(Wednesday, May 02, 2018 9:04:11 PM)
Is it just me or does it seem like the Knicks head coaching search has taken years? Well, it feels like it.
(Wednesday, May 02, 2018 6:15:24 PM)
Former Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale has “gained serious traction” among the Knicks in their head coaching search.
(Wednesday, May 02, 2018 1:35:55 PM)
The Knicks have reportedly wrapped up their interviews and are nearing a decision on who their next head coach will be.
[NYDN] David Fizdale is getting closer to becoming new Knicks coach (Wednesday, May 02, 2018 3:35:47 PM)
Fizdale, a frontrunner from the start of this process, has reportedly “gained serious traction” to becoming the next Knicks coach.
[NYTimes] Jazz 116, Rockets 108 | Series tied 1-1: N.B.A. Playoffs: Jazz Steal a Win on the Road Over Rockets (Thursday, May 03, 2018 5:34:22 AM)
An early lead faded away, but Utah regrouped and walked away with a win in Game 2 against Houston, which had the best record in the N.B.A. this season.
[NYTimes] Cavaliers and Warriors Take Big Steps to Another Rematch (Wednesday, May 02, 2018 1:50:56 PM)
This was supposed to be the year that time ran out for the Warriors and Cavaliers. But a fourth straight Final between them suddenly looks a lot more likely.
(Wednesday, May 02, 2018 4:02:00 PM)
Mike Woodson still is gunning for a second stint as the Knicks’ head coach, but acknowledged he would listen if David Fizdale were to offer him the job as associate coach, should he be hired to replace Jeff Hornacek. An NBA source said the Knicks are “zeroing in’’ on a choice. Indications — as first…
(Wednesday, May 02, 2018 11:54:25 AM)
Thunder GM Sam Presti was noncommittal about Carmelo Anthony’s future, saying he doesn’t expect a larger role for him next season. At Saturday’s exit interview after the bitter first-round elimination against Utah, Anthony indicated he wasn’t sure he can be “effective’’ in his role and left the door open to his Thunder exit. Anthony, whom…
86 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.05.03)”
via knicksfilmschool.com, here’s a great listen on Fizdale when he was on Woj’s podcast while still Grizzlies coach.
Definitely makes you root for the guy. I’d be perfectly happy with him being the coach, although would still rather have Budenholzer.
This is a total yikes from Ian Begley:
We’re still talking about Mark Jackson?!!?
That’s definitely a yikes.
And of course Mark Jackson is still in the running. That’s why David Fizdale, while (in the words of a Canadian simpleton) he doesn’t impress me much, would still be a great result to the Knicks coaching search for me as he is not Mark Jackson.
Someone mentioned the Cleveland job, though, and if Lebron stayed in Cleveland, wouldn’t that be a great gig for Fizdale? He and Lebron get along really well.
Also, as I noted before, the whole “Fizdale has always been their top choice” stuff is total nonsense. There’s a ton of gamesmanship going on here. The same report that revealed that he has always been their top choice also made a point to talk about how lucky the Knicks would be to get such a hot coaching candidate in Fizdale. So that article had to be total puffery, whether to try to bring the price down for Budz, to save face in case Budz takes the Milwaukee job or perhaps coming from Fizdale’s people to make him look better.
David Fizdale is a young black head coach so I don’t doubt for a second that he’s who the Knicks’ front office want to like most. Mills, Perry, Robinson, and Fizdale would go down in history considering no team has ever that much black leadership (especially when you consider none of them were NBA players), and for the most part I think they would be a competent group. I don’t want competence, though. I want a damn championship. I believe Budenholzer gives us a better chance at that than Fizdale, but I also can’t say for certain that’s the case. I do know that Fizdale is not Mark Jackson, though, so I like his chances to be here a long while.
I don’t think their preference is based on race. That’s underming them. You’re saying they are not professionals.
You know what I’ve been doing to pass the time until the Knicks actually announce a move?
I’ve been texting random people “Cash Money Records takin over for the nine nine the two thousand”, then calling them back a minute or so later and askin what they doin to see if they started twerkin lol.
