So predictable?
Oooooh good one.
La dee da!!
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
U r cracking me up with Phil NOT being a genius. HOWLING!
Of course the OADS dog it in D1! U r cracking me up again. OAD stands for "over all dogging"!
Lebron would have taken a Siesta in D1 under current circumstances. U never would have drafted him! Howling!
Omg! Wigs could easily turn out better than MIJOR!!! Wigs is soooooo young and has played semi hard only one season. He is clearly still avoiding injury and not going 100% until the first free agent contract! He will super nova after his next contract. Everyone in the NBA gets the game. The Cavs traded him because they knew he wouldn't light the candle till the second contract and because of the Adidas/Nike clash. Father Wigs has this opera doped out. Andrew plays for money only. Andrew plays big for big money only!
Elementary, baby!!!!
Lebron just wants to be liked? HOWLING! U r like the next Chris Rock!!! U r crAcking me up.
Imagine what a genius Phil will become when he picks up Lebron!
Unless Cavs ownership threatens to give Lebron's extended family zinc acid bathes over the casino bidness, LBJ ----> NYC ASAP!
Everything has changed but the way we think.--paraphrasing AE.
HOWLING!
Yes, when you introduce probabilities into the discussion, well, I think Jam Tray becoming a stretch 4 is not something I would bet on either.
Don't let go of your 94. In fact, grab your Model 50 and put some deer slugs in it. :-)
You know, I was going to say the same about your posts today, which have kind of deteriorated from your recent stuff. I was being polite. I just figured I would cut you some slack under the assumption that you were having some personal, or career problems.
But since you said it, well, I reckon there's no harm.
Your friend was talking about you. :-)
He wasn't a disappointment at all, if you hypothesize that his management made sure he coasted to minimize injury risk and simply disappeared that last game when it was perhaps clear that Embiid was not returning and so there was no realistic chance of winning a ring. At that point, hypothetically speaking, the key thing was to end the season and injury risk as soon as possible; then come out and take the NBA by storm, right?
Wigs is a great player.
IMHO he just saved it for when the pay checks started.
If we could imagine Lebron coming along today and having to play a season in D1, I have a hunch Lebron would have had almost an identical showing as Wigs had. Two show case scoring games, and a lot of coasting and working on some defensive fundamentals. Don't you?
Wouldn't it be stupid for Lebron to turn it on and risk a draft and career threatening injury in an OAD season, when he was likely to make the kind of money he now makes?
I am guessing we will see Wig's career track somewhere between Lebron's and Michael's in terms of career accomplishments. Or maybe just a little less. Its hard to say. It depends on whether Wigs can get out of Minnesota and get to a major market and a great coach, or a great owner. Jordan had Jackson. Lebron had Riley. If Lebron were smart, he would be playing for Phil very shortly in the Big Apple. He could win five or six rings there and become rich enough to write a check for an NBA franchise when he's done. New York is the promised land for endorsering superstars.
@JayHawkFanToo said:
I am not sure where the story that Diallo can’t score came from
It didn't come from me.
I don't make the news.
I just reflect on it.
Wouldn't it be great if 6-9 Diallo had a back to the basket scoring game on a par with Shady?
It would mean he could be a difference maker 4 in college and a journeyman 4 in the pros.
Shady took a few years to develop though.
I would be very, very, VERY happy, if Diallo turned out to be as good as Shady.
That seems plausible to me, based on what you are telling me about Diallo's scoring. Diallo ought to be able to develop about the same rate as Shady. That would be awesome.
I just hope they don't draft Diallo before he develops to a point where he can play the way Shady did in that Finals game against Memphis' bunch of ringers.
@JayHawkFanToo said:
Phil Jackson should be laughing at himself and the piss-poor team he assembled in New York
Maybe a little refresher on Phil might help. :-)
Career highlights and awards
As player:
2× NBA champion (1970, 1973)
NBA All-Rookie First Team (1968)
2× First-team Division II All-American (1966–1967)
As head coach:
11× NBA champion (1991–1993, 1996–1998, 2000–2002, 2009–2010)
4× NBA All-Star Game head coach (1992, 1996, 2000, 2009)
NBA Coach of the Year (1996)
Top 10 Coaches in NBA History
HOWLING!
Doesn't Phil even get a chance to build a team?
Does he have to ring out every season?
HOWLING!
6-3 and 193.
Seriously.
I do. :-)
Every year there is another Kyrie Irving, maybe every second year.
Lebron comes along once every 20-30 years.
Wigs comes along once every 10-20 years, maybe even once every 30 years, since he just coasted for the year at KU, and then exploded on the NBA as a kid, still.
Seriously, do you watch the NBA?
With all due respect, it doesn't seem like it.
Terrific angle on Mudiay. Thanks for raising it.
My hunch is that Nike, after apparently flexing its muscles big time the last two seasons, and adidas, after apparently being flanked and having to retreat a bit, and Under Armour, making just a little advance in the midst of the big bulls locking horns, are settling into a bit of an equilibrium strategy finally.
Equilibrium strategies enable some inertia in systems and inertia and equilibrium mean expectations can come closer to outcomes and so thinking ossifies a bit and routine replaces the unexpected. And everyone, even the losers, like adidas, apparently, like the reduced stress of some equilibrium and inertia, after a few years of stressful destabilization. It at least buys them some time to figure out what to try next. Peace, as the saying goes, is just the sound of reloading for more war. But reloading is better than no peace at all.
Into this emerging, tenuous equilibrium, Mudiay becomes not so much a part of the the general destabilization, but an outlier in the emerging stability. So: Mudiay goes overseas, grabs a chunk of green and re-enters with just a bit of FU money as "his people" begin negotiations.
