twelve deep, but Irish Catholics aren’t very good at family planning, and so they had an irresponsible number of kids even after fleeing upstate.

    My mom didn’t own a new article of clothing until she was an adult, and had never been on a vacation until she and my dad went camping upstate in the early 80s. The relief of free school lunches was offset by the constant ridicule she received for being for being poor. Stayed in high school when much of her neighborhood peers were dropping out to get their GEDs. Received state assistance to go to college, during which she worked at a Burger King and a hair salon, the latter of which was run by a sexual harasser who made his female employees’ lives living hell. After 8 years of part-time school at night, she graduated with a SUNY degree. Just finished a distinguised 30-year career as a unionized vo-tech educator.

    My dad was lucky to get a union job with just a high school diploma, but I suspect that if my mom hadn’t had the resources to continue her education, she would have had far less opportunity in her career, in terms of both earning potential and social good.

    That’s my anecdote, but I’m living proof of her success. And I have those social programs to thank for it.

    RE: 14

    I suspect that if my mom hadn’t had the resources to continue her education, she would have had far less opportunity in her career, in terms of both earning potential and social good.

    Terrific story. I neglected to mention that my mother also used state assistance to get an associate’s degree, then a full bachelor’s by 1977 (when I, the oldest, was 14…my father had stopped paying child support in 1974). We moved from MA to TN in 1977, then she was able to get a decent job, but money was still very tight. We couldn’t even afford to run air conditioning or heat in our house. I’m dead serious about that. She worked for years getting federal funding for very poor people to get home improvements and such.

    Some years ago, I responded to a guy on another forum who said that Welfare “never” did anyone any good. I posted about my childhood. He pretty much called me a liar. And so it goes.
    🙂

    @15

    That’s the most annoying thing to me. People who were never in the position to need welfare or help in someway thinking they somehow know more about it than people who have gone through it.

    I can safely say that without the opportunities given to me through academic programs in Brazil I would very much be dead or in a terrible situation. It was getting into a masters program, funded by the state with scholarships and free of tuition, that turned my life around after getting shunned from 90% of my family after coming out as gay. The pitiful scholarship I got, equivalent to about 400 dollars, was what allowed me to regain self-worth and to reconnect with my parents and be able to pursue an objective in life.

    Our stories aren’t anecdotal evidence, they’re experiences of people who actually went through the situation and are thus more qualified to speak about them. Other people might have had different experiences and that’s fine, but don’t speak on my name.

    @6 – Sorry for the late response. I’m on vacation in Montreal for the weekend and was “out and about”.

    Yes. Bernie has a lot of ideas – ideas that much of the country is just not ready for but where he loses me is the full-on socialist agenda. His policies, to have the rich pay “their share” is similar to a British tax policy which reached 83% on the rich in the 70’s That sort of policy would only result in rick folk leaving. As an example, consider whether KP would want to resign here if 80% of his income was taken by the government.

    Socialized health care will be expensive and yeah, Canada has it and some Canadians think it’s OK, others think it stinks. Of course, none of them have received a $50K bill for a broken leg.

    Obama and Hilary were left-center, like me. McCain was right center. Where any of the centrists differ from the far left is how they deal with corporations. We have a lot of regulations that cripple the operations of corporations and do nothing but provide a revenue stream to the large accounting firms. Sarbanes-Oxley, for examples, cripples mid-size companies.

    Don’t think that Trump is unique as a politician wanting to get rid of trade agreements. Bernie was just as opposed to TPP but for different reasons. Both are wrong. Those trade agreements are what give us political leverage in the world.

    @16
    Bruno, I hope all is faring better for you with your family. I’ve never attempted to argue that my experience is typical of the welfare system, just that it does do SOME good for SOME people.

    I lived in a housing project for 9 years and on a street in TN with lots of poor folks (after a brief stay in a “white trash” trailer park). Are some lazy? You betcha, but some were not. Fortunately, my mother saw education as the way out for her and her kids. It took some time, but I think the state’s investments in us eventually paid off.

    Without Pell Grants I wouldn’t have the resources to attend college, even though I’ve worked the entire time I’ve been in college and spend my summers cleaning offices and tutoring other students instead of going to Cabo to surf (or whatever it is rich college students do during the summer; I wouldn’t know).

    It’s just my story, but Pell Grants have meant that I could leave my tiny, rural, poor town and have a real opportunity to make something of myself other than a night shift gas station employee or whatever else I would have ended up being had I stayed there. If my future tax dollars go to help other kids have the same opportunity as well as help those in far harder situations than my own ever was, I’m very okay with that.

    @18

    All is fine now! Could always be a bit better here and there but well, nothing to really complain about.

    The conservative and the libertarians both use those examples in their own ways and that’s what’s hurtful. The lazy ones become proof that welfare is useless and the ones that succeed like we did become proof that “you can do it” because of hard work, so there’s really no way of winning that argument. I do realize I created most of the opportunities I took advantage of in my life, but without different forms of welfare I would never be in the position to seize those opportunities in the first place. That’s why I can theoretically agree with libertarians that the ideal world would be one without welfare, but my experience shows that there’s no way it can happen without major damage to underprivileged communities, and that’s not something I’m willing to sign up for.

    @16 The most annoying thing to me is the vast number of folks I’ve talked to that get some form of social welfare, clearly don’t recognize it as such, and openly hate on welfare!

    On a basketball note, I saw it kicked around here briefly but I’m curious about thoughts on signing both Kyrie & Butler next summer. I dont believe for a second we have a shot at Durant, but this Kyrie and Butler thing does seem plausible in terms of them wanting to team up. First, to the capologists, is this even possible if we hold back on KP’s extension (I think I read it is if we dump TH2 and stretch Noah?)? And to everyone else, would we want to be capped out with KP, Kyrie, & Butler on maxes? I’m mixed on Kyrie. Always thought he was overrated but 61 TS% last year (5th among guards who play 30 min per), and his defense wasn’t terrible (pretty much median in STL% among guards who play at least 30 min, and median among guards that played at least 1000 min in deflections per 48; comps on those stats are tyreke evans, austin rivers, avery bradley). I would only want Kyrie if it meant getting Butler.

