Knicks Morning News (2019.07.22)

Something to note is Gibson and Ellington get no minutes in this scenario. It’s nearly impossible to construct this roster in a way that gets everybody a couple of stretches a game.

Yup.

Ellington is going to get minutes for sure, and Gibson will play the Lance Thomas role that we know Fizdale values. My bet is that Dotson and Frank will be left out of the rotations at least to begin the season.

They’ll probably play Payton, DSJ, Barrett, Ellington, Trier, Knox, Morris, Portis, Gibson, Randle, Mitch the majority of the minutes in some combination, then have Bullock play spot minutes when he comes back and Iggy, Dotson, Kadeem and Frank come in whenever there’s injuries, but they all should spend time in the G-League when everyone is healthy.

Yesterday somebody asked me who were the top point guards in this year’s draft. The top guy to look at, IMO, is Cole Anthony. He’s Greg Anthony’s son, from New York (I’m sorry but I’m a sucker for New York natives), and is playing his basketball at UNC this year. He’s really more of an attacking point guard than the distributing type, and you never really know about a guy’s jumper until they get to the college level (and even then it’s hard to tell; Dennis Smith Jr shot a hair under 36% from 3 in college on 5 attempts a night). He has the handle and the athleticism you want out of your lead guard, and he should be a top 5 pick in this draft. Other than him, you have the French kids who look interesting and Anthony Edwards who is going to Georgia this fall. He’s really more of a 2 guard, but you could play him at the 1 next to RJ Barrett and have a complementary back court. I tend to think that in today’s NBA it’s better to have a taller and stronger guy be your QB because he can just see and make passes a smaller guy can’t, while the smaller quicker guy can get passed guys and draw more fouls. RJ Hampton is an interesting guy, and there also LaMelo Ball.

So in short, we’re looking at Cole Anthony, Anthony Edwards, Theo Maledon, RJ Hampton, and LaMelo Ball.

Speaking of rookie strategy, I heard a pundit mention the last Knicks rookie contract to go full term for the Knicks was Charlie Ward. 25 years of draft misery, 23 if you don’t count the last two. Its about time we got some decent rookies and committed to them.

The last Knicks’ draftee to be extended. He’s a bit of a rallying cry for the “this franchise is constitutionally unable to be good” crowd.

He’s Greg Anthony’s son

Obviously, sons are not their fathers (Steph Curry is way better than Dell was, Hubert Davis wasn’t as good as Walter), but I feel like I’d have a whole lot of new Knicks PTSD if we drafted Greg Anthony’s kid. He was the first first rounder from when I started following the team, and thus the first of many, many flawed Knicks prospects whom every year we were assured could be great if he could just fix this or that flaw in his game. Good defender, never much of a playmaker.

I think there’s enough mediocrity on the roster lying around to get to 30 wins, but if Knox and/or Ntilikina get major minutes and continue to be literally the worst two players in the league our total will likely be lower. It’s also hard to imagine RJ being a positive contributor, so there will be a lot of minutes going to very bad players (which is fine).

I’ll go with 25 wins for now. It’s definitely a high variance situation, as improvement from Mitch/DSJ/Trier/Knox could put us in the mid 30s range. I think some people are overestimating the likelihood that they all improve, though.

All we can really hope for is that the few wins we do get are fueled by guys we should actually give a shit about, not Taj Gibson getting an efficient 16-10 or Bobby Portis getting hot from 3 or Marcus Morris hitting mid-range shots at a standard deviation above his average. I don’t mean to be a broken record but it’s really quite baffling that we signed all of these guys…

the two biggest risks are knox getting major minutes and mitch not getting enough… aside from that i think we’re fairly comfortable sitting in the 33-35 win range…. or roughly about what charlotte was last year…

there’s a lot of young guys and a few of them… namely randle.. payton and dsj are at a point where you can expect some sort of leap in performance… it doesn’t happen all the time but i think it’s safe to assume one of those guys improves dramatically… and there are some other candidates also…

good young teams will generally overperform…. we’re not a great young team but we do have good young players….

Portis is more or less the inverse of Vonleh.