Nike and adidas are trying to let the dust settle between them and may not wish to rock the boat again with each other over making plays for Mudiay.
Under Armour, on the other hand, may be feeling a little bucks up and may be a face saving alternative in the producer oligopoly regime for Mudiay to attach to. Mudiay going with Under Armour, who can afford him because of the little hay that they have made recently, while Nike and adidas have been duking it out and bleeding each other, makes some sense. Think of Under Armour as Chrysler to GM and Ford in the little subset of the auto producer oligopoly (note: the car producer regime is now more complicated with Toyota-Subaru, MB, Renault-Nissan, and so on). The function of Chrysler has long been to take up market oxygen on the flank of the majors, so they don't have to worry about an Indian, or a Chinese, or a Russian, firm coming in; i.e., someone genuinely outside the oligopoly and uninterested in perpetuating it. The job of Chrysler, then Chrysler-Daimler, then Chrysler Fiat, has been to be a good glue player in the producer oligopoly. Take up share at the margin. And cooperate with Ford and GM to soak up production capacity of certain suppliers that all three share. There are dominants and submissives in the car producer oligopoly. Its the 50 Shades of Oligopoly. Same with the petroshoeco producer oligopoly. Under Armour gets Mudiay as a chit for helping stabilize the market flanks of Nike and adidas, at least here in North America. 50 Shades of Petro Apparel.
The Jam Tray HAS all the physical tools to become an exceptional D1 basketball player.
The questions around him revolve entirely around skills and anticipation.
Can he learn a money shot?
Can he learn to anticipate a rebound?
Half way through the season, before he joined the walking wounded of Merrill's Marauders, he played exceptionally well for about four games.
All we had to find out for this coming season is could he get his pop back from whatever injuries befell him last season.
The guy long ago proved he can explode out of position on defense and make big plays. He also showed he could guard the post without fouling,when healthy last season.
During that brief stretch of good play, the JamTray also proved he could put it on the deck and he showed a hint of a jump shot. Alas all that progress disappeared as he learned to play the walking wounded game of one leg, no jumping, and no exploding out of position. It was pitiful to watch, but he did keep contributing in small ways even with one dead leg.
If the Jam Tray were to become accomplished at the drive down the lane, and master a jumper from 17, and even a trey from outside, then he could pretty much do what Marcus Morris and Thomas Robinson did from the 4. Neither Marcus, nor TRob could do all those things from the beginning either.
But the thing that has really held Jam Tray back from emulating their success, aside from being shorter, is that he has just never evidenced any sixth sense for rebounding; that knack of anticipating where the ball will come off, so that he can get to it first.
My pessimism about Traylor as a project has always centered on this shortcoming. I have never seen anyone develop that knack in five full decades of watching the game EVER. You are either born with it, or not, has been my experience.
But there is always a first time.
Nothing is written.
Ralph Miller swore that he could take anyone 6-8 out on the street that had never played ball before and in 4 years teach him enough fundamentals for him to be a useful back up big man.
The Jam Tray is only 6-6, or 6-7, so he might be a hair short for Miller's heuristic.
But if the Jam Tray can stay healthy, and if no young co-ed breaks his heart this season, and if he were a driven human being, well, he lives in an age of phenomenally increased cognitive knowledge and capacity for teaching than what existed most of the decades I have watched basketball and so he might be able now to be taught the knack of rebounding, too!
We can hope.
For if he learns the rebounding thing, the lane drive and the 17 jumper is within his grasp...
And that makes him a viable stretch 4, or stretch 5, even if a very short one of either.
And that means this team could field with Ellis and Traylor a pair o stretch bigs; that would be most unusual and hard to guard.
In all fairness, everyone agreed he was the greatest athletic freak to come along in basketball since Lebron.
OMG!
Not a dumb trade?
Red Auerbach's cigar just came flying out of his mouth from busting a gut laughing.
Wilt and Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman are literally doubled over roaring.
I bet Bill Russell is STILL horse laughing right here on earth.
And Oscar Robertson? OMG! Oscar is doing one of the glares he does when talking about how unflipping believably low basketball has sunk both at the playing and management levels.
This trade was BAAAAAAD.
This trade was Leonard Pinth-Garnell BAAAAAD!
This trade was so dumb that Jim Carrey is probably going to make another sequel to Dumb and Dumber in which he and Jeff Daniels play the Cav's owner and GM.
How dumb was it?
Ed McMahon is shouting "HEYOOOOOOOOOH" in heaven.
This trade was sooooooo dumb that Dave Letterman will come back and Lebron will bring the Cav's owner and GM on to do a stupid pet trick of reenacting the trading of Wiggins!!!!
Of course, Wigs and LBJ would have played together this season just as Jordan and Pippen did, so it is not only apples and apples, but honey crisps and honey crisps.
What the idiot Cavs should've done was trade Irving for a solid journeyman footer to go with their heavy footed Luc Longley back up and another journeyman point guard tough on defense, which they could have easily netted with Irving.
Irving is a fine player, but he can't hold Lebron's jock, nor Wigs' jock, as an all time great.
Irving is just one of many, many good back court players in the NBA.
Lebron is a once in a 2-3 decade player. Wigs probably will be, too.
The Bulls all ready proved the model.
Seriously, you don't want to defend this trade even for a second.
Trust me.
Phil Jackson was laughing his butt off at Cav management the minute he heard about the trade. Phil probably said something like, "Whew, now I don't have to worry about that new Cav coach getting on a run and breaking catching my total ring number."
