Posts Tagged ‘nba’

End of the Year Thoughts Under the Fedora: I’m Old Enough to Remember… Election Shenanigans, What If’s, Days gone by, I SWAT you SWAT they SWAT and two Ghosts of Basketball past

Posted: December 30, 2023 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, Blame Trump, election 2020, election 2024, elections, nba, politics, Sports, Uncomfortable Truths
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I’m old enough to remember when, just a few years ago, our friends in the left absolutely and positively insisted that anyone like me who claims the last election was stolen was some kind of conspiracy theorist? And yet now we have not only the story of Colorado by legal decision and Maine by practically a Royal Fiat banning Trump from the ballot.

At the same time and with none of the fanfare of those events we have the republican AG of Georgia who was vital in the cases against Trump suddenly appealing a ruling that he has to testify under oath about the Dominion voting systems that he apparently is going to have an updated security patch install for AFTER the next presidential election.

If things are clean wouldn’t you want to make it a point to note under oath just how clean they are?

I still can’t get over the idea of how much would have been different if the left/democrats simply treated Donald Trump as a normal Presidential candidate and as a normal president and had not bothered all that was done in 2020.

He would be in the final year of his second term and riding off into the sunset. Russia would not be in Ukraine, Hamas would have been kept in check, the US economy would have been booming, the border secure and our strategic petroleum reserve still full

I strongly suspect those who did all they could to steal the last election consider those things as bugs rather than features, less opportunity for graft you see.

Older and wiser heads alas didn’t prevail

Speaking of being old enough to remember I was going through an old backup hard drive I found which had all sorts of goodies from 2015 from me guest hosing Conservatively speaking on WCRN to old podcasts and coverage of all kinds of stuff from all over the country.

One thing I noticed was from a GOP event in NH that included Donald Trump before he had announced. He was leaving the hotel where the potential candidates were and I filmed his departure in passing thinking nothing of it.

Not a single person had a clue what was coming at the time.

I’m also old enough to remember when Swatting was confined to folks like Stacy McCain and the like. 

You might forget that during the Kimberlin years Stacy and others involved in exposing that crowd were swatted. At the time I even went to my local police to warn them of that tactic since I was writing on the subject at the time. People didn’t seem to take it all that seriously.

But now we have members of congress and prominent folks like Johnathan Turley now targets

It would have been nice if this stuff was nipped in the bud early but like the banning of conservatives on twitter and youtube it wasn’t considered important enough to tackle so thus you get more of it

Finally yesterday my wife was working and my sons were engaged elsewhere so I went to my local Longhorn restaurant, sat at the bar, order the Spicy Bites (the single best appetizer value/taste combo that exists at any national chain) opened up Volume 3 of Shelby Foote’s epic Civil War trilogy to Hood defeat at Nashville by Thomas and watched the Boston Celtics play the Toronto Raptors at home.

It was the 2nd day of a back to back and stars Jason Tatum and Kristas Porzingis were not dressed and vet Al Horford were all unavailable so we saw a lot of reserves getting serious playing time. It was an exciting game with an odd finish where the Celtics blew a 20 point lead and had to eek out a win that wasn’t decided till the final second of the game, but two things jumped out at me that I hadn’t seen much of if at all in years

At one point in the 2nd quarter when the Celtics lead was seemingly comfortable I looked up at the screen and was shocked to see an NBA team with practically an all white team on the floor, technically you could call it an all “white” five because the only player of color on the floor was ironically Derrick White (who has really come into his own this season) who frankly is light enough to as they used to say in the old days “pass”.

I suspect it’s been more than half a century since that has been the case but there was something that was even more shocking to me that NBA fans haven’t seen much of these days and that was the play of Center Luke Kornet who instead of launching 3 point shots from the outside was actually hustling to be under the basket to retrieve rebounds and be in a position to be fed for easy layups by a charging White or Brown.

Just a decade or two ago a center playing, well like a Center would not be much of a story but in today’s game it’s practically headline news. I’d like to see more of it because in the end, that tends to pay off.

