Bleacher Report: Begley: Knicks Could Give Allan Houston, Scott Perry Front Office Roles

it’s never a good sign when they’re keeping alan houston around for god knows what reason

***”it’s never a good sign when they’re keeping alan houston around for god knows what reason”***

It would be fitting if Rose found a way to fire Jerome Williams while keeping Houston around.

You know..I don’t think I mind Rose giving both Perry & H20 roles in the new FO. Houston developed rather nicely over his career and grew up a ton with the Knicks, maybe a player development role might be good for him. Hell..maybe the permanent HC can offer him a role. I’m not in favor of having a million coaches, but maybe we can have specialty coaches kinda like NFL teams have. Have one coach strictly for big, one strictly for wings, and one for PG’s. Houston could teach our guards a ton about shooting and playing off of screens. Just a thought..i mean I’m sure teams have a similar structure but I’m not sure exactly how specialty based it is. So I’d say go with the specialty structure, and then depending on which way your HC leans (offense or defense), hire the lead assistant to run the other side of the floor. I dunno..it’s either progressive or crazy but what does the team have to lose? Shit is already in disarray.

Just for theory’s sake it could look like:
HC- Kenny Atkinson
AHC- Mike Miller
Bigs- Sheed
Wings- Houston
PG’s- Prigs

Is that too many voices? I just want something different. I don’t expect that particular layout, those are just names that popped in my head of folks I think may do well in specialized roles.

I dunno

It’s really hard to judge about Houston since managing the Westchester Knick’s isn’t something there’s a lot of press on. He also doesn’t pick some of the Westchester Knick players. But I assume he did hire Miller and select some of the players. The results were very good. The players there got better and they also won games. So I am for giving Houston something to do. Given the Knicks recent history it’s hard to argue with having having basically competent people in the organization.

Why can’t the Knicks just fire holdovers from previous regimes? Like how most teams operate?

Dolan’s spent most his time as owner trying to keep his menagerie of mediocre executives together. It’s bizarre. At this point it feels like he’s just trying to buy ‘friendship’ from these guys or whatever.

Talking about the draft, Obi Toppin has great stats and passes my eye test but is only 9th on the consensus mock draft. What’s the knock on him?

In the sports world, new coaches bring in their own teams of assistant coaches, but in the corporate world when there’s a takeover I think most new managements are looking to get rid of dead weight and keep talent. The talent in the ranks doesn’t get a top job, but they want them to stay. There’s nothing wrong with the Knicks behaving that way.

Talking about the draft, Obi Toppin has great stats and passes my eye test but is only 9th on the consensus mock draft. What’s the knock on him?

Old for a sophomore (22), bad defensive stats and eye-test is no better.

thenoblefacehumper: Old for a sophomore (22), bad defensive stats and eye-test is no better.

Thanks. You mean defensive eye test? I watched offensive highlights and he looks good, with nice post moves. His handle is shaky, he’ll commit even more turnovers in the pros, but this typically improves.

Toppin only took 103 three pointers in college to hit 41%, but shoots 70% from FT

Derrick Williams took 90 threes and hit 51% and shot 72% from FT

In 13 more 3PTA, Derrick Williams would need to hit -3 (yes, negative 3) to equal Toppin’s performance

Williams could not shoot for crap in the NBA

Toppin’s shooting sample is too small for me to believe in his shooting and modern PFs absolutely NEED to hit 3s. See generally, J. Randle.

This organization has been so dysfunctional and incompetent for so long, absent evidence that someone around the team is actually very good, imo the default value should be to move on and bring in someone from outside you KNOW is good. Some of what’s going on now already seems political. It seems there are certain guys that Dolan likes and they are more or less protected. So Rose will stick with those guys for better or worse. This not what I was hoping for. I was hoping for as large a clean sweep as possible with a handful of exceptions and bringing in people with a proven track record of success at well run organizations. Its massively too early to judge Rose, but my first impression is “more of the same” incompetence and politics to come.

I generally don’t have strong opinions on the draft and don’t watch much college hoops until the tournaments, but I hope we’ve been doing some good scouting. If ever there are going to be some bargains this might be the year given less information, no tournament to see how players respond to better competition and higher pressure, and no combine or extended live interviews.

Within six months, that person was the hiring manager’s best employee and he was very happy he hired her.

That organization had dysfunction at the top and it still turned out to be right to hire internally.

A social distancing cautionary anecdote: today I had to return a vent hood to Home Depot. The store was lining people up in a cordoned off area outside the entrance and had a girl slowly letting people in.

So, I’m heading to the back of the line behind this 30-ish, heavy set guy who doesn’t look like he spends much time on personal hygiene. Then, the dude sneezes quite dramatically (I’m about 8 or so feet behind him), which alarms me, then he proceeds to WIPE HIS NOSE WITH HIS NAKED HAND! I stopped and took a wide berth around the area where he sneezed. Then I resumed, about 10 feet or so behind him. He continued to sniffle and wipe his nose with his hand as he made his way up the line and was waved on into the store.

After I returned to the car, I put a whole bunch of hand sanitizer on my hands, and I also spread some around on and under my nose.

I did tell the girl what I’d seen, but she just kind of shrugged, so I’m wondering what purpose she serves…

I just wish he had a banana that would fly out of his hand into the bushes….

Sorry guys, but this team has been so bad for so long, that any strategy that doesn’t include burning every part of the front office down to the cinders and then pouring lye and salt is wrong.

No to Houston or Perry. Perry was somehow ok with getting Portis, Randle, Morris, Taj Gibson in one season. He was ok giving spot minutes in a lost season to Dotson, Trier, Frank at times, Mitch at times, not playing Wooten or Iggy.

He made a couple of good moves with the KP trade (although I’d so much rather have him than Randle and the others, imagine Frank, Dot, RJ l, KP, and Mitch playing together?), and the Morris offload. Not good enough.

To get from here to Spurs/Toronto competency in the front office absolutely requires everyone out.

That’s why I was ok with giving up picks for Masai.

Randle: *Dribbles 3 extra times then spins to set up an ill advised 20 footer with a shooter wide open in the corner*

RJ: Bro, what you doin yo?!

Randle: I had my shot

RJ: But yo was open!

Randle: Fiz told me to be the leading scorer..

RJ: That’s not how you play ball no more and Fiz ain’t here. Yo..u had a mismatch in the paint and a shooter open. Look..trust me..I’ll get the ball to you when you got a mismatch- ask Mitch. Give it and roll..set a nice screen..grab some boards. We’ll feed you when you get to a spot that works.

Randle: But Fiz said I gotta lead in..

RJ: YOU NOT THAT GOOD!

I can totally imagine a conversation similar to that happening in practice lol

@Geo, it’s all good… tbh I’m just laying breadcrumbs for the mystery in all my comments. One of the small pleasures I’m partaking in during this quarantine. Trying to bring you one step closer to the truth like Andrew Garfield in Silence.

I feel like you are just saying fire everyone and not actually listening to my argument.

The Westchester Knicks have legitimately been a bright spot in this franchise and Houston has been the guy running Westchester.

He also happens to be a former Knick. I’m not saying that should give him carte blanche to never get fired but there’s a different between firing Mills or Perry or Kurt Rambis and firing Houston, who literally was part of the most incredible Knicks playoff run ever and also has probably a top 5 Knicks greatest plays ever under his belt.

I wouldn’t say he’s a legend the same way Ewing or Clyde are but if he has been in charge of something that has done well, it seems foolish to fire him just to “clean house.”

I would posit that we’ve cleaned house all ready. We got rid of Mills. Perry is maybe the only one left. SHould we fire Miller too even though he did a good job? I wouldn’t be against that since its not like he had some super long tenure as our coach, but if Miller and Houston have a good working relationship and have shown success, why fire them just to shake things up?

I mean, shit Breen and Clyde have been commentators during this horrible 21st century run. Maybe we should clean house with them too. Couldn’t hurt, right?

