Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived, and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.

• At USF, his '55 team was 5-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• At USF, his '56 team was 4-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• In the '56 Olympics, the US squad was 2-0 when it came to the winner-take-all Final 4 for gold after the group stage.
  
• In the NBA, the Celtics were famously 10-0 in Games 7's throughout his career.
  
• In the '66 playoffs, the Celtics won Game 5 in the best-of-5 series with Cincinnati (link).
  

3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.

• In 1958, the Hawks topped Boston 4-2 in the Finals (winning by 2, 3, 2, & 1 points), during which Russell missed 2 games and played at far less than 100% with a horribly sprained ankle when he was available in the series. It’s safe to say Boston would have won that title with a healthy Russell.
  
• In 1967, the aging Celtics, fresh off of 8 straight championships, lost to the loaded and younger Sixers in the ECF. This was the first year Russell was Boston’s player-coach, which is significant since he faced horrendously stressful & over-the-top racism as the first black coach in major US pro sports history. He played so much and so intensely (43.3 min/gm in the playoffs) that he often forgot to sub players which hurt his team. The next season, the Celtics were older & considered “done”, but he added a bench coach to handle subs, and they beat the favored defending champion Sixers in the playoffs, and then won the title. Then the “seriously, they’re done now” 1968-69 Celtics clawed their way into the Finals & beat the loaded West-Wilt-Baylor Lakers 4-3 in Russell’s final season. Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
  

4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones who was hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):

"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”

I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.

Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived (he was a rookie in '57), and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.

• At USF, his '55 team was 5-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• At USF, his '56 team was 4-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• In the '56 Olympics, the US squad was 2-0 when it came to the winner-take-all Final 4 for gold after the group stage.
  
• In the NBA, the Celtics were famously 10-0 in Games 7's throughout his career.
  
• In the '66 playoffs, the Celtics won Game 5 in the best-of-5 series with Cincinnati (link).
  

3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.

• In 1958, the Hawks topped Boston 4-2 in the Finals (winning by 2, 3, 2, & 1 points), during which Russell missed 2 games and played at far less than 100% with a horribly sprained ankle when he was available in the series. It’s safe to say Boston would have won that title with a healthy Russell.
  
• In 1967, the aging Celtics, fresh off of 8 straight championships, lost to the loaded and younger Sixers in the ECF. This was the first year Russell was Boston’s player-coach, which is significant since he faced horrendously stressful & over-the-top racism as the first black coach in major US pro sports history. He played so much and so intensely (43.3 min/gm in the playoffs) that he often forgot to sub players which hurt his team. The next season, the Celtics were older & considered “done”, but he added a bench coach to handle subs, and they beat the favored defending champion Sixers in the playoffs, and then won the title. Then the “seriously, they’re done now” 1968-69 Celtics clawed their way into the Finals & beat the loaded West-Wilt-Baylor Lakers 4-3 in Russell’s final season. Oh yeah, Russell was the only player-coach in NBA history to win a championship, and he won two.
  

Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones playing who was then hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but 1st-year Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record without the HOF PG before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):

"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”

I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.