Note: Our days of Christmas fundraiser is in progress although in fairness it’s been a bit of a bust as we’re still at $2900 & 10 subscribers to go. If you’d like to help change that read more here or donate below:

Five Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora: A Good Start, A Calendar oddity, A Bit of Luck for Next Season, Celtics Still Proving me Wrong, DeSantis goes there.

Posted: November 19, 2023 by datechguy in under the fedora
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The first of the three David Tennant Doctor Who specials meant to try to get the views they chased away to tune back in prepare for the 60th anniversary of the show is due out this week but for the Red Nose day children in need business in England there was a short special that came out yesterday:

It was not only hilarious but had several little things for the folks who have been gone:

  • Julean Blech as Davros who played him in opposite both Tennant and Capaldi
  • Reference to the Mark Three travel machine, vs Mark 4 in the premiere Davros episode
  • Reference to Genesis of the Daleks
  • The joke about messing up the Canon (in reference to the actions of Chibnall)

It’s a promising start.

Thanksgiving comes very early this year meaning that Advent, the beginning of the church year will not be starting the Saturday after thanksgiving as usual, but the week afterwards. So technically we have a full week between Thanksgiving and the start of the shortened Christmas season but the start of the shopping season still begins on the 24th.

The media and the admin keeps insisting that the economy is doing fine. The events of the next two to six weeks will tell us if they are right or if they are full of it.

In my tabletop baseball league my team which has been overachieving has dropped out of 1st but is still solidly in the playoffs. But no matter how it ends I’m looking good for next year.

Both unanimous winners of the MVP Ohtani in the AL and Acuna Jr. in the NL are currently on my roster so no matter what happens the rest of this year, It going to look pretty good for me next year.

But I think Ohtani would look much better in a Redsox Uniform next year. It would be the best marketing move to bring the Redsox fans back to the stands.

Will they have the balls to do it?

The Celtics with Porzingis and Jrue Holiday have gotten off to an incredible start and it has become apparent that Holiday has more than adequately replaced Marcus Smart both in terms of defense and in terms of intentional fortitude.

At least one writer has suggested that Philadelphia go after Smart to shore up their defense as they chase Boston, but no matter what the situation there is no question that I was completely wrong in terms of the effect of this trade.

The Celtics and the Bruins both with incredible starts are making a serious move to win over the Boston/New England fans who are walking away from the Pats. If they can follow through they might just do so.

Both the media and the Trump campaign have gone all in on the idea that Ron DeSantis is finished both to serve their own purposes as both fear him but despite this DeSantis continues to pull in money and continues to make the fight.

Yesterday he made the case for him over Trump noting some basic facts that people ignore

“As a lame duck with poor personnel, and the distractions, it’s going to be hard for him to get this done,” DeSantis said. “My candidacy is lower risk, because we’ll run Biden ragged around this country, but high reward because you get a two-term conservative president who’s going to stand for your values and deliver for you for eight full years.”

And on CBS he played the age card rather effectively:

Trump is still my 2nd choice and if he’s at the top of the GOP ticket next November he’s have my vote no prob but anyone who is discounting DeSantis is deluding themselves

Update: Here is one more

Under the Fedora Sports Thoughts My 5% Bruins Solution, Kyrie Decades in the Making, A big Spread, Rational Natural Selection , No Hitters Larson and Marketing

Posted: November 5, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, nba, nfl, nhl, Sports
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Yesterday the talk of Boston Sports Radio was the Bruins signing of Mitchel Miller who was apparently quite an ass as a youth when he was 14.

The thing that really clinched the anger was the sudden “apology” just before the signing and the fellow insisting it had nothing to do with Hockey, which confirms he’s still an ass.

The whole principle of a juvenile court system is so people aren’t punished as adults for things they did as kids but re is a reason why we have a juvenile court system on the other hand you also want to provide an incentive for folks to avoid this kind of thing in the future so here is what I’d do.

He wants to play in the NHL fine, 5% of his contract should go to the kid in question and since he waited six years to apologize, that 5% should continue for the first six years of his career. And since the Bruins decided to make the signing let them match that 5% as well.

You can’t make a person virtuous who is not but you can provide incentives to make virtue less expensive than vice. I guarantee if a young jock figures this kind of thing will cost him real money it will at best stop cold or at worst produce the required contrition without a six years wait.