    I’m not going to go to into the whole politics of everything, but I am on the road a lot and do a lot of audio books listening. There’s been one book that has really made me look harder at my beliefs and I’m sure some of you have read it. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”.

    A few main points from that book that I believe are important.
    1.) It’s okay to fuck up and make a mistake. That’s how you learn.
    2.) In the social media world where everything is perfect it is also just fine to not feel great every day even though everyone is going to make it look like their life is.
    3.) We all struggle with making excuses for why we don’t want to do something or why we are a victim because we have a fear of failure. Yes it is correct that we can not control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we react to what does happen to us.
    4.) You will always have problems. Warren Buffet has problems. The goal is to have better problems to solve. The feeling of not being satisfied is not a flaw of humans, it’s a motivator to keep building and improving.
    5.) Happiness is achieved for a short amount of time through the process of solving life’s problems.
    6.) Give a fuck about important stuff: family, friends, your favorite hobbies and passions, not the guy that cut you off.

    I’m also a big fan of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book and the second one Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant.

    The big thing I get out of the second book is that we teach the kids how to operate in an industrial aged economy when we live in an information economy. A lot of parents went to work for 40 years for the same company and got benefits and a pension so they encourage their kids to do the same and we put investment on a back burner.

    I’d go further but I don’t have any more fucks to give for this comment. 🙂

    That sort of policy would only result in rick folk leaving.

    That was the highest marginal rate in the 60’s and 70’s. Rich folk didn’t leave. They still invested when capital gains tax was higher. We keep cutting the things that help people succeed to pay for these tax cuts that exist to help the successful. It’s funny. We know what happens with low taxes, low regulation, little to no social programs. It was the gilded age, and it sucked for almost everyone.

    . As an example, consider whether KP would want to resign here if 80% of his income was taken by the government.

    That’s not how marginal tax rates work.

    Brazil made several plans to keep rich folk here, and they largely worked out for the rich folk. The only problem is that instead of investing in development of crucial areas, competitiveness or industry networks they kept their money in the lowest possible aggregated value industries, the cheaper ones to get into, and in every financial market possible. So we gained fuck all as a country and these folks don’t pay taxes anyway because tax fraud is pretty much the norm around here.

    So yeah, I kinda don’t give a shit if rich folk leave because of high taxes they can all go buy condos in Miami for all I care. Because of this and a new austerity plan to shore up state expenditure the main (and pretty much only one) state research grant institution is cutting every single scholarship for the year of 2019, because of a pitiful amount of 300 million reais, effectively killing all university based, non immediately marketable research in the country for 198 thousand students. That amount is equivalent to the net gain of 25 days for the richest man in Brasil, Jorge Paulo Lemann.

    @25, that’s not how marginal tax rates work. It is interesting though that artists and athletes are excluded from most of the tax savings as all their income (from their primary activity) comes as labor income, so they miss out on so many tax breaks built in for folks who can arrange their pay differently.

    I’m sure it’s a coincidence that people of color have a higher presence among artists and athletes.

    @27 You are correct. The business side and investment side of the spectrum receive far more latitude with tax benefits. I’m actually looking into incorporating and having all of my 1099 income paid to a corporation where I can then make myself a W-2 employee with a substantial benefit package that gets paid with pre tax dollars.

    Obviously that would reduce my personal income which would create a new set of challenges as far as credit availability for myself goes.

    The benefit is I could substantially reduce my yearly tax burden and invest that tax savings into my real estate portfolio I’m starting to build.

    I’m just starting to look into it though so it may amount to a bunch of BS. I am going to line up some chats with a couple corporate tax attorneys to see what I can legally do and which of my theories are not realistic.

    I am totally aware of how marginal tax rates work but it’s something I would not touch. I would be attacking the FICA and Medicare caps. I would be eliminating tax loopholes that allow some corporations from paying any US taxes. There are better ways of approaching economic parity.

    Not exactly breaking news tweeted by Woj, but it might as well be, when reading some of your posts. BOTH democrats & republicans are bought and paid for by “special interest” aka people with money. Very small real difference between the two.

    Either way, it doesn’t really matter who is in the White House; relevance is marginal; here in NYC everyone controls their own destiny. Work hard; keep learning, master what you do & you’ll be a sought after talent in your field of practice;

    Best book to read on personal excellence and what it takes to be great is “GRIT” – by Angela Duckworth.

    Yeah, definitely good advice. Work on yourself. The idea of thinking any politician can save you is likely to end up with you screwed. Might as well make a go of it independently and try to play in the framework of the system to the best of your advantage.

    It’s so interesting reading different stories on this board of other people’s experiences. Thank you for sharing.

    Welfare has a massive stigma here in Australia. If you are seen to be receiving an unemployment benefit, you are deemed to be a “dole bludger”, yet the Government has just approved a decent hand out to support farming families suffering through drought that everyone is on board with (which they should be) that effectively works the same as an unemployment benefit (i.e. supplementing what ever earnings you make so that you can live). I may be over simplifying things with my example, but the experience over here is that the general populace is on board with Government assistance, so long as it is for a “worthy” cause.

    Socialized health care will be expensive and yeah, Canada has it and some Canadians think it’s OK, others think it stinks.

    My son is French. He got free education through his masters degree, free healthcare, and an incredibly strong employment contract in terms of what his employer needs to do for him by law. The democrat-socialist system is out there and it works.

    @33

    Ive been to Portugal quite a few times and I can tell you for sure that even them, the “lesser” cousin of the European Union, has a much higher standard of living then what I’ve seen in my few visits to the USA. I was legitimately dumbfounded by the amount of homeless people I saw in New York and San Francisco, and I’ve lived for about 23 years in Brazil by now.

    In the end it’s about a philosophy in life: you either believe it’s fine and those people deserve to be on the streets, or you don’t. I’ve never suffered much from poverty but more from other types of disenfranchisement, but sometimes it gets to a point where you either felt the impact of being underprivileged and you understand the experience or you don’t.

    On a basketball note, ESPN just published every team’s over/under for next season.
    http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/24292394/nba-golden-state-warriors-top-all-teams-under-625-2018-19-season

    Only the Hawks, the Kings and the Bulls have lower numbers than the Knicks 29.5. And with the Celtics, Raptors and Philadelphia with an average over/under of 54.5 games, we are probably in the toughest division of the NBA next year. I’m not sure we are going to be that bad, but being a tough division will certainly push us down a little.