Welcome back to Build a Bear Dynasty, the least lit series about the most lit team in the NBA. This week I will be discussing Jonas Valanciunas.
Before I get to that, there are a few topics I need to discuss to give context to what I consider Jonas’ strengths and weaknesses. I realize that in the introduction I had brought up alternating player profiles and analysis of modern NBA terminology, but in planning for this first player piece I quickly realized that it would be helpful to be ‘on the same page’ so to speak when using certain words and terms to discuss his game.
So before getting to the analysis, there are a couple of the more vague terms used to describe basketball that I would like to break down first: Modern Offense, and Positionless Basketball.
Modern Offense
Broken down to its simplest terms, the game of basketball from a team’s perspective is played in two distinct phases: offense and defense. In the fewest words possible, offense is the team’s attempts to score points by putting the ball through a basket, and defense is the team’s attempts to prevent the other team from doing the same.
What makes basketball unique amongst North American major sports, and in my personal opinion makes it the most intriguing and beautiful sport, is the fact that it is the only one where the rules are written so that every player on the floor is allowed to perform every single legal action. All players are allowed access to every spot on the floor, and when the ball is in theirs or their defender’s hands they are allowed to do the same things every other player is.
Through a combination of the fluid nature of the sport, the inherent advantages both size AND speed can bring, and various changes to the ruleset, the game of basketball has evolved over time, valuing certain traits and attributes over others as they prove more or less useful in the changing landscape.
If you are at all familiar with competitive video gaming, you might refer to this concept with the term ‘Meta.’ In esports players develop optimal strategies through time and experience, and due to games often having fixed values for things like ‘damage’ and ‘health,’ players quickly find the statistically most ideal strategies, and the best teams spend hours and hours honing very specific skills and counters to give themselves the best odds of winning based on the rules of the game.
To counteract this rote memorization of inputs, modern game companies that produce multiplayer titles will often continue to update the game periodically after its release, not only to fix bugs and glitches, but to also change the game’s ‘meta’ to prevent the game from getting stale. They do this primarily through improving or worsening the values of certain items or characters in a practice known colloquially as ‘Buffing’ and ‘Nerfing,’ or by introducing new characters and gear all together. Players get used to the new changes, adopt new strategies, and the cycle continues as long as the developers continue to update, or as the players continue to uncover new strategies that provide further optimization.
WARNING: Incoming extensive history of the game Super Smash Bros. It does relate to later content, but is unnecessary if you wish to skip ahead to the next section about basketball.
An Unlikely Comparison
In theory, if the values of a game remain fixed, given enough time the players will develop the optimal strategy to play the game. A popular meme referring to the game Super Smash Brothers is the phrase ‘no items, foxes only, final destination’ referring to the presumed ‘optimal’ way to play the 2nd game in the series, Super Smash Brothers Melee. No items that might randomly give a player an advantage, the character many veterans of the game consider to be the all around best when combining his speed, attack power, and ability to survive, and a completely flat and empty stage that quite literally levels the playing field.
It took a very unique history for the game Super Smash Brothers Melee to get a point where there’s an almost universally held belief that there is a single ideal way to play the game. Before companies had the ability to update games over the internet thereby giving them the power to adjust the game after its release, one on one style fighting games like Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Street Fighter would release a new installment every few years. They would usually keep the majority of the same character roster and mechanics, while updating graphics, movesets, and the values of things like health and damage to keep the ‘meta’ game fresh between installments.
Unlike the directors of those other game series, the creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, prefers the elements of a game that are fun for everyone, over those that make for an ideal competitive experience. Things like powerful items appearing next to players out of nowhere, and certain parts of some stages randomly hurting players all add to the chaos of Smash Brothers that makes it a fun party game.
But as with any game, whether it’s intended for fun or competition, players came along that wanted to adjust the rules to make it more challenging and skill based. By turning off the in game items and picking only certain stages agreed on by the competitors, a whole community developed to play an intrinsically anti-competitive game in a way that was more skills based.
In 2001 Nintendo released the Gamecube and Sakurai released the second Super Smash Brothers game, Super Smash Brothers Melee. The new game not only introduced new characters, but also massively changed the speed and feel of the game, making use of the new console’s better processor to create a more dynamic and fast paced game. The competitive community grew some more, but Nintendo as a company is very protective of their intellectual property, and at the time would go to extreme lengths at times to shut down grassroots tournaments and consumer created content, so it remained small in comparison to other fighting game communities.
Though a large number of players enjoyed the new gameplay, Sakurai felt that an overly competitive game was taking away from his vision of a fun and friendly game, and in the third installment he released, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, he slowed down the gameplay a bit, and added in random mechanics like tripping players that moved too quickly.
Unable to turn off those mechanics like they could with items in previous games, the competitive scene rejected the new game with large sections of the community sticking with the older Melee, and some going to incredible lengths to actually rewrite the code to modify the properties of the game itself.
Through a combination of a failure of the third game to capture the hearts of the players, and Nintendo focusing most of its efforts on shutting down the fan modified versions of Super Smash Bros Brawl, the competitive Melee scene exploded in a way unprecedented for a decade old fighting game. To this day, across the country tournaments are held fielding hundreds of players from here and abroad. Players new and old spend hours scouring over statistical data and practicing to hone the most optimal skills to give themselves an edge in tournaments with huge cash prizes. And it all culminates in a silly internet joke about Fox being the statistically optimal character.
If you’d care to know more about the ‘golden age’ of competitive Melee, there is a very well done, fan-made, 9 part docu series on youtube called ‘The Smash Bros’ that follows one of the most unique fandoms and cultures of any group that I’ve encountered.
But as I am sure most of you are thinking, what in the hell does a 20 year old Japanese video game played by a bunch of nerds have to do with basketball?
BACK TO BASKETBALL
Well, when it comes to sports in general, I feel that the term ‘meta’ is an excellent way of framing how basketball has changed as a sport over time. Players work on specific skills they feel give them an edge, coaches come up with plays that have more chance of success, defenses work to adapt to those and the league evolves.
New players enter the league every year, rosters change through trades and free agency signings, and league management ‘updates’ the game with occasional rule changes that they feel will balance the game better for the players and viewers.
Sometimes the changes are poorly received, like when they removed dunking from the college level of basketball from 1967-1976 as a result of a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NCAA dominance. Other times they drastically affected the entire fabric of the sport.
In 1979 when the league introduced the 3 point shot during Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s rookie seasons, it changed the sport more drastically than anyone at the time may have realized. In the previous 87 years of the sport’s existence, having every shot during play have the same value of 2 points meant that the shot that went in the most is by default the best shot. This obviously led to taller players having an advantage, and a natural tendency for players to work as hard as possible to get as close to the rim when they can for an easier shot. If you looked at an overall ‘heatmap’ of an NBA court of how successful players were at shooting from certain spots, it would loosely look like a smaller hot circle centered on the basket, that cools in all directions the further from the basket it gets.
But with some shots being worth 3 points, a player could shoot a worse percentage while adding more value to the offense. A player that could shoot 50% while 20 feet from the rim would add 6 points for every 6 shots, and compared to other players in NBA history would be a midrange god. But a player shooting just 34% from just a few feet further away would add a slightly better 6.04 points for every 6 shots, and would have been considered a below average 3 point shooter in the league last season.
Kevin Durant, known as one of the greatest scorers of all time, over his career has shot 44.5% from between 3 and 10 feet from the basket, effectively 0.89 points per shot. On the other hand, the 2019-2020 league average 35.8% shooting from 3 is worth 1.074 points per shot. If you looked at a heatmap shot chart from today’s league, it would now have a ring that is the 2nd hottest part of the floor, behind the efficiency of the space immediately around the rim.
Suddenly there was a spot on the floor that theoretically had the same offensive value as a spot much closer to the basket. In a sport dominated by long limbed giants, any time a team gets to spread out the defenders makes it a little bit easier to get off clean looks. We refer to this trend in modern terms as ‘Spacing’ which I’ll focus on a bit more in next week’s piece.
It essentially boils down to that ‘spacing’ is all about generating separation between an offensive player and a defensive player. The more separation a player has from their defender, the more likely they’ll make their shot.
If you’ve ever seen NBA players warm up before a game, you’ll notice very quickly that they almost never miss when shooting a wide open set shot. By the time most of these players get to the league, they’ve played thousands of hours shooting from all over the floor. The hard part of the sport for most of them isn’t being able to shoot well, it’s shooting well while being defended by 7 foot monsters that can reach above the height of the rim without leaving the ground.
But the disadvantage that most 7 footers have that shorter players can potentially take advantage of is foot speed. Until 1979 this wasn’t a huge concern outside of transition basketball, as the goal of most players was to get as close to the rim as possible and taller players could camp out and wait, instead of chasing smaller, faster players around. But now there was an area of the floor that offers good value and covers a comparatively huge area. It’s easy to play defense when you know the team is working towards one direction and you don’t have to move as much, but when the offense can now move forwards AND backwards to get a better shot, it opens up a completely new realm of possibilities for offensive and defensive strategy.
Since that point and unless the league removes the 3 point line, all strategies and players have worked towards optimizing that potential. Modern Offense is the culmination of all of those efforts. But what strategy has evolved from all of this combined talent and effort? It took the Smash Brothers community more than a decade of study and practice to come to the conclusion that Fox is the best character. What type of ideal player archetype has the past 40 years been building towards? The trend I personally feel the NBA is moving towards is another vague but oft repeated term.
Positionless Basketball
It's an intriguing pair of words that is often used when discussing players that don’t fit the historic trends. Giant playmakers like LeBron and Ben Simmons that make point guards of look tiny, PJ Tucker playing the center position full time despite being a good 4 inches shorter than most other centers, 7 foot shooters like Jaren and Kristaps Porzingis that play more like a traditional small forward on offense.
But this loose definition feels like it’s only halfway there to me. There still seems to be this underlying assumption that positionless basketball is the positions themselves still existing, but players don’t have to play a specific role based on their size or skills. People will describe an idealized team of a 6’8 point guard with 3 6’8 wings and a 6’10 guy to play center and they all switch on defense. But they still expect the point guard to make most of the plays, the center to get most of the rebounds, and to generally run traditional NBA sets, just with a larger group of guys that are closer to a median height so they can all defend each other on the other end.
But a few recent things lead me to believe that it’s more than that. Could positionless basketball actually mean the end of the concept of positions in the sport of basketball? While I’m not sure we’ll ever get to a point where every player does every skill equally well, I do think we are starting to see a fundamental change in the way NBA teams across the league build their rosters around this idea of positionless basketball, and nothing is more responsible for it than the combination of Steph Curry and YouTube.
Breaking the Game
From the start of his career, Steph Curry has worked his way to breaking nearly every record you can think of when it comes to 3 point shooting. For his career he has shot 43.5% from 3 on over 8 attempts a game. That kind of shooting is not only unprecedented, it is statistically dominating when it comes to winning games. At an absurd 1.305 points per shot, a player would have to shoot 65.3% from inside the 3 point line to match that kind of scoring output per shot. When you consider that the true shooting percentage of the average NBA champion over the last 10 years is around 57.5%, Steph is hands down the best player in league history when it comes to adding offense through 3 point shooting, and he does it at a level that can win championships.
When the league average for 3 point shooting hovers around 35%, the value it provides is mostly from spacing the defenders, as though it’s efficient it’s not enough to beat scoring at the rim over the course of a game. The fact that Steph can shoot that volume, that efficiently, and maintain that performance against championship level defenses is game changing. He essentially proved that it’s possible to focus your game entirely around the 3 point line and still lead an NBA offense in scoring, something never done before.
In terms of positionless basketball this might have changed everything. If a player can shoot from 3 better than most can from 2, then ideally you’d want players that can shoot from 3 more than players that score inside unless they’re truly elite at scoring inside.
But not every player is Steph Curry, or Klay Thompson. Those two were raised by former NBA players that were above average 3 point shooters. You could argue that it might be that genetics gave them the shooting gift, but I think it’s more likely that they just practiced shooting more than any other kid playing basketball, and the part of genetics they benefited from most is their above average height.
Just look at Jaren Jackson Jr. another player raised by a former shooting specialist. He has a completely different form and build from his dad, but because his dad likely had him practicing like a shooting guard he naturally spent more time shooting 3’s than most kids.
Of course the vast majority of players coming into the league don’t have former players to teach them from a young age. But for players entering the league in this decade this might not be as big of a hindrance as it has been for players in the past.
Unlike every other kid to grow up and play in the NBA in the past, any player born this millennium has access to YouTube from the time they are physically able to manipulate a touchscreen. Across society this has had far reaching consequences that I think we were entirely unprepared for, and are only just now starting to come to fruition.
If you or someone you know is heavily into makeup as a hobby and artform, you might have jokingly said or heard them talk about the fact that “there are 13 year olds on YouTube that are experts at contour, and why don’t 13 years look like cabbage patch kids in overalls like when we were younger?” And it’s not just makeup. You look at any hobby, talent, skill, activity and you will see a bunch of experts expressing incredulity at the number of young people demonstrating master level skill in all these things that took them decades to hone.
The internet, and specifically streaming video is still in its infancy as a human technology, so there isn’t a ton of long term research of the effects of things like social media. While some it is likely bad for humanity as a whole, I don’t think we’ve considered just yet how positive it could be as well. We have instant access to every bit of information you could think to find, and videos posted by talented people of every interest that want to share that interest with others.
When you consider the fact that kids brains are at the height of their plasticity when it comes to learning new things, and that on average they have more free time to obsess over their interests, it seems like we have a combination specifically tailored to create super talented kids that seek out more and more advice from as many experts as they can. They watch videos, read, practice, and train until they themselves are experts, learned from the greatest minds on the planet in their chosen interest.
Ja Morant didn’t have a superstar dad. He played AAU, but usually on teams in secondary gyms. He didn’t go to a major blue blood university with an elite basketball mind head coach to teach him the important things other star players would be taught coming through their programs. All Ja had was a loving and supportive family that pushed him as hard as he wanted to go, a natural abundance of athleticism, and the internet.
Is it just happenstance that Ja Morant’s game reminds people so much of so many different great point guards? Westbrook, Wall, Chris Paul, and Rose have all been used dozens of times in Ja comparisons. Is it coincidence all 4 of those players had their primes overlap with Ja’s formative years?
From whatever age his parents let him get online, he could look up highlight videos and film of any player he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, studying and breaking down all their movements to recreate them himself. He didn’t need to be taught, as much as he taught himself through pure motivation and drive.
And it’s not just Ja. International players like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid have both talked about watching film of American players while they were learning the sport of basketball. Growing up across the Atlantic ocean they didn’t have access to all the coaches and leagues young players here have, but they could still watch the best of the best whenever they wanted to.
The first players to grow up this way are now into their NBA careers, and the results haven’t gone unnoticed even if the means aren’t talked about. Players like Luka, Trae, Tatum, Ja, Jaren, Mitchell, Murray, Jokic, and Giannis have all displayed skill far beyond their years when compared to other NBA superstars of the past.
But it’s not just the star players. John Konchar recently made local media laugh a bit when asked what player he compares himself to, and he said ‘Pat Connaughton.’ Almost every player that enters the league has been the best player on every team they’ve played on for maybe a decade and rookies will usually compare themselves to stars that they watched and idealized growing up. So for Konchar to compare himself to an NBA role player that’s still in the league and only a few years older than him seems silly.But if you go back and look at their college numbers and their physical profiles, you start to realize that John Konchar might just be the single most self actualized player in the entire league.
Both 6’5, 210 pound guys, played all 4 years at schools that aren’t traditional basketball powerhouses. Efficient scorers that score in the paint and from 3, incredible at rebounding for their size, above average passing for off ball players, very solid defense, and advanced numbers that blow most players out of the water, though against weaker competition than most NBA recruits. John Konchar was never heavily recruited and always played against weak competition, even if his own numbers suggested he was incredibly good. Is it possible that he went out and found the best possible player that looks and plays like him, and did everything he could to emulate that player knowing it would be his best shot of making the NBA? I don’t think it’s that far fetched.
If this trend continues for all the young players entering the NBA for the foreseeable future, it might mean that we are right on the edge of a new era in the sport, where the best players come into the league ready to lead within the first year or 2, and role players perfectly comfortable with their smaller roles on NBA rosters. Players that hit early growth spurts won’t necessarily be regulated to center positioning, and a lifetime of paint scoring and rebounding. If a taller player wants to work on their 3 point shot, independent of coaching or parenting they can now study videos of the best 3 point shooters ever and add that element to their game if they choose to. And the most motivated players, the ones that live and breathe basketball, they have limitless teachers and lessons to watch with as many hours as they can spare.
Flirting with the Future
A future where maybe basketball truly is positionless, where players all know how to box out when they're in the paint and a shot goes up, that can all shoot the 3 when open, drive the paint if they see a lane, and pass to the open man when the defense slips up. Of course smaller players will on average tend to have an easier time creating separation on the perimeter through their speed, and taller plays in the paint through their verticality, though both types of players may at least be able to do both well when the opportunity presents itself.
Some teams have already experimented with this concept to some extent, but right now the majority of the players in the league are not ready for that type of offense. For the majority of players over the age of 25, they grew up in a basketball culture that placed certain focus on their game based on their size. Most aren’t capable of playing all aspects of basketball at an NBA level because they didn’t get the practice in all the necessary skills as they developed.
The Houston Rockets might be the most aggressive team when it comes to molding the team to this mindset, with them refusing to sign players that aren’t capable of all those aspects of basketball. With a lack of players above 6’8 meeting all the criteria to be a truly good basketball player, this limited them to playing PJ Tucker, the largest such player on the roster, against other teams playing true 7 foot centers. It’s not that the Rockets overvalue smaller players, there just aren’t many players that are tall and capable of meeting those requirements, and the Rockets valued the concept of positionless basketball offense above getting players capable of defending elite frontcourts in a playoff setting.
Miami might be the best recent example of a team that has gone ‘full positionless’ when it comes to their roster. Pretty much every player on the roster in the recent playoffs was capable of making the right play on the offensive and defensive ends, and though they weren’t very efficient compared to other playoff team offenses, their ability to change roles on a moments notice got them all the way to the NBA finals against one of the strongest teams in NBA history.
If you go back even further, take a look at the playoff numbers of the 2014 Spurs that ended the Heat’s chances at a third title under the dominance of LeBron, Wade, and Bosh. An incredible balance of scoring, playmaking, and overall basketball talent from all the players to get significant minutes in the playoffs led to a sum greater than the whole, and a team that went down in history as playing ‘the beautiful game.’
But where does that leave the Grizzlies with their current roster? While other young star studded teams went after vets that they felt would compliment their current talent, the Grizzlies continued to go young and replaced the open spots on the roster with more players on their rookie deals, and resigning young players coming off their first contracts. Most of these young guys have more in common than you might expect.
To give you an idea of what kind of players the Grizzlies have focused on acquiring, here is every player that in their final year of college play had an above average assist, rebound, steal, and block rate when compared directly to players roughly their height and weight, a true shooting percentage that was above the NCAA average for that season, but did NOT lead the team in shot attempts. Listed by their season, along with their box plus minus rank of all college players from that season (minimum 500 minutes played) In other words, these are the players that were above average in almost every NBA counting stat we track to measure a players success:
Xavier Tillman (1st - 19/20)
Killian Tillie (5th - 19/20)
Desmond Bane (19th - 19/20)
Brandon Clarke (2nd - 18/19)
John Konchar (91st - 18/19)
Jontay Porter (42nd -17/18)
De'anthony Melton (102nd - 16/17)
Justise Winslow (33rd - 14/15)
Kyle Anderson (13th - 13/14)
Grayson Allen met all the requirements except rebound rate and block rate, but was still 62nd overall in box plus minus.
Ja and Dillon (yes, Dillon too) met all the requirements except they both led their respective teams in shot attempts in their final seasons. Ja was 29th overall in 2018-19, and Dillon was 42nd in 2016-17.
Jaren met all the requirements except an above average assist and rebound rate, and was 4th overall in 2017-18.
Notably, every player saw their assist rate and 3 point attempt rate increase dramatically each year they returned to play in college.
If you asked me, the FO is 100% bought into the idea of positionless basketball, and they've got a whole group of some of the best all around players to come out of college in the last 5 years with the proper skillset for it. I don't think the fact that so many players on the list played with each other in college is coincidental or something as simply as appeasing the star players by signing their friends.
The Grizzlies FO has gone out and gone after elite all around players, that played at some of the programs in the country with the most long term success. Coaches like coach K and Izzo are basketball geniuses that instill smart play into any player that comes through their program, and between 5 players on the roster we have over a decade of collective experience under those guys, on top of their own individual talent and expertise.
I think the team will hit the ground way faster than anyone expects. Don't be shocked if they blow past expectations this year. The Grizzlies as a whole seem very forward thinking when it comes to the ‘meta’ of the NBA, and their plays have all paid off so far. But where does that leave a player like Jonas Valanciunas?