Portis is young, can rebound, can shoot from 3, score in a variety of ways, and is getting better. What he can’t do is defend.

Vonleh is young, can rebound, handle, switch and defend, and is getting better. What he can’t do is hit the 3 pointer consistently or score in a variety of ways.

Which one do you think is making 15.5m?

Which one do you think is making 2m?

Which one do you think our management is preferred?

This is coming from a guy that thinks Portis might still turn out be a very good player given his supposedly super intense work ethic and the fact that he appears to be a pretty bright guy.

I love Silverman’s work in general (taking on the Barstool crowd requires some serious gumption) and the article was probably worth writing, but it does kinda feel like low-hanging fruit to go after a largely apolitical religious guy from a country brutalized by colonialism.

Palestinians have much bigger enemies than Mariano Rivera, and I think as far as US politics is concerned he’s just a “respect the office” type (IIRC he met with Obama a few times too).

Perhaps you can make the argument that millions of dollars later someone like Mo has a responsibility to enlighten himself compared to when he was a broke teenage fisherman in Panama. I guess that’s probably true. It’s just a little hard for me to get excited about when there are so many people with far more privileged backgrounds, far more power, and far more ghoulish worldviews.

Bobby Portis can score in a variety of ways, sure, but what he can’t do is score efficiently. He sucks on offense and defense.

Bobby Portis can score in a variety of ways, sure, but what he can’t do is score efficiently.

His efficiency was ball park average the previous 2 years. Sometimes the defense wins the possession and someone other than the ideal player shooting the ideal shot is the only option. I’d rather have Portis than Vonleh shooting that shot.

The last Knicks’ draftee to be extended. He’s a bit of a rallying cry for the “this franchise is constitutionally unable to be good” crowd.

I’d count David Lee and Nate even though they were one-year extensions and they played mostly during the dismal Isiah years.

I think the Portis signing was probably the single stupidest Knicks signing in an offseason full of stupid Knicks signings, but I ain’t shedding tears over Noah Vonleh. Guys like him, including players better than him, are getting signed for tiny AAV figures every offseason these days.

It was a great lesson in what they value and what they don’t value and how much they are willing to pay for what they value compared to what they don’t value (or quite frankly what they don’t understand the value of).

Don’t want to start a political thread, but I will say Silverman is a brave guy for writing that piece. Athletes get criticized all the time for even the most tepid pro-Palestine messages (ex. Amare Stoudemire’s “pray for palestine’ IG post). Shouldn’t be surprising when there’s push back in the opposite direction.

These signings, especially Portis, are just so confusing, even if they do pan out.

Portis has a FULL team option in his 2nd year. How good will he have to become to merit that?!?

Reality says that he won’t live up to that and will be gone after a year — so why sign him for that money in the first place? But let’s say he does become AWESOME: he’s hitting 3s at a 42% clip, boarding all over the place, and swatting almost as many shots as Mitch… then what?

We already have Mitch on a friendly contract and have Randle through that year… I suppose if Randle and Portis are both amazing, we can trade one at the deadline for assets or just overpay for our 3rd big.

I even sort of liked the idea of a reasonable gamble on Portis, but this contract just makes no sense… and then to sign Morris after that?!?

I also think Silverman showed guts in doing the Mariano piece. I think it’s good to have a critique out there of how Mo’s religious beliefs influence his political involvements. At the same time, I don’t think it’s Silverman’s best work, and I don’t think it’s good religion reporting. Under-informed religion journalism is a common problem, so I don’t want to fault Silverman personally for it.

Manny Pacquiao just won a big fight the other night and everybody is all fawning about how great Manny Pacquiao is, ignoring the fact that Manny Pacquiao is a giant bigoted homophobic asshole.

I hope Manny sticks around long enough to fight Errol Spence so I can enjoy watching him get his ass kicked.

Manny Pacquiao just won a big fight the other night and everybody is all fawning about how great Manny Pacquiao is, ignoring the fact that Manny Pacquiao is a giant bigoted homophobic asshole.

As a Filipino-American I feel targeted by this post.