Anyways..what’s this about Fizdale gaining more traction than Bud, and Woodson sayin he’d be ok as Fiz’ lead assistant? I guess that would be a good choice, but I’m kinda stuck on Bud. I see what Mills & Perry are trying to accomplish with the leadership of the team. If successful, that would be another good step down a seemingly endless road to effect change as it relates to the social climate. This is a tough(understatement) task to undertake for the FO. Look, as an African American, I will be extremely proud of the direction the Knicks will be taking in terms of leadership. But at the same time, maybe just having Mills & Perry run the show and make the right moves should be good enough.
I say that because unfortunately our society as a whole doesn’t have the understanding- nor the patience to understand- how difficult being black in America really is. Hell, it’s difficult for plenty of other people. But, the fact that everything is an uphill battle for blacks- even when we’ve proven ourselves worthy of just a shot- makes it especially difficult. And to me, that speaks more to the fact that the idea of racism is far deeper and more layered than most want to acknowledge and deal with. There has been CENTURIES of racist and prejudiced
propaganda that has been force fed so often that it’s practically in an IV for society right now. The targets of that propaganda have SO MUCH to fight through just to be given a fair chance. And sometimes it makes it hard to see a win, y’kno? And that’s the fine line that the FO is walking. Again, I’m fine with it. But they need to be successful if they are going to go that far into race relations.
I don’t think it’s unprofessional to specifically prefer to have a black coach. I think it’s a reasonable (even admirable) preference from Mills and Perry. And if that turns out to be the deciding factor in Fizdale getting the job, then I think that’s fair enough. He’s a bit of a disappointing pick just because Budz is such a great option, but Fizdale is still a reasonable candidate, so I think it’s fine to give him being black an edge in the deliberation. An all-black President/General Manager/Head Coach set-up has never been done in the NBA, so it’s reasonable to want to see something like that happen.
There’s never been an all black front office in the nba?
What do you call the isiah Thomas era /debacle!
He was the FO AND THE COACH!
No thanks to making a statement just hire the guy who can put a system in place that meshes. If that guy is black even better especially if we could get Dolan out!
But do we trade KP too?
Ha, true, I guess Isiah would count. 🙂
I probably shouldn’t compare mills and perry to isiah, that’s an insult. I take it back
Being black (or any other color, for that matter) should not be a factor when selecting a coach for the Knicks. The most capable coach should be hired.
On that topic: why is Budenholzer so wanted by lots of Knicks fans? Why is he parting ways with Atlanta? I think a serious discussion is needed on whether is guy is actually a good coach or a good fit for the Knicks.
All we do is discuss whether or not budz is a good coach. As for fit, I’m hesitant. I think stackhouse is a better fit. He is very relatable and the players will respond I believe.
Can he establish a system and coach the players to buy in is hard to say since he doesn’t have a lot of experience.
Seems pretty obvious, no? He had perfect timing to get promoted to being a dual coach/GM, was terrible at it (like nearly every other guy who tried to be a dual coach/GM), was replaced as GM and the team is going to suck for the next few years. Very rarely does a guy get demoted and stays happy in a job. Especially when the team is now committed to losing for the next few years. For instance, if the Clippers were planning on tanking next season, there’s no way that Doc would be coaching there next year.
Fair enough. That creates a lot of additional questions: will the guy want total control on his next gig? Will he be happy with a rebuild project like the Knicks? Was his success predicated on having a great roster? Was Atlanta’s terrible record last season his responsibility?
Maybe he is a great fit, maybe he is not – I don’t know. Have nothing for or against against the guy. My point is that it’s a very tricky situation that requires lots of analysis.
There’s only two coaches out there with full control, so I doubt it. He wouldn’t be getting full control anywhere else, ya know? As for his rosters, that’s the main reason why he’s such a hot coaching hire, as he is well known for developing players. He’s the guy who took Al Horford from being a very good player to an elite player. He made a lot of players a ton of money with his development skills. That’s his biggest thing he has going for him, his skills at developing players. The Hawks intentionally tanked this year, so I wouldn’t put this season on him, no. If anything, he got more wins out of the team than he should have.
That, of course, leads into the one notable drawback of Budz, and one that you mentioned, is that he might not be willing to tank 2018-19. The team will hopefully be bad enough that even not tanking would lead them to be bad, but we might have a case like with D’Antoni, where he did such a good job in his first year with the Knicks that they lost 50 games instead of 55 and therefore ended up with Jordan Hill instead of Steph Curry.