I mean, shit Breen and Clyde have been commentators during this horrible 21st century run. Maybe we should clean house with them too. Couldn’t hurt, right?

this most decidedly ain’t it, chief

The Westchester Knicks have legitimately been a bright spot in this franchise and Houston has been the guy running Westchester.

Google is your friend my man:

“In 2008, Houston was hired by the New York Knicks as assistant to the president for basketball operations.[14] In December 2010, Houston was promoted to the position of assistant general manager.[15] As of July 2019, Houston is special assistant to the general manager of the Knicks;[16] he was also general manager of the Westchester Knicks, the organization’s G League affiliate.”

Basically he’s been GM of the Westies (whatever that means, it’s not like he picks the players) for a hot sec. Meanwhile he’s had a significant role with the big league team for over a decade, during which time the team has sucked total ass entirely on account of the terrible decisions its front office has made.

Again, unless his entire tenure as assistant GM/POBO has consisted of him screaming “PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS STUPID THING” all the time it’s very hard to imagine he’s a “sharp basketball mind” or whatever.

The problem with Perry is not contracts. It’s that he doesn’t recognize talented/productive players well or have a clue how to fit players together coherently. He’s 100% the opposite of Phil. In fact, if Perry was the GM in charge of contracts, Gaines was in charge of drafting, and Phil was in charge of team construction and style of play, they may have actually been competent.

***unless his entire tenure as assistant GM/POBO has consisted of him screaming “PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS STUPID THING” all the time it’s very hard to imagine he’s a “sharp basketball mind” or whatever***

More likely, his tenure consisted of him saying things like “Mr Dolan, Leon Rose has put a trade together for Carmelo Anthony, but Donnie doesn’t want to do it” and “Mr Dolan, Leon Rose has put a trade together for Andre Bargnani but Glen doesn’t want to do it” and “Mr Dolan, Leon Rose has put together a trade for Eddy Curry but Isiah is quibbling over pick protections.”

Notice what you didn’t say here, which is that any of these moves were actually, you know, good,

I agree, I didn’t say that and I don’t think it either. I would have liked a more Nets like strategy. But I think the idea of using the free agent dollars to be competitive came from above him. His execution of that wasn’t horrible, and I’m not sure there were other players available that he could get that would have made the team a lot better. This is what makes him so hard to judge. The only straw available to grasp is that he was clearly in the trade Morris for a first round pick camp, not the make a win now move that Mills clearly favored.

The problem with Perry is not contracts. It’s that he doesn’t recognize talented/productive players well or have a clue how to fit players together coherently. He’s 100% the opposite of Phil. In fact, if Perry was the GM in charge of contracts, Gaines was in charge of drafting, and Phil was in charge of team construction and style of play, they may have actually been competent.

Yeah, you see, the only problem with the Derrick Rose-Courtney Lee-Carmelo Anthony-Kristaps Porzingis-Joakim Noah team was that the contracts were bad.

The “team construction and style of play” were beautiful, hence the *checks notes* 31 wins.

Are you kidding me??! Do you seriously think they should keep front office execs due to their experience as a player?!

Come the fk on. If there was ever a team in all of sports in need of a full scale front office change, with as much of the coaches and players gone too for good measure, it’s this team.

You want a path to real success? It starts with good decisions. Good trades, signings, drafts, coaching, and then… good games. There is no one in this front office who has proven to me that he was worth a bag of crap.

Your path to success starts with a guy like Masai, and fk it, maybe Rose is that guy. But that guy has to burn any remnants of the stupid ass shit that this team has been doing for twenty years.

And if Rose keeps people like Perry – who did all the shit I wrote up in a previous comment – and keeps Houston…. a Rose by any other name smells like shit.

maybe try to salvage Ntilikina and Knox.

you don’t try to salvage frank ntilikina, frank ntilikina salvages you…

Is the original tweet racist?

I was struggling to think of something a gorilla could commit a turnover with but perhaps I missed the mark….

Owen: Is the original tweet racist?

Probably not intentionally, but yeah,

Owen: but perhaps I missed the mark….

Yeah, bad road to go down. Nothing but respect for you though, Owen. You will always get the benefit of the doubt with me.

jackie brown – blah???

that’s a beautiful pic, with a still sexy pam grier…

chris tucker getting in to the trunk is a classic…

stagecoach scene with jennifer leigh in the hateful eight ain’t too bad…

if you like “B” movies deathproof is a classic…

christopher waltz’s performance in inglorious basterds is pretty noteworthy…

It’s a weird one but I agree. Retracted!

That said, by the way, I think 30% of Q’s success was his now-departed film editor. She was brilliant, and Once Upon a Time suffers from her absence.

Pulp Fiction was the peak of his vision and execution, Basterds the most thematically rich. Waltz was the perfect actor for one of the most ambitious and well-executed roles in film history. Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, and Kill Bill 1 were all immense flexes of style and tone, all ambitious in their own way. I’ve only seen Django once, and I remember it being strong. (Funny that the titular role was IIRC written for Will Smith but he passed on it because it wasn’t meaty enough for a superstar like him. Hilarious.) Hateful Eight struck me as sadistic, much like Reservoir Dogs, and perhaps overly long; I can’t imagine watching the extended version. Death Proof was the same as Dogs/Jackie/KB in the sense that it’s all an exercise in style, and one that I did not give one fuck about, but it’s been years so maybe I’m wrong. Kill Bill 2 is one of my favorites, pulpy in all the right ways, and superior to its flashy-fun predecessor.

Looking forward to Once Upon a Time once we work through the backlog. Just finished Tiger King (holy shit) and going to chew on a palate cleanser before diving back into human misery and cruelty.

swiftandabundant,

Your mind is racing. You are searching for worst case scenarios. That’s normal. It’s part of being under extreme stress and feelings of anxiety. Personally, I think it’s a sign of intelligence because when you are thinking about worst case scenarios you are also thinking about solutions.

Just keep in mind, those are worst case scenarios, They aren’t the most likely scenario. The data coming out of Europe now is encouraging and more or less following hopes. There are even green shoots of optimism coming out of NY right now. Just hang in there. I was a mess a couple of weeks ago, but I’m starting to get encouraged. We’ll get through this, Just protect yourself and do smart responsible things.

Hmm, what’s this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/navarro-warning-trump-coronavirus.html

Sounds familiar.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike_in_US

>Is the original tweet racist?

I was struggling to think of something a gorilla could commit a turnover with but perhaps I missed the mark….<

Three things.

1. My first thought was that some people might think it was racist.
2. My second thought was that I was 100% sure that was not the intent because I know you well enough from here to know that much.
3, Some people make accusations for political purposes without any consideration for intent or the destruction of innocent people they can cause, but there aren't any people like that here thank goodness.

No problemo here in my book.

12 monkeys was definitely a milquetoast role for Brad Pitt. Definitely, someone who shouldn’t be buried at the Hollywood Cemetary.

>Dang Strat, one of my favorite moments in a day is when you write something I agree with. I thought this was going to be it with those first two sentences, but then…<

lmao

I knew I was going into dangerous territory with those comments, but my Xanax is working great this week, my mother and brother are fully stocked with food, my girlfriend is behaving rationally related to the virus, and I was certain I could put that out there, avoid another debate, and just chill. 🙂

Thank you everyone.

Ess, I like your ideas. Our marketing department has a content coordinator position that is vacating and they are not going to refill it for the time being, so I could take up some of that slack and learn a few things.

I should clarify. I don’t own. I rent. Just happy to be in a house right now and not in a small apartment in LA or NYC, where I previously lived, especially self isolating with a baby on the way.

I started going down this road late yesterday when a customer, one who place an order before I started working here, got really mad at me for the way we were handling her refund. Won’t go into details but she was just being very difficult and shady about it and was demanding to speak to my supervisor. I basically told her “no” that the issue was resolved and she proceeded to reach out to a bunch of high level people and our HR department through social media. I’m all ready nervous about my job and to have someone attack me like this really created a lot of anxiety within me.

The good news is my boss totally has my back and the HR department too. The box office had experience working with her previously and knew she was kind of nuts, but still. I pride myself on being super nice and providing excellent customer service, so it really hurt and made me extremely anxious.