Just kidding. You could write a post about Filipino Knicks fans born in New York, currently living in San Diego, between the ages of 36 and 38 and I still wouldn’t feel targeted. That said, it is rough having this be the main (only?) mega successful mainstream Filipino athlete of my adult life. There’s Donaire too but obviously he hasn’t reached anywhere near the level that Manny has. As amazing as his accomplishments in the ring have been over the years his “off the field” stuff…sucks.

Don’t want to start a political thread, but I will say Silverman is a brave guy for writing that piece. Athletes get criticized all the time for even the most tepid pro-Palestine messages (ex. Amare Stoudemire’s “pray for palestine’ IG post). Shouldn’t be surprising when there’s push back in the opposite direction.

THIS. I don’t see going after Mariano as low-hanging fruit at all. He’s arguably the most universally revered NYC athlete alive today and is fresh from being enshrined as a HOF legend. At a time when even politicians in Congress are being verbally attacked by our own president for daring to criticize Israel’s apartheid style occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, it’s clear that anyone who does the same is taking a risk of being accused of a litany of slanderous attacks like-antisemitism or anti-Americanism by those in the highest rungs of power, especially when targeting a beloved sports icon.

I would think the amount of people in this country that want a religious autocracy would be less than 1%

More like 9%. In this poll 9% wanted a full-blown theocracy and another 29% percent wanted “some laws” to be based on religion. A shockingly low 62% said religion should play no role in American law.

https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/which-religious-group-wants-to-base-us-law-on-its-faith-the-answer-may-not

I live in a country where we just elected a guy who has his biggest support coming from evangelicals who would definitely want some form of theocracy to be in place, and are actively working towards it by targeting LGBT, women’s and specially African religions. You guys might think the USA is so far removed from all of this, but we also thought that was true of Brazil like 4 years ago.

Per ISPU, 17% of polled White Evangelical Protestants think their religion — which is a radical, fundamentalist form of Christianity — should be the main source of American law.

There are approximately 240 million Christians in the U.S., and a quarter of them are White Evangelical. That’s 60,000,000 WECs, which means about 10 million people believe in a strong Christian theocracy with the Bible as the basis of law. Another 30 million of those Evangelicals believe that the Bible should be a significant influence on American law.

I live in a country where we just elected a guy who has his biggest support coming from evangelicals who would definitely want some form of theocracy to be in place, and are actively working towards it by targeting LGBT, women’s and specially African religions. You guys might think the USA is so far removed from all of this, but we also thought that was true of Brazil like 4 years ago.

And the Dilma Rousseff government was far more far-left leaning back in 2015 than Obama’s in a country where a larger, and therefore more representative, portion of citizenry votes.

It lacked any acknowledgment of the European project of intentionally pushing reactionary religious views in colonial subject countries, and then the modern-day project by evangelicals in the US to essentially do an updated version of the same thing via missionaries. I

This is an interesting theory, but Mariano converted from Catholicism to Pentecostalism at around 21 to 22 years of age after he made the journey to the U.S. By his own admission, neither he nor his parents were avid churchgoers before then, and it was actually he who in turn converted them to the evangelical faith. I suppose you could attribute his conversion to a host of influences dating back to a legacy of colonialism in Panama, including the baseball prospect pipeline, but I don’t think evangelical proselytizing in a U.S. colonial outpost had much to directly do with it.

I never cared all that much for Robert’s writing style. As to his piece on Mariano, it seems to say more about him and his views than it says about Mariano. It read to me as a hit piece based largely on his associations with right wingers in Israel and on his Christian faith.

Frankly, I don’t give a shit about Rivera’s political or religious views or associations, and don’t think there is any reason to use them to tarnish the purity of his enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame. As athletes who are bad people go, he’s pretty damn far from the top of the list. All Halls of Fame are full of assholes…and what constitutes being an asshole is highly subjective in most cases.

As a Yankee hater, I still can step back and marvel at his greatness as a pitcher. As with many celebrities, I don’t share his views on lots of topics of great importance, as I don’t with many artists, athletes and other celebrities. They should not be put on pedestals outside of their creative product.