Just by glancing at the list of the games available today, it would be fair to say that there is slim picking to choose from. With just one ranked team in action in Richmond, it would be very fair to have your attention taken away to reactionary galaxy brain takes on the AP and CBB rankings. However, taking a little deeper look, there are actually pretty interesting sets of mid-major games that could give you a preview of some potential tournament teams that can give powerful teams a run for their money. After all, we are all addicted to the sweet sweet drug that is live college basketball in any form. With that being said, let’s see what we can consume.
Wofford (2-0) vs 19 Richmond (2-0) - 2 pm EST, ESPN+
Richmond captured the attention and the heart of the die-hard college basketball fans when they sank the universally loved Kenyucky. Perhaps the scary part is that the Spiders weren’t even that great that game (or perhaps, that shows more about the state of the Wildcats). Enough has been said about their star point guard Jacob Gilyard, a diminutive defensive monster who can also do it all on the offensive end as well, but I also want to give a shoutout to their big man Grant Golden who is a key engine in their Princeton offense.
Richmond is genuinely a good, experienced old team that is a certified tournament team, and it’s a huge task for the young Wofford team. Gone are the days of Fletcher Magee heroics against the evil North Carolina, and the Terriers will need their star guard Storm Murphy to have a perfect game to have a chance at an upset.
Fairfield (0-3) vs Hartford (2-2) - 4pm EST, ESPN3
For so long, the American East has been dominated by Vermont. Except for that one time UMBC stumbled its way into the big dance (what did they do there anyway?), it has been the Catamounts to lose.
Except for last year.
After over a decade of suffering, Hartford finally had a chance to upend the power structure of the AE and take its throne back from the dictatorship of Vermont. They were on a roll late last season, beating Stony Brook to advance to the conference final against that no good Vermont team. With its crown jewel within its reach, everything was swept away when COVID-19 hit.
The Hawks bring a lot of talent back, led by their top talent Hunter Mark and young Moses Flowers. With their heartbreak behind them now, maybe this is the year where they can return to the glory. Watch them on their journey back to the top, today.
North Carolina Central (1-0) vs Coastal Carolina (2-0) - 6 pm EST, ESPN+
North Carolina Central is a favorite to win their conference, and you can brag that you watched this conference champion before the March Madness rolls around. What? They play in the MEAC and they might not even escape Dayton? Nevertheless, some MEACtion on Monday afternoon is not the worst way to spend your day. Coastal Carolina, on the other hand, has beaten two non-D1 schools, so to be honest, I have no idea what to expect from them.
Moorehead State (1-3) vs Eastern Kentucky (3-1) - 7 pm EST, ESPN+
Eastern Kentucky is showing some signs of life in what will be a competitive OVC. They comfortably took care of their business when they should have, and really pushed a very solid Xavier team until the end. With strong teams like Belmont, Murray State, and Austin Peay all lurking around, every single win counts by the Colonels, especially in conference play, will matter. Now, they take on their rivals Moorehead State to hopefully start 1-0.
Sneakily, Eastern Kentucky is also a very successful betting team, for those CBB moneymakers (shoutout to the guy who betted $500 on Texas yesterday, RIP). They have successfully covered the spread every game, and sometimes it’s a good idea to ride the wave while it lasts. Jomaru Brown is the one to watch here.
Northern Arizona (0-0) vs Arizona (2-0) - 9 pm EST, ncaa basketball streaming?
The only other bubble team that I consider who plays today, Arizona didn’t exactly put on a convincing performance when they squeaked by Eastern Washington by only three points. However, the Wildcats SHOULD comfortably take care of business against the Northern Arizona team that was forced to pause basketball activities due to COVID cases.
The player to watch for sure is James Akinjo, the do-it-all guard who has been carrying the team, perhaps a bit too much, considering he’s had only 8 minutes of rest so far. However, without him, the offense seems a bit lost without their point guard leading the line, and this could be a good test to see who can grab some minutes behind him for the future.
Another star from Arizona is Jordan Brown, a big man who is clearly the best of the bunch of bigs in the Wildcats. Again, this should be more of a game to find out the pieces next to the star. Christian Koloko, Azuolas Tubelis, and Ira lee are all vying for front court minutes next to Brown.
Honorable Mentions
George Washington (1-2) vs UMBC (1-1) - 4 pm, ESPN+, Lipscomb (1-3) vs Southeast Missouri State (1-1) - 7:30, ESPN+
Both UMBC and Lipscomb are chasing a pair of respective dominant champions in their division - Vermont in American East and Liberty in ASUN. While they might not be favorites, they have a good outside shot of knocking them down to make it to the big dance once again. I’m sure Virginia fans would be thrilled.
South Carolina State (0-4) vs Charlotte (0-2) - 6 pm EST, maybe possibly on that subreddit that streams college basketball games
One of them has to win right? Right?
Loyola Marymount (2-2) vs UC Santa Barbara (1-0) - 8 pm EST, to be completely honest this might be impossible to watch
Loyola Marymount hit the first mid-major buzzer-beaters, so maybe they can do it again?
Lewis vs Bradley (3-2) - 8 pm, ESPN+
I couldn’t justify asking you to watch Bradley take on a non-D1 school this Monday, but the Braves are one of the better mid-major teams in the country.
EDIT: After I wrote this up, I just saw the Oregon-Eastern Washington game got added. You should probably watch that over a lot of the games here, as Oregon is a legit bubble team that has legit players like Chris Duarte.

ABA (American Basketball Association) (9 seasons, 1967-68 through 1975-76): Most of you are probably familiar with the ABA. It was a poorly run league with teams constantly relocating, renaming themselves, changing ownership, folding, and generally barely existing (timeline of ABA teams). That being said, the ABA was way ahead of its time in certain respects: it had 3-pointers, introduced 4 key stats we use today (steals, blocks, turnovers, offensive rebounds), figured out how to get guys into the pros without being stuck in college for 4 years (Spencer Haywood case), finally got playground legend Connie Hawkins into the pros, and gave us the dunk contest. Several great players played in the ABA (profiles for several of them), and although its overall talent level was pretty bad during its first 3-4 years, it definitely appears to have had superior talent over the NBA during its final 3-4 years (routinely beat the NBA in head-to-head exhibition match-ups). Speaking broadly, the NBA was more of a controlled league during this time that was seen as guys "playing the right way" with a continued emphasis on pounding it inside with big guys, and the ABA was more of a "just give them the ball and let them run" situation, but it's important not to downplay that the ABA's style allowed for the natural flow and rhythm that great athletes bring to the game (and the ABA certainly had better athletes). If you're surmising that this last sentence when taken within the context of the 70's might have meant there were some racial components to how the leagues were viewed, and how the ABA was denigrated by basketball traditionalists, you are correct. This picture at the time of the merger in 1976 helps sum up how the leagues were seen: hard-working white guy from Boston and the black razzle-dazzle "hot dog" in New York. Although the ABA was always on the verge of collapsing, it did finally get its much sought after merger with the NBA in the summer of 1976. A lot of great ABA players continued to thrive in the NBA (the 4 most notable being Dr. J, David Thompson, George Gervin, and Moses Malone), while some did not as their new NBA coaches really tried to hammer the free-flowing nature of their game out of them, and discipline them into "playing the right way" which meant like Hoosiers if you get what I mean. There are some great ABA resources at this link, most notably the always fascinating Remember The ABA website.
BAA (Basketball Association of America) (3 seasons, 1946-47 through 1948-49): The BAA was the official forerunner to the NBA, as its formation in 1946 is seen today as the start of the NBA. A huge reason for this is because Maurice Podoloff was the BAA's president for all 3 years and then the NBA's president for their first 14 years. It's more complicated than that (more about this below with the NBL), but basically the BAA was founded shortly after the end of WWII by rich guys who owned hockey arenas and/or hockey teams in major cities in the Northeast in order to make more money when hockey teams were out of town. Yes, pro hockey was definitely bigger than pro basketball in the 40's. Whereas the longer established NBL mostly avoided the big cities, the BAA went right into New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, and Toronto. Again, they were trying to fill hockey arenas on off-nights. Early stars included Joe Fulks, Max Zaflosky, and Bob Feerick, but the league really got cooking in its 3rd & final season ('49) when 4 NBL teams jumped over to the BAA. This included 3 of its 4 best franchises (Lakers, Royals, Pistons), which meant numerous star players from the '48 NBL Finals (Lakers vs Royals) were now in the BAA: George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Bob Davies, Al Cervi, Arnie Risen, Bobby Wanzer (I've written profiles of all of these guys - that's how important they were for the 40's & early-50's). The BAA and NBL officially merged into the NBA in 1949 for the good of pro basketball so that the two leagues weren't fighting over the best college players, although the NBA today really sees it as an expansion more so than a merger. Here is some more info about the BAA.
NBL (National Basketball League) (12 seasons, 1937-38 through 1948-49): The league was a rebranding and/or restructuring of the Midwestern Basketball Conference (MBC) which had formed two years prior as America was finally making headway out of the Great Depression (more on this restructuring in 1937). The NBL (which was the 5th and final league created with this name) was formed by some large corporations (GE, Goodyear, Firestone) and factories which often provided more stable day jobs for the players, and this league generally existed in smaller mid-western cities like Sheboygan, Tri-Cities, Fort Wayne, and Toledo. Due to pro basketball's bad reputation at the time, NBL teams for the most part were not welcome in major arenas in big cities, even though most college teams were. During the time of the BAA's short existence, the NBL's big advantage was its star players; in addition to the 6 listed above who joined the BAA for the '49 season, the NBL managed to sign 4/5 of Kentucky's beloved "Fabulous Five" who won the NCAA titles in 1948 and 1949 and formed them into a pro team, the Indianapolis Olympians (the Fab Five were all gold medal-winning Olympians in 1948). This team was headlined by the famous and talented duo of Alex Groza and Ralph Beard, both of whom had brief but very successful pro careers before being banned in 1951 due to a college point-shaving scandal at UK (info about Groza). The team was formed for the 1949-50 season and became a big bargaining chip for the league when it merged with the BAA in the summer of 1949, so the Olympians' first season was actually played in the NBA but it was formed by the NBL. Although the common narrative --and what I assumed was the case until very recently-- is that the BAA basically just absorbed the broken scraps of the NBL in 1949 so that one pro league could finally have all the talent and play in the big cities, u/CorphisJokes brought it to my attention that the NBL had a strong position in their bargaining with the BAA, and really it was the BAA that needed the merger after the NBL formed the Olympians with Groza and Beard (link 1, link 2). I'll point out that in the NBA's first season (1949-50), 4 of the 5 players named 1st-team All-NBA were originally signed by the NBL: Mikan, Pollard, Davies, and Groza. Also of great importance, the NBL integrated black players in 1942 (5 years before Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers), mostly from the Globetrotters and Rens.
ABL (American Basketball League) (1-and-a-half seasons, 1961-62 until mid-way through 1962-63): Like the ABA, the ABL had some great ideas that eventually helped the NBA, but it didn't have the chops to remain profitable and successful, nor was it on the same level as the ABA. The ABL was formed by Harlem Globetrotters' owner Abe Saperstein who felt the NBA betrayed him by allowing the Lakers to move to LA in 1960 since he claimed to be promised an NBA franchise in LA. The positive contributions of the ABL are few but obvious: they were the first league to have a 3-point line (which lead to the ABA's 3-pointer), and they were the first league to have a wider free-throw lane (I've read it was either 16 or 18 feet wide, and the NBA's was still only 12 feet wide at the time). The league hurt itself right away by spreading its 9 franchises way too far apart, from coast to coast, and even putting a team in Hawaii. The ABL had a trio of bona fide players with Connie Hawkins (banned by the NBA), formefuture NBA star Dick Barnett, and future NBA All-Star Bill Bridges. They were certainly the league's 3 best players, but the league also picked up some former stars of note like Bill Sharman, George Yardley, and Neil Johnston. Barnett lead his team to the title in '62 (on the George Steinbrenner-owned Cleveland Pipers) while Hawkins was the MVP, and then the league suddenly folded about 30 games into their second season on December 31, 1962. Here are some cool links about the ABL: 1) great history of the ABL, 2) full ABL stats, 3) ABL player registry with photos, 4) 3-pt stats for players of note.

