Jhawk

Yep... Why pay luxury tax for 2-3 middle of the road assets you get back in return. KD's jersey and mech sales can probably mitigate the taxes to some extent. Anyone they would get in return wouldn't sell shit to help justify the tax.

KD allows the rest of the team to work less. Steph is down in points and attempts since KD got there. Green is also down on attempts and points. That makes all kind of sense with the talent that KD brings. Their assists are all down too though. KD is great but he is a ball stopper. I think the comment about the team smiling when KD went down has more to do with them being excited to get back to their old ways of slinging the ball around the court than being an indictment on their feelings of KD. They are a damn good team with him because they can essentially rest while he carries the load. They'll be just fine without him because they can still pass and still shoot. KD being there might have actually extended their window of championship competition by 2-3 years because of the lesser load on the big 3.

Why give up assets to get him when you know he is coming either way? Don't make the best team better.

I think that Howard is going to have a lot of recruiting work to do. Hardaway stepped into the roll with everything he needed for recruiting and that buys him time to learn the XO aspect of the college game while on the job (he has a good base but hasn't coached in college). HIs name recognition is off the charts right now and he was a "star" even if it was short lived. Howard was never a star like Penny. Howard needs to learn both recruiting and college game coaching real quick or be a 3-4 years and out situation. I think Hardaway is set up for faster success (obviously) and thus longer term success. Howard is going to have to work damn hard to prove his isn't just another player who is there to "save" his university. Just looked.. hard to believe that penny is older than juwan (47 nearly 48 vs. 46). Also, Juwan out earned Penny $149M to $120M.

Small market teams don't really have a choice but to give their stars these contracts. He and CJ put butts in seats. A roster of young kids that can't win a game doesn't put anyone in a seat. That's bad for the team and bad for the league. He is much more of an investment than just a point producer. That being said, he is doing portland a favor signing it this season. He could sign it next year and that makes him more of a liability. Everyone knows that portland has peaked, but with LAC and LAL not quite ready to compete, Denver not quite there, and OKC/SAS not able to put together a solid roster that can win right now, maybe Portland is 1 GSW injury away (and a healthy roster for themselves) from stealing a series and getting swept in the finals. Steph or Klay go down in that series and Portland is in the finals. Everyone would get a max deal that could and it would all be dumb contracts but it would also have been a "thank you" investment. We all knew that no one in the west is competing with GSW this year, and maybe not next year either given how they have played without durant. So Portland has a 2 year window (this and next) to play at their highest level (conference championship appearance) and to create a local legend in Lillard. They have to do it. If not, they lose CJ and Dame and then what? They sell 50% of their tickets or worse for the next 10 years? Until another Greg Oden comes along and gets them 2 half seasons out of 5 where attendance is at 75%? Pretty much have to pay the guy, just like OKC had to give the deal to Russ.

This guy is basically my experience living in and visiting oklahoma since 2015. My Ex's brother in law didn't have a job for a real long time and his wife was a teacher making like $28k a year. He woke up and went fishing every morning to literally put food on the table. I appreciate that he did that but he could have gotten a job instead of napping in a lawn chair the rest of the day.

I will also note that this being my first spring in Tulsa it is also the first time I’ve seen constant warnings to evacuate your mobile home to a more substantial structure.

Reporting live from downtown Tulsa. Sirens were going off about 645am. Apparently it got pretty bad but I slept through it. No real damage other than 2 houses north of downtown. 4K+ without power. Wouldn't you know it, I’ve had some really bad diarrhea this morning. Going to die on the shitter.

My week: Thursday - warm up round in KC at my home course. Friday - 1pm at Erin hills saturday - 10am at Erin hills Sunday - 720am at whistling straits going to be an epic Memorial Day weekend. Really hitting the ball well and my putter has come back. Need to really get my short game feel back before the trip. Going to spend every night around the greens this week.

It’s definitely a hurdle. I think that hurdle is compounded with being a 1 issue candidate. She hates banks. We get it. But the fact of the matter is that ALL of her colleagues love the money the banks bring in and the president doesn’t write policy or walk it through the legislature. I won’t give her credit for hating trump as an issue because anyone who is voting in the democratic primary falls into that category. She really is a good example of a candidate that would be a better senator or house member than a president. So you’re awkward, you have the stigma of being a female, and you only talk about one thing all the time. Husbands all over the country deal with that every single day when they come home from a long day at work and they ask their wife to stop nagging before they eventually ask for a divorce. Warren’s numbers don’t look great in the primary and subconsciously this has to be at least one of the reasons.

I should have used whiny with Warren. She'll get on the defensive and in trying to defend herself she'll sound whiny. A lot like Bernie, which is why she draws some comps to Bernie. She'll absolutely get baited because that's exactly what she did with the native american shit. Then in a stroke of strategic brilliance she took a DNA test and releases it proudly like she is full blown native american. Whoever is giving her tips needs to be fired. If she did that on her own she should bow out gracefully now because it will get ugly down the road when the kid gloves come off. I think Harris is probably the best equipped to handle trump but she will come off as a woman scorned and that isn't a good look. You can't just be on a war path the whole campaign and have people who want cordial politics be attracted to you. She also has only looked great in very scripted settings. We haven't really seen her off the cuff. I literally forgot about Beto which is exactly the campaign he is running. Forgettable. He is one loud scream away from a howard dean-like fall from grace. It would be fun to speculate on what his next career will be. Probably ends up as a city councilman who always talks about how he almost made the big time.