I don’t care for Tarantino at all. I was in film school when Pulp Fiction came out and everybody there had convinced themselves it was the greatest movie ever made. I wasn’t buying it, though, and none of his subsequent movies made me come around on him. But, I understand that some people get a thrill from that kind of stuff, and though it’s not my preferred style of filmmaking, it is still A style of filmmaking, and I respect that.

The Beatles. Which I agree with. Totally overrated.

🙂

I don’t dislike the Beatles. I just don’t like them very much!

Also, I think I’ve admitted to not liking a lot of the TV shows people love. But, unlike with movies (and the Beatles), I only watched an episode or two of them, not the entire body, so it’s not the same. If I invest in something, I’m going to have a strong opinion about it by the end.

Of note, Tarantino revered Sergio Leone and thinks The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was the greatest movie ever made. You can see lots of Leone’s influence in QT’s work…but it seems cheapened, not refined.

howdy swift…thoughts are with you brother…your concerns are very much understood…caring for others can be a really heavy weight to carry at times…having been broke and homeless as both a kid and an adult – you’ll be okay…this virus ain’t gonna last forever…the focus though now is simply on trying your best to keep those you love safe and healthy…

they’ll be plenty of time for financial worry and concern afterwards…when things go wrong with your money, picking up the pieces suck, if you can maintain your health though – very good chance you will be able to do so…

plan, prepare as best you can – then have faith that time and hard work will allow you to recover…

I have several friends who live in squalid apartments in NYC

I’m thinking more about the people with two families – legit and less so. Gotta have led to a lot of difficult conversations….

@rama
Many of my former students in East Harlem have exactly that circumstance. Multiple families in small single-family NYCHA apartments with one or more of the inhabitants having to work. It’s heartbreaking.
@swift,
I agree with the above sentiments. Focus on the joyous occasion of the birth of your child and his/her well being. You seem to be deservedly well regarded by your current employer and that bodes well for your future prospects. We are all in for a rocky year ( or so) as the rules of engagement in society have yet to be rewritten. Being intelligent and adaptive will serve you well.

12 monkeys was definitely a milquetoast role for Brad Pitt.

still and all – favorite pitt role is floyd from true romance…i just love it…

after leaving uncle sam-antha’s bosom, and not really knowing what was next – i moved to tampa because of 12 monkeys – seriously…i was sick and getting sicker at the time (i wasn’t sure what was going on though) – but, somehow in my head i was sure i was meant to go to tampa…

after six months of getting denied by every company i applied to and reverting to showing up at different companies to simply fill in applications i finally left…i remember the low point of my job search was getting a “thank you/no thank you” letter in the mail from martin marrieta – i remember standing by the mailbox, staring at the letter and thinking i hadn’t even applied to them…why were they telling me they didn’t want me (i was working with some junior officer recruiting companies – pretty sure they must have applied for me)…

I guess if you’re unemployed, best to be unemployed in a beautiful area at least…

turned out funny – finally gave up on tampa (years later would give orlando a try), moved to san jose to stay with mom…first week there went to this huge “west tech” job fair (this was back in the mid 90’s) and got hired for a really good job working at a semi conductor manufacturing company the following week…after six months of searching in tampa, found work in a single week after moving to san jose…

the company was like 3 blocks from ma’s house…ended up getting a lot sicker and had to quit the job a couple of years later, but, was still funny how that job search worked out…i absolutely suck at job interviews…

i imagine my somewhat eccentric personality comes across as just being really intense and weird…

thank god you all know i’m not really weird at all 🙂

but you have wings, even if you can’t currently see them.

that was really nice rama…

Woke bob is my favorite bob

“Yeah, let ‘im have it! Drag him!”

That’s your MO my friend (and many in the Greek Chorus). I don’t know Owen from Adam….I have no understanding of what he is really like. You… on the other hand (and others of your ilk) are so incredibly quick to smear anyone who doesn’t fall lockstep with your particular world vision.

The only thing I will say with metaphysical certainty is The original tweet is incredibly racist and Owen was extremely tone deaf to re-tweet it. I know of nothing beyond that excepting your incredible hubris.

He doesn’t need to apologize to me under any circumstances. Who the fuck am I? He might want to reconsider with a little introspection why he found the tweet so amusing in the first place, and you might want to reconsider why you felt it so necessary to come to a comrade’s defense when the tweet was so obviously offensive…. but we already know the answer…. “Two legs bad….. four legs good!!!”

I love when conservatives get upset that not every lib’rul is a cancel-culture, no-second-chances-under-any-circumstancesm, politically-correct zealot. It’s especially funny when they pump hot, flaming, racist garbage into their heads for hours at a time and then have the gall to tell me what position I’m supposed to have on a given topic.

Edit: And sure enough, while I wrote this post, Bob responded with a treatise on how I’m supposed to react to this. Liddle Bob Neptune, getting his britches in a bunch because I’m not eviscerating a poster for a tone-deaf meme.

it’s the scripts…the dialogue between characters that really grabs my attention with tarantino…i loved the writing in true romance, and really enjoyed from dusk til dawn…

dude is a genius wordsmith…

“I love when conservatives get upset that not every lib’rul is a cancel-culture, no-second-chances-under-any-circumstancesm, politically-correct zealot. It’s especially funny when they pump hot, flaming, racist garbage into their heads for hours at a time and then have the gall to tell me what position I’m supposed to have on a given topic.”

Of course everyone should believe what you believe because you are sooooooo bloody smart.

When the facts are in your favor pound the facts…. when the law in in your favor pound the law… when neither are in your favor pound the table!

That is your MO my friend. I don’t believe I’ve ever told anyone here what position THEY should hold. I have never called anyone’s morality into question….. but YOU my friend…. if I did a search of Joweles posts and listed how many time you’ve called someone a racist for not bending to the woke agenda how many hits might I find. Does the term googolplex mean anything to you?

He’s doing that “pound the table” thing again

“He’s doing that “pound the table” thing again”

It is very useful when it is apropos…. in your case your form of discussion might be good among like minded folk at PS147 faculty lounge, but you made a statement and I challenged you to make an actual factual argument and you immediately resorted to snark while I await a semi-cogent reply.

“The irony of a Trump-defending ethnostate conservative using Animal Farm to make a point about herd mentality… simply amazing.”

You don’t know the foggiest thing about me, This “ethnostate” is pretty multiethnic, don’t you think?

But I’m not going to allow you to shift the focus of this conversation from the indefensible one you have camped out my friend.

I, for one, believe that every voluminous long-term poster here reveals their underlying personality in some way.

In Owen’s case, he has been here for like 15 years and to my knowledge, has never uttered anything that could even remotely be construed as racist, sexist, or anything else that would be considered biased or insensitive. He’s not tone deaf. If he were, then he’d be trying to defend his actions. Instead, he is apologizing for them.

When I read his posts, and saw that no one was calling him out on it, I thought it was a good learning opportunity for him and tried to point it out as subtly as I could think of, knowing that it could lead to a firestorm. As I expected, Owen owned up to being wrong. That’s what classy people do. And as I expected, you jumped at the opportunity to cackle. So fucking tediously predictable.

You, bobn, have zero class. you are a narcissistic curmudgeon with a huge chip on your shoulder. You justify your deeply-held blatantly racist views with this kind of bullshit false outrage. Problem is, you don’t have the intellect or character to pull it off. You think that by angrily bemoaning some kind of double-standard here, you reveal the hypocrisy of the “Greek Chorus” that you keep referring to. That in and of itself demonstrates your intellectual inferiority. You can’t even discern the nuanced views between various posters here whose main commonality is that they happen to reject most of the inane horseshit drivel you shamelessly go on about day after day.

To paraphrase a from a movie that I’m sure you must have hated, “If you want to have a character debate, bob, stick with me. Because Owen is way out of your league.”

My son has a night light that shows the galaxy on the ceiling. One night we noticed that there were only seven planets represented. So now we have a running joke where we’ll be lying there with just the galaxy light on, and one of us will ask, “Where’s Neptune?” and the other will answer, “It’s in Uranus!” And peals of laughter will always ensue.