    On the other hand, the Lakers over/under is 48.5, behind only the Thunder, the Warriors and the Rockets in the West, so I would take their numbers with a big grain of salt.

    you either felt the impact of being underprivileged and you understand the experience or you don’t.

    I’d like to think that’s an open question, but you’re probably right. Which is very sad because it means there’s a real divide between people. It probably explains why we have to fight for every little thing we get in terms of the social support system, because the other side simply won’t see “our” point of view unless we make them suffer too.

    The divide isn’t limited to those who’ve benefited and those who haven’t. dtrickey’s point is a real thing here. I’ve got family in Appalachia and that’s the basic idea. We’re deserving and ‘welfare queens’, meaning blacks folks, don’t deserve it so we should cut welfare. Straight racism. They want jobs, not handouts, but they can’t accept that everybody else also wants jobs not handouts. It’s a sign of weakness to need help, so they ignore how they’ve been helped.

    Not many folks want to admit they or their families needed help in the past, or need it now. Our ideas of strength get in the way, our conceptions of the other get in the way.

    In the US, unfortunately, even if the cause is seen as worthy, I think some people don’t want to give any assistance whatsoever.

    I should add that just because I mostly post about Basketball, it doesn’t mean I don’t like the other discussions. This one has been very good.

    My son is French. He got free education through his masters degree, free healthcare, and an incredibly strong employment contract in terms of what his employer needs to do for him by law. The democrat-socialist system is out there and it works.

    Yeah… it works great if someone across the ocean is paying 70% of the defense budget for Western Europe (current figures which were probably higher in the past).

    Ex out the US contribution for Euro defense and your taxes go way up…. unless you preferred speaking Russian under Stalin et al…….

    I like the concept of democratic socialism and we have a bit of it here , but it is great until you run out of other people’s money to spend.

    This has mostly been a great debate to read.

    Two things.

    1) for what it’s worth there’s no evidence socialised healthcare costs more. The US spends vastly more per capita/as a proportion of gdp on health than European countries do, for often worse and certainly less equal health outcomes.

    2) the military spending point is true (today) but don’t overblow it. US spends 3.1% of gdp and the uk 1.8. Most other nato countries between 1 and 2. It would be expensive for us to reach US levels but still well within recent ranges for overall tax burden.

    2) the military spending point is true (today) but don’t overblow it.

    I don’t think I am over blowing anything. I merely stated the US is pouring an amazing amount of money into the collective defense of Europe. If that (along with the nuclear umbrella) disappeared a week from next Tuesday, GB and everyone else wouldn’t have so much to spend on domestic issues, and we would have a lot more.

    Think it’s cool to have discussions about philosophical ideas of govt once in a while but I found it to be a terrible waste of time to talk about things behind my control. My Knicks excluded, of course.

    Prefer to focus on myself; worry about my husband, kids, friends, my business, my clients, my employees etc…but still give to charity, adopt 4 kids @ $50 a month via children international, volunteer youth soccer coach; and ALWAYS volunteer my entire family during Thanksgiving.

    I could care less who is in the White House or what CNN says & refuse to be a victim and cry unfair about anything. This world is what it is….

    @40 – a point which I conceded. But I took your post (perhaps wrongly) to suggest that all the public services described in, e.g. the French case would be lost if euro nations matched US defended spending and that’s not the case. It has more to do with the overall tax burden a nation is willing to bear/impose. If you weren’t meaning to imply that, fair enough.

    @42, Is this a detailed budget analysis? I don’t think so. Maybe taxes only have to rise a small percentage and people agree to it because they get so much from their government? Or maybe they don’t go up at all because the U.S. extracts other forms of payment for it’s defense spending? I’m not trying to imply anything, just stating the obvious that the U.S. is not spending on defense because of altruistic motives.

    Regarding the nuke umbrella, France and Britain already have nukes. So they already spent the money, continue to spend it, and can protect themselves.

    Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, Knox & Robinson are going to lead us to the promised landsays:

    This is just one example, but when they say “That’s not a good neighborhood”, they’re really saying “I don’t want to be around the people that live in that neighborhood”. And there are other examples.

    I’ve used that phrase a thousand times and so has everyone else I know including the most hard core liberals. In every case it was because the neighborhood had a high crime rate, high drug use rate, low education rate, etc…

    There may be some small correlations between those things and “people of color” and we can debate the causes of that, but most people have no control over the life choices of other people or the policies and prejudices that are contributing to these problems. What they do have control over is which neighborhoods to go to and which neighborhoods they aspire to live in. If they choose the “bad neighborhood”, well, then, they are just dumber than a bag of rocks regardless of their skin color or ethnic background and the color or/or ethic background in the “bad neighborhood”.

    I have no desire to live in a white trash trailer park neighborhood any more than in some sections of Chicago, but the liberal mind is always looking for racism. Sometimes it find it where it doesn’t exist.

    If I called Jessie Jackson “Crooked Jessie” I would immediately get called a racist by some people.

    If I called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary” I would get a different reaction.

    The cognitive bias operating among liberals is to be hypersensitive about racism and to always be on guard for it. So they often find it, sometimes even when it’s not there. And that in itself is also divisive. People resent being called racist when race has nothing to do with what they said or did.

    Yeah…. I am sure Putin is wetting himself over GB’s two nuclear missile submarines and I am also sure France is going to launch against Putin to save Germany or Poland from being over run…LOL

    And if they defense of Europe is so cheap… then have at it! It won’t cost you much 🙂 Bye bye free everything…….

    Three comments —
    – It was nice to read this chain in which people managed to express their opinions without resorting to name-calling and negative stereotyping — unlike yesterday’s thread which, in my opinion, represented a microcosm of everything that is wrong with typical political debate in this country. I think that the inability af the left to see any merit to the beliefs/opinions of the right, and vice versa, is ridiculous and counterproductive.
    – Politically, I am an independent who leans right on most issues (however, most notably NOT gun control) and I think that that the negative caricature that most liberals paint of conservatives is absurd. Most of us are not racist homophobes, most of us agree with the value of investing in public education and most of us agree with the need for a safety net for people who, for whatever reason, are not as fortunate as we are.
    – re: Strato’s comment about seeing racism when it’s not there. I’m a white male who is married to a black woman and have three bi-racial kids. I cannot claim to know what it is like to grow up black in this country but I have a different perspective than most white people do. Based on my personal experience, my opinion is that there is a lot less racism than most black people think but a lot more than most white people think.