I mean, seriously, Red Auerbach is probably sitting with god in heaven and howling at the top of his lungs.
DUMBEST.
TRADE.
EVER.
BY.
AN.
ORDER.
OF.
MAGNITUDE.
:-)
I really hope you are proven right on that formula.
But I don't see it yet.
Diallo: I doubt Diallo can be as productive per minute offensively as The Big Red Dog and I doubt he will play more minutes than the Big Red Dog did, since he is sharing the 5 with Lucas and Traylor, and he hasn't got a money shot. Also, remember that Diallo never shut down an OAD footer like Okafor in high school the way Alexander did. It is increasingly logical to guess that Alexander would have played a lot more last season based on his per minute numbers, if he hadn't had the loan hanging over his head the whole season. I will go to my death bed suspecting that Self and KU had plausible deniability about the loan and budgeted playing time all season, according to the risk factor related to him eventually getting into the pickle he did. So: for all of the above factors, I can't imagine Diallo will be better than Alexander--just maybe that he will play more minutes and net proportionally more.
Bragg is caught behind Ellis, unless Self will unstick and move Ellis to 3, where he should've been the previous 3 seasons, as I have said to mostly deaf ears. But there is no indication that that is even being considered. Self apparently believes the stretch 4 is the hardest to defend weapon in D1 basketball. He apparently believes Thomas Robinson was barely a Stretch 4 and took Self to the Finals without any Mickey Ds. Self apparently has Stretch 4 Addiction and since he is a smart cookie, Self may well be justified in indulging the addiction...but it does seem an addiction. He apparently saw Perry average 20 ppg for a few weeks before the injury last season, and the rush of that speed ball apparently made him feel The Designer is the uncut junk that he has been wanting to free base with since TRob left. So: Bragg is a back up and looking at 10-15 ppg unless Lucas/Traylor/Diallo form a catastrophic committee failure. Then Self might move Ellis to a Stretch 5; i.e., Self might follow Bo Ryan's lead last season with Frank Kaminsky and see if a more athletic Stretch 5 Lite could work, while Bragg gets to be a skinny, green stretch 4 that steps waaaaaaay out to avoid the blue meanies, so that Perry can just create all season with an open middle. Please don't tell @HighEliteMajor I hinted at this, because he will immediately see right through what I am anticipating and despair at what will amount to an intensification of BAD BALL (call it XTReme BAD BALL) and HEM might leave his beautiful wife a widow). Regardless, the strong likelihood Ellis stays at 4, and Bragg picks up spare minutes here and there and by the end of the season in a best case scenario is picking up 10 from Perry and 10 from the committee at the 5 with someone faltering from injury, or just lack of talent.
Vick? I know every one is on Lysergic Acid DiVicklamide right now, but really, this promising young man reclassified from junior to senior in high school to even get here. I see why everyone is jazzed about him being very good down stream, and maybe that future draft choice (2 years in the future) that Self hinted at hoping to sign before we knew Vick was that guy, could fill a gap the size of Devonte Graham's last season, but the probability seems pretty slim. At least Devonte was a real freshman, not a high school senior reclassed a freshman. Right now LaGeraldo has the body of a senior in high school at best and a fine touch. That means that even if Hudy can increase his bounce per ounce and Self can raise his coefficient of hardness by January, the neural nets upstairs are comparable to those of EJ and Travis their senior years of high school; i.e., gulp, that's lots of connections not yet grown together--maybe 2-3 years from being grown together.
So that's the left side of the greater than inequality and its not seeming greater than to me.
Cliff I have already alluded to, so let's let that variable go gently into that good night.
IMHO, Oubre is a SERIOUS challenge to replace.
Oubre was an athletic freak at the 3. 6-7 3s that can run, jump, shoot, rebound, and guard well with 7 foot wing spans as freshmen and be drafted in the lottery are kind of an every game MUA at the 3 by definition. Only Svi could even approach that and only IF everything went perfectly for him. I don't think board rats have ever adequately appreciated Oubre. Oubre wasn't as good as Wigs, but that is hardly a knock on Kelly. No one recently except Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has been better than Wigs was Wig's one season of coasting 2/3s speed 75% of the time. Wigs was XTReme Right Tail athletic freakdom. Kelly? Well, Kelly was near XTReme Right Tail athletic freakdom, but no one really gave him the credit for it, because his APPARENT (at least as I hypothesize it) knee injury was apparently never admitted to for purposes of draft wellness, if you know what I mean. Oubre came in and got hurt and that's why he sat out early, according to my hypothesis. It apparently had nothing to do with the bogus light not going on initially, or him being a selfish high schooler. Hypothesis: that was all the legend created to cover the early knee injury. Once the knee injury seemed to heal some, Oubre came roaring out of the starting gate. But hypothetically speaking, no one wanted to admit the injury, because it was going to raise doubts down stream in the draft. Then he apparently re-tweaked the hypothesized injury, and he began to struggle. But even Kelly struggling (and as a freshman no less) was crucial to giving Frank and Perry room to work. Kelly appeared to be who teams were really afraid of and geared to stop much of the season. And Self used him for a decoy as long as he could down the stretch, until the big gauze ball on Oubre's knee just kept growing from a knee wrap, to a pad, to a quilt, to a ball of cotton candy over the course of the second half of the season, and every opposing team knew all you had to do was kick him in the knee a few times and he had to begin favoring it and protecting it from further damage. But even after the rather dismal ending to Kelly's season, there was apparently no incentive to admitting to, or talking about the injury, because the draft still loomed. It will be very interesting to see where Kelly winds up being drafted. On a talent basis, he is off the charts, just not as far off the charts as Wigs. But that knee...hmmm. It will depend on how he worked out on it, I suppose. The NBA likes to draft ceilings, not foundations. He's got a nice foundation. And he's got a cathedral ceiling. But the knee...it will be interesting to see what the GMs decide.