It’s your tone, Bob. I don’t care about your politics, but your tone is ugly. Mean. Dispiriting. Even when Jowles is telling someone to drink bleach, he’s usually amusing.

Owen was indeed amazingly tone deaf. Sadly, so are you.

Bob’s least favorite movie: A Greek-Chorus Line.

started the wire last night…

first thought: clark johnson (director) = Homicide: Life on the Street

great cast, dark stories, attention grabbing cinematography…but, only really told the tale from the cop side of things…rare to get a show that displays both perspectives of the struggle…

second thought: hey that’s the bad guy from john carter…i thought he was british…had heard simon wanted “authenticity” and only allowed elba cuz he snuck through the interview/auditions…

you know, you just can’t trust actors…those fuckers can sound and act like they’re from anywhere…

third thought: wait a minute – is that really michael b jordan (god daughter actually noticed him)…holy shit…dude grew up to be a super hero…sort of – he did get to wear the suit though…i was surprised by how much i liked both of the creed movies…i don’t think i’ve ever read a lot of stories with killmonger in them, just a couple…most of the black panther stories i read were team ups…with cap and other avengers…

almost finished with the cabinets, then it’s the garage…after that i’m digging through my cd and comic book collections…they’ve been stuck in a closet for years and are in need of some serious love…

i got a lot of music on cd’s, got some old lp’s boxed up and hiding somewhere…i remember seeing them like a year or so ago…

what i’d really like though is to figure out a way to display my comics…i got like 30 boxes…they take up a lot of room…

what was i talking about again…

dude is a genius wordsmith…

Ingmarrr, I like your politics, but your film criticism…man

He’s way too self indulgent for me. Sure, he can write the coolest dialogues, and create the coolest scenes, great style and all, but after Pulp Fiction he added absolutely nothing.

His politics sucks. I don’t buy it that he makes us aware of violence, on the contrary he makes us enjoy it and laugh while seeing it. Many of the heroes are total assholes, and the movie makes it look ok that they are.

As for our politics here in Israel:

* We’re under a lockdown for three weeks.
* Full curfew tomorrow night so that people don’t go out to be with their families for the holiday (Passover).
* The police has, at least in practice, full authority to track our movements.
* No demonstrations allowed with more than 10 people.
* Police violence is now against Jews too. No more separation between Jews and Arabs on this front.
* Our minister of health, an Orthodox Jew, is breaking all of his office’s safety rules and up until a few days ago allowed his community to do the same, but would stay on as minister because his party is crucial for the extreme right to form a coalition.
* Soon we may have a government that allows a prime minister, whose trial for bribery should start next month, to server another 18 months as PM and have a veto power on appointing judges in this country.
* Our security apparatus (the Mossad) is rumored to attempt stealing medical equipment from other countries.
* Vicious propaganda against our Arab citizens is ongoing, even though many of them are doctors and nurses in the front line against the corona virus.
* Etc., etc..

Our politics is even worse than Tarantino’s!

When I was in highschool, I remember my sister brought a boyfriend home once and he, my dad, and I watched a TNT broadcast of a game featuring the Phoenix Suns. This was back when the Suns had a gorilla for a mascot that would bounce off a trampoline and dunk the ball during timeouts. The TNT broadcast showed footage of this, and my dad said the mascot was racist. The boyfriend said that my dad was actually the one being racist because he was the one putting the racial connotation on the gorilla. My dad, got mad and kicked the boyfriend out of the house. I never saw the boyfriend again.

I remember spending a lot of time playing the conversation back in my head, trying to understand who was right and who should rightly be offended. But I had forgotten about it, until Owen and Bob reignited the internal debate 🙂

I don’t buy it that he makes us aware of violence, on the contrary he makes us enjoy it and laugh while seeing it.

I think Inglorious Basterds is the only film of his that has a complex attitude about violence, particularly in violent fantasy, having become by its end not just a cartoonish historical-fiction work but an actual wish-fulfillment alternative history. Most of the rest is for pure shock value with the pretense of holding a mirror up to the audience. My wife actually cried during the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs and never finished it, and I was a bit surprised to hear that Wes Craven also walked out of the theater in revulsion. It’s no surprise that QT was part of Eli Roth’s rise to national prominence, with Roth himself being not much more than a sadomasochistic provocateur, responsible for one of the worst bits of torture porn yet conceived, the Hostel series.

Haneke’s Funny Games is not an experience I’d like to have again, but its violence has got something to it. I can’t say the same for Kill Bill, Jackie Brown, Django Unchained, Hateful Eight, Reservoir Dogs, Death Proof, or Pulp Fiction. They’re rowdy, masculine celebrations of violence, no doubt.

“Bob, do you think Obama was born in the United States?”

Jesus you are such a mindless troll.

But to answer your question a half a dozen ways: Hawaii certified his birth so he has as much proof he was born in America as much as I do that I was born in Manhattan, so yeah.

But let’s just say he was born in some other country…..IT DOESN’T MATTER AS LONG AS ONE PARENT IS A US CITIZEN. For example:

Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother an a Cuban citizen. No one seriously disputed he wasn’t “natural born”

George Romney was born in Mexico to polygamist parents. No one seriously disputed he was “natural Born”

Barry Goldwater was born in the “Arizona Territory” before statehood and no one disputed he was “natural born.”

Any more foolish questions? You really don’t have a clue about anything other than statistics in basketball.

“Let’s #cancel Owen so #wokebob can have a #safespace without all these #microagressions”

That’s your remedy…. not mine…. I prefer the light of the noonday sun as the best disinfectant.

@swift
Chill Out man. This corona shit ain’t forever.
Try to re-establish your piece of mind and the rest will come easier.

@Tarantino
I Love Tarantino’s work and consider him as the most entertaining film maker ever.
He definitely is a movie junkie himself and his passion for cinema is everywhere in his movies.
From paying homage to neglected movie genres and reawakening long forgotten actors to creating some kind of more stylised revival of his major influences
His violent overdose is an obvious repeated Sam Peckinpah homage that it’s common in most of his movies that end up with most protagonists getting killed.
Tarantino’s strongest characteristic imo is his sense of rhythm which is definitely based on great editing as someone mentioned.
Pulp Fiction is his masterpiece and one of my faves ever.

@Greek Chorus
Greek Chorus is racistic when you’re from Greece!
Just kidding/Keep on Greeking in Freak World!

“I, for one, believe that every voluminous long-term poster here reveals their underlying personality in some way.”

You are certainly entitled to your beliefs. I prefer to judge people by their actual actions not some preconceived notion of what I think them to be because the don’t agree with the inherent wisdom of my positions.
.
.
Wall of text
,
,
“You, bobn, have zero class. you are a narcissistic curmudgeon with a huge chip on your shoulder. You justify your deeply-held blatantly racist views with this kind of bullshit false outrage.”

I got it now…. thanks for clearing things up for me! The guy who retweets a blatant racist tweet “has class” (because he’s on my squad) and the guy who adopts 2 infants at the age of 48 and 50 who both have extremely mixed race (native American/Black/Cuban/Spanish) backgrounds is the classless ethrocentric racist. Really… thanks for clearing that up for me.

You suffer from epic cluelessness my friend.

Oh Bob, now I do want to give you a big electronic hug. Because it must be hard to be a teenager living in a Moscow suburb being paid minimum wage in rubles to endlessly troll America’s internet.

But guys, we should be proud we have one of our very own.I honestly wouldn’t have thought we’d have rated, as great as this site is in my eyes.

I’m getting tired of this conversation. Can’t we argue about something else.

I think Phil was misunderstood. 🙂

(PS: Damn this was a good batch of Xanax i Just got)

I loved Brad Pitt in Troy!

the guy who adopts 2 infants at the age of 48 and 50

that just sounds painful…even at the ripe old age of 50 something- I only got so many minutes of playing catch in me…

it can definitely be a challenge being grandparent age, but needing.to do actual parenting…

hopefully you have a good partner to help carry the load…

Trump is more racist than that tweet on a weekly basis. But don’t let that stop you from trolling.