It’s an interesting question, though, as to how much weight do you place on the Knicks losing as many games as possible next year? Would it be a disappointment if a new coach improves the young players enough that they end up with the #7 pick? I dunno. It’s certainly better than ending up with the #9 pick because of playing veterans for the first half of the season and burying your young guys.
Technically we didn’t have the option to draft curry that year.
We could’ve had derozen instead of hill…smh
Dear god, I hope we do not all get in an argument about distributive justice re: affirmative action/hiring bias on this board. Let’s just all agree that people of color are just as capable of being exceptional managers in the NBA as white people. Agreed? Yay! We’re not racists (on this front)!
In other news, do you think Rudy Giuliani would be interested in a job after he gets fired by the Trump Administration this afternoon? Maybe we can hire him as Director of PR so he can tweet out our prospective draft selections several hours before the event.
Giuliani would probably want to change our jerseys to green
Right, that’s the point, though. They didn’t have the option to draft Curry because D’Antoni took a shitty team and had them win enough games that they didn’t pick until #8, when they had a team that should have been a bottom five team in the NBA that year (or at the very least, the #7 pick in the draft).
No coach in the NBA is willing to tank. They will be willing to build a program from the ground up, but to expect a coach to intentionally lose games isn’t real. A coach may be instructed to play certain guys by the front office (like I don’t believe Rick Carlisle was responsible for the bullshit line ups down the stretch in Dallas), though.
I really hope the Knicks have some good karma built up from not intentionally tanking the way some of the other franchises did so. We sure as hell could use Luka Doncic.
Or maybe we can hire Ty Cobb as a bartender at MSG and he can hand out olde timey mugs of suds.
The Suns coaching pick is interesting. Leads one to believe that they’re really going to take Doncic if possible.
I think Fiz is a fine fit. They might see him as a better free agent recruiter than Budz. Who knows? I’m still leaning towards Stackhouse tbh.
I’m of the Sam Harris line of identity politics: it’s bad for everyone. As a minority, I agree with this. The goal should be color blindness. Giving anyone positive or negative things due to their differences highlights the difference, and leads to racism. Look at the identity politics today, it’s out of control. And you can’t deny the Trumpist “White people in middle America feel left out because they’re white” undertones of racism.
But yeah, hiring a coach even partly due to the color of their skin, as long as its not white, is great!
Taking Doncic over Ayton would be a mistake barring any glaring character concerns. Doncic will without a doubt be a good NBA player but Ayton’s combination of skill, size, and talent is unbelievable. He’s a better bet to physically dominate opponents than anyone in this draft and that gives him the highest ceiling. Now Luka Doncic has enough basketball IQ for the entire Suns organization, so he wouldn’t be a bad get at #1. I just see Ayton as the Towns/Embiid level talent, and I don’t have Doncic rated that high.
By the way, Woody saying he’d take an associate coaching job from Fizdale is weird, right? Is Doc not coming back next year?
What????
I hope it’s just a contrived sentence. On the other hand, getting hired because you’re black is not only racist, it also sends a clear message blacks are not good enough to get the job on merit. Not a good thing.
@24..Agreed.
I guess what I was trying to imply is we shouldn’t have to worry about hiring at leadership positions because of color. But unfortunately for African Americans, we generally need that type of boost when we’re qualified due to the overwhelming amount of prejudiced and racist powered propaganda that has been like an IV to our society for far too long. Mills & Perry shouldn’t feel obligated in a sense to have to use their platform as a tool to remind the world that we can do this job too. It’s awful. They should feel free to make the best hire possible..period.
But..this is the society we’ve built by being shortsighted and stubborn. So now, whether they say it out loud or not, the need to hire black is a large looming issue for the FO.
And Jowles, I’m with u- we don’t need to turn this blog into a big racial issue. I hate the fact that race is an issue for anything. But the only way to deal with it and correct it, is to go through it..thoroughly.
Personally, I want Bud as a coach because I’m a fan of the franchise and because I believe he’s the best option on the table. Fiz is another great option, but not the best option. But I would still be very proud of the hire if it ends up being Fiz or Stack. My dream hire would be Bud at HC, Borrego as lead assistant, with a guy like Kenny Smith, Juwan Howard, or Mike Miller having a prominent role on the staff. I would mention Stack in that last sentence, but it seems like its HC or bust for him.