I would have been more appreciative of a piece that spoke of star athletes in general in the context of a given issue, and how fans are either ignorant of, or turn a blind eye to, their personal actions or views. To single out Mariano in this way just because he is perceived as a good, perhaps even righteous man by so many comes across to me as petty and self-serving. He doesn’t strike me as a moralizing publicity hound with ulterior motivations and a sordid underbelly, like say Tiger Woods or Bill Cosby.

If a fan chooses to glorify an athlete beyond his athletic accomplishments, that’s on the fan, not the athlete.

He doesn’t strike me as a moralizing publicity hound with ulterior motivations and a sordid underbelly, like say Tiger Woods or Bill Cosby.

If Mo said some of things which were attributed to him in that article then any decent and knowledgeable human being should have an issue with his views. Hell, even being seen fundraising with Donald Trump is problematic to me considering where Mariano comes from and what the president thinks about such countries.

This leads to a very slippery slope though. By extension of this logic we can provide an excuse to cover for a lot of very retrograde beliefs and behavior around the world from Klansmen born in the poorest regions of the Mississippi Delta to Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan.

One of the very first things I said on the matter was that Mariano Rivera, who is now a multi-millionaire and celebrity, has agency and responsibility. I’m not looking to “provide an excuse to cover” for any of his beliefs or actions.

Now, do I think context is important in telling the story of just about anyone? Yeah, I do. Maybe there are certain actions and/or belief systems that are so awful that any amount of context just looks like an excuse, and Klansmen and Jihadists would fall into that category if we grant that it exists (personally I still think context is always useful as long as you’re capable of grappling with nuance–people can be irredeemable trash with the factors that lead them to their awfulness still serving as useful information). Taking some pictures with IDF dipshits and Donald Trump’s failsons in between autograph signings doesn’t meet that standard for me personally, though.

I think Silverman comes off as zealous, sure. I don’t think it warrants dis-enshrinement or some kind of asterisk next to his name.

Jowles, wasn’t jon abbey was banned largely for hating on Silverman?

Now, do I think context is important in telling the story of just about anyone? Yeah, I do.

personally I still think context is always useful as long as you’re capable of grappling with nuance–people can be irredeemable trash with the factors that lead them to their awfulness still serving as useful information)

I’m not trying to be offensive here, but I do have an issue with what you’re arguing because you rushed to criticize the Silverman article without even knowing the basic context of Mariano’s religious conversion. You thought he was raised in a religious household, when his personal story was that he converted as a grown man at the time he was moving off to live in the United States.

Also, there wasn’t any “nuance” in your objection. In fact, it was a rather caricatured one you see in a lot stereotypical liberal generalizations about people like him from countries with a history of colonization and evangelical proselytization, a point you acknowledge when you conceded we’ll never really know the factors for his right-wing evangelicalism.

Taking some pictures with IDF dipshits and Donald Trump’s failsons in between autograph signings doesn’t meet that standard for me personally, though.

It is when celebrities like Mariano are then used for public relations purposes to promote heinous right-wing agendas, which was the point of the Silverman article. Racist politicians like Trump and Netanyahu love to use token minorities to “sportswash” their supremacist policies. That’s why you always see them promoting photo-ops with guys like Dennis Rodman, Mike Tyson, Mariano Rivera, Draymond Green, etc. So they can turn around and say they’re not racist because token minority celebrity X is a friend or guest all while they lock brown people in concentration camps.

You have the right to burn his jersey

Nah, I paid too much for it in 2008

Nah, I paid too much for it in 2008

All kidding aside, isn’t that what Silverman is essentially calling for? Isn’t he, as a self-proclaimed long-time Yankees fan, doing that in a figurative sense?

Maybe he would have felt better if Mariano blew out his arm as a teenager and the Yanks relied on some of the Mets’ closers of the last 25 years…or at least the ones with the correct political viewpoints.

I’m not trying to be offensive here, but I do have an issue with what you’re arguing because you rushed to criticize the Silverman article without even knowing the basic context of Mariano’s religious conversion. You thought he was raised in a religious household, when his personal story was that he converted as a grown man at the time he was moving off to live in the United States.