So: when I weight the variables on your formula, which is a fine formulation of the critical essence of last year versus this, except for your leaving Svi out, I have to reverse the direction of the greater than sign to less than.
But damn, given all our experience and moxie at other positions, wouldn't it be sweet if your direction of the inequality proves the correct one!!!!!
Rock Chalk!
Dumbest trade EVER !!!
As if the Bulls got rid of Pippen to replace Luc Longley with a better scorer, because Pippen played the wing opposite Jordan.
Stupidest logic ever.
Ownership ought to fire itself.
Hypothesis: the only reason for the trade was LBJ was Nike and Wigs was Adidas.
What you say makes XTReme Sense, but after a little experimentation, the inside 3 off the Bo Ryan/Bad Ball Drive will finally rule the last two months of the season.
And down the stretch, pass it 20 and drive it with ten to go will rule the day in half court.
The only difference will be a slight increase in transition attempts.
30 second Shot clock or 35, the lower the possessions the more each inside 3 is worth and the more imperative it is to get the opponent fouled up for the stretch run.
Until they reward more points per basket for shooting sooner, the logic of Iba slow down never dies; that is why Phog hated Iba Ball so much and wanted it outlawed.
The other way to kill Iba Ball would be to make the trey ball worth 4 or 5; that would both out weigh the short 3 and the incentive of playing to foul up the other team.
Iba Ball is like crab grass otherwise.
No amount of round up can kill it all.
So hope u r right.
And beating the Canadians was a great accomplishment!!!
Svi at 3 and Diallo/Lucas/Traylor at 5 are the links that will make or break this chain of Jayhawks come October 15.
Though I have been lowering expectations for our team to board rats, I am very excited about the upcoming season. Last season these returning players put on one of the guttiest performances of any KU TEAM ever. They marched on Mytkyina and though they fell short vs. WSU, it was the kind of loss that will make them very hungry and even tougher this season. Frank Mason is a terrific PG. Perry is ready to become a dominant stretch 4, not just a good one. Selden was sufficiently humiliated last year that he will return as a hard man. Svi can be extraordinary, but is still very young. I am expecting a nonlinear leap from Lucas. He was coming on end of last season. Being bigger and stronger will take him to the tipping point that will allow Self to run some offense through Landen.
But it is still unclear if anyone can replace the perimeter defense and swagger of Oubre; this will be crucial.
I do not expect either Greene, because of injury, or Bragg and Vick because of youth, to be factors.
Where Traylor plays will tell a lot about the abilities and reliabilities of others. Traylor could even wind up at 3, which has always been his natural position, but for his lack of a stroke. It really depends on Svi and what position Self wants Perry to dominate from. Self loves the Stretch 4, so if Svi can be a force at 3, then Ellis at 4 and Traylor down the chart at 4/5. But Svi is so young he might blow up again. Then Ellis might swing 3/4 and so might Traylor behind him to keep Diallo and Bragg from having to play any 3.
Let me think.
Hmmmm.
Yes, I, I, I have seen the Badgers play now that you mention it. I saw them when I went to grad school there and I try to catch them a few times each season to keep up..
(jaybate 1.0 tees it up for @Texashawk 10.)
Why do you ask? Does this have more to do with epistemic shaving?
Gotta be Bill Self!
Methane is the renewable future of energy, baby!
PHOF!!!
You know, a woman's wealth has never been crucial to me. I have been strongly attracted to and happily involved with women from many socio-economic levels. The only common thread I can find in the women I have been most attracted to is that they all either had a lot of money invested in their cultural development, or they invested in developing themselves that way. Either investment creates appealing results to me. Women that have strongly attracted me have all had beauty, intelligence, humor and a healthy sex drive. I am very pro women's rights and women's freedom to choose way of life and receive equal pay; that independence only makes women more appealing to me romantically, and appeals to my moral-ethical agenda of ALL persons getting a fair shake. At the same time, the women I find least appealing are those that, like men, become one dimensional in their development as human beings. For example, though I agree down the line with most feminists about their agenda for women (up to the point that feminism begins to seek subjugation of men as zero sum revenge for past subjugation of women), I confess to finding many feminists in my lifetime incredibly boring and unattractive despite being in strong agreement with their philosophies. Why? I have asked myself this many times. The answer is surprisingly simple. Women that become ideological about feminism become as boring as any persons that become ideological about politics, or religion, or race progress, or business, or art. They begin to develop in only one way and so surrender much of their human appeal to me. A woman (or man) that is incapable of embracing the XTReme opposites of fierce independence along with intimate dependence and vulnerability, both in themselves and in their mate, in romantic and friendly relationships just isn't very appealing to me, just isn't funny to me, just isn't fun to me, just isn't desirable to me, just isn't precious to me, just isn't someone I can get close to, while simultaneously enduring the frictions that come with being close. The reason money is not crucial to me in a woman is that I have seen money come and go and come and go and come--both mine and women's. If another person's money were crucial, or one's own for that matter, then one really could not hope to build anything lasting with another person, because money, so long as our economy is rigged, and manipulated by the few great fortunes that own our private central bank system, and constantly expand and contract the economy and so one's wealth by design to continually increase and then concentrate the top down control of the economy, then one is never going to be sure to have as much money as one needs at any given time, nor can one's mate. The need for money is inelastic and the experience of its security relative. No matter how much one has, one needs to maintain that amount, and typically, grow it, to stay feeling as secure and rich as one wishes. I can assure you that the Kennedys and Bushes simultaneously feel incredibly fortunate and well off, and then not sufficiently so; that is why they and other wealthy families return to the hog trough of Washington, D.C., periodically. The