Came across an interview titled Longtime Reddit GM, Erik Martin, Discusses Managing “The Front Page Of The Internet,” Free Speech And The Time Obama Was Banned From /Politics from KnowYourMeme (KYM) which people might find interesting.
I've provided most the text below, but it's probably easier to read on the KYM site directly than with Reddit formatting.
When Reddit emerged in the mid-2000s, it was a bare-bones startup with big dreams and an uphill battle. In 2008, Erik Martin joined the team as its first-ever community manager, eventually becoming general manager where he saw the site through some of its most crucial growing pains. As GM, Martin acted as a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, managing communities, operations, sales and even the famous AMAs with prominent people like Barack Obama. Although one of Reddit’s most well-liked staffers, he ultimately parted ways with the site in 2014 and moved on to continue his endeavors elsewhere. Now, Martin is chief community officer at a new startup called Teal where he helps job-seekers to develop their careers. We caught up with him to learn more about his time at Reddit, see what he makes of the recent debate surrounding free speech and share a few of his favorite memes and moments from over the years.
Q: Hey there, Erik. Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us. Can you kick things off here by introducing yourself a bit and telling us what you’ve been doing lately?
A: Excited to chat with y’all. I guess I’m most known for being an early employee at Reddit and being the General Manager there from 2011 to 2014. Since then, I’ve worked on community and marketing stuff at a few companies, including Depop, WeWork, Airtime, and most recently at Nike. I’m currently the Chief Community Officer at Teal, a relatively new startup that’s focused on helping guide people throughout their careers. I’ve been working hard on that since the fall. I’m also really into church cookbooks from 100-plus years ago, even though I’m not religious and I can’t really cook. Other noteworthy internet stuff would be that I started a project a while back called Assholes on Demand. It’s kinda dormant now, but when it was going, we helped people who weren’t “extremely online” deal with bad customer service issues at enormous banks, cable companies, etc. I was also a videographer and sometimes editor for Improv Everywhere, the hidden camera prank collective that had a lot of viral videos in the early to mid-2000s.
Q: So you obviously have a pretty extensive history with the internet, particularly Reddit, but I’m curious to learn more about your background and some of your earliest experiences with the web. Could you recap how you got your start online and what places you used to frequent?
A: I think my internet background really starts sort of pre-internet with my mom’s old Mac SE. My mom was a graphic designer and had this glorious, ugly, 25-pound black-and-white Mac. Apple called it “portable” at the time because it came with a giant-ass carrying bag and had a handle on top of the display. My uncle was also a Machead and he would bring us stacks of 3.5-inch floppy discs with every kind of pirated video game and software. There were no labels on the discs, no instructions and no reviews or anything. You just put a disc in and tried out all the applications. Sometimes it was a fun game, sometimes it was a drawing tool, sometimes it was a boring business program I didn’t understand, and sometimes it crashed the machine. The really good ones I’d copy and share with friends. Eventually, that beige/grey computer got hooked up to an ancient modem and we got online, but to me, it feels like “the internet” started with those unlabeled disks. I think when I see something new online or I explore some rabbit hole, I’m trying to chase that feeling of being a curious child and loading a new disk of unknown content.
I graduated from college in 1999 and went to go work for a variety of long-defunct startups in North Carolina. It was an exciting time to be an inquisitive and green kid willing to work on anything. I did everything from helping a visual search engine QA [quality assurance] their taxonomy of rugs, to helping a browser companion company write reviews for websites. I had an amateur knowledge of videography and also starting shooting videos of NCAA Division III basketball games for this basketball lifestyle site called HoopsTV that was about 20 years ahead of its time. The dotcom crash happened and all those companies failed. Over time, I picked up more video work, learned to edit videos and worked on a variety of low-budget films. My internet addiction blossomed with things like IRC [Internet Relay Chat], IMDB, webrings, blogs and Fark.
Q: In 2008, you then became Reddit’s first-ever Community Manager. How did this position come about, what did it entail, and what drew you to it?
A: I applied to the very first Y Combinator founders program as a documentary filmmaker. They rejected me, but after that, I was kinda hooked on seeing what happened, so I became a user and fan of Reddit soon after they launched out of that first YC class. At some point, I reached out to the site by sending a cold email to info@ or hello@. Alexis Ohanian responded and we exchanged emails. At the time, I was doing digital marketing for a film and music company. I think we discussed doing some sort of online Q&A on Reddit with one of the music video directors we were promoting, but I was basically a lurker, still am really. I got to know Alexis, and a few years later when Reddit needed someone to be their representative on the production of weekly current events that were, in theory, going to incorporate an online audience through a Reddit show pilot with a PBS affiliate, they asked if I was interested. The pilot ended, but I got to know the site and team more.
Later that year, Alexis asked me if I wanted to be a community manager. It was hourly and didn’t pay well, but I had enough other freelance gigs that I could make it work. Most of what I did early on was promoting new subreddits or other new Reddit projects and some very basic spam fighting. There was only a tiny team, but Alexis, Steve [Huffman] and all the engineers were all super-active users, so every employee was a community manager. During that time, I also started doing video Ask Me Anything [AMA] interviews. The Reddit community wanted some celebrities to do AMAs but getting someone not familiar with Reddit to devote time to navigating the threaded text comments was a tough sell. So, we got the top 10 questions from the community, recorded the person answering them on video, and posted the YouTube video on our blog. That way, we only needed to get them to commit to 30 minutes of their time. Eventually, Reddit and the AMA format grew to a point where celebrities would take part in the native text AMA with minimal hand-holding or convincing, but the video AMAs helped build that momentum.
Q: During those initial years, what were some of the biggest differences between Reddit then compared to now? Do you think it was easier or more difficult with a smaller userbase?
A: The biggest difference is just size. Reddit doubled in traffic every year until recently. So, each year there was just more and more activity and users and subreddits. Early on it was also mostly links and then self-text posts. It took a while before Imgur and other services made it easy to link pics. I think it was easier. Reddit was always understaffed and the engineers had to work magic to keep the site up, but one could at least be aware of most of the new subreddits, trends and fun organic moments. As time went on, that just became increasingly impossible for users and staff.
We were also this scrappy underdog. Even though Reddit had been around for a while, it was such a bare-bones operation compared to other competitors at the time that users, mods and people we worked with were forgiving. You can’t really be the underdog if you’ve been around for 15 years and you’re big enough to be seen from space.
Q: After a couple of years, you moved up to Reddit’s General Manager and you were often one of the most public faces of the company during that time. Can you briefly describe that role and some of your biggest moments from those years?
A: When I became General Manager it was a weird time, Reddit was still part of Conde Nast, but it was starting a process where it eventually spun out and recapitalized as an independent entity. The role was a catch-all, and I ended up doing whatever Reddit needed. Sometimes it was operations, sometimes community and sometimes sales stuff. Growth in terms of traffic wasn’t ever a problem, but we wanted to keep the site growing in terms of the subreddits and discussions and even formats on Reddit. I focused on promoting subreddits like /IAMA, all the unique “Ask” subreddits like “AskScience” or “AskHistorians,” the sports subreddits, the various fandom subreddits, college subreddits and non-U.S.-centric subreddits.
The biggest moments for me were helping get the local subreddits active. We held a Global Meetup Day, and each year, more and more cities around the world took part. I’ve been to meetups all over the world. Even now, anytime I travel somewhere for the first time, I spend time on the local subreddit and try to learn as much as I can.
A big awareness moment during that was when we were part of the SOPA/PIPA blackout and helped defeat a bill that had enormous support in D.C. It seems quaint from today’s perspective, but it was an important issue, or at least felt like it. We always felt that the press should mention Reddit in the same breath as Twitter, Facebook and other gigantic internet places. That SOPA protest movement felt like the first time when the mainstream media did that. Also in 2012, when Obama was running for reelection, he stopped by Reddit for an AMA. We’d been working up to a POTUS AMA for years, and it was incredible to see that happen. The thought terrified me that news would leak and people would have time to figure out ways to cause mischief, or worse, but it worked out and the small team of engineers did amazing work to keep the site from completely buckling under the onslaught of traffic and attention.
Some of the biggest challenges were growth-related. As Reddit grew, the work the mods had to do got more and more overwhelming. By 2012, you had moderators who were doing their best to moderate subreddits that were bigger than all of Reddit was just two years ago. They were creative, resourceful and came up with ways to use CSS and automod tools, but it was a hard and thankless job even in smaller, relatively tranquil subreddits. We had a lean team, to put it mildly. When I left, we had around 70 employees, which seemed like a lot to me, but in hindsight, it was nothing compared to other, similar companies. We were all spread thin and juggling a lot. Who knows, I’m sure the alternative universe where we had more staff and resources would have come with its own additional problems, but when I think back about that time, it’s all a bit of a sleep-deprived blur.
Q: During your time as GM, you were sometimes asked about the site’s position on free speech. In 2011 during an AMA, a Redditor asked about your stance on certain controversial subreddits and you said, “We're a free speech site with very few exceptions and having to stomach occasional troll reddit like picsofdeadkids or morally questionable reddits like jailbait are part of the price of free speech on a site like this.” Can you elaborate on your answer more and speak to that time period of the site?
A: I wish I could unsay that. Even back then, saying “Free speech” was a lazy and bad answer. I was trying to describe a generally hands-off approach but didn’t even do that well. It’s a metaphor or bumper-sticker phrase that isn’t useful. If we were making blithe comparisons to the Bill of Rights, then Freedom of Assembly might have been a better framework than always talking about speech and content. Still, it’s wrong. I think what I and many people at Reddit believed was that as much control and decision-making should be in the hands of the subreddit mods and individual users. Not all control, but as much as possible. I don’t think we felt absolutist about it, but I think, at the time, we felt inertia, and we feared to make decisions -- we didn’t prioritize making them, or at least I felt that way. The whole point of Reddit was that the users would decide what was “on the front page,” not the editors or people working at the company. That worked! But then as the site and other infrastructure grew, the infrastructure around who gets to create a subreddit, for what purpose and how to grow the global rules thoughtfully didn’t keep up.
Q: Since that topic is something so commonly debated when discussing Reddit, what are your personal opinions on online freedom of speech? Have those opinions changed over time since then?
A: I still believe that as much control and decision-making as possible should be in the hands of the subreddit mods and individual users, and I think that’s why Reddit is still relevant and growing 15 years after Alexis and Steve started it. That doesn’t mean there has to be some hideous “price” or that there shouldn’t be thoughtful and dynamic rules. The organization and humans running Reddit can still be accountable without needing complete control. Again, I think content and speech is not a relevant framework anymore. I think behavior, impact, scale and speed are all more useful ways to discuss the topic than talking about speech.
Q: Was that something the founders or admins also pushed while you worked at Reddit, or was it an issue that you personally clashed with others at the company over?
A: People disagreed, but I don’t remember philosophical clashes. It was more pragmatic. People disagreed about the degrees, priorities and the best way to approach updating rules and moderation. There was always a tension between things like the role of improving tools and more improving human moderation, but it wasn’t ideological that I remember.
Q: What's the weirdest or most interesting thing you dealt with during your time at Reddit? Got any good stories from over the years?
A: So many wonderful stories. I really was fortunate to experience so many unreal stories, big and small. The first one that comes to mind is when Obama’s post got banned from /politics. So, everyone knows that Obama did an AMA, but most people didn’t know or forgot that he also posted a message on election day. He posted a brief message to the politics subreddit encouraging people to get out and vote “no matter your political persuasion,” and it had a link to look up your polling place. When the AMA happened, we had advance notice and all that, but we didn’t know about the election day message until I got a phone call from one of the campaign people asking, “Do you know why POTUS got banned?” “Uhhh, let me look into that.” Apparently, one or more of the mods felt that the nature of the post broke one of the subreddit rules, so they banned it. I sent a message to the mods politely asking if they could reconsider or even make a sitting head of state exception for some minor rules infraction. They discussed it and eventually unbanned the post. Simpler times. You can complain about Reddit mods all you want, but you can’t say they’re afraid to ban a sitting president’s posts.
Another thing that comes to mind is a minor snafu that happened when I went to record a video AMA with Noam Chomsky. I videotaped Chomsky answering the top questions from Reddit in his office. I thought it would look good to have Reddit open on a monitor in the shot, so I set up my laptop in the background behind him. I forgot that I had whatever “word of the day” screensaver came installed on the laptop turned on. So about 10 minutes into the interview, my screensaver comes on and I realize, in horror, that people watching the video will think the laptop is Chomsky’s and that the founder of cognitive science uses some super basic, vocabulary-builder screensaver. He was on a roll, so I didn’t have the heart to stop the interview or apologize afterward. Fortunately, the words were like “conformity” and “impoverished” and so simple that when we published the video, people realized it must be a joke or some default factory setting.
Q: So then in late 2014 you stepped down as GM without a huge plan as to what you wanted to do next with your career. Could you tell us more about what led you to walk away from Reddit after you’d been so heavily involved since it started?
A: In hindsight, I was burned out. I hadn’t been taking care of myself and felt ragged. It also felt like a good time to move on. Reddit had just raised a fresh round of funding. Also, I got married earlier in the year, so it just felt like the right time professionally and personally to do something new. I felt like if I didn’t leave when there was a moment, then Reddit would define me. Like if I stayed much longer, I wouldn’t be able to function anywhere else. I recently moved from NYC after living there for the last 12 years or so. It was a similar feeling. I love NYC and I love Reddit, but there was this underlying feeling of “if I don’t leave now, I never will.”
I didn’t know what the next thing was, but I knew I wanted to work with a different community and company. I ended up helping Depop launch in the U.S. I was excited about the experience of working for a non-U.S. company and marketplace, both unfamiliar things for me. Where Reddit’s userbase skewed male, Depop’s userbase skewed female. I believed that the basics of running and growing a community-based company and brand were still the same, no matter what the community was, and I wanted to explore that.
Q: What are your thoughts on some of the controversial decisions in recent years regarding Reddit’s policy changes, ban waves and other moves that many argued went against the free speech roots of the site? Do you think some of that fallout is justified, or are these individuals missing something?
A: I haven’t followed everything closely, but I’m all for the changes. They should have happened sooner, but it’s easier to say that on the outside as a normal citizen. I’m sure there was some backlash but also seemed like a lot of users and mods supported the decisions.
Q: So taking all of this history into consideration alongside your own experience working with Reddit, how do you think these changes will impact the site’s future? Where do you see it in the next five or 10 years?
A: I think the change is good. I don’t have many predictions or insights … I mean, Reddit is too big to look at the entire picture, at least for me. I try to focus on the long-standing and brand new subreddits. The Formula1 subreddit recently posted about reaching 1 million subscribers and how they grew the subreddit over the past 12 years. As long as existing communities on Reddit can keep thriving while new subreddits can emerge and grow, like /LiminalSpace, then Reddit will keep trucking, keep mutating and be healthy.
Q: Aside from Reddit, lots of other social media platforms have also been seeing some major shifts in terms of policy changes, censorship and things of that nature in recent months. Can you speak to social media as a whole and what you think the future holds for the industry?
A: I think there’s been a failure of imagination and experimentation. In the grand scheme of things, we’re still in the early days of social media platforms. There needs to be more experimentation and less calcification. Dealing with the unique scale and speed of large platforms is hard, but there are solutions and frameworks with more creativity that can help, and the users of these platforms want to help contribute. For example, back in 2010 or so, Reddit tried a feature to combat spam called Jury Duty. A small group of users would be randomly selected to review a specific potential spam post, and they would vote if it was spam or not. The system didn’t solve the spam issue for a few reasons, but the basic premise worked. Users, and not just the ones who are normally the most vocal or extreme, were willing to do some “work” to improve their community if it was easy to take part. Users have already come up with shared solutions like that organically across all the platforms, but the platforms need to prioritize those types of experiments and systems more.