    One more thing — I find it ironic that the most liberal academics draw large salaries from prestigious university that charge $70,000 a year, thus making their schools inaccessible for anyone in the middle class — i.e., not wealthy enough to afford it but not poor enough to get financial aid.

    I merely stated the US is pouring an amazing amount of money into the collective defense of Europe. If that (along with the nuclear umbrella) disappeared a week from next Tuesday, GB and everyone else wouldn’t have so much to spend on domestic issues, and we would have a lot more.

    Nope. If other NATO countries doubled their defense budget the US would cut ours by exactly nothing. We spend what we do for a variety of reasons, but being able to act globally is a big one and that necessitates our spending levels. Absent any contributions to collective defense in NATO we’d spend just as much. What, you think the US would give up Rammstein airbase if Germany doubled their defense spending? Dream on.

    I appreciated Bruno’s, and Jowles’, to some extent, thoughtful posts.

    There have been too many misrepresentations, misconceptions, outright falsehoods and cartoon caricatures of myself and what libertarianism is all about for me to address them all. And in the history of internet political discussions, no one has ever changed their mind, so I throw up my hands unless someone genuinely wants to talk about libertarianism (concepts like self ownership, agency, personal responsibility, freedom of association and liberty, to name a few) with me, as I still like that this is one of the few places to intelligently discuss basketball/Knicks. But to anyone who is just going to throw out “racist”, “rich white straight male”, “you never had any problems so you don’t know what it’s like” and other collectivist, non sequitur bullshit, I’ll just ignore you.

    Nice thread and I’d like to say, you are all more than decent chaps – I’m glad to have spent time on this board.

    The recent conservative swing is really pushing the wealth gap to it’s most extreme. Unfortunately, the Rebups have found success by essentially cutting off education to their base so that they’re fairly easy to manipulate.

    Extreme free market capitalism simply doesn’t work. The only trickle-down that happens is into luxuries for the extremely wealthy. In 1985 CEO pay was 50 times the amount of the average worker’s pay – now it’s 350 times that amount.

    This period of not investing in our infrastructure (“Socialism, or whatever you want to call it) will really hurt us down the line, but I guess most rich people don’t care since they’re all trying to build rockets to Mars.

    @52, During the Obama years, the stock market went wild while Obama’s proponents cheered this on as proof of a booming economy, all while employment stagnated. Also, note the millions that Hillary received from Wall St. Whatever your beef it, it isn’t a Republican or Democrat invention.

    As far as Republicans cutting off education to their base? Um, wtf?

    Also, wrt to “trickle down” – Please explain how taking taxes from “the rich” and redistributing it to “the poor” isn’t “trickle down” economics?

    “In 1985 CEO pay was 50 times the amount of the average worker’s pay – now it’s 350 times that amount.”

    The trouble with caps on payroll taxes is that they encourage this kind of pay inequality. Increasing the pay of highly compensated employees is less expensive for businesses than paying a living wage to the rank-and-file workforce.

    Yeah…. I am sure Putin is wetting himself over GB’s two nuclear missile submarines and I am also sure France is going to launch against Putin to save Germany or Poland from being over run…LOL

    And if they defense of Europe is so cheap… then have at it! It won’t cost you much 🙂 Bye bye free everything…….

    This is extremely basic nuclear deterrence theory. The reason countries strive to join the “club” is because of how much money it can save you in lieu of maintaining a classic strong standing army. So yeah, it actually works in a similar manner to the way you caricatured it. There’s a reason North Korea wants nukes so badly and it ain’t that they want to have more cool parades.

    Nope. If other NATO countries doubled their defense budget the US would cut ours by exactly nothing. We spend what we do for a variety of reasons, but being able to act globally is a big one and that necessitates our spending levels. Absent any contributions to collective defense in NATO we’d spend just as much. What, you think the US would give up Rammstein airbase if Germany doubled their defense spending? Dream on.

    Trump has so badly melted the brains of the vast majority of conservatives in this country that this incredible simple and easy to understand point feels like a revelation. To be clear, if Trump wanted to cut defense spending to make the US welfare state more robust he’d be free to advocate for that in the next omnibus and I’m sure he could get Republicans on board.

    He doesn’t though. He just likes ranting and raving incoherently about NATO because the feeling that he personally is getting “ripped off” is one of, like, three human feelings he has left.

    @48

    The issue for me is how you experience those instances where racism happens. I won’t get into racism much as I pass as white easily, but let’s use homophobia as an example.

    I’m cisgendered, straight passing, so my life has been shaped by homophobia far less than even I think sometimes. However, the couple of times where it did happen it really fucking sucked and left deep scars I still cope with. Half of my family basically told me to fuck off and never appear again, most of the other half made sure to tell me they didn’t approve it but would try to tolerate it as long as I “kept to myself”. The other instance was basically when a guy threatened to kill me and my boyfriend over Facebook, then sent pictures of the apartment building where I lived and the place where we both worked, because we were perverts who deserved to die slowly.

    So yeah, in my 32 years I have faced two unequivocal instances of homophobia only, but they have been very traumatic. So I might see homophobia where there’s none, but trust me, it’s really hard to consciously make that judgment without falling back to your fears and memories. However, whenever I accuse someone wrongly of homophobia I don’t get any benefit of the doubt and I’m just the fucking antichrist, but people expect me to be rational and understanding of heterossexual people who “just made a mistake”.

    But to anyone who is just going to throw out “racist”, “rich white straight male”, “you never had any problems so you don’t know what it’s like” and other collectivist, non sequitur bullshit, I’ll just ignore you.

    If you think any of these things have been said to you in bad faith, by all means call out those specific instances. But I have to ask you, and I mean this genuinely, have you ever actually reflected on the ways your identity has shaped your world view?