As it is natural for some people to not like Tarantino, the Beatles or Pink Floyd it’s also natural for some countries to allow their football leagues to continue (or to start) during the covid pandemic.
If you can’t live without football there are 3 leagues still active:
Belarus
Nicaragua
Tajikistan

Grocer: None of it hangs together, right? The whole is less than the sum of it’s parts. Some of his work is better than others, but all that I’ve seen (and I’ve skipped several) end up feeling like aimless farces.

Aimless farces captures it perfectly for me. Beyond the style it all feels empty.

“that just sounds painful…even at the ripe old age of 50 something- I only got so many minutes of playing catch in me…

it can definitely be a challenge being grandparent age, but needing.to do actual parenting…

hopefully you have a good partner to help carry the load…”

There is a reason evolution set us up for child bearing from out teens to early thirties…. mustering up enough energy is sometimes a challenge but I would recommend it to anyone so inclined net/net. Clearly its the best thing I’ve ever done.

Of course the notion of paying university tuitions into my mid 70’s is well….daunting.

“So since Obama was obviously born in America, how do you explain your buddy Donald J harassing him for all those years about his birth certificate? I mean he built a whole brand on that.”

WOW…. this is some deep logical tarp……

Yeah…. that dope trolled the MSM into literally giving him billions of dollars of free airtime from which he launched a successful bid to become the literal king of the world for 4-8 years, so yeah…. he as dope.

And you are so smart! It all makes such sense now…….

So the birth certificate thing was just an elaborate ruse to trick the media and not the racist ramblings of a notorious scumbag ? That’s a pretty big assumption you’re making that’s not based on evidence. Now I’ll do the same about you:

“It was very cagey of bobneptune to adopt multiracial children in order to inoculate himself from claims of racism.”

Shit can get really stupid when you do stuff in bad faith, Bob.

Trump is a good marketer, especially of himself, and I guess you could say he is smart at marketing. So I can see what Bob means. He doesn’t care about being truthful in his marketing, so lies like the birther stuff don’t imply that he is dumb. But in many many other ways he is dumb, and he is a totally incompetent commander in chief and people are literally dying because of that.

You see, it’s not racist if you spend years breathlessly spouting a racist conspiracy theory if you’re doing so in your own political and financial self-interest.

God, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: to defend Donald Trump and the GOP you either have to be very stupid, or you have to pretend to be very stupid. There’s not much that can be done if you fall into the former category bob, but the latter just seems exhausting to keep up. Maybe get a different hobby?

““It was very cagey of bobneptune to adopt multiracial children in order to inoculate himself from claims of racism.”

You didn’t realize what an 8th level thinker you were up against until this moment, did you?

That a man would have such prescience to adopt kids in 2002 and 2002 just to inoculate himself form claims of racism from a highly triggered Greek Chorus…. what a towering intellect……

Ingmarrr, I said I like YOUR politics, not those of your country! (Though to be fair, the divide seems to be similar to that in the US, always hovering around 50/50 to 60/40 at any given time.)

As for Tarantino,

Aimless farces captures it perfectly for me. Beyond the style it all feels empty.

I hear you; my point was more that he is good rather than you have to like his work. He’s a Revisionist: what he does is to dive into a particular genre, twist it around to his own ends, and make something personal from it. “His own ends” are, for me, often too violent – I don’t like Kill Bill 1 much because of that (whereas 2 is pretty great). A lot of his movies are tough to watch in places because of that. But he DOES have a point of view, a voice, and that voice consists of brilliant wordplay, great visual framing, and excellent use of dramatic tension (see: opening scene of Basterds). He is not a hack. Great artists synthesize something new out of the old, like Beethoven, and Tarantino is not a great artist – but he is a great craftsman, and not to acknowledge that seems short-sighted.

Experts and critics often come into these things with defined standards of what “good” or “great” is when what’s going on out there among real people is a kind of bell curve of subjective tastes.

Man, you really hate expertise, don’t you? Unless it’s your own, acquired from careful study of horses in the rain. Sorry, Al, the views of “real people” are much more interesting than yours!

There is no right way.

The thing that really irks me about BS like that from Strat is that it’s objectively true that some people do in fact know fucking more than you do about their field! Because they have to make money doing it! It’s in fact your OWN ARGUMENT ABOUT YOUR OWN EXPERTISE! But when it applies to someone else, you’re like Trump – “I can do that better than they can, I’m very talented, I actually have been told I should be a [biochemical scientists/art critic/horse racing bettor].”

There is in fact a “right way,” or at least “right” ingredients, and those who make it their life’s work and who have adequate ability and insight can recognize it most of the time. Any professional such as Al could tell you precisely why Tarantino is good and not a hack. It doesn’t mean you have to like him! But saying that he isn’t good, or the critics are wrong in their assessment of a work’s strengths and weaknesses because it doesn’t jibe with your ignorant ass’s POV, or that they are all somehow mindlessly lining up in some dark state conspiracy is just ludicrous.

Have you ever met a critic? Who is more fucking opinionated than a critic?? They WANT to have a view that not everyone else has – it’s just hard, because most of the time “Castle” really is shit TV and “The Wire” really isn’t.

rama got no use for your spurv plinth: Tarantino is not a great artist – but he is a great craftsman, and not to acknowledge that seems short-sighted

I agree that he’s a great craftsman, and yes, it would be silly not to acknowledge it. It’s just that I feel emptiness coming from somewhere in there, and I’m unable to connect to his movies anymore.

Oh boy, our politics… I know you don’t like my country’s politics. It’s becoming more and more difficult to see us as a democracy. In the U.S. it seems like the democratic institutions are still functioning – the house, the courts – whereas here the right is viciously attacking the courts, and tried to sabotage the parliament. We’re handing by a thread.

Last post: the interesting thing to me is that these seemingly disparate threads within this thread are actually dancing around the same issues. And even more fascinating is that those issues are in fact core to the blog itself: what is the value of expertise? The majority of us on here feel it is very valuable, and we want better statistics in order to become more expert in our assessments of the game of basketball. (Or, like me, we want to become better at interpreting existing statistics so we can better predict success.) And then there are those who appeal to authority, even when that authority is shown to be wrong much more than right, and those who say it’s their own authority that matters, even when simultaneously acknowledging they don’t have the time to study as deeply as they’d need to to really know.

What success is enjoyed by the different groups, I wonder, those who tout Phil “he’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know” Jackson, those who cite the collective wisdom of NBA GMs, those who say we should trade down for two picks and take Brandon Clarke? If only there were a way to quantify such things, like with wins and losses or something…

***You’re not going to get the violent thoughtfulness of, say, the Coen brothers in No Country for Old Men.***

No Country for Old Men! Now THAT’S a good fucking movie.

Thank God, Bernies out finally. Now we can run a geriatric man who forgets what he’s saying and says bad shit, against the geriatric man who says bad shit on purpose.

Thank God, Bernies out finally. Now we can run a geriatric man who forgets what he’s saying and says bad shit, against the geriatric man who says bad shit on purpose.

Do you think Biden’s list of appointees will look anything like this? Stop worrying about Biden himself and worry about the scores of competent people who will be carrying out the duties of the executive branch. Biden may not be anyone’s first choice but we cannot do another four years of this:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations

you’re fuckin’ out

Tarantino excels at film language, he is a “pure cinema” director who likes to tell stories that can only be told through the media of film. If you read his scripts it’s all on the page, all the camera moves and editing decisions. His movies are really movies about movies. He wears his influences on his sleeve but he also has his own voice.

Hitchcock’s movies are similar, they’re not really “about” anything, they’re really just about the thrills you can give people by exploiting the natural power of cinematic techniques.

Franzen and Wallace are very different, IMO. I’m not a fan of the former, but Infinite Jest is in the very top tier of fiction I’ve read.

Vertigo is his best, IMO. There’s a lot going on under the surface, as opposed to, say, The Birds, which is a masterpiece in horror but not much more than that.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Vertigo is his best, IMO. There’s a lot going on under the surface, as opposed to, say, The Birds, which is a masterpiece in horror but not much more than that.