@18
Rudy Jewels ain’t getting fired. That was no gaffe last night. Rather, it was the opening gambit in The Idiot King’s next big play.
Rudes & The Idiot King know all too well what’s in the docs (and tapes) seized from Cohen’s offices. They also know it’s only a matter of time before the sludge contained within oozes out into the light of day. Since those materials likely reveal multiple payouts identical to the one arranged for Ms. Clifford, Rudes’ “gaffe” was simply Team Trump’s clumsy attempt to get out in front of something that should be public knowledge in a few weeks time.
What a shitshow. I’m not sure how I’d be handling it were it not for all the decades of rooting for a team run by a thin-skinned, vindictive narcissist and his merry band of incompetents. Is not the Trump Administration little more than the Dolan Knicks writ large? If nothing else, the decades of suffering has afforded me some hard-earned insight into what would otherwise be an utterly unintelligible political zeitgeist. Something to be grateful for, I guess.
27-Read my post, that sentence was sarcastic
@28
Very well put Totes, I feel the same way. I would love to live in a colorblind, genderless world where opportunities are equal to everyone and hires are made on the assumption of competence alone, but we don’t.
I would be fine with the Fizdale hire simply because he has the potential to be a good coach. It’s not like they would be hiring any black guy just for the sake of it. My first choice is still Budenholzer because I don’t believe the Knicks are ever planning on rebuilding and he is the guy with the better resume, but I would be perfectly fine with guys like Fizdale or Stackhouse with the nice added effect of the racial situation.
Frankly it is not enough to have the first all-black POBO, GM, and coach. We need the first all-black POBO, GM, coach, and owner. Fizdale can coach and Stackhouse can replace Dolan. Or Woodson can replace Dolan. Or Monty Williams. Or Denzel Washington or Wesley Snipes, because they were in basketball movies. Or literally any black person, whether they have knowledge of basketball or not. Also, being black is negotiable.
If you’re going to go there, the obvious choice for owner is Obama – his brother-in-law is already in the front office!
I don’t know why people think they’re only looking at black coaches. Budz and Blatt have been the highest profile guys and Borrego from the Spurs was another assistant we interviewed.
Where are the draft people thinking Trae Young will be picked?
Also they interviewed Jay Larranga from the Celtics.
If we make our selection based on anything other than merit it would be upsetting to me. Maybe my vision of justice is going take a little longer, but when we get there it will because everyone is on the same page and not because we’re screwing other people, potentially causing backlash, and attaining subpar results to accomplish a greater good.
Fat people, short people, shy people, physically unattractive people, bald people, people born poor, disabled people and many other categories of people are at a disadvantage in the job market, finding mates, earning respect, moving up the ranks in corporations and in the political world etc…
Lots of people are dealt a bad hand to play. I was too!
Until someone knows you really well, you will often be judged by things other than your intellect, competence and content of your heart. It’s not fair, but it’s life. We have to change it.
However, I did just fine overcoming my disadvantages. I often had to work twice as hard as others to get where I am. I’m certain I’d be further along if I was dealt a better hand to start, but so be it. I still turned rags into a winning hand.
Fizdale is not at any disadvantage to Bud or Blatt because of his skin color. If he’s the best guy he WILL get the job. Of that I am 100% certain. That’s the way it should be. But if he’s not, imo he should not get it. That’s also the way it should be.
They should hire the best coach who they feel will be most successful for the team whether he’s black, white, green, or any other color. Basing it on anything else is just plain moronic.
FWIW I rate them
Budenholzer
Blatt
Fizdale
Anyone but Mark Jackson
Other than being a superb communicator and beloved by all players not Gasol, does anyone know anything about Fizdale? Is he an analytics guy, ISO-friendly, etc? All I know is he liked 3’s and had Gasol shoot a few of them.
My money’s still on Mark Jackson as the nexnix coach.
What better way to burnish the hire than by floating a list of highly qualified candidates beforehand, only to have Jackson emerge victorious at the last minute. Management can then claim it had conducted the search with appropriate due diligence and that the selection of Jackson from out of a talented pool of coaches was not the fait accompli that had been widely assumed the minute Hornacek was fired.
“Hand down, man down!”