    I ask because while I’ve always considered myself decidedly left-of-center, until I was 16 or so I thought identity was often used cynically in discussions of current evens, that while we still have some work to do progress is coming along nicely, etc.

    It wasn’t until I was exposed to people and ideas who forced me to reflect on my various privileges (of which I have just about every single one there is unless you want to count being Jewish in New York City, which I certainly do not) that I began to realize, to oversimplify many systemic problems, the world as a whole treats marginalized people differently and it sure as hell isn’t to their benefit.

    I mean this in all seriousness–it’s never too late.

    @56 well those people who physically threatened you are assholes and deserve any type of physical force you decide to impose on them. Your family members should be told to fuck off.

    @57, I have lived in NYC and Hudson County most of my life. I grew up poor in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and I’m a mixed race mutt. Went to NYC public schools and SUNY. As such, I have spent my entire life surrounded by leftists, my friends are every kind of race, creed, sexual orientation and gender that you can imagine, and yet here I am, a libertarian.
    I don’t like saying the above things because these things don’t matter to me and they’re none of anybody’s business, but I’m saying these things because I can’t stand these assumptions that I came to libertarianism because I’m some privileged white boy who grew up in the Hamptons or the Upper East Side. This obsession with demographics and collectivism that the left has pisses me off.

    G-League & Minor League Baseball players don’t make a living wage. That’s s fact:

    Our socialist sports stars who are quick to tweet, kneel, speak up or school us about merits of socialism & equality should set a maximum salary of (pick a number..example: a million a month, $12M a year) and put all the excess money in a fund where they share it with all other current and former athletes in the same sport who are struggling economically and barely able to survive.

    It’s easy to say CEO should get paid 35x average worker and then sign a quarter billion dollar contract. Everyone want to get paid their value (including LBJ) and bitch, if they’re not paid it…regardless of how much they wheel in. Humans are faulted; that’s why the political & economic system that works best is actually faulted too.

    @55
    So, I’m curious as to what you think Trump’s three remaining emotions are? Hate, anger, and lust?
    🙂

    RE the military spending debate…that and foreign affairs is an area where I’ve been more center to right. Humanity is a screwed up, violent species. We need strong defense and to be a world power.

    However, how much is enough and are the actions we take just? The Gulf War of the early 90’s was for shitty reasons.

    If Europe suddenly doubled defense spending, what little “savings” we’d get there would likely just be moved the the east to bolster the fort vs. China, I’d guess. Then Trump can complain about Japan and Australia’s defense spending.

    The military industrial complex has some heavy hitters behind it who lobby pretty strongly in Washington.

    I am sure Putin is wetting himself over GB’s two nuclear missile submarines and I am also sure France is going to launch against Putin to save Germany or Poland

    Together France and the UK have around 500 nuclear warheads with around 400 deployed. This includes submarine launched missiles and air to surface missiles. France just finished modernizing their arsenal (around 300 warheads) making their weapons arguably more reliable than ours at the moment. They’ve both pledged to counter attack. I’m not sure why you think this isn’t a real deterrent.

    Also the UK has four active nuclear subs, with an updated nuclear sub in development. This information is readily available to anyone with an internet connection, so like, avail yourself before you find yourself making baseless claims. Stats! They’re not just for basketball.

    Stats! They’re not just for basketball.

    Our new site slogan.

    Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, Knox & Robinson are going to lead us to the promised landsays:

    Based on my personal experience, my opinion is that there is a lot less racism than most black people think but a lot more than most white people think.

    I agree.

    The same bias that causes liberals that are highly sensitive to racism to see it when it might not even be there could cause someone like me to miss it even though it IS there. I’m a white guy in NY. Most of my friends and all my co-workers these days are educated professional people. There’s little if any racism among them. That’s literally been my experience for decades. When you aren’t seeing much of it, you might assume it’s like that everywhere, but it certainly isn’t.

    holy cow, it is way cool that knickerblogger has so many folks from all over the world participating…

    i’m somewhat familiar with the political beliefs people in the US may hold – super interesting to read the perspective of other folks from around the world…particular on stuff that goes on inside our borders…

    bowie’s “i’m afraid of americans” always comes to mind…

    seems a lot of people go through the same kind of struggles no matter where they live…

    politics have never really held my interest, actually, a lot of what the world has to offer doesn’t really interest me…

    i enjoyed my time in the military “serving the greater good”…when it comes to friends and family i do try to stay connected…the darn godkid’s have roped me into their lives with all their diabolical love and affection 🙂

    by and large though – outside of my home, the workplace, friends, family – it’s a monster swamp out there…yeah, just thought i’d kick in with that little bit of sunshine right there…

    I’m a white guy in NY. Most of my friends and all my co-workers these days are educated professional people. There’s little if any racism among them. That’s literally been my experience for decades

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD

    @65

    I generally tend to agree, but I would like to reassert that those are two different processes for those involved. When bigotry doesn’t affect you and you don’t see it when it happens, it’s just a bummer, oh well, I should pay more attention next time. But when you’re the one feeling discriminated against, the psychological process is completely different.

    I’ve been the subject of homophobic jokes by super close friends, people I vouch for under any circumstances, who have proven me in many ways they are not bigots. However, your mind is set in a way that you still feel the hit, you know what I mean? It is a constant reminder that bigotry is always present, even in your closest circles sometimes, and that you are the one with the onus of having to deal with it when to the others it’s just an afterthought or something they would rather not do if they recognize it before.

    Rationally it’s the same process, and trust me, it is possible to grow thicker skin and endure it better. It’s just that sometimes it seems omnipresent in your life and it gets tiring as all hell to deal with, specially because you can never really know for sure if the person is just naive or makings misguided remarks or if it comes from a place of hatred. It gets very easy then to be aggressive and just go ham on everyone that does it, be they deserving or not of the outrage, simply because you’re so fed up with being the one that has to grow thick skin all the time when others are free to say whatever the fuck they want AND get offended when they get criticized.

    Where will the conversation go next? Wowzers.

    Libertarian is a kind of a useless, nonsense word. I worked for a centrist think tank for a while and read widely in libertarian philosophy. My conclusion from that time is that L/libertarian can refer equally to total wingnuts, heartless capitalists, out-of-touch academics, or to the very essence of the American character, depending on who you ask. It’s a hard thing to have an argument over without a very careful definition of terms.