Kyrie Irving has been suspended five games for tweeting out a link to an Holocaust denying documentary.

Given the left’s embrace of this kind of thing and the NBA’s embrace of the left it’s almost a shock Brooklyn punished him even if the team does reside in one of the most Jewish sections of the nation.

The NBA itself has decided to leave him alone and leave things to the Nets. After all as far as the NBA is concerned he didn’t do something really horrible in their eyes, like hitting China for slave labor etc. If he had Irving would have gone the way of Enes Kanter Freedom and not see the inside of an NBA court again. Irving cost him embarrassment, Kanter cost them money.

One more thought. The idea that Kyrie actually might have bought the idea that the black race are the actual tribes of Israel is no surprise to me. It’s been 25 years since Mary Lefkowitz warned us about this stuff in Not Out Of Africa: How “”Afrocentrism”” Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History With 25 years of this going on since the release of this book without any pushback the wonder is that it isn’t more prevalent.

Boston sports radio is all over the place on the New England Patriots. Nobody seems sure about anything except that they’re not good enough to beat Buffalo. Here is their remaining schedule:

  • vs Colts
  • vs Jets
  • at Vikings
  • vs Bills
  • at Cardinals
  • at Raiders
  • vs Bengals
  • vs Dolphins
  • at Bills

With the exception of the Bills there is not a team on the list they aren’t capable of beating nor any time not capable of clearing their clock. Given the parity in the league, the quality of their roster and the uneven play of everyone. I’d not be surprised to see them finish anywhere from 11-6 to 4-13.

It’s bad for the nerves but good if you want some mystery in how a game will go.

There has been a lot of fuss about the fact that there are no American born black players on either roster in the World Series this year. This is being pushed as a stain to baseball, but frankly it’s not a stain in terms of racism but a stain in terms of marketing.

Part of it is cost you can play football or basketball with a single ball and a small group, but you need at least 10 or 12 for baseball, plus bats gloves but more importantly both the NFL and the NBA have done a much better job of marketing of both marketing its stars, both in general and to the black community in particular. Meanwhile the Latino stars from central and south America are huge in their countries and within the communities.

Personally I think it’s crazy. MLB besides being a better game has guaranteed contracts, less physical punishment in terms of contact and the potential for a longer career if you can’t sell that and the players to kids dying to become athletes then you need another career.

A great example of this lack of marketing is the current world series. It’s been a great playoffs and a spectacular series but game four illustrated exactly why.

The Astros put together five runs in the fifth to give them a 5-0 lead in a game they desperately needed to win. Meanwhile Christian Javier pitched six no hit innings, and then was pulled with a five run lead.

Now I understand priority one is to win the game and the Phillies have a history of coming back. But there is no reason why the Astros could not have had Javier pitching in what is likely his final start of the year and a five run lead could not have come out for the 7th with Bryan Abreu ready in the pen if he gave up a hit.

There is a reason why Don Larson is remembered 66 years after his perfect game in the 1956 World series, but I had to look up who the starter was to see who pitched in the Astros no hitter.

Personally I think MLB should fire their entire PR staff of the league and start again.

Someone Explain This to Me….

Posted: May 22, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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Billions of Dollars invested in China by the NBA and it’s players clearly affects how the league responds to outrageous actions there but supposedly Billions of dollars bet on games here in the US have ABSOLUTELY NO effect on the results of games.

When placed under oath Robby Mook contradicts every single assertion that the Media has made for years concerning the Russia probe yet no media outlet seems the least bit upset and the prospect of supposedly “being taken” for years on the subject.

Supposedly the Democrat left the whole “Black Lives Matter” business was about saving lives yet according to this data homicide rates in the black community are up 50% since this entire enterprise began.

Sending 40 Billion dollars to help defend Ukraine shows support for Ukraine, but sending 40 Billion dollars to Ukraine and having an Inspector General make sure the money actually goes to defending Ukraine is shows you oppose defending Ukraine.

For the last 20 years I never heard a public service ad advising people for the signs of aneurisms, but since those totally safe vaccines that absolutely aren’t causing unexpected deaths my radio is suddenly regularly playing ads warning about the early signs of this, all sponsored by the maker of the COVID vaccine.

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