It is when celebrities like Mariano are then used for public relations purposes to promote heinous right-wing agendas, which was the point of the Silverman article. Racist politicians like Trump and Netanyahu love to use token minorities to “sportswash” their supremacist policies.

I think you’re misunderstanding my objections. I said from the start that the article was worth writing, and that I find every association of Mo’s in the article to be deeply troubling. I’ve taken plenty of heat from friends and family over disagreements surrounding Israel and I don’t intend to stop. I don’t need to be lectured about how terrible their insufferable PR bonanzas are, I tend to be the one doing the lecturing.

I got details about his religious upbringing wrong (I recalled him talking about being raised in a religious household but I must’ve confused that with how much he talks about his faith in general), but if you re-read you’ll see that was a small part of my objection to the article the way it was written. It had nothing to do with stereotyping post-colonial populations–I assume most people who don’t shut up about their faith were raised that way.

I do not think it’s entirely fair to write that kind of context-free exposé about someone raised broke in a country ravaged by colonialism who hasn’t received a day of education since he was 16, regardless of his religious upbringing. I’m a little surprised you’re arguing that those factors should go completely unmentioned in an article about someone’s worldview.

I do not think it’s entirely fair to write that kind of context-free exposé about someone raised broke in a country ravaged by colonialism who hasn’t received a day of education since he was 16, regardless of his religious upbringing. I’m a little surprised you’re arguing that those factors should go completely unmentioned in an article about someone’s worldview.

I should add that I can’t help but say it rubs me the wrong way to see someone as privileged as Silverman let the differences in their respective upbringings go unmentioned.

I’d like to think that if I was raised in Mariano Rivera’s situation I would wind up with the same views on everything that I currently hold. I hope that would be the case. I definitely cannot guarantee that it would be the case, and so it feels to me like there’s a punching down aspect here.

The zealous are overconfident in the correctness of their beliefs, uniting fundamentalists and their most ardent critics in a passion that seems narrow-minded to any with a broader view. Questions for our time: What to do when a population of zealots grows too large to trust that the usual forms of respectful open discourse are an effective bulwark against their worst excesses? How do you resist the pressures of tribalism and preserve civility without letting the mob trample the most vulnerable?

I actually had no idea that Mariano has been carrying water for Trump. In general, I think it’s a public service to let people know that kind of thing at a time like this. At the same time, I think it’s going a little far to say it should be on his Cooperstown plaque.

Jon Abbey was always pugnacious. I think he had just had it with Dolan and let it out here. Every man has his breaking point. Can’t believe I haven’t hit mine.

Well…. certainly we don’t need Brown shirted mobs like ANTIFA running around .

Fill in the blanks:

ANTIFA would cease to exist in Portland if ___________________.

Proud Boys would cease to exist in Portland if ___________________.

Fidelity to the protection of freedoms embodied in the US Constitution is a pretty good guide. Or to quote Sam Hinkie…. trust the process.

And that process is:

1) Disrupt Congressional norms and cooperation via fierce hyperpartisan party lines, purposely eroding public trust in the institution. Do whatever is necessary to control legislator action through PACs and lobbying efforts.

2) Gerrymander districts for minority-party rule. Suppress voting via any means necessary. Commit electoral and/or voter fraud and cry ignorance if caught, as in North Carolina in 2018.

3) Stack the courts with Originalist conservative judicial activists who openly disdain precedent. Have them say whatever is necessary to clear committee. Allow them to legislate from the bench, e.g. Bush v. Gore, Citizens United.

I don’t trust that process.

25% of Christians are Evangelicals
64% of Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage
55% believe homosexuality should be discouraged
56% believe aid to the poor (lol) does more harm (lol) than good (lol)
82% disbelieve evolution
82% believe in hell (and that you’re going there for not being part of their club, you heathen)
55% believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally (and that you are a sinner for not believing the Word of God, and therefore are going to hell)
50% believe in moral absolutism, so either agree with all of the above or go to hell, sinner
60% believe that religion is the guide to morality (i.e. not philosophy, reason, common sense, or [lol, 3%] science

How come you woke assholes are always talking about polls and thoughts and never rip on Muslims, who are currently KILLING gays and women for the crime of being gay and adultery?