world of wealth is very competitive. Whenever a Sheik, or a dictator, or an entrepreneur, or what have you, becomes able to live more opulently and become more influential in the socioeconomic and political systems than an already wealthy family, that already wealth family has either to go into denial, or to, rather like vampires, awaken from their prosperous slumbers, and return to the frey in whatever field they know how to extract wealth from, and suck more blood from us all, not because they hate us ordinary folks (they don't really think much about us at all, unless we create a stink that threatens to disrupt their easy routines and rank on the pecking order), but because they have to keep up with the Jones at what ever level they view themselves to be living at. Since I view the world through this lense (and I realize it is not the only one but it works for me), I would be quite foolish to base my love and happiness with a woman on how much money she, or I, or we, had at any given time. So: a woman's appeal depends on beauty (which is largely in the eye of the beholder and by conscious choice NOT a standard contrived for me by mass media), intelligence, courage, humor, and trust. Nothing is more erotic than a woman you can trust that has beauty, intelligence, courage and humor. With that woman, I can find a way to get what we need. But I am a simple man that had variety in women, before I was married, and when I was young. So: I do not have the wondering eye and restlessness that afflicts many men. And I have found a woman with all of the qualities I mention, and so I am happy and content to focus on living well with her, rather than trying to live well with others on the side. I am no saint. I find women high maintenance. And I find men high maintenance, too. I opt for quality over quantity in human relationships. I could be quite happy living as a crew man on a merchant ship, or a yacht, bunking nights in a very small room, endlessly circumnavigating the world. But I meant a great woman that likes terra firma and so I live ashore and travel when we can. Life has been eternally surprising to me and though I have faced my share of drudgery, I have never found a woman part of that drudgery, though their emotional maintenance and indulgence are at times an unwanted distraction. Still, women, as well as male friends, keep it interesting, whenever they are being women and men, and not ideologues. I don't fault women for becoming ideologues about their legacy of subjugation at times, just like I don't fault African Americans for becoming ideologues about their legacy of slavery, and their current asymmetric share of poverty and incarceration in our society. Both are horrific legacies and presents. But the founders of our country were ideologues about representative government in order to carve out their place in the sun, also. Not surprisingly, I admire men as different as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton a considerable amount, because they found themselves to be able to both grind their ideologies AND be men fully alive and thoroughly diversified and developed in their tastes, interests, and lust for life. I think women and African Americans can learn quite a lot from those three about how (and how not) to both pursue their ends, and live a full life that includes the joy of the opposite gender, and the other race. Life is better and progress comes faster IMHO, when joie d'vivre coincides with pursuit of progress. Otherwise, life becomes such unrelieved drudgery that one cannot sustain the effort required to outflank the bastards in this world that need to be outflanked for the good of us all. Finally, regarding roundness, it would not attract me, but it would not prevent me, if she were the other things I have noted. Hope that answers your question.
Rock Chalk!
FWIW, I am convinced that the key to weight management is managing food and drink consumption subject to one's level of "insulin resistance." I now believe many, if not most, obese people are battling an undiagnosed case of "insulin resistance." But I am a layman. This is just based on my reading over the years. I am tired of fat persons being blamed for their weight problem. I have known three morbidly obese persons over the years and only one of them was out of control in their eating habits. The other two were constant dieters and ate not much more than me. Keegs needs to give up the stogies to save his lungs for sure. But he needs to study up on insulin resistance to address his weight problems and keep from killing himself early.
(bate steps down from soap box and has an Oreo.)
Henry Kissenger made it plain that women, if given the choice between men with wealth and power and men with great physiques, were much more attracted to and sexually aroused by wealth and power, at least in his experience.
Since Henry was no Chippendale candidate, rather homely in fact, but had a lot of power and a lot of money, and since he had a steady stream of beautiful, desirable women on his arm, I had to take him somewhat seriously,
Bill makes $5 million a season and lives in a humongous house and has life time financial security. Does the gut make him so unattractive that women wouldn't want to be seen with him if he were single?
...does it mean Nike has some kind of claim on USA jerseys?
I hear that when Keegs interviews Snacks, they have to do it in IMAX.
HOWLING!
Ah, my dear conjunctively colored and repeatingly digited lady, so kind of you to "weigh" in on Bill's specific gravity and massing in your inimitable style.
You see, I too agree and concur that neither Bill of Okham, nor Bill of Okmulgee, were what one might reasonably ascribe the word "thin" either to, or about. Focusing on Bill of Okmulgee, I would hazard a guess that he is thick of brow, broad of shoulder, and during the most trying stages of the season, rather well ballasted from sprees of junk food eaten on the run during recruiting junkets, when not consuming vein clogging chicken dinners at alumni gatherings and bad nouvelle cuisine at golf clubs for fund raisers for those afflicted with carcinogens, if you will. But, on the whole, Bill of Okmulgee would also not be characterized as being thick either, now would he. He has those oh so very feminine hands, you know. And he does have below the knees what some might call pipe cleaner gauge calves. And well, how could we call his remaining unplugged regions of his scalp anything but thin, eh? So, whilst you are most adamantly correct in your assessment in Bill of Okmulgee not being "thin," he is also not uniformly "thick," now is he? Should you require further assistance in reflecting upon Bill of Okmulgee's gauge, i should recommend you to my irreplaceable servant, Jeeves, who would no doubt be able to resolve any remaining ambivalence you may feel about the issue.