Thanks to the coronavirus, this NBA season may be a disjointed mess, and the NBA offseason may be as well. There’s no telling how much information teams will have to work with in regards to the prospects (their medicals, their workouts, their interviews, etc.) In a sense, it’s going to make an already-dicy draft class even riskier than ever.
That said, there are some things that we know about the new crop, so I thought I’d break them down for those NBA fans who don’t follow the NCAA and have run out of Tiger King episodes already.
Today, we’re going to start with the player listed at the top of the charts (on most sites.)
SG ANTHONY EDWARDS, GEORGIA
his resume
After a successful stint as an E.R. doctor, Anthony Edwards turned his attention to basketball full time. Best known as an explosive scorer, the guard became a five-star recruit that was ranked top 5 by all major sites. The Atlanta product decided to stay local, and attend Georgia for college. At the time, it was seen as a major coup for coach Tom Crean and a redefining moment for the Bulldogs program.
As we all know, snagging "one and done" superstars is a great way to stay relevant in college basketball. If you can load up with 2-3 of them at once, you can be a true title contender. However, as we've seen many times recently, landing ONE superstar recruit doesn't necessarily lead to glory. Solo stars like Ben Simmons and Dennis Smith Jr. didn't have loads of team success (and saw their coaches get fired soon after). Future # 1 pick Markelle Fultz's Washington team went 9-22 in his lone season there.
Some of those same problems plagued Anthony Edwards at Georgia. As a one-man band, he could rack up good raw stats (19.1 points, 5.2 rebounds per game), but struggled with his efficiency. He shot only 40.2% from the field, and only 29.4% from three (on 7+ attempts per game.) His playmaking also left something to be desired (2.8 assists, 2.7 turnovers.) Coach Tom Crean will survive, but this 16-16 team wasn't a year to remember after all.
Despite those mixed results, Edwards is still ranked as the # 1 overall prospect on ESPN. Other sites have him a little lower (with tankathon's # 6 slot the lowest), but he's generally considered a heavy favorite for a top 3 pick along with PG LaMelo Ball and C James Wiseman.
his game
When you watch Anthony Edwards play, the first thing that comes to mind is his explosion and power for the position. He's listed anywhere from 6'3" to 6'5" (so we'll settle on 6'4") but he has a long 6'9" wingspan. More than that, he's a sturdy 225 pounds. He’s going to be a handful to match up with, even in the NBA.
Offensively, Edwards utilizes his athleticism well, pressing the issue and (at times) forcing his will. The 19.1 PPG may not jump off the page, but Edwards has all the tools to be a big-time scorer. He can get buckets anywhere on the court. And while his 29.4% three-point percentage may jump out as an immediate red flag, his actual shooting form looks fine. His FT% (77.2%) also indicates as much. He's also clearly not shy about taking shots either, illustrating his confidence in that part of his game. With better teammates and better shot selection, he should be an average to above-average three-point shooter (maybe 36%.)
Defensively, Edwards should be better than he’s shown so far. He’s a natural SG, but his size and length should enable him to guard some 1s and 3s as well. However, the effort and attitude isn’t always there on that end at this stage.
his comps
Because Anthony Edwards played for Tom Crean, there's a natural tendency to compare him to other shooting guards that Crean has coached -- including Dwyane Wade and Victor Oladipo. Presuming any prospect will be as good as Dwyane Wade is setting yourself up for disappointment, but as far as best case scenario, that's not ridiculous at all. Like Wade, Edwards is a long-armed power guard with All-Star potential. I'd even say that he's farther ahead than Wade was offensively at this stage of their careers (Wade stayed two years at Marquette.) In order for Edwards to unlock that upside, he'll need to continue to hammer his way to the line. He averaged 5.3 free throw attempts per game -- which is "good" but not "great." Wade himself improved from 4.8 FTA to 7.5 FTA in his second year in college, and I'd encourage Edwards to make that a point of emphasis as well.
In terms of "worst case scenario," a few come to mind as well. If Edwards doesn't get to the line much in the NBA, then his scoring efficiency will become very dependent on his shot making, which is no sure thing right now. I've heard some people here on reddit throw out a Dion Waiters comparison, and that's not a ridiculous suggestion either when considering Edwards' floor. If he doesn't improve his efficiency and he doesn't improve his defensive intensity, then perhaps a life as a mediocre empty-calorie scorer is in the cards for him.
If I had to bet on a most likely outcome, the truth would be somewhere in between. Utah SG Donovan Mitchell immediately comes to mind for me. Like Edwards, Mitchell is a little undersized (in terms of height) but has good length and a powerful frame. He thrives best as a multi-level scorer, although his efficiency will also hinge on how often he's getting to the line. Right now, in Year 3, Mitchell averaged 24-4-4 for the Jazz, and that seems like a realistic expectation for Edwards down the road as well.
how he fits on every team (listed by current lottery order)
(1) GOLDEN STATE. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Based on some rumors, Anthony Edwards is the top player on the Warriors' board, although you could wonder about the immediate fit. Presumably, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson will be locked into the backcourt, and Andrew Wiggins (flaws and all) will still be further ahead than a 19-year-old rookie. There's some chance that the Warriors may decide to go SUPER small and play all four together with Draymond Green, but it's more likely that they'd bring Edwards off the bench to begin his career. That would serve as a nice boost for their shaky depth, but may not be the best use of an asset like this.
I'm more bullish on Edwards' fit on Golden State from a long-term perspective. Steph Curry is 32 now, so by the time that Edwards hits his prime, Curry will likely be 35+ and best used as a complementary scorer anyway. Edwards would inherit the kingdom, so to speak. And if you're worried about his habits and playing style, then you're unlikely to find a better home to develop him than a top-flight organization like Golden State. overall fit: 3 (out of 5).
(2) CLEVELAND. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Last year, the Cleveland Cavaliers surprised many by taking a scoring guard like Darius Garland only one year after taking a scoring guard in Collin Sexton. Presumably, Anthony Edwards could fit with either one of the two because of his size/length, but it'd be hard to imagine all THREE playing together. To add even more murkiness to the equation, the Cavs also have an explosive young scoredevelopmental project at SG in Kevin Porter Jr.
If the Cavs do get a chance to draft Anthony Edwards, they'd likely go ahead and hand him the keys to the kingdom (and throw the other babies out with the bath water) if need be. He can be the type of signature star that they've lacked since LeBron James. That said, it's one of the clunkiest fits on the board. overall fit: 1.5 (out of 5).
(3) MINNESOTA. chances of # 1 pick: 14%, chances of a top 4 pick: 52%
Karl-Anthony Towns and GM Gersson Rosas finally landed their man in D'Angelo Russell, another high-volume scoring guard that theoretically would clash with Anthony Edwards. However, I actually think Russell and Edwards could play in the same backcourt. They're both long (Russell has a 6'10" wingspan, Edwards 6'9"), and project as decent shooters from range. Aside from some back and forth battles for the basketball, they should play well together.
The bigger domino effect of Edwards landing in Minnesota may be the fate of mid-season acquisition Malik Beasley. Beasley has some similarities to Edwards, with an underrated scoring touch. You could play Beasley as a 6th man scorer, but he's a free agent right now and may have higher aspirations than that. That hanging question will dock us a half point in this score. overall fit: 3 (out of 5.)
(4) ATLANTA. chances of # 1 pick: 12.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 48%
The Atlanta Hawks already have their signature star in tow in Trae Young. They've (wisely) endeavored to build the supporting cast in a way that covers for him on defense, selecting D'Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish in the draft, and trading for Clint Capela in midseason. On the surface, Anthony Edwards doesn't fit int that mold. He has the tools to be a good defender, but like a lot of young scorers, doesn't always lock in (advanced stats list him as a modest +0.8 in defensive box plus/minus.)
All that said, the fit still isn't bad. If the Hawks want to make the playoffs, they need to improve their defense. But if they want to win championships down the road, then grabbing another potential All-Star to pair with Trae Young is a good recipe too. Young's ability to spread the court would also help Edwards as he attacks inside. Offensively, they'd be a bad-ass duo. overall fit: 4 (out of 5.)
(5) DETROIT. chances of # 1 pick: 10.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 42%
The strength of this year's draft is the point guard position, and that works out well for the Detroit Pistons. They could use a young guard who can develop behind Derrick Rose for a season or two, and ultimately take the reins of the offense and become the star of the franchise down the road.
That said, the Pistons could also use a star small forward. Or a star shooting guard. Basically: any star at all. Certainly, Anthony Edwards has star potential. That makes him a good organizational fit, even if the roster fit isn't cookie cutter (SG Luke Kennard is pretty good; let the Pistons know that.) overall fit: 3.5 (out of 5.)
(6) NEW YORK. chances of # 1 pick: 9%, chances of a top 4 pick: 37%
Like the Detroit Pistons, the New York Knicks aren't going to get too picky with their needs. Sure, they'd like a superstar PG, but any superstar would add a much-needed jolt of electricity to the building.
Would Anthony Edwards be the best type of superstar to provide that? Eh. Kinda-sorta. There's definitely some overlap here with R.J. Barrett in terms of a young wing with All-Star potential but some inefficiency issues to iron out. In an ideal world, they could be a superstar duo (LeBron James + Dwyane Wade worked out okay), but there's too much murkiness and projection involved there to give you confidence in that fit. overall fit: 2.5 (out of 5).
(7) CHICAGO. chances of # 1 pick: 7.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 32%
Wait, an athletic scorer with defensive lapses? Would Chicago Bulls fans be seeing double here when Anthony Edwards shows up to play alongside Zach LaVine?
Again, as with Minnesota, I don't think it's a total duplication to pair the two together, because Edwards and LaVine both have size and the ability to shoot it. You could play the two together and put the pressure on defenses. That said, it's not a perfect marriage by any means, unless the Bulls can change their culture and get their kids to lock in on both ends. overall fit: 2 (out of 5.)
(8) CHARLOTTE. chances of # 1 pick: 6%, chances of a top 4 pick: 26%
The Charlotte Hornets' top two scorers this year were both guards -- Terry Rozier and Devonte' Graham -- but neither one of them are good enough or efficient enough to make you change from a "best player available" approach to the draft.
More than anything -- and dare I say, more than any other NBA team -- the Charlotte Hornets need a SUPERSTAR. With all due respect to Kemba Walker, they haven't had one since their expansion. I don't know if Anthony Edwards will necessary be that superstar, but he'll have every opportunity here on a team that would feature him heavily. And while the Hornets get a lot of flak for their organization, their coaching staff isn't half bad at all. Candidly, I hope they win the lottery, because they deserve some good karma for not egregiously tanking despite their obvious rebuild here. overall fit: 4.5 (out of 5.)
(9) WASHINGTON. chances of # 1 pick: 4.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 20%
Conversely, the Washington Wizards don't need a superstar to slap on the marquee as much as other lottery teams like Charlotte. They have Bradley Beal, and John Wall returning next year. Moreover, both of those stars are guards who thrive with the ball in their hands. Anthony Edwards would represent quite a bit of duplication here.
To repeat, the Wizards (and every team) should take Edwards if he's the clear best player available, but it's just not the best marriage for both parties in this particular case. Edwards could be a great 6th man for them or perhaps play as a small SF, but it's not the ideal remedy for what ails them. More than anything, the Wizards need frontcourt help, and defensive help, and Edwards' talents lie elsewhere. overall fit: 1 (out of 5.)
(10) PHOENIX. chances of # 1 pick: 3%, chances of a top 4 pick: 14%
At a certain point, years and years of lottery picks are going to give the Phoenix Suns so much talent that the scales will tip over and turn them into a winner. Probably. Maybe.
Anthony Edwards would help with that, even if there's some natural duplication here with scoring guard Devin Booker that will dock them a point or two in our metrics. That said, Booker has the ability to play PG if need be, and is one of the better spacers in the league. If coach Monty Williams can get Booker and Anthony Edwards to be a two-headed monster on the perimeter and unleash Deandre Ayton's potential as well, this could be a sleeping giant. overall fit: 3 (out of 5.)
(11) SAN ANTONIO. chances of # 1 pick: 2%, chances of a top 4 pick: 9%
It feels awfully strange to say, but the San Antonio Spurs are actually one of those teams like Charlotte (gasp) that needs a future star to build their team around. DeMar DeRozan is 30 (and a potential free agent), LaMarcus Aldridge is 34. The young kids like Dejounte Murray and Jakob Poeltl are solid, but limited. Anthony Edwards would immediately come in and become the centerpiece of a rebuild. (Lonnie Walker IV may bristle at that, but our eyes will have wandered past him in this scenario.)
What works best in this hypothetical is the fit from a developmental standpoint. Edwards has star potential, but isn't a sure thing. There's no organization better at maximizing talent than the San Antonio Spurs, from a shooting perspective to a basketball IQ perspective to a long-term load management perspective. overall fit: 4.5 (out of 5.)
(12) SACRAMENTO. chances of # 1 pick: 1%, chances of a top 4 pick: 6%
Do the Sacramento Kings have a big need at SG? I don't know. They may not know. The team found some success toward the end of the year by starting Bogdan Bogdanovic and bringing Buddy Hield off the bench, but that may not be a sustainable scenario. Bogdanovic is a restricted free agent, and may cost upwards of $15M a season. Adding another wing to the mix would be an expensive proposition; the team would either need to bring either Hield, Boggy, or Anthony Edwards off the bench for a while.
At the end of the day, talent wins out, so you wouldn't complain to add even more to this young core; still, it doesn't appear to be the best fit on our board. overall fit: 2.5 (out of 5).
(13) NEW ORLEANS. chances of # 1 pick: 1%, chances of a top 4 pick: 6%
Young talent definitely isn't a problem in New Orleans. Along with Zion Williamson, they also have Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram (a restricted free agent that they're intent on re-signing.)
The current presence of Jrue Holiday and J.J. Redick may not leave a lot of minutes available in the backcourt right now, but the true upside of this team isn't going to be in 2020 or 2021. If the Pelicans can develop a starting lineup of Lonzo Ball, Anthony Edwards, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, and Jaxson Hayes, they could have the making of a true title contender in 3-4 years time. Zion + Edwards would be an especially wicked brand of bully ball on poor opposition. overall fit: 4 (out of 5).
(14) PORTLAND. chances of # 1 pick: 0.5%, chances of a top 4 pick: 2%
Like Golden State, the Portland Trail Blazers already have two stars in their backcourt with Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. As mentioned with the Warriors blurb, Anthony Edwards' best fit with the Blazers may be in the long term. As Lillard and McCollum age, Edwards can take on more of the mantle as the star of the team.
But still, that's not an ideal marriage for all parties involved. What makes this even less seamless than the Warriors situation is that the Blazers already have a promising young combo guard in Anfernee Simons. If the Blazers move up into the top 3 and take Edwards, I would expect a trade (of either Simons or McCollum) to follow. fit: 1 (out of 5.)