    Still, with nothing else to talk about until Mitch Rob makes his next appearance, why not….

    lists of interesting topics to discuss:

    1) sports
    2) sex
    3) food
    4) drugs/alcohol
    5) video games
    6) books/movies/tv
    7) faith
    8) work
    9) travel
    10) family/friends

    hmmmm, seems, politics don’t even make my top 10…

    i’m mixed (latin/white)…i pretty much look like a regular ‘ol caucasoid though…i remember once getting picked up and questioned by the police, because they had me confused with some other white guy…afterwards had to ask myself – did that really just happen…it was not a good experience…

    concerning discrimination though – i remember when my god daughter was young (she’s african-american), she was having some troubles in school and mostly attributed those to the color of her skin…truth is – she just struggles following rules…

    i remember telling her at the time – her real concern about being discriminated against shouldn’t really be her color – but, her gender…

    talk about getting the short end of a bias…i have a feeling the ladies have a story or two over the last million years or so…

    @ 68, I wouldn’t call it a useless or nonsensical word, but, like with everything else, libertarianism is on a spectrum.
    For example, the NAP states that you don’t ‘aggress’ against someone unless they first ‘aggress’ against you. The rub is how do you define ‘aggress’. To most libertarians, this involves physical force or imminent threat of physical force; an extreme position is that taxation is a form of aggression. I’m in the former camp. (Extreme Progressives seem to believe that words or thoughts represent aggression, and are OK with responding to words and thoughts with violence on those grounds – see Antifa. If I have this wrong, correct me)

    A big contention is abortion. We believe in self ownership – you can do whatever you want with your body as long as its voluntary and doesn’t infringe on someone else’s rights. So OK, you should be able to have an abortion. But, depending on when you believe life begins you can feel that abortion is aggressing against an unborn child. I fall on the side of, whatever your definition of life is, the “lifeform”, for lack of a better term, is inside your body and feeding off of you, so it’s your right to do what you want with it.

    On another note, I often see anarchists (no gov’t) confused with libertarians (limited gov’t – defense and courts).

    I’m interested to know what a “centrist” think tank is.

    Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, Knox & Robinson are going to lead us to the promised landsays:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD

    I’ve never in my entire life seen anyone not get a job because of the color of their skin. That covers almost 40 years of working for major NY corporations.

    I’ve never in my life seen anyone that wasn’t getting along and the reason was the color of their skin.

    I’ve heard plenty of race related jokes, but racial and ethnic jokes were the norm for decades. I sort of miss them. You can tell when someone is being good natured and when someone has maliciousness in their heart.

    One day I made a joke like that, caught myself, and was getting ready for one of my black friends to lace into me. Instead he laughed his ass off and told me he had more respect for me now because I wasn’t afraid to tell the joke.

    So who knows what’s right?

    I can’t tell what’s in people’s hearts, but I never see racism where I work. It may happen in many places, but not in the major corporations that have employed me personally.

    Stratomatic "Porzingis, Ntilikina, Knox & Robinson are going to lead us to the promised landsays:

    @69

    Libertarians are all over the map on different issues just like democrats and republicans. Fundamentally though, I’d say most are for minimal government intrusion in business, economics, money, the affairs of foreign countries, and people lives. It’s exactly where to draw the lines that they argue about.

    I mostly lurk, but I am compelled to state that this site represents an amalgamation around being long-suffering Knick fans of the most diverse group of diverse group ( in so many senses of the word) of intelligent men I have encountered among such diversity. I have learned to look at basketball in a totally new way.

    you either felt the impact of being underprivileged and you understand the experience or you don’t.

    My own experience runs afoul of this, but I recognize it is atypical. Grow up lower middle class ( got to chauffeur around Red & Selma Holzman, as well as Bill Bradley when he was campaigning for an anti-war candidate), became the first college graduate in my extended family, then professional school, and a variety of career moves that provided myself and family with a decent amount of security( though not enough to be willing to pay for Knick tickets at today’s prices.)
    Became a NYC public school teacher 14 years ago, first in the South Bx and now in Harlem(kudos to Clash Fan for 29 years). This exposed me on a daily basis to the profound struggles of poverty and I looked at my station and that of my white privileged peers in a new way. I never complain about anything anymore, except health issues.
    As a society, we seem to lack the quality of empathy and a lot of the tribalism we see today is in part due to that.
    If such a disparate group of men on this site can find a common basis( Knick fan suffering) to hold civil discourse, one would hope that intelligent people of different persuasions can do the same.

    hmmmm, now this is interesting (only to myself, i’m sure) – i have a comment that keeps getting stuck in moderation purgatory…

    i can’t quite figure out which term/phrase is causing it to get flagged…

    lists of interesting topics to discuss:

    1) sports
    2) sex
    3) food
    4) drugs/alcohol
    5) video games
    6) books/movies/tv
    7) faith
    8) work
    9) travel
    10) family/friends

    hmmmm, seems, politics don’t even make my top 10…

    okay then, wasn’t anything in there…

    2for18,

    Legit question that I’m curious to get your opinion on. In the broadest sense, libertarians are supposed to be economically conservative and socially liberal. Yet almost every libertarian I’ve ever met is a Republican voter. They’re really social moderates (not social liberals) who want low taxes more than anything. Why is that? Shouldn’t libertarians side with Democrats as often as they side with Republicans?

    I’ve never in my entire life seen anyone not get a job because of the color of their skin. That covers almost 40 years of working for major NY corporations.

    I’ve never in my life seen anyone that wasn’t getting along and the reason was the color of their skin.

    I’ve heard plenty of race related jokes, but racial and ethnic jokes were the norm for decades. I sort of miss them. You can tell when someone is being good natured and when someone has maliciousness in their heart.

    One day I made a joke like that, caught myself, and was getting ready for one of my black friends to lace into me. Instead he laughed his ass off and told me he had more respect for me now because I wasn’t afraid to tell the joke.

    So who knows what’s right?

    I can’t tell what’s in people’s hearts, but I never see racism where I work. It may happen in many places, but not in the major corporations that have employed me personally.

    Your response made me feel more secure in dismissing your initial post, because you don’t seem to have any grasp of the concept of implicit racism.