I may have misunderstood the point of this thread and your posts, as I am often predisposed to do, despite my best efforts to the contrary, sir.
I thought the premise of the thread in general was that young Master Aaron Miles was supposed to be a better point guard coach than Assistant Head Coach Jerrance "Snacks" Howard, because he was a point guard.
So: I pointed out that Jerrance had been either a PG or a combo himself; i.e., he had the same basic playing back ground as Aaron. I thought that rather conclusively invalidated the logic of that argument.
Thus stunted, the shifted the thread discussion shifted to asserting that there had been poor point guard play and that it coincided with Howard's tenure. It occurred to me that there was a long list of more probable and plausible reasons for poor point guard play than Howard being an incompetent bungler. I listed them. Boom. The logic of that argument seemed refuted repeatedly. I did not even mention that Self did not have a history of hiring incompetent bunglers. Perhaps I should have.
In any case, my response was found wanting.
Next, the objection was that I had given too many what-if's. I was charged with violating Bill of Okham's single-edged, non-safety razor heuristic. I was in no uncertain terms told that it was more simple to blame Howard by correlation (guilt by association really), rather than enumerate a list of drivers embedded within a vastly more plausible operational scenario than the alarmingly counter-intuitive "Self is so flawed that he not only hired an incompetent bungler in Howard, but insisted on keeping him on despite his poor PG coaching" scenario.
Having both shaved cleanly, and cut myself occasionally, with the stropped razor of Okham a time or two in my life, I thought I ought at least re-examine the edge and the whiskered surface to which it had been applied this time. Had I hit a major artery of illogic in my neck and missed the gushing blood of fallacy? I looked closely in the mirror of my argument. I leaned so close I could note the very pores of the argument. No, I concluded, there was not even a hint illogical blood, not a scratch, not even any razor rash. It occurred to me that Okham's Razor, correctly stropped, or not, was never intended as a rationale for reduction to absurdity, or reduction to oversimplification, or reduction to simple correlation without further quantification into empirically based probability. As I rubbed the cleanly shaved skin of my argument, by then as smooth as a newborn's bottom, it occurred to me that Oakham's Razor was never intended to make an argument that, because my car is often parked in my garage, somehow my car caused my garage to stand up the way it did due to the simplicity of its presence within, and coincident with, the garage around it. No doubt such an argument was much simpler than the physics involved in the hidden wood frame that more probably held up the garage, but even old Okham would not try to attack me with his shaving instrument and try to slit my throat for saying that the structure of the garage was more responsible for holding up the garage, than was the car inside. No, it occurred to me, Okham's Razor was supposed to bias me toward choice of the least complicated explanation among several proposed mechanisms (systems, drivers, logics, etc.) that rationally explained a phenomenon, so that I would not fool myself with unnecessary complexity. This, I concluded, was something that even Jeeves, my quite frankly infallible butler, would likewise agree upon without so much as a reconnoitering.
But then I was informed that, well, really, the issue had nothing at all to do with Jerrance having been a point guard, or with my supposedly egregious misuse of Okham's Razor, but rather had to do with a laundry list of other things including, but perhaps not limited to: Naadir "Selfie" Tharpe "regressing; and with an allegedly "worst 2-year stretch in 25 years of guard play the last two years" (though I was not presented with the calculus of arriving of this breathtakingly broad generalization); and with having only landed 1 recruit in 2 years; and with a misdemeanor drug conviction; and with unconcealed forecasting that Brennen Bechard, whom to my knowledge never started a game in Division 1 at PG, would a possible replacement for Howard because of Assistant Head Coach Howard being sent to the WUG instead of Becherd (note: I am not yet entirely clear how a future possibility of Becherd replacing Howard might be simultaneously viewed as a reason for Howard being replaced, rather than as a result of it, but far be it from me to quibble over such minutia).
And it was at this very moment--not a moment sooner, nor a speck of a second later, that I, Bertie Woosterbate 1.0, became aware of the remote, but also near, possibility that very possibly reasons were being constructed and flailed about for dismissing Assistant Head Coach Jerrance Howard in order that someone should take the blame for the trials and tribulations experienced afflicting Kansas basketball in general and the frustrations of certain fans in particular, AND that any attempts at exposing the fallacies of the reasons given might meet with further, and increasingly facile reasons being advanced for the dismissal, or replacement, or demotion of Master Howard, so as to make of him a suitable, if rather extremely rotund scapegoat. Further, it occurred to me that if one were to continue to expose the fallacies in the premises constructed for his justification of his dismissal, however gently done and well meaning in purpose, one might eventually be confronted with the allegation that Assistant Head Coach Howard was, rather like a KU football coach once upon a time, found simply too bloody fat to coach at KU.
Jeeves! Do come at once. I am caught up in a trying situation quite beyond me, as usual, and I am in need of your inestimable assistance...Jeeves? JEEVES!!!
:-)
@ jaybate 1.0 and @Texas-Hawk-10 flatly oppose conspiracy theory.
@jaybate 1.0 and @Texas-Hawk-10 advocate petro shoeco oligopoly.
@Texas-Hawk-10 and @jaybate 1.0 agree.
THAT WAS EASY!
Howling!