I was lucky enough to see Vertigo in 70mm at the Castro Theater. A wonderful film indeed!

***I was lucky enough to see Vertigo in 70mm at the Castro Theater. A wonderful film indeed!***

I saw the 70mm print at the Zeigfeld and it was the greatest film-going experience of my life.

“I was trying to mock your idea that Trump’s racist birther BS was part of some 8 year master plan to win the presidency while trolling the media.”

In the early day 2011-2 Trump was likely saying controversial shit to get his mug on television… as PT Barnum famously said, “I don’t care what they write about me as long as they spell my name right!”

Fast forward to the run up to the campaign and Trump knows this is absolute catnip to the media and it has zero cost politically.

“He fell ass-backwards into the presidency. It was a publicity stunt and it just turned out that his voice appealed to millions of uneducated, functionally-illiterate flyover-state voters who wanted an elected politician to verbalize all of the bigoted, racist, sexist filth that they’ve been forcefed by the right-wing media for years. ”

A short list of swing state counties(below) where voters voted for Obama TWICE and then switched to Trump. Jowles conclusion…. something something THEY ARE ALL IGNORANT RACISTS! Funny how they were really smart when the voted for Obama twice. But they somehow became racists in 2016…..

Or….. many of them got tired of being screwed by the globalists and voted another way? Maybe Hildog was an awful candidate who had zero chance of mobilizing the black vote as Obama did? Maybe calling 47% of the electorate deplorables wasn’t a really smart thing even if you believed it?

Read em and weep statboy:

https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Wisconsin

https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Michigan

https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Ohio

https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Iowa

https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties:_The_counties_that_voted_Obama-Obama-Trump_from_2008-2016

i wonder how folks like al do this all the time…i remember we all had the work from home conversation last year sometime…i was surprised at some of ya’lls feedback…it didn’t seem at the time that a lot of folks enjoyed it as much as i thought they would…

I feel you, geo. This is the first time I’ve ever worked from home before. There are many things I love about it (I converted my dining area into a great working space), and I feel like I’m working all day, but when I look back at what I’ve accomplished it’s always a lot less than it should be. Like, maybe I made 4 calls in the afternoon but I should have made 20. There’s just something about the comfort level here that relaxes me. I think part of what motivates me to work so efficiently in the office is that I want to leave! Now I gotta figure out how to feel that every day.

One of my new behavioral habits has been to deny myself certain pleasures (like logging into KB) until I’ve gotten enough things done. Fortunately for anyone who hates reading my posts, I’ve been sluggish this week!

On the plus side, I eat much better…I’ve been able to maintain a crazy strict diet now that I can prepare all my food. I’ve given up alcohol (43 days now, which I only know bc I gave it up for Lent… something I’ve tried to do for 6 years in a row but I will finally accomplish now!). And my coffee is so much better! (I get beans from Porto Rico on St Mark’s and use a Bialetti.)

I still haven’t taken all the mushrooms I have in my drawer. That’s on my to do list, but not gonna lie… part of me is afraid of tripping in NYC in the middle of a pandemic! If I could trust myself to not go outside….

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Vertigo is his best, IMO. There’s a lot going on under the surface, as opposed to, say, The Birds, which is a masterpiece in horror but not much more than that.

I watched Rear Window on Sunday evening. Not sure there is a more apt movie for being locked down in New York City right now.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Vertigo is his best, IMO. There’s a lot going on under the surface, as opposed to, say, The Birds, which is a masterpiece in horror but not much more than that.

I also watched Strangers on a Train recently. The hero is so creepy.

But even he isn’t Trump territory creepy. Anyone else heartbroken about Bernie leaving the race? Great, let’s continue to screw up millions of people and leave them without health insurance.

I’m happy Bernie left the race. I’m not happy that he still wants to be on the ballots and get votes so he can influence the convention. Some people are likely to get sick and die because they go vote. And because his ego is so big he thinks no one else can possibly be right and he wants as many delegate votes as possible.

I believe that dentists are among the highest-risk workers right now. If you can reschedule dental appointments, do it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/15/business/economy/coronavirus-worker-risk.html

Sorry for your loss, Strat.

I know if I had posted that there would have been unanimous calls for instaban. But a teammate posts that….. its OK.

You, a self-aggrandizing contrarian asshole with a long record of tone-deaf shitposting, would have deserved it. Owen, with his decade-plus previously spotless record, did not. If Owen is on this blog for 100 more years, I doubt he would post anything like that ever again. And if I thought it was OK, I wouldn’t have flagged it, would I?

***Tarantino excels at film language, he is a “pure cinema” director who likes to tell stories that can only be told through the media of film. If you read his scripts it’s all on the page, all the camera moves and editing decisions….Hitchcock’s movies are similar, they’re not really “about” anything, they’re really just about the thrills you can give people by exploiting the natural power of cinematic techniques.***

I agree with this about Tarantino, but I disagree with the conclusion about Hitchcock. In the 1950s Hitchcock was speaking a vastly different “language” than Tarantino. He couldn’t deal outright with issues of sexuality (let alone homosexuality), gender, rape, incest, etc… so he created an implicit language of entendres and visual cues to go around the censors rattan cater to them.

Vertigo, Rope, Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest — these are movies with unbelievable depth.

North By Northwest doesn’t have much depth. It’s a standard MacGuffin movie that was built around three or four set pieces. All of the stuff connecting the set pieces was of secondary importance.

It’s a very well executed and entertaining movie but it’s not a deep movie. They’re all just trying to get the thing with the “government secrets” in it.

I’m happy Bernie left the race. I’m not happy that he still wants to be on the ballots and get votes so he can influence the convention. Some people are likely to get sick and die because they go vote. And because his ego is so big he thinks no one else can possibly be right and he wants as many delegate votes as possible.

This isn’t accurate at all. The primaries aren’t just Biden vs. Bernie. There’s a bunch of local state primaries that would still need to be decided even if Bernie got his name off the ballot. BTW, Sanders told Wisconsin voters not to risk their health to vote in the primary. He has absolutely nothing to do with people who get sick from voting.

Get mad about something else.

And if I thought it was OK, I wouldn’t have flagged it, would I?

Heck, I didn’t even look at the link until you reacted negatively to it.

Sorry about your loss, Strat. My brother and some of the other guys from his firehouse got tested on their own last week (they’re stationed in Brooklyn, so they deal with that Hasidic Jewish community there that refuses to do social distancing). The others are all negative, while my brother doesn’t have results yet.

My Top 3 Hitchcock
Birds
Vertigo
Rebecca

Gotta rewatch Rear Window, Notorious and North by Northwest tho….Last time watching them was back in the Ewing era

You know Brian, the education theme really did hit home, but there is so much more than that.

reference quentin and alfred – just in case it is not abundantly clear – cinema is not necessarily intended to give you the meaning of life…

be in the moment…enjoy, or not…

just had a meeting…i kind of have a habit getting in to things…debating with myself on whether to add a cam…

i want in on that…but, only if i can get the camera to reveal my real appearance…

i swear this is me so much…i amy have a more recent pic, i’ll have to look…

Cinema is considered a visual art so i guess you could say that QT and AH are probably capable to be called artists.

For me Michael Jordan, Julius Erving and Dominique Wilkins to name just a few obvious ones are visual artists too.
Their game has grace, symmetry, body control and fantasy that id prefer to watch their moves instead of any choreographed ballet.

I’m a huge fan of Hitchcock’s, I love his work and I’ve read a bunch of books about him. I guess the point I’m making about him is that his process and his ideals as a filmmaker were similar to Tarantino’s. They have difference in personal styles, and they worked in very different eras, but I don’t really buy the idea that Hitchcock’s films are loaded with deep meaning while Tarantino’s are not. I’m not even comparing them in terms of quality– Hitchcock had a high batting average despite making a film per year for like 50 years or whatever. Hitch was the greater director.