As we hole up in our homes and ride out the coronavirus pandemic, we need some content to pass the time. After all, there's only so much Netflix and so much pornhub that one man can handle. In the interest of providing some OC for the sub, I'm going to write more long-form posts about various topics around the league.
We already did a deep dive on the Brooklyn Nets, and Detroit PF Christian Wood. Today, we're going to take a look at a coach who -- like Christian Wood -- was having a very fine year before this coronavirus got in the way.
Let's highlight Oklahoma City's Billy Donovan and examine his past, his present, and his future.
PART ONE: Rick Pitino's Pride and Joy
To many younger fans, Rick Pitino is best known as a disgraced college coach, or as a failed NBA coach. But in the scope of college basketball history as a whole, Pitino is still one of the giants. He made the Final Four with three separate schools (at Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville), and ranks as one of the winningest coaches of all time (despite having 100+ wins vacated due to scandal!)
No coach can claim the mantle of Pitino's protege quite like Billy Donovan. Donovan played under Pitino at Providence, where he served as the team's point guard. As you'd expect, Donovan was a plucky gym rat. Sneaky athlete. "First one in, last one out" kind of guy. But all jokes and racial bias aside, Donovan actually did merit that type of reputation. Pitino later called him the hardest worker he'd ever coached. Pitino must have seen a lot of himself in young Donovan; as a player, Pitino had also been a gritty and overachieving point guard from New York, too. As a player, Donovan had more success than Pitino did. He helped lead Providence to the Final Four, and even had a cup of coffee as a pro for a bit.
Later on, Donovan ended up serving as an assistant coach under Pitino at Kentucky, arguably at the height of Pitino's reign. And like any top lieutenant, he was destined to land his own job soon enough. Marshall (then a struggling 9-18 team) made Donovan the youngest coach in the country at 28 years old. Donovan immediately led the team to 2 winning seasons before leaving for the University of Florida.
PART TWO: Reaching the (Widow's) Peak
At Florida, Billy Donovan had some solid success, including 7 straight seasons with 20+ wins. However, postseason glory had been eluding the Gators. Until... they found it.
Led by two sophomore big men in Joakim Noah and Al Horford, Donovan's Gators emerged as a force during the 2005-06 season, and got better and better along the way. The # 3 seeded team ended up running the table, beating UCLA in the national title game. In almost every similar circumstance, that would lead to a massive exodus of their stars to the pros. However, Noah, Horford, and their fellow starters (which included SF Corey Brewer, PG Taurean Green, and SG Lee Humphrey) collectively decided to return to school and try to do it all over again. Suffice it to say, that type of decision would be quite shocking today.
As you may know, the veterans ended up accomplishing their goal, repeating as champions in the 2007 tournament. At first blush, you may think that would be a fait accompli and a cakewalk for a veteran team like that, but winning the NCAA Tournament is never that easy. Even if you presume a team will win 85% of their games, their chances of winning 6 games in a row is less than 38%. Moreover, that happened to be a stacked Final Four, where the Gators had to beat UCLA (with Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook) and Ohio State (with Mike Conley and future top pick Greg Oden.)
PART THREE: Look Before You Leap
Naturally, a two-time national champion (still only 42 years old) would become a hugely coveted prize in NBA circles, presuming anyone could pry him out of the state. And no one did pry him out of the state, because Billy Donovan signed a huge contract to become the head coach with the Orlando Magic. They even had an introductory press conference and everything. However, Donovan ultimately got cold feet about the change, and decided to go back to school instead. (Don't cry for Orlando, Argentina; they ended up hiring Stan Van Gundy, who did quite well.)
Donovan ended up staying 7 more seasons in Gainesville, with more mixed results. They made the Elite Eight four more times, but also missed the tournament three times. Perhaps his most impressive season in his entire Florida tenure was in 2013-14, when he rode a more-limited team to a 36-3 record and a Final Four appearance. Unlike those title teams, this group had very little NBA talent; the most decorated pro among them would be Dorian Finney-Smith, who was a backup at the time.
Ultimately, Donovan decided to finally make the leap (for real) to the NBA, signing with the Oklahoma City Thunder to replace Scottie Brooks. Presumably, Donovan felt like he had accomplished everything that he could in college. Or at least, at his particular program. The Florida Gators had fallen behind in the race for the super one-and-done talent, and wouldn't figure to be a dynasty any time soon. And with that decision, a new challenge emerged.
PART FOUR: Trials and Tribulations of a "Rookie" Head Coach
No doubt, part of the reason that Billy Donovan agreed to go to the NBA was the chance to coach the talented Oklahoma City Thunder. Scottie Brooks had done an admirable job with the team during his run, but it appeared as though they may have plateaued. The NBA Finals appearance was behind them -- the Kevin Durant MVP season was behind them -- James Harden was behind them. They needed a fresh spark, somehow, some way, to fulfill their long-standing potential.
In the first season (of his five-year contract), Billy Donovan had some growing pains, but also a lot of success. The Oklahoma City offense jumped up to 112.4 points per 100 possessions, 2nd best in the NBA and the best in the franchise's run in OKC. They finished 55-27 in the regular season, with a +7.3 point differential. In many seasons, that may be good enough to earn a # 1 seed.
But not in 2015-2016. That happened to be an HISTORICALLY good year for the Western Conference. Famously, Steve Kerr and the Golden State Warriors broke the record with 73 regular season wins. Less famously (and often forgotten by history), the San Antonio Spurs also won 67 games. They had an emerging superstar in Kawhi Leonard, a prime LaMarcus Aldridge, and the best statistical defense in the NBA. In the conference semi-finals, the Spurs shellacked the Thunder in Game 1 (124-92), and ultimately took a 2-1 series lead. However, the Thunder battled back, winning 3 games in a row to upset the veteran squad and move on. We all may remember what happened next. The Thunder stunned the Warriors and went up to a 3-1 lead, before ultimately cracking and losing 3 games in a row and going home in bitter defeat.
Looking back, that Thunder team is often seen as "chokers." But we have to acknowledge the good here. Yes, they blew a 3-1 lead, but they also got a 3-1 lead. This isn't like Donald Trump being born on third base and thinking he hit a triple. Oklahoma City earned those three wins, and Billy Donovan deserved some credit for helping them do that (with some unconventional super-big lineups along the way.) Ultimately, the Warriors figured it out, and ultimately their shooting came back. I wouldn't say that was inevitable, but it shouldn't be shocking (especially in a series where Kevin Durant shot 28.6% from three and Harrison Barnes shot 52.6%).
Don't get me wrong; if we're giving Billy Donovan partial credit, we should also give him partial blame. Phil Jackson became a legend for taking "very good" teams and turning them into "great" teams. As a rookie NBA coach, Donovan couldn't get that done. When push came to shove, the Thunder fell back into bad habits (like iso ball) and lost. Moreover, Donovan couldn't fix whatever cracks had emerged under the surface of the locker room, as Kevin Durant bounced for Golden State the following year.
PART FIVE: One Man Show
When Kevin Durant left Oklahoma City in free agency, the franchise (understandably) struggled to replace him. Over the course of a few seasons, they'd have lost two of the NBA's best players, and only have one left in their wake. Russell Westbrook took on an enormous workload, oftentimes carrying the team on his back -- for better or worse.
We've seen plenty of examples of each. That following season, "Good Russ" would average 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists, and step up in clutch situations time and time again. Even the Westbrook haters (like myself) who thought James Harden should have won MVP would concede that Westbrook would be what... 2nd? 3rd? That's hardly a bum.
Of course, we also saw "Bad Russ." His shooting efficiency continued to wane -- dropping to 52% and 50% true shooting the next two years -- but his workload never did. He continued to jack up 20+ shots and 4+ threes those next two seasons, despite shooting below 30% from distance. And despite that obvious problem, coach Billy Donovan couldn't rein in his superstar or convince him to change his approach. In some ways, it harkened back to his problems in the Golden State series.
In Donovan (and Westbrook's) defense, it's not like the Oklahoma City Thunder had a lot of options. In an ideal world, you'd surround an attacker like Westbrook with 4 shooters, like Milwaukee has done with Giannis Antetokounmpo and like Houston has tried to do with Westbrook now. But prior to Paul George's arrival, OKC had some of the worst spacing in the league. Consider this: in Westbrook's MVP season, he shot a career-high from three (34.3%), but the Thunder as a team still shot an NBA-worst 32.7% as a team. In the modern NBA, that's a recipe for a first-round exit, which is exactly what happened three times in a row. 1-4. 2-4. 1-4 (even with Paul George.)
Effectively, Billy Donovan has lost 15 of his last 19 playoff games (going back to the Warriors series.)
PART SIX: Rising from the Dead like Lazarus
This past summer, Sam Presti called up the Acme Corporation and ordered some dynamite. Time to blow it up. Paul George: traded. Russell Westbrook: traded. Billy Donovan...? Eh... Kept. For now. After all, the clock was running out on his initial contract. They'd pick up an option on the last year of his deal, but not give him an extension beyond that. He'd enter the season as a lame duck. A dead man walking.
But as it turned out, Presti's dynamite order was about as effective as Wile E. Coyote's.
The 2019-20 team felt like a Frankenstein's monster: a mash-up of several different teams. You had the leftovers from before (Steven Adams, Dennis Schroder), the young bucks for the impending rebuild (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), and the veterans that were supposed to be flipped at a garage sale (Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari.) But oddly enough, that hodgepodge actually gelled together like jambalaya. Prior to the stoppage, the Thunder were 40-24, good enough for a pace that would have translated to a 51-win pace. Keep in mind: the Thunder had only won 47, 48, and 49 games the prior three years.
Oklahoma City's surprising success has a few major contributors (turns out Chris Paul isn't dead either), but Billy Donovan deserves at least partial credit. This year's OKC team felt more like a Billy Donovan team in several ways. The scoring has been balanced, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari and Dennis Schroder nearly identical (19.3, 19.2, 19.0 respectively) and CP3 not far behind them at 17.7. That harkens back to Donovan's successful college teams. During that first title win, all five of his starters averaged between 10.9 and 14.2 points. The following year (the repeat), the spread was even closer, with all five starters averaging between 10.3 and 13.3. Similarly, that last Final Four team (the one without much pro talent) had four leading scorers who averaged between 11.0 and 13.8 points. Balance, ball movement from 1-5 -- two areas that OKC had struggled with prior.
Moreover, Donovan and Oklahoma City have found success this year with "smallball" lineups in regards to the backcourt. He's often played two point guards together, and even three at the same time (SGA, CP3, and Schroder.) In the past, playing multiple point guards at once had been derided dismissively as a "college" thing to do (Jay Wright and Bill Self have had success with the same at Villanova and Kansas). And as it turns out, it's been one of Oklahoma City's most effective lineups this year as well. In that way, and several others, this team has started to take on more of Donovan's identity. Or at least, felt more in simpatico with their coach.
PART SEVEN: Coming to a Fork in the Road
And with that, Billy Donovan and the Oklahoma City Thunder became one of the most pleasant surprises of the 2019-20 season. Together, they lived happily ever after. The end.
Of course, happy endings only exist in Grimms' fairy tales and Robert Kraft's massage parlors. In our cold, cruel world, there are far more nuances at play here. The chief among them: the fact that Donovan's initial 5-year contract is set to expire at the end of the season (whenever that may be.) As far as I'm aware, the team hasn't announced an extension for him yet (although they could have agreed to terms behind closed doors.)
It'd be easy to presume Sam Presti and Billy Donovan can work out a long-term extension here, which could be in the interest of both parties. That said, Donovan has a lot more leverage in this situation than he did a few years ago. He's improved as an NBA coach and re-established his credibility; he could land another NBA job, or go back to a top-notch NCAA program if he preferred.
Staying in OKC should be the first choice, of course. As mentioned, the team is not only pretty good right now, but also has a bright future with Gilgeous-Alexander and a boatload of draft picks coming down the pike. At the same time, it's not a perfect situation. Chris Paul is already 34, and locked up on a bloated contract. Danilo Gallinari is 31, and slated for free agency. There's a decent chance this team may chalk this season up as a nice little storyline, but then brace for a long rebuild after that.
So what will Billy Donovan do? What should Donovan do? Let's take a closer look at some of the options.
PART EIGHT: Surveying the (Cloudy) Landscape
In a normal circumstance, Billy Donovan may have a plethora of options. But as we all know, this isn't a normal circumstance anymore. The COVID-19 virus is going to affect millions -- and some in serious, fatal ways. I don't want to undersell the gravity of that. Then again, this is a basketball post, so let's focus on the basketball ramifications here.
And through that lens, this won't be a normal NBA season or normal NBA offseason at all. It's going to be hard for teams to scout draft prospects -- it's going to be hard for them to meet with free agents -- it's going to be hard for them to interview coaches. Moreover, teams may be reluctant to make a coaching change, presuming that a new coach may have an abbreviated training time with his new team. In some ways, it may spare the hot-seat coaches like Jim Boylen (CHI) or Scottie Brooks (WAS).
However, there are two jobs that have already opened up, pre virus. And as fate would have it, both happen to be in Billy Donovan's home state of New York.
Of the two, the Brooklyn Nets would have the most appeal for a coach who wants to "win now." At the same time, Billy Donovan isn't likely to the top choice of the organization and its stars. After all, Donovan and Kevin Durant have worked together already, and it didn't end well. I wouldn't say there's any antipathy or ill feelings there, but there's at least some baggage.
Conversely, the New York Knicks may be the better fit, for a number of reasons. The organization is still in a rebuilding mold, so a former college coach could work there to help develop the players and take ownership of the locker room. Unlike the Nets, the Knicks don't have signature stars who may bump against an outside voice to guide them or make tweaks to their game. Perhaps R.J. Barrett can be that star, but he's not there yet. Donovan could try to mold the young Knicks to fit his personality and his style. And if new president Leon Rose actually wants Donovan, then money shouldn't be an issue either.
There's also the karmic fit as well. As mentioned, Donovan is also from New York; he grew up in Rockville Centre, Long Island. To Donovan, there would be some lingering mystique about the franchise. He would have been 8 years old when the Knicks last won their title in 1973. Returning the Knicks to the promised land would represent a huge and historic accomplishment. It's an epic challenge that's been attempted before by several coaches, including one named... wait for it... Rick Pitino.
PART NINE: The Bottom Line
We can play out several hypotheticals, including Billy Donovan returning home to New York to take over the Knicks, or Donovan returning to a blueblood NCAA program.
However, the most realistic scenario would be Donovan re-signing with Oklahoma City, and continuing to lead this new-look team going forward. But if that happens, Donovan will have some leverage here. He's improved as an NBA coach over the years, and finally won over the OKC fanbase. Simply put, his stock is back up around the basketball landscape. If the Thunder want to keep him, they're going to need to pony up a healthy salary and a longer extension (3 years? 4 years?) then most coaches who have survived the hot seat have enjoyed.