Fizdale got his coaching rep as a player development guy. His Grizzlies tenure wasn’t long enough that you can really draw conclusions from it other than he didn’t seem to fuck things up.
Jamal Crawford has opted out. Surely not a target for the Knicks with the mid-level, but you never know…
I’m a little worried that the reason we haven’t made our coaching choice yet isn’t because Mills/Perry are still thinking about it, but because our desired coach is waiting on other opportunities first. Like maybe Budenholzer is our top choice but he wants to go to talk to the Bucks first.
You’re certain? We are talking about NYK here…
All things being equal I’d prefer the minority candidate, but, it’s literally impossible in this situation for all things to be equal. It’s a basketball decision, period, so it’s disturbing that identity politics have entered in, if they truly have.
Also, for those that want to win 7 games next year and get the #1 pick, why hire someone good in that case? Maybe your preferred candidate should be Mark Jackson. If we’re looking for a genius of player development wouldn’t that lead more of the hated “meaningless wins”?
I’m pretty sure that while Mills and Perry would like to have a black organization, they’re not gonna hurt the team in the course of that mission. It’s for sure an other things being equal thing from the look of their search (ie plenty of white candidates are being interviewed as well). I imagine they’ll go with what they imagine to be the best fit, and if he’s black then that’s a nice thing too for representation purposes.
seeing as how we’re all guessing how the coaching thing will turn out – my guess would be budz goes to the bucks…fiz comes to new york, and, stackhouse goes to the magic, atlanta hires borrejo, and, the hornets pickup – somebody 🙂
Why would Crawford opt out? He was gifted a generous deal by Thibs last summer, then had a bad season. Oh and he’s 38. Is someone really going to give him more than $4.5m?
He’s doing his best to cchange Trump’s suit to orange sooooo
Yeah, Thibs
I disagree with this entirely. Brett Brown knew exactly what he was doing and probably received explicit instructions to do what he did because it would allow him to keep his job long-term and with a much more pleasant outlook.
It should be no surprise to hear me say that I’m a very competitive person. I’m not saying I work for a company that sets my sales quotas as a fixed percentage over previous year’s sales, but if I did, I would certainly understand that if I were not close to hitting my target this year, it makes sense to sandbag the rest of the year and look forward to a soft target next year. And again, I do not like to lose.
Any coach who cannot see the advantages of short-term losses for long-term gains is neither mature nor intelligent enough to make millions as a manager in a premier sports league. It’s like a Marshmallow Test for grown-ass men.
Now if I were a coach and I were not assured security in my position were I to tank for several years, I would have second thoughts, just as I would not sandbag as a salesperson if I knew my job were at risk. But the incentive is there to play the game that way, so it is foolish, utterly foolish, to play it any other way. Hornacek should have been fired for winning — it’s just hard to know if Dolan condoned it or not, because he’s a fucking moron of the highest order.
As a clarification, I “know” a salesperson who makes the same bonus check whether he hits 75% or 92% of his quota, with rapid escalation in value after 93%. Why in the hell would he aim for 92% if he could get 75% and have a softer target the following year?
Stratomatic –
You will enjoy this. Using computers to beat the ponies to the tune of billions.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/the-gambler-who-cracked-the-horse-racing-code
The greatest hoax perpetrated by liberarianism is convincing (white) people that being fat or bald is the same kind of disadvantage as being black in a country in which roughly 40% of the population still believes that the Confederacy was justified in secession. Come the fuck on.
All those things make it harder but there are degrees that cannot be understated. I’m mixed race and openly gay but I pass pretty easily for white, and I can tell you with certainty that my black friends routinely deal with a level of discrimination I have never faced in my entire life.
No one is saying Fizdale should be hired because he’s black, stop twisting the narrative. It would be a nice added effect and a cool narrative to see, because he is black and also qualified for the job. We’re not talking about hiring a random black dude, Mark Jackson is black and should not even be considered for the job because of everything else.
Jowles, for some reason, I always thought you were an academic. Or a touring / session musician. Or both. Now you’re a salesman? I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore in this world
This is never the proper way to begin any argument on the notion of race. That dude is a hack who loves to pull the same trick of pretending to be impartially colorblind while invoking implicitly prejudicial logic.
