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That's my thought on a gut level with a warning shot to OSU but especially to try and prevent one or more trustees to resign as well. It makes little sense strategically for the general public to me.

Good low risk trade by the Rockets. They obviously get a little salary relief, and while they do give up a reasonably promising rookie, he wasn't someone realistically playing deep into the playoffs this year. Knight if healthy would be fine as a backup to help Paul avoid injury as he ages. I don't think he is a very good shooter and he's decent but nothing special as a playmaker but he is 35% from 3 for his career, and this offense should give him better shots. Chriss is very long and athletic, and his perimeter game is not developed well yet, but if he can just push his 3s from 29-30% to 34-35%, that's fine too. He can play some backup 5, some stretch 4, although I am not sure if he can switch on all perimeter players effectively. Best thing is that it opens up more potential moves especially another defensive wing to offset Ariza/Moute somewhat because not sure Ennis can capably be counted on for that role and I'm quite sure Melo can't do it.

Agreed on Harden, who can forget his own meltdown with San Antonio, and this past year I felt way more comfortable with Chris Paul during the GS series for sure. I think that injury obviously killed their real chance to steal that series but they were still so close with SO many bricks in Game 7. To be fair, they had great defensive energy and effort (from a D'Antoni team! Chris Paul influence maybe?), and that probably sapped their legs for shooting quite a bit, but part of that is pressure too.

You may be right on the strategic calculus of trying to win the most votes, but I do consider myself a true independent and am actually undecided on this race (I am somewhat new to Austin although I went to UT and was born in Texas so I am not as familiar with either candidate locally) right now. I am going to start really looking into this soon but have not yet, and I've voted for Bill Clinton and both Bushes during presidential elections although maybe that is more common than I think.

I went a while without laughs for them until I saw one where they are fighting aliens disguised as humans. Wasn't too bad.

I feel like both Floyd and Smith might not actually get that 5th star, but in fact do have that level of ability at the college level. These kinds of recruits are great for going out of state, and you wish Mack had done this more often because at the peak, I believe they certainly could have done this at a high level.

Edit double post

If one of my children had the creative talent and drive to go into film, I think this would be a great school over any other university. Otherwise, I think there are a lot of better options for what you pay and what you get out of it. A true blue blood for college football and I might root for them against most SEC teams.

I agree about Game 5, but I don't think either KD or Russ really had a good series overall. KD shot 42% from 2 and only 29% from 3 all series, and he had more turnovers than assists for the series, and Game 6 was really quite bad. Not really close to his normal efficiency at all but worse it really looked like in Game 6 like a LeBron 2011 Finals meltdown on some level, something was off that game. Russ shot only 40% from 2 and 32% from 3, and also vanished in key parts of the series as well. I just think these two were a bad fit for each other when it counted, they really should have kept Harden long-term over Westbrook on my opinion, but to be fair it was hard to know this at the time. I don't think OKC would have ever won with that group because KD/Russ don't really fit that well together. As for defense, KD had a 106 DRtg and Russ 104 for the series, which are both pretty good to me considering the other team. Roberson was at 104 too and I think Roberson is one the best defenders in the NBA.

Well, I certainly think there is some anti-Lonzo narrative out there, and it hasn't been helped obviously with his father pontificating huge hype on his son. Good for creating media attention, maybe not as good for putting a target on Lonzo's back. Lonzo actually showed some really good things last year in three areas -- playmaking, rebounding, and defense. I think there is a lot to like there for Laker fans going forward in those areas. His major problem of course is his offensive game. In particular, many people look at his three point shooting, but it's much more his horrendous - and horrendous is being generous - free throw shooting and how that impacts his aggressiveness on the drive as this weapon is essentially mute right now. He needs to get his conversion rate on drives to the hoop higher (whether converting the hoop or hitting at least 70-75% at the line) as that will open up his passing lanes and outside shot even more. His natural passing and court vision are already there (and I believe his court vision is better than 90% of current NBA players already) and that is not something easily taught, but how he integrates moving forward with one of the best passing forwards of all-time will be very interesting to me.