I mean even Rear Window, that is a movie that is exquisite suspense, it’s a tour de force of film language. But it’s not really much more than that. It’s a 10/10 movie, a true classic, a timeless film. But it’s all about “pure cinema,” it is 100% a story that you could not possibly tell in any other medium. Sure, some of his films have sly subtexts and all of that, but really Hitch was looking to thrill and titillate. He was great at it.

The dunk contest’s choreography is why I simply don’t watch it. I much prefer the spontaneity of a contested putback dunk.

don’t be alarmed if one day you hear a stray knock at your door, and it’s me coming to enjoy – your space 🙂

I’ll save some shrooms for ya.

Sorry to hear Strat, that’s a difficult situation especially because so many family members are still sick. Hoping the rest of them pull through. Glad you felt comfortable sharing with us

Nobody thinks your post was “blatantly racist.”

We all think bob’s a jackass though.

Z-man:
I seem to recall a world leader from the past who consolidated his power by engaging in race-baiting, xenophobic rhetoric behind a platform of “Make ______great again!”, who sought to punish all political enemies, including those in his own party, who continually referred to the free press as “The Enemy of the People” and who said publicly that there were “very good people” in an assembly of white nationalists carrying torches and chanting threatening anti-Semitic slogans.

At least Trump is nothing like that guy…

And I’m sure that guy had brilliant citizens like bobn that disparaged those not on board with…”He’s a far better alternative than the “corrupt” folks he replaced”…”Look at all the good he’s done! Look at the economy!” “You naysayers are all in the same liberal Greek Chorus …”

There’s some great stuff inside the newsroom and out. Unfortunately it’s… well, you’ll see. It takes a bit of a turn.

The existing storylines are all still very compelling in season 5. The new storylines are kind of duds.

The last two episodes are incredible, and the finale is maybe the most satisfying finale in TV history.

I again am sorry I offended anyone but I do think “blatantly racist” is a little strong when neither I, the original tweeter, or any of the commenters on the post had any intention of demeaning Julius Randle as an African-American.

There was obviously absolutely nothing racist about what you did. In fact, it was the opposite of racist. At no point in the entire process did Julius Randle’s race even enter your mind. You just saw something spinning out of control and it reminded you of a basketball player who spins out of control. The banana bit was obvious, too. What else would a gorilla be likely to hold that would relate to a basketball?

Gorillas are on the “that’s racist” bingo card, though, and there are always people who want to publicly check off a box on their own scorecard to call attention to how righteous they are. Bob was generally an ass throughout this whole exchange while trying to make his point, but I did find this comment of his to be one of the better ones in the discussion:

I am sorry you uncle is a racist who assuages his guilt by donating reams of cash to his alma mater to garner tax breaks and influence.

It kinda gets at the bullshit of calling out things like your tweet. What, exactly, does being the person who says “hey, that tweet you shared was racist” accomplish? African Americans don’t have less of a burden now that you’ve been put in your place. It’s a pointless, self-aggrandizing, mean-spirited action. And it’s usually committed by people who like to call attention to themselves and assuage their own guilt.

“I again am sorry I offended anyone but I do think “blatantly racist” is a little strong when neither I, the original tweeter, or any of the commenters on the post had any intention of demeaning Julius Randle as an African-American.”

You can certainly speak for yourself, but unless you know the OP personally, I don’t see how you can vouch for him.

With plethora the spinning gif’s possible (the Tasmanian Devil cartoon, Linda Blair’s head in the Exorcist, a gyroscope, etc) the original tweeter just happened to coincidentally pick the most abhorrent and often used trope of the 19th and 20th centuries a hulking black man being compared to an ape or a gorilla.

Quite a coincidence for the original tweeter, don’t you think? Ockham’s Razor something , something.

“The basis of comparison, a spin move, is recognizably human, and the comparison seemed to me to be of the gorilla to Julius.”

Jesus… that is precisely my point. Did you read what you just wrote? I cannot think of any circumstance where the comparison of a spinning out of control gorilla to a black man is remotely acceptable when there are literally a million other spinning anthropomorphic objects that could have been chosen.

Why don’t you re-tweet that to Patrick Ewing and John Thompson and ask their opinions? I’m guessing they will have extreme difficulty finding its obvious (to some) humor. I’m just guessing….

I mean I cannot believe this needs to be pointed out in the 21st century…. its not really good form to compare black people to gorillas and someone please explain to me where I am off base here.

the pitchfork, it does nothing

You know what’s crazy? We watched the first 4 or 5 episodes of The Deuce and ghosted it. It was good! And still, we couldn’t be bothered to continue. Maybe we should pick that one back up now that we’ve finished Succession and Tiger King.

I buy it. People are often more complicated than the buckets people want to classify them with.

I don’t buy it.

“I am offended by the tweet”
“There’s nothing wrong with birtherism”

The selective outrage is pretty goddamn obvious.
He spends most of his time here railing against “wokeness” like a true Fox News consuming dittohead, but then when somebody from the other team posts a questionable tweet he’s Wokey McWoke, the college freshman home for Thanksgiving who just took his Sociology 101 midterm.

He gets a boner when he gets to point out librul hypocrisy, that’s all this is about.

define: concern trolling

I wish we could move on from this because both the hypocrisy and innocence in this case are obvious.

When Roseanne Barr posted something like this she lost her show, lost millions of dollars, had her career destroyed, and probably needed anti depressants and therapy for a year. That happened because she was a Trump supporter and not because she didn’t apologize or because she had a history of racism. She had a history of being in comedy, occasionally telling off color jokes, being progressive on many social issues, and not being the sharpest knife in the draw.

There was no way she was trying to be offensive and racist. She’s not that dumb. She had a momentary blind spot.

The lesson to be learned is to try to understand the person that said or did something, figure out their motive, and react accordingly.

It’s not to decide whether he or she is one of us and react accordingly.

Diehard Trump supporters like to justify their racist statements and actions by tailoring the definition of racism to suit their narrative.

Roseanne Barr
?
@therealroseanne
Sorry to have tweeted incorrect info about you!I Please forgive me! By the way, George Soros is a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth-were you aware of that? But, we all make mistakes, right Chelsea?

15.6K
6:28 AM – May 29, 2018

Yeah, exactly the same.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Do you honestly believe that this is the same thing?

Sort of. I mean, approving of a tweet comparing a spinning black athlete to a spinning gorilla and doubling down by saying the only thing missing is the banana has about as racist of a connotation as is possible under the guise of humor. It checks off just about every box in the “don’t ever, ever do that!” manual.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: You know what’s crazy? We watched the first 4 or 5 episodes of The Deuce and ghosted it. It was good! And still, we couldn’t be bothered to continue. Maybe we should pick that one back up now that we’ve finished Succession and Tiger King.

I did the same exact thing.

I did the same thing with Treme, too. I think David Simon and the law of diminishing returns are highly compatible.

Flashback to the year we all loved Melo (apparently it happened on today’s date):

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1247881170576080896

^ one of his best moments as a Knick. I remember it was an Easter game, too. I was watching at an airport bar in JFK and I’m pretty sure I boarded my plane at the last possible minute to keep watching.

It was a good time to be a knicks fan.

who cares what bob thinks (nothing personal bob, the same thought could be extended to all)…

what’s the end game here – put bob in a celtics jersey and throw rocks and beat him with sticks…

you’re most certainly neither changing his behavior or world views…

i feel like i’m talking to my mom…lesson to all: try to limit your interaction with crazy…unless you have no choice…

racism is a mine field that is very very difficult to navigate…best sometimes to just not walk in that direction…

the bitch of it all is – guess what – humans do resemble other animals…you know, cuz of the whole dna and genetics thing…

and, to prove my hypothesis i give you exhibit A…

tell me snoop don’t look like a doberman, or cher like whatever the hell that kind of dog is…

oh, so dogs, cats and whatever are cooler than gorillas…hell no – gorillas are awesome…

i love zoos…it’s a little sad seeing them confined like that, but, i really enjoy the whole zoo atmosphere and looking at the animals…i remember when i was younger going to the stuggart zoo with a friend (i mostly remember having sex in the parking garage as we were leaving)…i was and young and dumb, and, liked to see what reactions i could get from the different animals…

i was doing some weird shit in front of this gorilla to get their attention, it was just kind of sitting there…i’ll never forget the animal just looked at me, stood up, and then turned their back and sat back down…well fuck you too mister magilla gorilla…

i developed a much deeper respect for gorillas that day…visually they’re stunning and beautiful creatures…and, a whole hell of a lot smarter than any dog or cat that ever lived…

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I assumed that since he missed the historically-racist trope the first time, he certainly wouldn’t have thought of a banana as the cherry on top of the racist iconography sundae, which, as you noted, it was. But when he was called out on it, he was like, “Shit, this is racist?” and then retracted it. There was no Roseanne-style doubling down in that sense.