@49 good post. I respect the non aggressive tone that I didn’t express

For the purpose of this thread:

Name a theocratic, conservative Muslim currently serving in the U.S. Congress.

I know you’re trying to get me with ‘conservative’, but Ilhan Abdullahi Omar is an anti semitic asshole.

@78 this isn’t Nazi Germany. Hitler was appointed Chancellor. He wasn’t elected

If the Democrats nominate anybody better than that criminal hag Hillary, they’ll win. Biden is a clown but he will beat Trump if the wokes let him have the best nom.

The zealous are overconfident in the correctness of their beliefs, uniting fundamentalists and their most ardent critics in a passion that seems narrow-minded to any with a broader view.

Well…. certainly we don’t need Brown shirted mobs like ANTIFA running around .

I am not particularly a fan of Antifa’s confrontational tactics. I think their acts of violence are a boon to the extreme right-wing in this country because their attacks inevitably publicize right wing causes in ways that allows the side arguing in favor of ethnic cleansing to paint themselves as an aggrieved party.

However, I find the characterization of their project as the flip-side to Alt-Right fascism as a most heinous false equivalency on par with Trump’s characterization of the Charlottesville clash as one where “there is blame on both sides.”

The fact is that in the past ten years right-wing terrorism have killed 313 people, ICE agents have killed 81 people and Customs & Border Patrol agents have killed 98 people. Antifa hasn’t killed a single person.

Both sides aren’t even remotely on the same plane and yet you’ll find people who are effacing logic with Orwellian doublespeak to the point that they’re calling the side fighting fascists the brownshirts. Up is down, black is white and war is peace apparently.

How come you woke assholes

Childish name-calling only delegitimizes your own argument not the other side’s.

are always talking about polls and thoughts and never rip on Muslims, who are currently KILLING gays and women for the crime of being gay and adultery?

Because I don’t live in a country politically dominated by Islamic fundamentalists. I live in a nation politically dominated by Christian fundamentalists who mobilize support for the Republican Party, a party which is not only the most dangerous political organization in the country but the entire world today.

Also, it’s quite obvious why you used her full name despite that being a highly abnormal thing to do when referring to a member of Congress.

Pretty fucking gross!

@83 assuming your numbers are accurate, how many of those 10 years had the Nobel Peace dude as President?

And how is this question is relevant to my point?

Wait, you had to cut and paste “Ilhan Omar?” That doesn’t seem super hard to spell.

I call bullshit.

Lmao! Using her full name is racist!

I cut and pasted her name to make sure I had it right….

Tell me, is this something you do every time you refer to a politician? If I searched your post history, would that be the case?

If not, why’d you do it when it came to Ilhan?

I figured you wouldn’t respond to my initial post on the matter, by the way.

@92 I’m a libertarian. Talk to me, not the voices in your head. If you can find one post of mine supporting Trump I’ll buy you a drink.

I’m a libertarian. Talk to me, not the voices in your head. If you can find one post of mine supporting Trump I’ll buy you a drink.

Don’t you mean Donald John Trump, what with it being a regular practice of yours to refer to every politician by their first, middle, and last name?

I’m a libertarian

Ah, then as a defender of liberty you should support Ilhan Omar’s latest legislative stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in introducing a new resolution protecting the right to boycott in the United States. She’s responding to how 25 states have passed anti-free speech laws curtailing the right to participate in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel. As you know, this attack upon our First Amendment right is anti-liberty, and therefore anti-American.

C’mon do it. Defend liberty, defend America, support Ilhan.

@100

So you and Ilhan are simpatico like political soul mates. Two defenders of American freedom against AIPAC’s anti-libertarian attempt to stifle our nation’s political discourse.

I guess we’re not talking basketball today…

Don’t know what AIPAC is though.

Oh, shit.

Don’t know what AIPAC is though.

This thread is a doozy

I feel like this thread is a complete show of why the country has no chance of ever coming together again.

I think if you got most of us in a room we’d have a great time and solve some problems, but then you put this internet thing in the middle and it becomes tribalism.

Like others, I think that this team has a very variance owing to the large roster turnover. I can see this team anywhere winning anywhere between 30-40 games this season.