I’ve said it before here and will say it again: racial cronyism is not a solution to rectifying racial disparities in the division of labor no matter the industry. There is a difference between tokenism and equal hiring practices that are egalitarian and anti-discriminatory. If we really want to see more hiring opportunities for coaches of color in the NBA then they have to gain the same access to the same hiring opportunities as white coaches at all levels. I was looking at Mike Fratello on the NBA channel thinking how is it possible that such an unathletic man, with his mediocre coaching and sports origin, was able to become the 19th all time winningest NBA coach. Why was it that he graduated upwards as a coach, while so many other qualified coaches of color did not?
How about a straight-up basketball question:
Should Frank be playing in this year’s summer league?
If so, in what role?
Frank should be playing me in pickup games at Rucker
Frank should be playing Grand Theft Auto to bolster his aggressive driving skills.
And this is never the proper way to start a conversation with me. Almost everyone who has said that to me has never listened to his podcast, read his pieces and books, or taken their time to understand what he is saying.
The dude is an intellectual, a speaker on mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, an atheist, who preaches against identity politics and group thinking. He very carefully explains his position, especially about religion, fanaticism, and dogmatic binary politics. I don’t agree with everything, but to call him a hack or prejudicial just tells me you don’t know wtf you’re talking about.
I will say that as a philosopher who’s a staunch moral naturalist The Moral Landscape is one of the worst books I’ve ever read and almost made me not a moral naturalist.
He also thinks that if there were ever an Islamist government with nukes in power that it would be permissible to launch nukes and turn that country into glass. Whatever else he is, he’s very clearly an Islamophobe like every other soi disant New Atheist.
But anywho, back to basketball:
Frank should drive an Abrams tank, because he’s gonna be leading the team in minutes next year and needs to learn how to operate one.
Sam Harris is a neuroscientist. If he conducts research in the area of neuroscience I will pay attention. If he speculates on atheism, racial politics or anything outside of studies conducted in his area of neuroscience, while ignoring a thousand years of research I will laugh and ignore it.
Oh, I have read his “discussion” with Noam Chomsky on the subject U.S imperialism and heard his ridiculous defense of Charles Murray’s racist work in The Bell Curve against Ezra Klein’s criticism. And after reading/listening to what Harris has said on those subjects I am certain that the best thing to be said about him is that his mother created the Golden Girls.
I can honestly say as an atheist that he’s an another secular chauvanist who denounces “identity politics” in one breath while implicitly promoting another form of it with his next breath. Do you know why? Because all politics are identity politics since politics is an identitarian enterprise by its very nature. And the biggest promoters of “identity politics” are charlatans like Harris who falsely claim they are above it. Invoking “identity politics” is just form of post-racist code for denouncing any politics which doesn’t assume the viewpoint of a white, affluent, heterosexual male.
This defense doesn’t fool me. It’s a common trick employed by his sycophants. They always claim anyone criticizing his inane opinions are misconstrued, taken out of context, or misinterpreted even when you directly address the implications of what he’s arguing.
I once did a legend about how Susan Harris’ TV producer husband came in to pitch a show about a female lawyer (presumably with Harris intended to write the show) and Brandon Tartikoff instead asked him to do a show about a joke that had been made at then-recent NBC upfronts about “Miami Nice.”
http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2014/08/06/did-the-golden-girls-begin-as-a-joke/
@65
Brilliant show. Did you know that Cythia Free’s cover of “Thank You For Being a Friend” was not the original theme choice? It was Bette Midler’s “You Gotta Have Friends.” Doesn’t have the same magic, does it?
– This is too much for a Knicks forum, but whatever…
– As far as I know, he has never promoted violence against an Islamist country. Also, there are Islamist governments out there, and he hasn’t promoted violence against them.
– Lots of straw men in everyone’s comments, not going to respond. Actually, everything said here aside from Silky’s one sentence has nothing to answer.
– I don’t agree with at least 60% of what Sam Harris says- however, he tries to arrive at truth, he appears to be open-minded in his discussions with various conflicting speakers, and doesn’t engage in the ubiquitous ad hominem attacks I see basically everywhere in the media, literature, and forums, including here. That makes it refreshing. Also, his work on meditation, free will, mindfulness, and identity is really, really good. “You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.” Whatever. Not for everyone.
