Monday, March 9, 2009
Appletini please...easy on the 'tini
I've realized that I don't have a signature drink. A man's signature drink says a lot about him. I feel if I had a drink, it would make me more original. Therefore, I am taking submissions from other people for what my signature drink should be. I will take the best idea and order it first at every bar/restaurant I go to until I decide to not do it anymore. It has to be entirely unique and entirely me.
I won't be offended by any suggestions.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Beautiful Banker Yields Interest
Many of you might have already seen this, as I forwarded this like it was hot to everyone I know (about a large mini-van's full of acquaintances). And this has already been dissected on bigger slightly more well-written sites like Gawker.com, but I have something to add to this. David I. A. Webb was a fellow frat bro and tennis teammate. This article makes him look like a Frodo Douchebaggins; that is unfortunate. I'm not surprised at all that his post-collegiate life turned out this way. If someone had told me that he and his buddies would count up and compare how many hours they each slept a week, I would have just pointed to my "Hard Guy" t-shirt with Webb's face on it. After all, "he is a very handsome Canadian with a chiseled jaw line” (from the article, I swear). Here is what I have to add.
Preface: Webb got arrested for drunkenly stealing candy bars and ice cream from a gas station in college. Yes, he really did tell the officer he was Canadien out of nowhere. This is from the official police report:
Many of you might have already seen this, as I forwarded this like it was hot to everyone I know (about a large mini-van's full of acquaintances). And this has already been dissected on bigger slightly more well-written sites like Gawker.com, but I have something to add to this. David I. A. Webb was a fellow frat bro and tennis teammate. This article makes him look like a Frodo Douchebaggins; that is unfortunate. I'm not surprised at all that his post-collegiate life turned out this way. If someone had told me that he and his buddies would count up and compare how many hours they each slept a week, I would have just pointed to my "Hard Guy" t-shirt with Webb's face on it. After all, "he is a very handsome Canadian with a chiseled jaw line” (from the article, I swear). Here is what I have to add.
Preface: Webb got arrested for drunkenly stealing candy bars and ice cream from a gas station in college. Yes, he really did tell the officer he was Canadien out of nowhere. This is from the official police report:
Police Officer Schlosser:
I pulled over and asked the individual to stop. I got out of
the cruiser and walked over to him. While I was standing
there, he was swaying back and forth and dropped a couple of
candy bars he was holding. He also had in his hand an ice
cream carton....Mr. Webb's eyes were bloodshot and he had
urinated on himself.....I asked Mr. Webb where did he get
all the food and he stated at Foodstop. I asked him if he
had paid for it and he took a minute and then said,
"Yes."....I told him I got a report that the food was taken
without paying for it. Mr. Webb was quiet for a minute and
then said he wanted to go back and pay for the food. I asked
him him if he had taken the food without paying and again he
said no, but he told me he wanted to go back and pay for it
and not cause any trouble.....He told me he was Canadian and
again he stated he did not want to cause any trouble....I
told Mr. Webb that he was under arrest for Shoplifting and
Unlawful Possession of Alcohol. Again Mr. Webb stated he
wanted to go back and pay for the food. He stated he wanted
to make everything right. I told him that I was going to
search him and for him to empty out his pockets on the
cruiser. He took out his wallet and some more candy bars. I
asked him if there was anything else in his pockets before I
search him and he stated, "No". I then searched him and
found two more candy bars in his pockets....
[Thanks to Drew Dinkmeyer '04 for the report.]
And here is the official list of what he stole:
This puts a smile on my face every time I read it. Just like Shaq's Twitter. This is real-- he has confirmed this in multiple interviews. The coolest and most personable NBA player of all-time constantly updates his life to anyone who chooses to listen. His updates include this nugget: "I'm n the mia on the beach whoever touches me gets 2 ticket u have 30 min." Whoever touches him first? I hope he finds a way to stay in my life forever. Or this: "I think I just saw brittney spears, I'm not sure tho". How much cooler can this guy get-- I mean he came out and danced with the Jabberwockies at the All-Star game.
He also posts personal pictures, like these pictures of him sleeping and getting a haircut.
Maybe I'm weird, but I'm fascinated.
Ben & Jerry's Uncanny Cashey Ice Cream
Good Humor Ice Cream Sandwich
Good & Plenty Candy
Kit Kat
Amazing Fruit Gummy Bears
Hershey's Skor Bar
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Hershey's Chocolate Bar
Haagan-daz Vanilla & Almonds Ice Cream
This puts a smile on my face every time I read it. Just like Shaq's Twitter. This is real-- he has confirmed this in multiple interviews. The coolest and most personable NBA player of all-time constantly updates his life to anyone who chooses to listen. His updates include this nugget: "I'm n the mia on the beach whoever touches me gets 2 ticket u have 30 min." Whoever touches him first? I hope he finds a way to stay in my life forever. Or this: "I think I just saw brittney spears, I'm not sure tho". How much cooler can this guy get-- I mean he came out and danced with the Jabberwockies at the All-Star game.