Agreed Aaron would be a good add. Don't see why he would do a better job than Howard, though
You may reduce the above list to any single one and make the case. There is really no evidence Howard is doing a bad job coaching the PGs, nor is there any evidence to suggest the Miles, who has never coached professionally would do a better job coaching PGs than Howard, who has coached professionally for quite some time.
What if Bill Self told Jerrance last season, we are going to start playing drive ball like Bo Ryan at UW? What if Self said we are going to sacrifice dishing for driving the rim to get short threes, as it appeared was going on? What if Jerrance coached Frank and Devonte to play exactly the way Self told him to coach them? What if coaches that started and played some point and some combo for Self at Illinois really are smart enough to coach point guards to play different ways? What if Jerrance Howard is exactly this sort of person? What if Self were to tell Jerrance that we are moving beyond drive ball to BAD BALL, Jerrance. Coach the point guards to either drive it all the way to iron for the short three, or pass it to someone else in position to drive it to iron for the short three, and forget feeding the three point shooters? What if Jerrance did exactly that?
Fascinating, eh?
P.S.: an intermittent lack of ball movement has been a consistent complaint not only of fans, but of Coach Self, since he arrived at KU. The high low aka the Carolina passing offense is renowned for this problem. Players come to college having played set offenses with lots of action, or alternatively lots of clear outs, in high school. They often don't get the concept of keeping the ball from sticking. And there is a tendency in even experienced players to get frustrated with the failure of ball movement to get the defense over shifted, so that the first reversal does not create an impact space sufficient either for a drive, or an open look trey. The frustration leads to holding the ball and looking too long for the feed inside, or the drive. This is sticking. The third side is a hard habit to get into, especially when various defenses are designed to anticipate the ball movement of the high low.
Let me address your response as follows.
"You are presenting your opinions as facts when they are really not."
I, jaybate 1.0, hereby openly and without the least bit of reservation do solemnly assert that everything I posted was opining.
It follows then that your assertion is an unintentionally errant characterization of my post, AND at the same time an apparently straw argument without merit.
Further, any and all parts of your response premised on the above assertion are patently fallacious and require no further comment.
P.S.: IMHO, Self should have seen this coming. I did. And I don't get paid the big bucks to see such things coming. It did not take a rocket scientist a year ago to see that KU would not likely have the returning talent needed to be a serious threat to win the WUG, or perhaps even make a good showing, when whomever accepted this mission for KU, made the judgment. And as the year unfolded, and the rising tide of recruiting asymmetry became more and more apparent, it was clear even mid to late last season that a substantial infusion of talent was going to be needed to be a serious threat to win the WUG, or a considerable infusion of talent of the kind found at elite programs was going to be needed to make even a good showing, yet such talent at the 5 and 3 was not added. And a reasonable person could have foreseen that adding such talent would be improbable, because such talent is these days apparently injury risk averse even in the regular season, and would have very little reason take such risks in an off season competition. Further, much of that talent is Nike leaning and so without positing any explanations of why, the recent tendency of expectation should have been that elite programs in the Nike system was probably NOT going to supply such talent, and as the recruiting season wound down it became increasingly apparent that the adidas system would not, or could not, either. And there appears to have been no reasonable assumption made starting a year ago that at least one of our rotation players would become sufficiently injured, as has happened early most every season in recent years, and that a player at least as good, and hopefully better than our rotation players would need to be added in order to make even a good showing in the WUG. No such contingency player was apparently lined up for such a contingency. Bottom line, a reasonable person, especially one with the insider knowledge that Self possesses about recruiting, and relations with other elite programs, a year ago, would apparently have foreseen this situation emerging, and as the ensuing year unfolded, would apparently likely have foreseen the situation looming as increasingly problematic and acute. I am thus left with the impression that Self perhaps just wanted the extra month of practice and never took the campaign all that seriously, either initially, or as the year unfolded. To view it in the most positive light, he was getting an extra month of practice and giving his team a cultural field trip of sorts. Nothing terribly wrong with this, but, again, why bring any non-KU players at all on a field trip? Alternatively, if you want to play to win, then follow a reasonable approach, or get out of the way for some team that wants to play to win and has the means to do so. Just my opinion.
Real bad decision to put Kansas on the jersey
Jerrance was either a PG, or a combo, right?
Inference: Jerrance would not be let go for lack of point guard coach chops.
UNLESS Self can pull a Herb Brooks and win the WUG with a bunch of lesser players, the decision to participate in WUG seems increasingly foolish.
KU and Self have been exposed as almost completely isolated in American college basketball. KU has been forced to represent America with Florida Atlantic and SMU players, apparently because neither top Nike, nor top Adidas programs will help out.
It is a disgrace.
And making SMU and FAU players wear Kansas Jersies is an insult to both their schools and ours. If this were KU against the world, then play only KU players and win or lose as KU. Otherwise, put USA on the Jersies.
There would be some honor in representing USA with a skeleton crew of outmanned players. It would at least expose the disloyalty and cowardice of other programs too selfish to commit to the USA cause.
But playing in Kansas Jersies with two injury replacement players from lesser programs just makes KU look pathetically isolated.
Someone did not think this through.
And in 21st Century international sport, when you don't think it through, you get used, abused and beaten badly.
I fear for this roster of fine young men that just want to play some basketball and represent their country. They appear caught up in something much bigger, and ill-conceived than they, or many of us, at the beginning grasped.
And since Self was apparently at the helm of this decision, it's on him.
Good luck, coach.
With no credible center, several of your best players out, injuries taking others, and a cold shoulder from other top American players and programs, you're going to need it.
Welcome to The Innocents Abroad 2.0.
And they're wearing Kansas on their Jersies.