A lot of hemming, hawing, and “as far as I knows” for someone who’s supposed to be an expert on the Harris’s body of work / deriding those critical of him for their relative lack of expertise
Also, it took Harris a long time to decide on bringing in Charles Murray on his show. He’s really really toxic. His book, The Bell Curve, had a small chapter on IQ testing and race, and what he said was some groups had different test results than others. I have no opinion on the matter, and neither did Harris. All that was said was that Murray came up with results, offered no opinion on it, and rather than say “hey, what can we do about these tests, or about society, or about the dystopia some live in, so we can help ourselves,” people shut their ears, and yelled. Again, I have no opinion on the matter, but there was no maliciousness there on both sides. You show me some, and I’ll believe you.
We need to talk with more logic and evidence, less emotional attacks. Which is happening right here.
@glidepath: I never said I was an expert, just said I’ve been following for a long time. I said “as far as I know” because I am not aware of every single statement said by the man. This conversation right here is the problem. Ad hominem, no substance.
To be fair, I just made exactly the kind of kneejerk, ad hominem attack that I agree does cloud a lot of current discourse – snark is fun, but in contexts more serious than knicks blogs, there’s really nothing productive about it
Anyways, I’m here to say that I agree with a notion that identity politics is a problem, that it’s out of control right now, and continuing it by hiring someone for that reason, rather than someone better, is bad. Wow.
Ah there, now I’m self-aware enough acknowledge my own snarkiness, but don’t come at me with contortions like that.
is not consistent with
FOH with that garbage
Welp could have been worse
It’s Fiz. Until Bud became available, I’d have been 100 percent on board with this hire. As it is, I still think he’s one of the better candidates, but I wish we could have worked it out with the best guy on the board.
I think the conflict here comes from the conflation of irrational / arbitrary (or in some cases, misinformation-based) political alignment with “identity politics”
I agree that the clear cut cases of former can be vexing.
*Extremely Nancy Kerrigan voice*
Whyyyyyyy???
One of the greatest things in sports is, for the most part, for the most part, it transcends race. Best players play.
Fiz is the new coach Per Woj.
Hang a banner!
Didn’t Hire Mark Jackson
2018
Player development. Modern offense. Leaguewide respect. Who knows, this could end up being the best option
the most hopeful fact about Fizdale is that he took over an aging grizzlies team and his one year coincided with Gasol, animosity shmanimosity, completely modernizing his game and probably extending his career with new best 3PA and assist rates and Conley finally getting the message about being a bit more aggresssive. He also got that Randolph wasn’t very productive right away. And he backed their overly aggressive defense off just enough to improve significantly.
The overall offense failed to play faster as he wanted and it didn’t really improve, but there were some good signs. No hidden gems were buried on the bench. They were incredibly thin behind the big two.
Bud is probably a better coach, but who knows if he wanted this job over Milwaukee. Even if they picked the third best guy on the board, he’s light years ahead of the Preacher. Thank God.
“Take that for data.”
If that doesn’t mean anything to you, google it.
Characterizing the race and IQ section in the Bell Curve as a “small chapter” is a very disingenuous act of intellectual dishonesty. Murray made eugenicist policy prescriptions in the Bell Curve based on the data he presented in that chapter to argue, in his words, (so you won’t say I am mischaracterizing him):
Now, tell me why Murray needed to include a section on race and IQ in book he is using to argue for certain types of population control? Forget the fact that Murray’s work was trashed for not being peer reviewed or for its many empirical errors. Do you or Harris, the great defender of scientific objectivity, really expect any fair minded person to think this chapter was inconsequential to his prescription?
I’d have respected Murray more if he just came out and said that there are too many Blacks and Hispanics being born in this country. It would be just as racist and far more intellectually honest. But the fact that Harris felt the need to defend Murray, a man who is a prominent think tank intellectual with hundreds of published pieces, as some persecuted figure for promoting this racist junk science is enough to tell me where the former’s actual priorities lie. And that is with protecting enablers of power under the pseudo-intellectual guise of scientific rationality.
@67
“It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. ”
Basically, “I don’t want to, but we’d have to” which is the same thing as saying “we should”, in any case. But I’m trying to get away from this, so on to the Fiz thread!
Fizdale isn’t a bad hire. Let’s see if he can develop these guys.