He also posts personal pictures, like these pictures of him sleeping and getting a haircut.
Maybe I'm weird, but I'm fascinated.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
I'm White but I still know the definition of O.P.P.
As one of the last true hip-hop heads around these here parts, I must complain about the state of today's hip-hop music. It has become god-awful. As Nas so eloquently puts it in "Hip Hop Is Dead"
And I say hip-hop, not rap. Rap music is a subset of hip-hop. Hip-hop music contains the rap, but it's so much more than that. And Lil Wayne is the figurehead of the new movement that is pulling hip-hop away from when it really mattered. I don't get it when Lil Wayne opines:
He might have had an aneurysm during the second line but no one noticed nor cared. I'm not just talking about Lil Wayne, I'm talking about every Lil: Lil Bow Wow, Lil Jon, Lil Boosie, Lil Scrappy, Lil Rob, Lil Whyte, Lil Mo, Lil Flip, Lil Troy, Lil Cease, Lil Fizz, and even Lil Abner (And every Young: Young Buck, Young Joc, Young MC, Young Dro, Young Jeezy Young Berg). I make a noticable exception for Lil Romeo. Because there is nothing like a cute little 12 year-old butchering one of the most influential and iconic rap songs of all time:
The aspect that stands out in today's rap music is not the lyrical beauty or the raw, perfectly complementary beats-- that would be what good music used to be. It's the unoriginality, highlighted by massive overproduction that creates heavy basslines to drown out any horrible music and rapping. As long as you can dance to it, then it's a hit. I mean, the real stars here are the producers. These days, you can take any million dollar beat from a Scott Storch, Timbaland, or Just Blaze and scream incomprehensible racist rants that don't make any sense. Or you can go the other way and make a sweet love song that is ridiculously sexually explicit and has been done a million times. Or you can take any recognizable song and sample the shit out of it-- The Diplomats have built their entire career off of this tactic. I think rap music is being made to become top-selling ringtones.
I don't expect every album to come out to be like Nas's Illmatic. But I wish they were inspired by it. I still want the music to invoke powerful emotions. Has our standard for good hip-hop music fallen that low? The #1 hip-hop song on Itunes right now is "Right Round" by Flo Rider. Tell me how this song is any different from a pop song by Pink or Gwen Stefani. Soulja Boy? Are you kidding me? Asher Roth at #6-- the fact that this guy is an exact rip off of Eminem just shows you how desperate we are for quality hip-hop music. Unfortunately, the emcee's who had true talent are succumbing to this new trend. Kanye West, who is one of the most visionary rappers in the game, puts out 808s & Heartbreak. Common, who's Be might be the greatest hip-hop album this decade, puts out Universal Mind Control. I booted in my mouth after listening to both these pseudo-techno-pop-bullshit albums full of wierd and jumpy noises (AND I was on the treadmill at the gym when this happened so, doubly embarrasing).
I blame Master P's "Make 'Em Say Uhh" and the advent of No Limit Records for laying the groundwork.
Quick thought: How many rap songs come out a month that contain these lyrics"
There is hope though. Lupe Fiasco is by far the best current rap artist out there right now (I put Eminem on the 5-year DL due to excessive sleeping pill consumption and eating). He is the future of where hip-hop music is headed. His music is entirely unique, his delivery is flawless, and the production is nuanced and layered, perfectly complementing his laid-back flow. There are many who are creating magic in the underground; Brother Ali, Atmosphere, Murs, AZ, Edan, Aesop Rock, and Josh Weinberg. In the mainstream we still have the Clipse, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Outkast, The Roots, and Eminem (when he returns). Jay-Z's last solo album was a complete disaster, and he hasn't been on top of his game since The Black Album, so he is in limbo. And even though I didn't enjoy Nas's last album, his music is still raw as hell, basically the antithesis of Lil Wayne (who many mistakingly label as "raw"). Each one of these artists continue to stretch themselves and seem to make music that they actually care about.
Aliya Ewing, a writer from www.hiphopdx.com, makes a great point about Lil Wayne in her most recent post:
95% of hip-hop artists don't have any real talent. How do you think Lil Wayne would do on 'American Idol'? Rappers can't compete on American Idol because rapping isn't really that hard or take much talent anyways. Therefore it takes a very talented and orginial rapper to create really good music and stand out. It's hard to separate the good from the bad, and the American public's inability to do so is creating an environment that rewards the bad and hides the good.