I disagree wholeheartedly Ntilakilla. If you have common ground outside of politics you can then have a rational discussion on disagreements which allows you to see each other’s points of view without wanting to eliminate the other person. That is the area where you can change someone’s mind on a topic. There’s a direct correlation from the change in the schedule of Congress to where we are today.

In the past lawmakers wouldn’t go home on the weekend and Democrats and Republicans mingled together and became friends even though they didn’t agree on everything politically. This made legislating easier because they didn’t approach each other from a standpoint of being an enemy. Now they all go home on the weekend to be with their constituents, aka, fundraise and they don’t have any allies on the other side of the isle.

Clearly, a few instances from a long time ago invalidate my whole post. /eyeroll

I disagree wholeheartedly Ntilakilla. If you have common ground outside of politics you can then have a rational discussion on disagreements which allows you to see each other’s points of view without wanting to eliminate the other person. That is the area where you can change someone’s mind on a topic. There’s a direct correlation from the change in the schedule of Congress to where we are today.

In the past lawmakers wouldn’t go home on the weekend and Democrats and Republicans mingled together and became friends even though they didn’t agree on everything politically. This made legislating easier because they didn’t approach each other from a standpoint of being an enemy. Now they all go home on the weekend to be with their constituents, aka, fundraise and they don’t have any allies on the other side of the isle.

This is partially true, but it is disingenuous to hold the parties equally accountable.

#109, I think this thread, while not so very basketball-related, was really excellent for political discourse, all the way into the 70s. Trash talk held to a minimum, relative civility, various people scoring interesting points right and left — even Ntilakilla draining repeated turnarounds from the elbow. Then 2for18 came in and shat the bed. He’s like our very own thread Mudiay.

Damn, I don’t have a subscription to the Washington Post.

#109, I think this thread, while not so very basketball-related, was really excellent for political discourse, all the way into the 70s. Trash talk held to a minimum, relative civility, various people scoring interesting points right and left — even Ntilakilla draining repeated turnarounds from the elbow. Then 2for18 came in and shat the bed. He’s like our very own thread Mudiay.

LOL

Then go to the library and check out that linked book. Get the Mueller Report, while you’re at it.

I’m sure you think I’m a Trump supporter Jowels, but I really am not. I actually got ostracized pretty badly in upstate for not being for him. Lol

I’ll check into that book. Hopefully it’s on Audible.

Clearly, a few instances from a long time ago invalidate my whole post. /eyeroll

Truth is that this Congress was a freaking madhouse of physical altercations up until the Civil War, that’s almost a full century of U.S. American politics. Joanne Freeman, an early American historian, has written about this in her latest book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. The whole Brooks-Sumner scandal was just the most infamous instance. I’m not even talking about the executive where you had issues like Burr-Hamilton duel or a lout like Andrew Jackson cursing out and threatening enemies big and small.

I think nostalgia plays a lot into the narrative that Congress is more divided today than ever before. I haven’t look at THCJ’s sources because I don’t have a WashPo subscription and don’t own the book he’s recommending, but I do know of the 2014 Princeton study by Gilens and Page reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public policy issues. What they found was there was actually a great source of consensus in Capitol Hill when a proposal was preferred by the business community.

Just a week ago a supposedly divided House passed a defense spending bill the 2020 fiscal year promoted by the Pentagon and defense industry at a time when there is this massive debate about the skyrocketing deficit and talk about cutting entitlements like Social Security. And while there was a disagreement about the bill, it was mainly on the question of whether we should spend 733 billion like the Democrats wanted or 75o billion one…

There’s also this book about how dialogue helps

https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Crazy-Thought-Still-Wrong/dp/1612344615/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=neisser&qid=1563850606&s=gateway&sr=8-6

Honestly, Owen?

Well, the process was good….

Dang, y’all need to put down this blog, pick up a Bible, and learn somethin’ before The Rapture is upon us, that’s all I’m gonna say.