March 19, 2020
So other than a few close and true "friends of the feet" replying quickly to my Corona Virus blog the other day (and for that, I thank you from the bottoms of my feet), I've received virtually no feedback on that post, which I still maintain is my most controversial to date...SO, since #nobodycares (see, I have humility and will use my own catch phrases to belittle myself), I figured I'd follow up with some musings about what I have observed since the sh*t really hit the fan with this virus...

1. Yes folks, CHINA really sucks - so if you didn't believe anything I wrote the other day, I encourage you to check out recent articles by the BBC, the Atlantic and other non-right-leaning rags that have major in depth articles about China's propaganda machine & this virus: how badly they tried to cover this up in the early days; how they threatened (and in some case, 'eliminated') doctors and other officials in the know who tried to be Good Samaritans and alert the public about the catastrophe (shocking) to prevent the spread of anti-China sentiment for creating this pandemic; how they recently threw out of their country the US media in its entirety to prevent the truth from being discovered; AND leading an absurd global panic/smear campaign against the US that the mainstream media has fully bought into and is pushing - that is, that it's "racist" to say "Wuhan virus" and that that's the biggest issue right now...I think going forward, every time some stupid media person trying to make the story about them who asks the President or anyone else in a press conference if it's racist to call it a Chinese virus, green slime should fall from the ceiling on their heads and their overpriced suits/pantsuits like in that old kids TV show 'You can't do that on Television'...just saying...and then they get their press pass revoked permanently...because we should be done rewarding stupidity and kool ade drinking in a national crisis...
   
2. The China supply chain fiasco - so China stole our IP & supply chains decades ago and we rewarded them by letting them make everything we need and let it reach a point where at a time like this they can threaten to withhold these goods (medical masks, medicines, etc.) from us to (and I'm paraphrasing the Chinese government's own recent words) "let the virus spread like wildfire in the US"...let that wash over you for a second...AYFKM?...and our media is still defending them?...BFD's advice...let's make essential goods for this country IN this country going forward and learn a valuable lesson about getting screwed over and over yet coming back and playing the same stupid game...NEVER AGAIN
   
3. These moron millennials still partying on spring break while the rest of us sit in quarantine/shelter-in-place/house arrest - I watched that viral video of those half baked morons giving interviews from Daytona Beach saying "F the government" and "we don't care if we get the virus", blah, blah, blah...well let me tell you obstinate pieces of feces what the score is...if karma was real, then when all of you apply for jobs in the future (NOTE: in my opinion you're all collectively not smart enough to deliver pizza, nor would I WANT you to deliver my pizza), this viral video would pop up and any potential employer would run so very far away from all of you...GET IT THROUGH YOUR VAPING-WARPED BRAINS: YOU AND YOUR GOD DAMN "YOLO" ATTITUDE ARE THE PROBLEM RIGHT NOW NOT THE VIRUS...thousands of public servants are working tirelessly round the clock trying to save lives and stop the spread of this horrible virus and you @ssholes are running around like the kids from 'Fame'...my grandfather's generation stormed beaches in Normandy as teenagers and saved the world...they were the 'greatest generation'...they made REAL sacrifice...all we are asking is that you sit on the f@%^-ing couch and not move for a month and you can't even do that...you are the most selfish generation and it's disgusting to watch...I pity how helpless you all will be someday without Gen X'ers to save you...maybe there'll be a tik-tok video I can watch in Hell of all of you perishing at once...
   
4. The continued madness over toilet paper - I'm still trying to find the algorithm that pieces together this mystery for me...I'm at a loss...
   
5. The obsessive proliferation of memes circulating that features that large and well endowed African American male that's been superimposed into everything corona virus related any beyond - he could be the only person profiting from this pandemic, except for...
   
6. That to-be-named @sshole US senator that sold all of his hotel stock on insider information before the stock market fell apart while the rest of us watched our financial futures vaporize in minutes like a tap beer fart on a ski lift in sub zero temperatures...YOU ARE THE REASON EVERYONE HATES AND MISTRUSTS GOVERNMENT...I hope you're censured, kicked out of office, and tried and convicted for insider trading and treason...and your stock gains should be forfeited and shared with real people whose livelihoods in the hotel industry are being destroyed by this crisis...
   
7. Senior Citizen Hour at Grocery Stores - whoever thought of this deserves every Nobel prize for 2020 combined...in so many ways this is when we get things right...HOWEVER, some folks still need to get the memo because early this afternoon I was at local Stop & Shop picking up almond milk well outside the store's 8am-9am Prixe Fixe shopping hour for silver threads, when much to my chagrin (and it was a healthy dose of chagrin) I had to sidestep two octogenarians dry humping in dairy aisle...PSA to my elderly friends: Viagra does NOT ward off the Wuhan Chinese virus...oy vey...
   
8. The revival of the "Speakeasy" - for all the areas where local bars & restaurants have been shuttered by Federal/State/Local law mandates to protect the masses (mine included), those desperate to gather and drink have embraced 1920s prohibition era America as if we all just binge-watched 'Boardwalk Empire' on Netflix together...and all I can say once again is "damn I picked the wrong time to quit drinking..."
   
9. The number of shallow & shameless emails and social media postings I've received from online/local businesses telling me how they're diligently adhering to CDC guidelines and scrubbing/cleaning/disinfecting left right and center, which is secret code for: "for the love of god please spend money on our product"...so far the only wholly unnecessary impulse expenditure I've made since this whole fiasco started was a "March Sadness" parody t-shirt to help me comically cope with the lack of NCAA tournament basketball games (which incidentally should have started today)...
   
10. Affluent NYC @ssholes who have fled to the Hamptons & Montauk to annoy the sht out of the locals 3 months early - and you know who you are - usually you don't piss off those poor people until Memorial Day weekend...but you saw a crisis and an opportunity so you packed your bags and left the city you claim most of the time is "so awesome" to go an ransack all of the food/healthcare/well being of somebody else's neighborhood because you can't stand the thought of being trapped inside your otherwise 'super cool' 12 x 12 dwelling in a high rise tower for any longer than 2 days and you don't give a sht about anyone but yourselves...all the stories in the news about you walking into stores and buying all the trays of food says everything we already knew about you...thanks for bringing the virus out to areas that likely didn't have it already - great job!...why not just join the YOLO crowd on Daytona Beach?...
    