You sound like Beto haha. I haven't followed her that much other than knowing that her entire political career is based on attacking wall street. Which isn't a bad cause for getting elected. But between the Native American thing and the having a beer with her husband thing I just can't see her being anything but awkward when dealing with adversity on the trail. She couldn't even look natural announcing her candidacy.

Yep... My quick and dirty thoughts on the players: Biden - Will spar with trump but gaffe himself to death while trump's voters don't care what trump says. Warren - Will spar but will come off as bitchy and turn people off. Pete - positive attitude, smart, rooted in pretty good morals and doesn't have any bad policy history that I can see Bernie - Will come off as always on the defensive when sparing with trump and will give up on it. While Trump is famous for "Wrong!" that was short and to the point. Bernie would say something like "but but but but, you're not understanding... I have a record of...." his responses are way to old man drawn out. Booker - doesn't even have a chance to make it to this point. Harris - She'll be good going at Trump, but she has the ability to look like a bitch too. She'll be good but wouldn't get more than one chance to recover from a gaffe because of her ability to look like a bitch when she gets aggressive.

I think Warren is a strategic buffoon who is too awkward to make the people like her as a person (not as a politician). She'll finish in the top 4 with Biden, Bernie, and Pete I think but her and Pete will fall out about the same time. One of two outcomes happens from there in my mind, Bernie gives the election away like he did in 2016 and eh bernie bros that regretablly cam back for round 2 full on revolt and vote for trump or Bernie wins and gets absolutely smoked by Trump because deep down a lot of the old dog dems think bernie is too progressive. Dem turnout is LOW with him. My predictions, nothing to back it up but gut feel and personal analysis of how people will react to essentially the exact same 2 candidates leading the 2020 nomination as the 2016 nomination.

Mayor Pete is probably the best, least awkward, candidate in the field. Beto is so fucking smarmy he can't say anything without it coming out as "I'm better than you because my mommy said so. I deserve this." Hillary just ran on deserving the presidency and it pissed off a lot of women I know that probably would ave voted for her otherwise. My ex, for example, campaigned for obama in Missouri but she couldn't justify voting for Hillary because all of the sudden her vote was predetermined to go to a candidate becasue she was a woman? Voting for Trump was my ex saying "my body, my choice" but with a vote. I think Beto will illicit the same response in that he just seems like an entitled baby trying to be popular when he really isn't. Also, I don't think that the country as a whole can wrap their heads around a texas politician being anything but a dickbag republican. We won't see a president from Texas for a long time since Bush was so hated. Cruz and Coryn are doing their best to make sure national politicians from Texas look like assholes. Strategically, a popular dem from texas is a great long term play to flip the state. But the voters don't play the long game.

It won't be the early states that give him the insurmountable lead. It will be the super delegates, boxing out of certain candidates, favorable press treatment, and possibly even corruption in the DNC that will give biden the insurmountable lead. Just like those influences gave Hillary the nomination.

The thing that is most shocking to me during this late spring recruiting period is how many fucking scholarships tech and memphis have and how fast they are filling them up. Can someone give a breakdown of how many scholarships each of those schools have remaining?

Not to downplay the extremist views on the right side of the aisle, but wouldn't socialism be considered an extremist view on the left side of the aisle? A pro-life candidate is viewed as extremist by many on the left (I'm pro choice btw), but for some reason the furthest outreaches of the left are never considered extremist. Bernie is absolutely an extremist candidate so of course anyone running against him would be considered extremist from his spot on the spectrum.

Trump down in the polls Forgive me if I don't believe the polls this election cycle. Also... Something something electoral college.

Seriously question.. how did he get elected mayor?

At some point you have to realize potential to have ever had potential. I think we’re seeing that Beto was only popular because Cruz isn’t. Everyone in the country wanted Cruz gone and Beto was the benefactor of that sentiment. Nobody should be shocked that a campaign based around “I’m a privileged asshole and I’m sorry for it” doesn’t get you far in a presidential election. Why doesn’t the guy ever talk about his accomplishments? Does he have any or is he using the excuse of running for office as a way to tell his father in law that he needs money to pay the electric bill this month? It’s like he runs for office so he doesn’t have to get a real job, not so he can win or implement an idea or two.

What in the fuck is de Blasio doing? I remember when 16 Republicans was a clown show.

Everyone would go to New York if they felt they could be successful. There is only one guy who went and he might have been the most delusional player in the nba for the last 10 years of his career.... Melo.

How do you fucking post a gif from imgur in this shit?

Still have to coach them. Pastner did a lot of good recruiting and didn't get them to the tourney often enough. But yeah... if Penny brings in this talent and doesn't get to the tourney then the big name recruits will look the other way real fast.