My kid is about to start college in a small liberal arts college about as far upstate in NY as you can go. I already traveled there several times from near the city, by just about every route you can take. I’ve also traveled through and stayed in lots of small towns during the college search. It truly is weird. Without NYC and burbs, NY is a deep red state. Frankly, there is not much difference between most of rural NYS and rural NC or rural western VA, aside for the crops/products and the nature of conservatism.

Yeah, once you get past the Albany area (or, I guess I could just call it “The Capitol Region” like they call it), it’s deeeeeeeeeeep red. And there are plenty of pockets before Albany, as well. You could be driving through the hippie enclaves of Beacon and suddenly you’re in Trump Country. It’s so bizarre.

The rest of the North country is just people that survive somehow. There’s no economy West and North. The fingerlakes have the wine thing, that’s about it.

The biggest thing that people hate is that people from NYC think upstate is their personal playground to use as they want during the summer.

You guys down there don’t help yourself when you shoot each other during hunting season trying to be sportsmen. Happens every year I swear.

Since Israel is mentioned here I thought I’d bring some news from yesterday. Our security forces demolished 13 buildings belonging to 72 Palestinian families, throwing them out into the street, and in a separate incident that came to light yesterday an IDF soldier shot a 10 year old boy in the head from 100 meters away.

This stuff happens daily here. Daily. If you guys think camps for immigrants are bad come visit the territories here. Then go cheer Rivera for entering the HOF because, lol, sports and politics aren’t related.

And I’m guessing the poor downtrodden haven’t done a single thing to engender such reaction, ehhh. Like maybe lob a couple of thousand rockets over the border with regularity. What do you think America would do if the “citizens” of Toronto started lobbing thousands of rockets at Buffalo?

In the past lawmakers wouldn’t go home on the weekend and Democrats and Republicans mingled together and became friends even though they didn’t agree on everything politically

Couple things. This mostly only happened between WWII and 1992 and it was definitely falling off by the end. Legislators were strongly united by something fundamental – racism. There were still earmarks, which meant legislators could be paid off to vote against party on issues they didn’t care about by having money earmaked specifically for their district. Earmarks were the biggest reason why they got along and the biggest reason why there was compromise. But it’s pork and waste so poof, had to go.

I’ll try to make a case for Knox improving. Essentially, Knox is in a very rare club. Only 8 rookie teenagers in NBA history have put up more than 900 FGA: Luca, Durant, Melo, LeBron, Wiggins, Knox, Mudiay and D’Angelo. Mudiay and Knox are the only ones to have a WS48 of under zero. But as far as TS% goes, Doncic let the pack with .545, followed by Durant (.519) Wiggins (.517) Melo (.509) Russell (.506) LeBron (.488) Knox (.475) and Mudiay (.437). However, Knox was second in this group in 3pt% (behind Russell) second in 3PAr (behind Doncic) and second in DRB% (behind Doncic). He had the lowest AST% but also the lowest TOV% and get this, the lowest USG%.

If you make the cutoff 800 FGA, the list grows to 12 (Steph, Tatum, Booker and Cliff Robinson). Knox is 4th in 3pt% and 2nd in 3PAr. Also 4th in DRB%.

Lower it to 700 and it grows to 18 Knox was 6th in 3pt%, 3rd in 3PAr and 7th in DRB%
19th.
Lower it to 600 grows to 32. Of those 32, Knox was 7th in 3PT% and 4th in 3PTr. He dropped to 16th in DRB% but get this: he had the 2nd lowest TOV% out of the 32 players.

Finally, lower it to 500 FGA and he moves to 9th, 4th, and 19th, with the 3rd lowest TOV%.

So we can conclude:
1) 19yo’s that shoot as many times as Knox did are extremely rare, suggesting that this role was way over Knox’s head.
2) His 3pt shooting percentage ranks him among the best teenagers ever in that category.
3) He shot 3 pointers nearly 40% of the time, and his 364 attempts were third among teens ever. This suggests that his % was not a small sample-size fluke.
4) He was a very respectable defensive rebounder for a teenager.
5) Considering that his Usage rate was a middle of this pack 22.3%, his extremely low TOV% is a positive, as it suggests that he was either shooting or making safe passes, bumping up his PPP a bit, although this is probably nullified by his low OREB%. Still something to build on.