Glad some old friends got a trifecta of good news for them with the hurricane downgraded, the little league team winning the US bracket to face South Korea for it all, and then this game.

I'm not sold that Barry would have been better specifically for those great Dallas teams as Emmitt was basically a perfect fit with that roster and offensive scheme. Emmitt is sometimes underrated to me at times by people in how amazing and especially how tough and crafty he was after contact. Having said that, I think personally Barry is a slightly better overall RB in that I think he could have been dominant in more specific roster situations than Emmitt if you put them on most NFL teams with their variable rosters/schemes. But I'll never love on a personal level Barry like I do Emmitt as his combination of talent, heart, toughness, and desire were just amazing to me.

Even with some bias (Ricky Williams - college)(Emmitt Smith - NFL) I think overall Sanders is the best RB I have ever seen. I even wonder how he would have done on a few other NFL teams.

Certainly no stat in isolation is something that should ever be considered as definite as to anything except what that actual stat is specifically measuring. Virtually any analytic can be cherry picked apart so to speak with isolated anomalies that do not make sense with one's general sense of basketball knowledge and one's own eye test if you have a good mind for the game. PER for example is another stat commonly used by casual fans, but that stat as well shows anomalous entries with players that don't seem to fit well. Even others like VORP (value over replacement) and BPM often show this as well. Some stats that are not commonly shared with the public (prepared specifically for NBA teams privately) are quite advanced in the specific factors they want, but even those suffer the same flaw as all stats depend on variables that simply cannot apply well to all situations in terms of rating something that cannot be measured by that single stat.

It was a 20k mile (5k each way twice per team) home and home series. Quite a commute for each team on their respective trips.

I'm right there with you there too. Just an interesting stat - Top 50 analysis for careers weighting plus/minus called "impact plus/minus stat" which is closely correlated with certain other stats like RAPM (real adjusted plus minus), but basically an attempt to quantify player impact all-time in the NBA. Weights peak ever, top 3 seasons, top 5 seasons, etc. Certainly not a be all end all statistical ranking, but it's interesting to see Draymond at # 19 all-time which makes sense to me personally.

Kyrie is a really interesting debate internally for me. I am heavily biased towards Duke players just as much as UT players already from my background, and I think he is just so fearless and clutch when it counts. Maybe the best handle I have ever seen, certainly the best in the NBA right now. His brain is a lot more like Jordan/Kobe than Durant/LeBron and that's a good thing to me even though he will never be as good as the latter two players. My only concern in not slamming him into the top 10 quite easily are his durability and defensive concerns.

Long-term during Jimbo's presumed contract tenure, it might be better for A&M to lose that last game if it saves O.