I am not saying that you can't make great rap music that you can also dance to. My current favorite hip-hop group are The Hilltop Hoods. They are already the most popular and best-selling hip-hop group of all-time in Australia. They are simply original.
Here's hoping that Mos Def's 'The Ecstatic', Lupe's 'LupEND', Dre's 'Detox', and Eminem's 'Relapse' all deliver the goods in 2009-- and also that Joaquin Phoenix's rap career is a joke.
Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game
Reminiscin' when it wasn't all business.
And I say hip-hop, not rap. Rap music is a subset of hip-hop. Hip-hop music contains the rap, but it's so much more than that. And Lil Wayne is the figurehead of the new movement that is pulling hip-hop away from when it really mattered. I don't get it when Lil Wayne opines:
Every man on offense Single-tary defense
Super-duper-extra-much-really-very-street shit
That is how I keeps it R.I.P. Beepsy
I do it how I do it 'cuz I know my niggas see me.
He might have had an aneurysm during the second line but no one noticed nor cared. I'm not just talking about Lil Wayne, I'm talking about every Lil: Lil Bow Wow, Lil Jon, Lil Boosie, Lil Scrappy, Lil Rob, Lil Whyte, Lil Mo, Lil Flip, Lil Troy, Lil Cease, Lil Fizz, and even Lil Abner (And every Young: Young Buck, Young Joc, Young MC, Young Dro, Young Jeezy Young Berg). I make a noticable exception for Lil Romeo. Because there is nothing like a cute little 12 year-old butchering one of the most influential and iconic rap songs of all time:
The aspect that stands out in today's rap music is not the lyrical beauty or the raw, perfectly complementary beats-- that would be what good music used to be. It's the unoriginality, highlighted by massive overproduction that creates heavy basslines to drown out any horrible music and rapping. As long as you can dance to it, then it's a hit. I mean, the real stars here are the producers. These days, you can take any million dollar beat from a Scott Storch, Timbaland, or Just Blaze and scream incomprehensible racist rants that don't make any sense. Or you can go the other way and make a sweet love song that is ridiculously sexually explicit and has been done a million times. Or you can take any recognizable song and sample the shit out of it-- The Diplomats have built their entire career off of this tactic. I think rap music is being made to become top-selling ringtones.
I don't expect every album to come out to be like Nas's Illmatic. But I wish they were inspired by it. I still want the music to invoke powerful emotions. Has our standard for good hip-hop music fallen that low? The #1 hip-hop song on Itunes right now is "Right Round" by Flo Rider. Tell me how this song is any different from a pop song by Pink or Gwen Stefani. Soulja Boy? Are you kidding me? Asher Roth at #6-- the fact that this guy is an exact rip off of Eminem just shows you how desperate we are for quality hip-hop music. Unfortunately, the emcee's who had true talent are succumbing to this new trend. Kanye West, who is one of the most visionary rappers in the game, puts out 808s & Heartbreak. Common, who's Be might be the greatest hip-hop album this decade, puts out Universal Mind Control. I booted in my mouth after listening to both these pseudo-techno-pop-bullshit albums full of wierd and jumpy noises (AND I was on the treadmill at the gym when this happened so, doubly embarrasing).
I blame Master P's "Make 'Em Say Uhh" and the advent of No Limit Records for laying the groundwork.
Quick thought: How many rap songs come out a month that contain these lyrics"
I'm down here slangin, rollin with these hustlersHas anyone even realized yet that Mystikal was just basically screaming rambling nonsense out of tune and out of rhythm on every song? By the way, Mystikal is currently serving a six year prison sentence in the Louisiana State Prison for sexual battery and extortion.
Tryin to get rid of all you haters and you bustas
Steppin on toes, break a niggaz nose
In the projects niggaz anything goes
There is hope though. Lupe Fiasco is by far the best current rap artist out there right now (I put Eminem on the 5-year DL due to excessive sleeping pill consumption and eating). He is the future of where hip-hop music is headed. His music is entirely unique, his delivery is flawless, and the production is nuanced and layered, perfectly complementing his laid-back flow. There are many who are creating magic in the underground; Brother Ali, Atmosphere, Murs, AZ, Edan, Aesop Rock, and Josh Weinberg. In the mainstream we still have the Clipse, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Outkast, The Roots, and Eminem (when he returns). Jay-Z's last solo album was a complete disaster, and he hasn't been on top of his game since The Black Album, so he is in limbo. And even though I didn't enjoy Nas's last album, his music is still raw as hell, basically the antithesis of Lil Wayne (who many mistakingly label as "raw"). Each one of these artists continue to stretch themselves and seem to make music that they actually care about.