Barefoot Dave
North Fork, Long Island

Although this may be irrelevant with the Fred Hoiberg seemingly in line to become the next head basketball coach, with all the talk of possible next coaches for Nebraska recently, I decided to profile some of the names that kept popping up in other threads along with a few candidates I'd like to see Nebraska pursue. This isn't in any specific order, if you have any suggestions for coaches to profile comment and I'll see what I can find. All records are from before the NCAA tournament started.
​
Fred Hoiberg- Former Head Coach (Chicago Bulls, Iowa State)
Head Coaching Record- 115-56 (College), 115-155 (Pros)
Highlights- 2014 Sweet Sixteen Appearance, made tournament 4 of 5 seasons at Iowa State
Thoughts- Obviously, Hoiberg would be an amazing hire for Nebraska if he would be willing to come. Question is what would the price have to be to bring him here, Hoiberg had a 5 year $25 million contract with the Bulls that was fully guaranteed. Would Nebraska be willing to pay a basketball coach as much as they pay their football coach? Hoiberg runs a fast paced offense that predicates itself on early offense points in transition with the use of the drag screen. The one thing Hoiberg really gets knocked for is recruiting effort and even that seems like an unfair criticism. Hoiberg landed 5 4- star recruits in his final 3 recruiting classes at Iowa State and developed the talent very well which tends to nullify any lackluster effort in recruiting.
​
Tyronn Lue- Former Head Coach (Cleveland Cavaliers)
Head Coaching Record- 128-83 (Pros)
Highlights- 2016 NBA Championship, NBA Finals Appearances in 2017 & 2018
Thoughts- Ty Lue is a sharp basketball mind that was a long time assistant under legendary NBA coach Doc Rivers. Lue has coached some of the greatest players to play the game and for all the criticism he received as a coach in Cleveland, coached them to 3 straight finals appearances. Many people will say Lue had very little to do with the Cavs success but coaching still matters regardless of if you have Lebron James or not. Lue ran a multitude of offenses in Cleveland, but mostly ran with an up tempo offense. There will be questions about a contract, as Lue also made $5 million a year as the Cavs head coach and questions on his recruiting ability would be valid as he's never coached in college. I would say, having caoched the likes of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving would be a solid pitch to recruits if he can find assistants with connections to top talent pools.
​
Dana Altman- Head Coach (Oregon)
Head Coaching Record- 635-342
Highlights- 2013 Sweet Sixteen, 2016 Elite Eight, 2017 Final Four
Thoughts- IMO Altman would be the best candidate Nebraska could get. From Crete, Nebraska and played at Southeast Community College before finishing his career at Eastern New Mexico State, Altman is most known for his years at Creighton and Oregon. Oregon is a great situation for Altman as he is starting to get top recruits to go there. The only way I see Altman leaving for Nebraska is if Oregon falls under NCAA sanctions which in that case, will most likely have been caused by him. Altman runs a spread offense which he learned in his days as an assistant under Lon Kruger at Kansas State and is similar to what Brad Underwood runs at Illinois. Altman seems unlikely as he recently signed a large extension with Oregon.
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Bruce Weber- Head Coach (Kansas State)
Head Coaching Record- 462-242
Highlights- 2002 Sweet Sixteen (Southern Illinois), 2004 Sweet Sixteen (Illinois), 2005 National Runner Up, 2018 Elite Eight (Kansas State), Big Ten Regular Season Champion (2004, 2005), Big 12 Regular Season Champion (2013, 2019)
Thoughts- Weber has had a lot of recent success with Kansas State after being fired by Illinois in 2012. Weber has created a culture based on aggressive defense and a motion offense. Weber's motion offense is predicated on spacing, penetration, ball movement and screening. This would be a case where Nebraska would simply have to outbid Kansas State for his services as I doubt they would let him go easily. A similar situation is when Brad Underwood left Oklahoma State for Illinois when he was offered $3 million a year to coach there. Weber could have success at Nebraska as he recruits the states of Illinois and Missouri very well and recruiting kids to Manhattan is not much different from recruiting kids to Lincoln.
​
Mark Turgeon- Head Coach (Maryland)
Head Coaching Record- 428-246
Highlights- 2006 Sweet Sixteen (Wichita State), 2016 Sweet Sixteen (Maryland)
Thoughts- This would be a long shot as coaches rarely leave their schools for jobs in the same conference, especially jobs that probably aren't as good. But, Turgeon gets a lot of flack at Maryland despite consistently making the NCAA tournament and might want to move closer to home (his dad lives in Lincoln). It would be a tough get as Turgeon currently makes $2.8 million a year at Maryland so Nebraska probably can't offer much more money, it would be interesting to see if Maryland would match for Turgeon or just let him walk if he took an offer, though. Turgeon runs a motion offense at Maryland which starts off with a primary set play such as a secondary lob, weave into horns, or hand off to stagger to look for primary scoring before getting into the motion offense if not successful at first.
​
Thad Matta- Former Head Coach (Ohio State)
Head Coaching Record- 439-154
Highlights- 2004 Elite Eight (Xavier), 2007 National Runner-Up (Ohio State), 2010 Sweet Sixteen, 2011 Sweet Sixteen, 2012 Final Four, 2013 Elite Eight, Big Ten Regular Season Champion (2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012)
Thoughts- Probably the most accomplished candidate Nebraska might look at, Matta had a lot of success in both recruiting and on the court performance at Ohio State. Although Matta consistently fell off after 2013, he never had a losing record at any stop in his career and only posted a losing conference record once (his final season at OSU). A comparable situation might be when Texas fired Rick Barnes, Barnes has gone on to turn Tennessee into a legitimate National Title contender with the change of scenery and Texas hasn't posted any notable success since. Matta runs a motion offense largely based on UCLA cuts and horn stacks which is a good showcase for dynamic guards.
​
Kelvin Sampson- Head Coach (Houston)
Head Coaching Record- 608-322
Highlights- 1999 Sweet Sixteen (Oklahoma), 2002 Final Four, 2003 Elite Eight, 2005 Big 12 Regular Season Champion, 2019 AAC Regular Season Champion
Thoughts- Although most of Sampson's significant success came almost 15 years ago, the coach has done a remarkable job at Houston. Sampson got Houston to within a last second buzzer beater by Michigan of taking Houston to the Sweet Sixteen and there is no real way to determine how great he could have been in the Big Ten because of his short career at Indiana. As many have said in other threads, the recruiting violations that got Sampson fired at Indiana and kicked out of the sport for a couple years would be legal in college basketball today. Sampson was 22-4 and 11-2 in conference in his second season at Indiana before he got fired and won the AAC Regular Season Championship this year with Houston. Samspson now runs and NBA style offense which he learned as an adviser and assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks and Houston Rockets during his hiatus from college basketball. Sampson uses a lot of pick and roll and isolation to find mismatches for players.
​
Steve Wojciechowski- Head Coach (Marquette)
Head Coaching Record- 96-67
Highlights- 2017 NCAA tournament
Thoughts- Wojciechowski has been rebuilding Marquette after being the Associate Head Coach at Duke from 2008 to 2014. Marquette is currently having a breakout year although they stumbled into the Big East tournament, finishing 2nd in the conference to Villanova. Wojciechowski would also be an interesting higher when it comes to grad transfers as former Nebraska player Ed Morrow is on Marquette and could be a graduate transfer at the end of the season. Wojciechowski uses pace and space a lot like the Golden State Warriors in the NBA and is a very solid shooting coach. Looking through Marquette's games, you can see how he uses guard Markus Howard as a mini Steph Curry and would provide a fun brand of basketball for recruits.
​
Kevin Willard- Head Coach (Seton Hall)
Head Coaching Record- 213-173
Highlights- NCAA Tournament (2016, 2017, 2018)
Thoughts- Willard has built a solid program at Seton Hall that has made the NCAA tournament the past 3 seasons and looks to be making for a 4th season in a row this year. Most of his coaching has been in the Northeast as he got his start in coaching under Rick Pitino with the Boston Celtics and Louisville. Seton Hall runs an offense centered around star guard Myles Powell this year.
​
Johnny Dawkins- Head Coach (UCF)
Head Coaching Record- 222-147
Highlights- 2014 Sweet Sixteen (Stanford), NIT Champions (2012,2015)
Thoughts- Dawkins teams are more defense-based and it shows as the Knights rank near the top of the AAC in scoring defense, field goal percentage allowed, blocks per game and defensive rebounding. His team has also shown improvement offensively as they have become much more efficient this season. Dawkins has been impressive at UCF and has the Knights ranked in the Top 25 and seem to be a lock for the NCAA tournament. Dawkins did get a major transfer from his son Aubrey Dawkins but has also recruited top players such as Taco Fall to Orlando.
​
Ben Howland- Head Coach (Mississippi State)
Head Coaching Record- 478-260
Highlights- 2002 Sweet Sixteen (Pitt), 2003 Sweet Sixteen, 2006 National Runner-Up (UCLA), 2007 Final Four, 2008 Final Four, Big East Regular Season Champion (2002, 2003) PAC- 10 Regular Season Champion (2006, 2007, 2008, 2013)
Thoughts- Howland has done a pretty good job at Mississippi State, but is mostly on this list because of his connection to Marc Boehm from their days together at Pitt. Howland's firing at UCLA was always curious as he is the only coach to have ever been fired from a school after winning a regular season conference championship. Howland has had decent success recently with a 77-54 record at Mississippi State and making the NIT semifinals last season after beating Nebraska in the first round. The Bulldogs are a solid bubble team for the NCAA tournament.
​
Mike Anderson- Former Head Coach (Arkansas)
Head Coaching Record- 369-200
Highlights- 2004 Sweet Sixteen (UAB), 2009 Elite Eight (Missouri)
Thoughts- Anderson had one of the most exciting teams in basketball while he was at Missouri, but that didn't exactly translate to Arkansas. Anderson did take Arkansas to the NCAA tournament 3 of his last 5 seasons there, which would fall into Moos' criteria. Anderson runs an up tempo offense which is predicated on "Run and Execute" transition basketball into a motion offense. He would be another coach that might not struggle with the lack of size on the roster immediately as his teams at Missouri were generally smaller teams. His aggressive style would also be ideal for a loud arena such as PBA.
​
Nate Oats- Head Coach (Buffalo)
Head Coaching Record- 92-42
Highlights- 2016 NCAA tournament, 2018 Round of 32, MAC Regular Season Champion (2018, 2019)
Thoughts- Oats has done a good job taking over Buffalo after Bobby Hurley left for Arizona State. An upset win over Arizona in the first round of the tournament last season gained the Bulls some recognition as they have been ranked in the Top 25 for most of the season this year. Oats' teams play an aggressive up tempo style that stresses transition baskets from quick ball movement and reads of the defense. Oats' style seems well fit for a dedicated Husker fan base as his teams show high energy and could really get going in an environment like Pinnacle Bank Arena. He also generally plays with pretty small lineups which could mean less of a problem for him with the lack of big men on the roster. Oats will be another hot coaching commodity as his track record will probably be the best of any coaches coming out of one bid leagues. Buffalo won the MAC regular season title and is ranked in the top 25. Oats seems unlikely as he just signed a large extension with Buffalo.
​
Craig Smith- Head Coach (Utah State)
Head Coaching Record- 101-61 (D1 Record)
Highlights- 2017 Summit League Regular Season Championship
Thoughts- An assistant under Tim Miles at Nebraska in 2014 when Nebraska last made the tournament, there are arguments that Nebraska really hasn't been the same since he left for South Dakota. Smith had fairly good success at South Dakota, taking them to the NIT and CBI in his final two seasons before taking the head coaching job at Utah State. In his first season, the Aggies finished second in the Mountain West only behind Top 25 ranked Nevada who they upset at home. Smith runs a fast paced offense at Utah State which encourages a lot of 3 point shooting. Utah State is a bubble team and could get an at large bid despite being in a mid major conference.
​
T.J. Otzelberger- Head Coach (South Dakota State)
Head Coaching Record- 69-31
Highlights- Summit League Regular Season Champion (2018, 2019)
Thoughts- Otzelberger has the potential to be a hot coaching candidate this summer as the Jackrabbits won back to back Summit League regular season titles. South Dakota State played Ohio State very close in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year and Otzelberger does boast the development of one of the best scorers in college basketball in former Nebraska high school stand out Mike Daum. Otzelberger has also bolstered the Jackrabbits recruiting in recent years and looks to bring in his best class yet to Brookings. Otzelberger runs a fast paced offense based off of attacking in transition to create easy baskets. In the half court, Otzelberger preaches creating driving angles and downhill action as fast as possible with the use of dribble hand offs, step up screens, and flip actions.
​
Darian Devries- Head Coach (Drake)
Head Coaching Record- 23-8
Highlights- Too Early in Career as Head Coach
Thoughts- Devries is in his first season being a Division 1 head coach which makes him an unlikely candidate unless Nebraska gets a lot of rejections or Moos really sees something in him. Devries was an assistant coach at Creighton under Dana Altman and stayed on when Greg McDermott took over. Devries has been impressive in his first season with the Bulldogs, they finished second place in the conference despite losing their best player in guard Nick Norton to a season ending knee injury in the first game of conference play. Devries runs a wide open offense that carries a lot of similarities to Dana Altman's spread offense and Greg McDermott's pace of play at Creighton.
​
Edit: Added Mike Anderson
​

/LonghornNation Daily Off Topic Free Talk Thread

Today: 3/23/2019

Last Thread

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Your go-to place to talk about whatever you want. From the dumb shit aggies do on a near daily basis, to the latest whatever happening wherever. What ya got?

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1. @sehlinger3 Just arrived to the Austin airport after a fantastic vacation, but the amount of Texas A&M advertising efforts (aro… https://t.co/J0IG8E4emp
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Here's A Look At Todays Longhorn Sporting Event(s):

1. 3/23 1:00 PM University of Texas Softball vs Iowa State
2. 3/23 7:30 PM University of Texas Baseball at TCU
3. 3/24 University of Texas Women's Golf at Evans Derby Experience

Trending on Reddit

/All

1. Wisconsin Dem governor removes 82 Scott Walker appointees added during lame-duck session
2. [i ate] 24 Layer Chocolate Cake
3. James Harden becomes the first player since Kobe Bryant to have multiple 60-point games in a single season.
4. Lemmy gives advice to a black kid who is being picked on for liking metal
5. Dad of the year award goes to..

/CFB

1. The Eighth Annual /CollegeBasketball Bracket Challenge
2. Pre-1st Quarter, Way-Too-Early-in-the-Offseason Betting Lines Megathread
3. William & Mary football player shot and killed in Norfolk Thursday night, police say
4. Josh Gattis on #Michigan's new offense: "we're a pro spread... we don't huddle. Ever."
5. Alabama DL Quinnen Williams has dinner with 49ers, opts for the Tuscaloosa IHOP.
6. TCU coach Gary Patterson worried NCAA’s waivers will ruin college football
7. Kansas has moved its Spring Game to mimic a basketball style late night event

/LonghornNation

1. [3/22/2019] Friday's Off Topic Free Talk Thread
2. [SERIES THREAD] ⚾ #9 Texas at #22 TCU
3. At the game tonight
4. Rams keeping Malcolm Brown in LA
5. I fucking hate tcu
6. Congrats on the no hitter and walk off grand slam tonight!!
7. Jaxson Hayes did not suffer any structural damage in his left knee. Just a bone bruise and a full recovery is expected in the next few weeks.

This thread was programmatically generated and posted on 3/23/2019 12:00 AM