I think that list isn't too bad at all, although everyone will have disagreements. I think right now going into this season I would have: 1. LBJ - I think he has been the best player in the NBA since at least 2009 or so, and arguably even earlier. Clearly a Top 5 (I'd argue even higher) player all-time, clearly best player of his generation, the gap between him any anyone else in his era for an overall career is IMHO fairly large. A GOAT level team is preventing him from more titles, that's just how it goes for him and why he won't catch Jordan. 98 2. Durant - Despite his weird social media stuff, he seems like a good guy and his talent is unreal. I think like Shaq he is actually slightly underachieving for his natural talent because I think he arguably be like Michael Jordan dominant for scoring. His physical tools for that skill might be the best I have ever seen. 96 3. Curry - I think he had an argument for best player in the world in 2016 (GOAT level offensive season IMHO) even over LeBron for that one season, but his playoff performances have him under Durant for me personally. His gravity is crucial for Golden State's system, you can't be as dominant without it and the RPM and other advanced metrics clearly show that for their system. 96 4. Kawhi - HUGE if healthy of course. You have to wonder about his mental game a little and his injury, and how he will play this season on a very good Toronto team that defensively looks really good on paper. 94 I also see numbers 4-6 on this list as very easy to argue one over another without sounding like a fool. It's very close for all three. 5. Davis - Just stay healthy and just get this man some help, and he will shine even more. 94 6. Harden - Maybe the best trickster in terms of drawing fouls I have seen in a long time since Ginobili. He has a knack for getting to the line that is amazing to me and frustrating to watch if you are not a Harden fan. Elite scorer, very close to elite passer as he truly can play both PG/SG without a hitch. I think Durant and Curry are clearly better but in some ways I think Harden can handle being a solo act and having a huge burden to carry a team a little better than players ranker higher than him. 94 7. Giannis - The future. Needs a better outside shot. I like his mental makeup, he is not as worrisome as some other big stars of this era. 93 8. Westbrook - Many will have him higher, but I think his brain hasn't quite caught up to his talent yet in terms of maximizing his own talent (especially on his drives, he sometimes could actually slow down just right to get an and 1 like Iverson learned as he got older) and the talent around him. Still, averaging a triple double is frankly amazing and I love his fearlessness and motor, if say Shaq had that motor I would have feared for the rest of the league and perhaps the 2002 Kings wouldn't have been jobbed by the refs because maybe it wouldn't have been needed. 93 9. Jokic - Severely underrated by many people, his skills overall are so great for a big man. Everyone is rightfully excited about the KATs and Embiids of the world, but this guy can seriously play and is a walking triple double threat but can the team get in the playoffs and do some damage to get him more due? 92 10. Embiid - Defensively already an elite player, some of his offensive footwork and especially his turnovers need a lot of work. I like his brashness a lot, and it's likely his own teammate will also be on this list in the near future as well. 92

Stan Wilcox leaving Florida St for a top NCAA job (I think the # 2 position) might not be good timing for Fisher either. I'm not sure if they ended on a good note.

I'll throw in the very speculative info I know -- I was born in Texas but grew up mostly in Hawaii since 3rd grade through graduation and still live there 10-14 weeks out of the year, and Austin the rest of the year and I graduated from the same school as Tufono and have contributed to the program, etc. I know people that know his family, but nothing directly so I admit it's speculation on some level based on hearsay. Tufono: He's not as physically gifted as Teo was coming out of Punahou, but he's a very sharp young man and much better mentally than Teo, and to be honest, I can see a lot of Hawaii born kids liking the city of Austin. <----- (this probably deserves its own post at some point) I think he is going to commit to Texas. UW is the main competitor, but I don't think they will change his mind in time. I really hope we get him because everything I hear about him is that he is focused, smart, and disciplined in a good way (and again this very much is comparing Tufono to Teo as the standard bearer as that's how many process it like say Mariota vs. Tua) mentally but not the same physical player and has leadership qualities that could be huge at that position down the road. Tuitele: His family has met with Tua's family and they are both St. Louis (current two time defending state champ in their new tournament bracket system by division) players, and I think Alabama will win as of now but Texas should root really hard for Alabama to steal from LSU that DT (Sopsher?) because that might help lead him at least in the direction of Texas. Landing any other Hawaii player helps too, Hawaii kids definitely support each other outside of Hawaii in a way that is very strong. Fully admit a lot of speculation and basing it on others and not myself directly, so take it with a grain of salt but there is hopefully some substance behind it.

I seriously pray none of my children end up like this...wow.

I'll always support any Longhorn absent shameful behavior that harms the university brand, but I can agree with most of this too.

We will agree to disagree, I think many people his age do make burner accounts but I don't think they would have gone this far with that specific behavior and especially people in their late 20s (i can totally see this at age 16 but 29-30? common? I don't buy it) that are very financially secure and successful.

Context much? If you can't see the actual point being implicitly understood by the majority of intelligent people, why bother to respond? How many people in their late 20s - especially someone that successful - would go on a fake Twitter account and defend some random post about himself and then "defend" himself that specific way? Why should he even care about it and more importantly why would be using his time that way? How many people out of tens of millions in even that demographic age range would actually do that? That is an entirely different distinction from anyone creating an account and posting under a pseudonym or otherwise.