Rule 1 of Local Media Management: Always feed local media a "designed scoop" to reward its fealty and willingness to partipate in managing sensitive transitions.
Gee, I wonder if someone is about to leave the staff?
Maybe two?
Someone might be leaving for Dooley's staff?
And maybe SMU's, too?
Oh my gosh, who could those two be?
Not a ruse. It all appears to depend on how badly Nike and Adidas want him.
It couldn't hurt to have the great one on our bench!
Who has posited a conspiracy theory? Not me. I am totally against positing even conspiracy hypotheses about this dynamic. Why? Because no recent evidence that any conspiracy exists, much less an illegal one. It all appears above board and tolerated.
This is about apparently legal and Reputedly NCAA TOLERATED shoe lean economics, marketing and politics. I hypothesize it is all legal and above board now. Pitino's remarks confirm the dynamic back to last season. Jaylen Brown's reported remarks support expressed shoe lean preference in players exists and can be turned after admitting such preference publicly. Wetzel and Yaeger's "Sole Influence" confirm wide spread shoe influence in recruiting back to 2000. And Sperber's "College Sports Inc." evidences the roots of the dynamic back to 1980s.
Those using the old smear term conspiracy theory are the only ones talking about conspiracy theories. 😀
PetroShoeCo influence: It's DYNAMIC, baby!!!
You do such good work on this stuff! Thanks.
I wonder if you might instantly distinguish your self nationally by adding some probability related to brand lean of these recruits.
If you tell us a player's shoe lean, then you could factor in historical averages for staying with brand versus switching. For example...
9 of 10 OADs that are Nike leans go to .a Nike program.
6-7 of 10 Adidas leans go to an Adidas program.
Adidas leans appear to have greater late switch-over to Nike than Nike has late switch over to Adidas.
Further, the Nike lean bigs appear much more likely to stay with Nike and join a Nike stack than the Nike lean backcourt players.
Or most Adidas lean bigs and smalls appear very vulnerable to being turned.
Or what have you.
Historical brand switching percentages by back court and front court player category should be pretty easy to tally in a spread sheet and build up a really reliable weighting, or probability of brand switch factor.
The result would include all your current analysis chased with "and based on historical averages there is x percent probability a Nike lean big will sign with an Adidas program like KU in an early period and an x percent chance in a late period."
You, or someone, could just track the percentages for the top 100 players each of the last two or three seaons to calculate the percentages by front and backcourt category. It would probably be less work than what you put in now on all the terrific research you do and you might instantly build national credibility for your hard work you do.
Rock Chalk!!!!!
The trouble with those names is that All Bigs are now on "the embargo" list, even those that seem Adidas leans. Self has to go for Maker precisely because Maker, like Diallo, appears willing (for whatever reason) to buck "the embargo."
Self apparently heard Cal say he was going after players younger and younger. And when career .560 coaches, like Cuonzo and Johnny Jones are getting stacks including Adidas leans, self probably figures the Adidas pipeline is broken. Hence, Self apparently figures his best odds are with guys bucking the stacks for whatever reason.
The late players are increasingly the only ones he has a prayer at. No amount of long term recruiting can resist the stacking process, so everything has become about preying on ruptured stack relationships, rather than building long term relationships the stacks can prey upon.
Hypothesis: Self expected to sign another eligible player, but missed. In the current destabilization campaign being waged against certain schools, he has wisely declined to enroll any of his older players in nominal classes just to make them eligible, which might later be used, like UNC's easy class system, or UT's nascent allegations of improprieties, to justify broad fishing expedions into KU's program.
REMEMBER: so far, there seems to be no statute of limitations constraining those appearing to engage in program destabilization. UNC's improprieties were reputedly rectified 4-5 years before the allegations were made.
REMEMBER ALSO: without a statute of limitations constraint, KU might be vulnerable back to the Roy tenure.
REMEMBER ALSO: what if the recent Cliff Alexander situation and this apparent short leashing of Snacks were sensitive to a fishing expedition set off by bending rules with class taking without degree pursuit?
Coach Self is apparently playing this close to the vest. Maybe he decided from the moment Adidas lean Jaylen Brown JUMP-shifted for Nike-UC and KU wasn't even going to get a short stack of OADs that the WUG mission had drifted. It became entirely focused on extra practice for regular season.
All of the above Seems feasible and his prudence seems fitting in the current climate.
Rock Chalk!!!
Just terrible about DG
Against coaches slow to move to switching defenses, the game will look almost unchanged. But as the pioneering coaches switch first once, then twice each possession and add 3/4,court zone presses, THEN the game will look very different.--virtually indistinguishable from pro ball.
That's why u post lBJ, to get the green matchup, then LBJ STEPS OUT and runs Green ragged till the go small, then post LBJ immediately. Back and forth always with the MUA And least effort for LBJ. This is strategy my highschool coach would have gone to immediately; sad a pro coach missed it, especially when he was determined to play through LBJ.
Devonte will be very important, but I am hoping it will be backing up the 1 and 2 again.
Beautiful post full of the joy of the game!
The Cav coach should have posted Lebron up the entire series.
There was no way the Cavs could match GS in a three point contest.
You never play it the way the other guys wants, when you can't do it as well. Even Self shifts gears, when he can't match up.
The Cav coach should have put Lebron on the low block and just let him shoot 2s and free throws for the series. It would have saved Lebron's energy. It was stupid having him driving AND taking treys. A losing strategy by definition.
A healthy Cavs team probably would have won the series handily though.
But they weren't healthy.
So they had to adapt and they didn't.
Live and learn.