If Owen had insisted that since he didn’t mean for the comparison to have a racist subtext, it weren’t offensive in any way, this entire conversation would be different. But that’s not what happened!

I get that, but devoid of context they are in the same ball park, except maybe that the racist imagery in Roseanne’s statement can’t be explained away as unintended.

new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…new thread…

and, i think we should name it: Today is Thursday

just remembered this thing we had at school called “silencing”…the concept behind it being that if someone did something foul enough – no one would talk or interact with them…

trust me, that’s a way more harsh punishment than any words you can possibly share…

Z-man: Kind of like you did when you insinuated that about me, remember? I sure do.

Yeah, I do. I also read a lot of what you wrote in this thread and it supports what I originally thought of you. But like Mr Geo said, it doesn’t matter what I think of you. I certainly don’t care what you think of me.

New thread idea: P&T has an article up musing about the Knicks trading for Lauri Markanen. Supposedly he’s real unhappy with da Bulls.

Do we want him, and what would the Knicks have to give up to get him?

“Because you’re putting on a performance. Nobody here buys it.”

Blame the messenger and don’t address the obvious issue. I wish one of you interwebz tough guys who call people assholes and racists while quivering behind a keyboard without cause please approach Mr Ewing or Mr. Thompson and show them that video and ask their opinion.

You think the’d see the obvious humor in it…….

Anyone have access to ESPN’s new mock draft? Curious who Givony/Schmitz like…

” But when he was called out on it, he was like, “Shit, this is racist?””

I agree he realized it was a faux pax originally and retracted it but C’mon with the “Shit, is this racist?” Nonsense. It was a neat backpedal (full props for the ingenuity) but it doesn’t pass the smell test. That’s perfectly akin to Inspector Renaud bleating , “I’m shocked, I’m shocked there’s gambling going on here as he stuffs thousand Franc notes into his pocket.

A guy who is perfectly well versed with the history of Patrick Ewing among thousands of others being depicted as simians can’t reasonable argue that tweet wasn’t clearly out of bounds . Recall it wasn’t a cute cat video…. In a vacuum without the caption an animal doing pirouettes IS funny. But it was an out of control gorilla being specifically and directly compared to a hulking black man and his brain.

And again I never called Owen anything other than tone deaf. I merely stated it was incredibly tone deaf or something of that nature.

I DID say the original tweet was clearly racist….. well because it it 🙂

please approach Mr Ewing or Mr. Thompson and show them that video and ask their opinion.

You think the’d see the obvious humor in it…….

Context is important, Bob.

For instance, if Patrick Ewing had been the coach of the Knicks this year and Mitchell Robinson said “hey, coach, check this out” and showed him that video…yes I think he would laugh.

The irony of being lectured on the appropriate response to a racist act by a Trump apologist — still not lost on me.

“You’re assuming the guy went out of his way to select the image…….”

Yes I am. To paraphrase a monk from antiquity…. if there are multiple explanations for an occurrence, the one that requires the least number of assumptions is usually correct.

There are literally thousands of spinning non- simians a click away on the internet that would have been suitably non-racist (the hippo is my favorite because his spin is painfully slow just like Randle’s spin-a-ramas) but this fellow intentionally chose a spinning simian to compare to a large black man.

Wm of Ockham approves of this message…..

https://www.google.com/search?q=spinning+animals+gif&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS852US852&sxsrf=ALeKk03hDsq3cVKsBhXYf2LskI45x5ZGcg:1586460949507&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=2ekMnn1Nk5g6oM%253A%252CRLZuBnJQeHMhkM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSdpV53IFV2hj2yzwrJ8xJcmvoMLQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisleHKi9zoAhXvYN8KHRlCABUQ9QEwAHoECAEQEg#imgrc=52cuYz6LJb3TMM

Anybody have any questions about horse breeding? Bob REALLY feels like contributing here today.

okay, like everyone else – i’m bored and have little to no self control either…so may i say:

Capua, shall i begin?

***also to note: you’re only really cool if you know what that means***

tough guys who call people assholes and racists while quivering behind a keyboard without cause please approach Mr Ewing or Mr. Thompson

soooo, are you like threatening violence vis a vis john thompson and patrick ewing…cause if you are – i just wanna say – although both are large human beings, john thomspon is like like a 1,000 years old and pat’s got bad knees…pretty sure i can out run them both…i ain’t afraid of either…

now, if you had said – go ahead and show that shit to julius and tell him it’s okay – i might just be a bit more fearful then…julius beats down other grown men all over the floor, and, gets paid for it…

one of the things i like most about league view is the chance to see what happens after the whistle…julius likes to play human bumper cars with people while walking off the court…it’s odd – be it teammate or not julius just bulls his way through stray humans similar to how he goes to the basket…

Anybody have any questions about horse breeding? Bob REALLY feels like contributing here today.

awwww, that made me sad…that’s like suggesting this is the only discourse and interaction he may know, or, this particular type of feedback from others may be what he really desires…

okay, the humor has left me…i’m done for a bit…

“soooo, are you like threatening violence vis a vis john thompson and patrick ewing…cause if you are – i just wanna say – although both are large human beings, john thomspon is like like a 1,000 years old and pat’s got bad knees…pretty sure i can out run them both…i ain’t afraid of either…”

I’m sorry but I can’t control the actions of other people so it would be fairly hard for me to “threaten violence vis a vis Thompson/Ewing” but I can guess what their reactions might be. I can guess what any human’s reaction might be.

I know what my reaction would be if any of the internet tough guys here approached me face to face and called me a racist asshole. I might offer to buy them a drink and talk it out…. or I might not. 🙂

Thompson (quite understandably) didn’t seem to take to that stuff well at Georgetown….. I don’t think its a good life choice to enrage 300 pound large humans capable of crushing you like a cockroach.

“Why? You’ve never listened to anything the “Greek Chorus” has explained to you.”

Because you have never made a compelling logical case……

“I seem to recall a world leader from the past who consolidated his power by engaging in race-baiting, xenophobic rhetoric behind a platform of “Make ______ great again!”, who sought to punish all political enemies, including those in his own party, who continually referred to the free press as “The Enemy of the People” and who said publicly that there were “very good people” in an assembly of white nationalists carrying torches and chanting threatening anti-Semitic slogans.

At least Trump is nothing like that guy…”

Ahhhh….. nothing quite says Passover like a gratuitous crazily conflated Hitlerian reference …..

i’m old and my memory is pretty selective at times (although i can remember that stuggart parking garage in very vivid detail like it happened yesterday)…it’s driving me nuts cause i can’t remember their name – who’s the poster whom always provides a really detailed breakdown of the draft and players available…

edit: just looked it up – it’s djphan…i remember for a while liking to mess with djphan, they were always just so earnest…when it comes to poking on folks a bit, an earnest participant magnifies the pleasure of poking like ten-fold…hope wherever you are you’re well…same for you cdiggy and all the other folks whom stop by…

man, they just cancelled nbatv from my service provider…i got to be honest though – the only sport i seem to enjoy watching old replays of is boxing and mma…baseball, football, soccer, basketball – not so much…

tried watching a 90’s knick game the other day, but…eh, the past is the past…

the nba2K thing didn’t really interest me, but i’ll definitely give the h-o-r-s-e competition a try…