    What that means is it’s quite possible no one in your office ever said out loud “we aren’t hiring this applicant because he/she is black” or went around telling blatantly racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. jokes. If you really think that means prejudice never informed their decisions, or that those people don’t harbor biases that negatively effect marginalized people they come into contact with, I simply don’t know what to tell you.

    okay then – i give up…

    ugh, i can’t even remember what the hell i was talking about in the first place…

    basically it had to do with biases/predjudices and women getting the short end of the stick…

    stoopid moderation 🙁

    @75
    Another anecdote, this from the late 80’s. I once dated a cute, sweet girl. Rather shy and religious. We’d been going out for a few weeks, and all was well. One day we’re driving out to a fair in east Knoxville, and we’re passing some black folk.

    She locks her car door for the first time since we’d been together. I asked her why then, since she’d never done that ever when we passed any white folk, inc. some of the shabby looking ones near where she lived.

    Her answer, “Oh it’s not all of them, just some of them.” Yikes. You never know.

    @76

    That’s the point.

    I’ve never been directly criticized for being openly gay and studying a group of queer people as a sociological matter, but several colleagues have come to me already with the impression that professors and other colleagues were being harsher than usual in their critiques for my arguments or mistakes. One professor I remember very well once told me drag queens were not a “relevant social group” and that my work on the subjectivity involved in queer gender performance was irrelevant. Talking to other open LGBT colleagues, they were also met with heavy criticism of their works by the same guy.

    He might not be a homophobe, but the two colleagues he most heavily criticized were the top 2 grades in all the entrance process for the PhD, meaning all the other professors in charge of the process thought they had brilliant researches and one guy, out of a sudden, thinks they’re dogshit and their work should not exist. It really makes you think.

    Your response made me feel more secure in dismissing your initial post, because you don’t seem to have any grasp of the concept of implicit racism.

    I actually was reading this thread in reverse and knew exactly who wrote this —

    I’ve never in my entire life seen anyone not get a job because of the color of their skin. That covers almost 40 years of working for major NY corporations.

    I’ve never in my life seen anyone that wasn’t getting along and the reason was the color of their skin.

    — because of his strict insistence that if he hasn’t personally experienced something, it doesn’t exist.

    Sometimes I get real hard-headed on basketball matters, as I hate existing in a world where people lean on magical thinking (i.e. Bargnani’s gonna be better in blue and orange!) than empiricism and probability (i.e. Bargnani has been, and likely will be, a fucking scrub!). I attribute this to the likelihood that if a person exclusively has “gut feeling” opinions about things as (relatively) simple as basketball, I can only imagine their willful disbelief on matters of greater importance.

    Libertarians are all over the map on different issues just like democrats and republicans. Fundamentally though, I’d say most are for minimal government intrusion in business, economics, money, the affairs of foreign countries, and people lives. It’s exactly where to draw the lines that they argue about.

    Right, which is why I dismiss blanket dismissals of the libertarian ideology — sometimes they’re quite reasonable (drug war) and sometimes they’re batshit insane (Evictionism).

    That said, the kind of libertarianism that operates in Washington is of a repugnant sort: Koch-backed attempts to reduce corporate responsibility in virtually all ways. Libertarianism, as an active, well-funded, organized, right-wing movement, is responsible for the irresponsible, taxpayer-fucking tax cuts, Citizens United, and vicious, targeted deregulation in environmental protections.

    The Libertarian Party allows all sorts of voices, including libertarian socialists and left-libertarians of all kinds. But you should also never forget who owns the Cato Institute, and what their end-goals are: to create an American oligarchy of corporatists who buy and sell political influence with greater efficiency than they have for the last sixty years. It’s repulsive. They do not work for you.

    I think I predicted 28 last season, but I’m not sure….I might go like 24-26 this year.

    Too many variables … I’m not making any predictions until late October. And even then, KP….

    Should race be one of the variables in the formula determining college admission or hiring?

    If yes, consider this, if a specific company lacks certain race, gender, religion, etc…and there is an a open VP job for which you have been working hard to get via a promotion; you’ve put in 55-65 hour weeks; got a 12 months post-secondary industry specific certificate which cost you $12k and have been developing yourself to be the best candidate possible for this position; It finally gets vacated by an older retiring colleague which you have followed around – so that you can better understand the challenges of the position.

    Job is open to public and you’re a final candidate but don’t get the job; Division President says wanted to improve diversity and hired a Middle Eastern Muslim Female as it turns out that they didn’t have a single Muslim female from middle east working in the entire division of 380 employees. But tells you that you’re valued employee…blah blah blah

    When you finally meet this new gal, you learn that you were infinitely more qualified than her and they know that you were the losing candidate as the President told her to be sensitive towards you for a period of time. Than you learn than her family is super wealthy as they own multiple factories and construction businesses in Islamabad and all over Pakistan.

    If this was your experience, I bet it would be a little difficult to embrace diversity with open arms and without prejudices.

    Vegas has the Knicks o/u at 29.5. Feels a bit high to my gut

    No way to know until we find out if Fizdale is going to treat the season like they could be a 5-seed. If he plays his best players (whoever they are) for 3,000 MP each, they could be right on the edge.

    Edit: of that O/U, not the playoffs hahahahaha

    @70 Try a post discussing the use, environmental impact, and/or banning of plastic straws, that should work.

    O/U for the 2018 New York Knicks- at this early date I’m going with 26 – just outside the top 5 picks in next year’s draft. Because Knicks!

    @86

    Consider this: you’re a black transgendered woman who was born in poverty. You never had a chance to study because you had to work from an early age to help your family. However, when your family started noticing you where more of a gal than a dude, they told you that this is unholy and perverted and kicked you out of the house. At age 16 and with nowhere to go you turn to prostitution as the only way out, you somehow survive the streets as the most vulnerable person possible in that context and make a bit of money for yourself, then decide to go to the best college you can possibly pay after finishing your basic education while working.

    After somehow graduating while working the whole time, you decide it’s time to find a “real job”. Yet no one will even consider interviewing you when you reveal that you’re pre-op transgendered and your only experience ever is as a sex worker. You start working at a motel because that’s the only place that will hire you, and the only people who accept you as you are are your fellow LGBT friends and activists.

