There was a server hiccup, so the game thread didn’t actually publish until now, even though I submitted it 20 minutes ago. Weird. But it’s up now!

Congrats, Silky!

This 5-year period is the widest spread of any of the teams listed.

Well, they also won the title in the third year of that five year period, so they might not be the same sort of example as the others. 😉

The 2011-12 now-ex-Lady Jowles applied to e-i-g-h-t-e-e-n graduate programs in math and philosophy of science (quantum mechanics/probability studies) and only got into one with a full ride, luckily a great research uni in SoCal. (Was convinced I was consequently going to law school there. Thank god I didn’t.) I also remember when she got the letter from Carnegie Mellon saying, essentially, “Congrats! You’ve been accepted… to our half-funded MA program. You’ll have the inside track for a PhD position upon successful completion of the master’s. No guarantees!” Not exactly an auspicious start to her academic career. Looks like she’s on her way to a job at UW-Madison.

My best bud just finished with distinction at UChicago’s Committee of Social Thought and was convinced, despite the pedigree, that he wouldn’t get more than an adjunct gig. Visiting professorship opened up suddenly at a university just south of Seattle (where his wife is stationed as an onc/hem fellow) and he’s suddenly got a full-time job, which is, for sure, a great first step to a tenure-track spot.

And finally, the most academically-distinguished of the ex-Lady-Jowleses did the Princeton BA, Harvard PhD, Yale postdoc trifecta (yes, obnoxious) and, like those above, was convinced she was going to be smited by the academy after years of hard work. Just like that… tenure-track at Williams Freaking College. I love the now-and-forever Lady Jowles, but I wouldn’t’ve been mad about living in Williamstown for the rest of my life…

This is all to say good work — it’s not easy to get those acceptances — and to keep your head up about your prospects after the next 5-7 years of more thankless work. And don’t drink too much, especially on the Knicks’ behalf. Proost!

In the 90s we had perennial losers like the Nuggets, Mavericks, Clippers, 76ers, even the Kings and the Warriors for large stretches of the decade, because that’s how organized sports go, you’ll have terrible teams and badly ran franchises tend to stay in the bottom unless they figure shit out.

Just giving those terrible teams high draft picks has not historically solved their issues, and it also won’t do so for the current bottom feeders unless they make smart moves and get their shit together.

I hate tanking, but someone is going to have the worst record every season. Does it really matter that much if that team wins 23 games or 15? Does it make the NBA more watchable if every year the Phoenix Suns wins 26 games instead of 18?

The draft system is still good for parity, as it gives franchises chances to reset. Trust me, as someone who has followed soccer my entire life, without any sort of extra compensation for the worst teams is when stagnancy becomes a huge problem. People are complaining about taking, but they have no idea what it’s like to have literally 15 teams in a 20 team league play a 100% pointless season every year with 0 chance of achieving anything memorable.