    If this was your experience, you might think about how you never had a chance to succeed because diversity is just a word companies use for PR purposes and how screwed you were from the start simply by being what you are.

    Ps: every single part of this story is a true case of someone I had the opportunity to interview for my PhD research.

    i don’t know giana…as open-minded as i like to kid myself that i am – i think it’s pretty impossible to completely:

    embrace diversity with open arms and without prejudices.

    our minds constantly look for patterns, classifications and shortcuts; and, that whole “tribalism” thing is definitely hard-wired in to most of our makeups…

    bring in to the equation the component of competition – heck, it’s a minor miracle that humans aren’t in conflict more than what they already are…

    hopefully you had the opportunity to slip a tack onto her chair at some time…

    I never see racism where I work

    Is the CEO of your company a white male? Are the other employees you see at work white males?

    Racism is present in just about every work place, even if it doesn’t wear a white hood.

    Vegas has the Knicks o/u at 29.5. Feels a bit high to my gut

    Is that the initial line or has it been bet up? Seems a little high but not so much I’d put money on it.

    you learn that you were infinitely more qualified than her

    Based solely on your own criteria, not on the criteria the folks doing the hiring were using. And how is it relevant that she’s loaded? Diversity in staffing choices is about bringing in different viewpoints, not raising up the poor. Her experience overseas is just another advantage for her in that situation. Honestly, focusing on knowing how to do the details of the job was a strategic mistake. The protagonist of your story put themselves in the position of being 100% capable of covering for any lapses due to lack of knowledge thus freeing up the bigshots to hire someone with different advantages. The guys at the top get a win-win, only your hero loses.

    This is the problem with ‘merit-based’ myopia. The people advocating for it have a very narrow definition of what counts as ‘merit.’

    Is the CEO of your company a white male?

    i’m sure you all probably well aware – racism/prejudice isn’t just limited to white men…it just gets a lot of well deserved press here in the states; racism and prejudice is alive and well around the globe…

    Bruno, I’d just like to say that I have appreciated your transparency, vulnerability, and candor in this thread. You have made just about every point I wanted to make about structural racism and privilege, but did not have the energy to do.

    @94

    Thanks man, it means a lot. I just feel I’m such an aberrant presence everywhere and sharing some of my experiences, from my convoluted nationality situation to the real hardest issues I’ve faced can bring a different perspective for this discussion. Thankfully I’m on a holiday now so I have a lot of time and energy to spend on the discussions I feel are closer to my heart.

    I feel good doing this because I feel people understand that I’m not victimizing myself or creating a sob story, since well, I don’t need either, I’m fine. But diversity in perspectives has always been the most important thing to me and I’ll keep trying to add what I can.

    @94 +1

    I almost didn’t want to post because Bruno makes every point I want to make in a far more comprehensible manner while demonstrating a much deeper understanding of the issues involved. I guess sometimes it’s just important to me to show where I stand. But yeah, anyone reading this thread from the bottom and wanting to know how to save some time should skip my posts and read Bruno’s.

    +1 for Bruno. You’re constantly beating me to the punch on all things NBA, but I couldn’t have spoken with authority on these matters. You’re a valued member of this community and I’m glad you’re here.

    Lmao Jowles. Don’t you know who the main benefactor of the Reason Foundation is?

    @96 and @97

    Thanks guys, I’m very glad it is appreciated. We can all go back very soon to discussing Frank Ntilikina’s potential or Tyson Chandler’s effective value, but this board is the best because there’s simply nowhere else with this high discussion level on so much stuff, I’m glad to be a part of it.

    As a leader of one of the very few selective but diverse schools in the NYCDOE (which is, by many accounts, the most segregated public school system in the country,) I find great joy in this conversation. At our school, we have tirelessly promoted the notion that diversity is as powerful of a learning tool as there is, especially when it comes to reckoning with our most daunting societal problems. In other words, it’s not really diversity if it’s just for show or just on paper.

    It seems that on days like today, we model what is possible when people from across the racial/ethnic/economic/political spectrum their guard down, measure their words carefully, and truly listen to one other. It doesn’t mean that opinions and deeply-held beliefs will change much, if at all, but I would venture to say that it leaves an imprint. For my part, it’s been great to learn about all of you and from all of you. Cheers!

    Come on jowles. You can’t claim to be a subscriber to Reason while also rip on those evil Koch brothers.
    Admit it. You made up the Reason thing and just got caught.

    Apparently Adam Silver is friends with Jared Kushner. Knickerblogger coming full circle!

    Denouncements of Silver as a hypocrite for unclear reasons in three, two,..

    @103 ha ha I love the commitment to the rebuttal.

    Great thread the last couple of days. Here I was the other day think we were in the doldrums of the off-season on the board, and then you all go and hit us between the eyes with this. Kudos to all contributors. It has been great reading.

    The Koch lies have been fully exposed by this administration. I won’t give them another nickel. But as you can tell from the cover story, many of their articles are up my alley. Just get the fuck out of here with this Constitutional Convention bullshit.

    @102

    Thank you man!

    The biggest basketball news today has been what, Greg Monroe signing with the Raptors? Pretty value signing for a guy who’s not supposed to be more than their 3rd big man, but yeah, off-season is harsh. This year with Kawhi and LeBron moving so quickly to their new teams it has felt specially slow.

    racism/prejudice isn’t just limited to white men…it just gets a lot of well deserved press here in the states; racism and prejudice is alive and well around the globe…

    Yeah, well here in the States, white men enslaved Africans and forced them to come here and work for free (all under the guise of “capitalism”, hahaha). This practice didn’t last for a few years, or even a few decades, but for 350 years. And now white people are like “that was a long time ago, get over it”, even though African Americans currently make up 34% of the incarcerated population despite being just 12% of the general population, which is only one of many stats that illustrate the institutionalized racism that lives on in this country.

    I mean, we aren’t even over the Isiah Era yet, and that only lasted 4 years. Imagine if Isiah was GM for 350 years. We’d owe draft picks into the year 3000 at this point, while the rest of the league was like “you’ve had four GMs since Isiah, get over it already”.

    Lmao the Koch brothers hate Trump. It’s cool of you to come clean but don’t blame Trump.

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