Aliya Ewing, a writer from www.hiphopdx.com, makes a great point about Lil Wayne in her most recent post:
Lil Wayne (or a rapper with similar musical themes and persona) makes sub-par music with themes like “making it rain”… young kids who don’t know any better (or don’t care) support it because ‘it’s just music’ and they wanna dance. Plus, everything they watch on MTV and other channels geared towards them is centered around promiscuity, materialism, and ignorance, so Lil Wayne ’s music is a soundtrack to their current lifestyles…ad agencies jump on this like piranhas because of the insane purchasing power of their demographic (according to some studies, industry spending on advertising to children has exploded in the past decade, increasing from a mere $100 million in 1990 to more than $2 billion in 2000, and has been rising since then). They do hours of research and create pie charts that map out the amount of money to be made (which is a lot), then decide: if Lil Wayne is what the kids think they want , then Lil Wayne is what the kids will get. (Because if our children want to eat sugary-sweet pie until they are comatosed or vomit, we should let them, right?)….So Wayne gets crazy endorsement deals and record deals from the executives who are after cash…then after Wayne floods the airwaves, a mass group of struggling rappers who want a piece of the American pie realize that Wayne ’s style is now being slated as “the future of Hip Hop” so they start to emulate his style and musical themes…and that’s my theory on how we end up with Hip Hop’s demise and the rise of unacceptable musical leaders. Lil Wayne by far is not the first rapper to make detrimental music, but he IS one of the most visible and influential leaders of mainstream Hip Hop right nowThat's why she writes for a mainstream music website and I implement Google AdSense in an attempt to try to make money off my puny blog and fail miserably.
95% of hip-hop artists don't have any real talent. How do you think Lil Wayne would do on 'American Idol'? Rappers can't compete on American Idol because rapping isn't really that hard or take much talent anyways. Therefore it takes a very talented and orginial rapper to create really good music and stand out. It's hard to separate the good from the bad, and the American public's inability to do so is creating an environment that rewards the bad and hides the good.
I am not saying that you can't make great rap music that you can also dance to. My current favorite hip-hop group are The Hilltop Hoods. They are already the most popular and best-selling hip-hop group of all-time in Australia. They are simply original.
Here's hoping that Mos Def's 'The Ecstatic', Lupe's 'LupEND', Dre's 'Detox', and Eminem's 'Relapse' all deliver the goods in 2009-- and also that Joaquin Phoenix's rap career is a joke.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Let's Get Back On Track
I feel I may have alienated some people with the last few posts. It had to be done though and I apologize if I offended anyone for so ruthlessly embarrassing THB. However I plan on analyzing the Facebook page of a deeply disturbed individual a lot of people know, a sort of category-by-category breakdown of his interests, movies, and about me musings.
To hold you over until then:
1. The greatest 1 minute of video of all time.
This probably won't mean much to you unless you follow basketball and/or Michael Jordan; for the uninformed, it's a bunch of kids emulating the most famous and iconic plays of Michael Jordan's career exactly. The kid at the 0:16 mark is just hunched over chewing gum but you can immediately recognize the spot-on impersonation. Even the Chinese kid holding the ball out with one hand is an uncanny resemblance. No white people could have done Jordan though? I know I can. The attention to detail in this clip is just extraordinary-
*the "Ehlo" re-enactment even has "Ehlo" throwing his arm in disgust at the exact same moment as the real play.
*the "Jordan last shot against the Jazz in '98" re-enactment has "Byron Russell" slipping in the exact same way as he actually did.
Great song too-- this clip gives me the chills. I'm obsessed with everything Jordan though.
2. I swear to whatever the goddamn hell people are swearing to these days that this is a 100% real and actual quote. I heard this guy say this to his friend while on the subway yesterday:
"Everyone in Brazil has a death squad. It's like Grand Theft Auto every day, man. If you skip out on a taxi driver, he'll get a hitman from his death squad to take you out. It's fuckin' crazy out there, man."
3. A thought: there are all these murders and robberies and horrible acts that are committed around the country every day. It's just awful. But why can't all these murderers and robbers and criminals attack Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church? If you are on tough times and need to rob someone, do it to these guys. I'm speechless over how terrible these people are; the hurt and pain they probably inflict on dead soldiers' families is unimaginable, let alone all the gay people. If you have the stomach for it and an hour to kill, I urge you to watch the documentary on the insane practices of the Phelps family and their church. You can watch the full movie here. I want to do something about this but I don't know what. They're protected under the law due to the freedom of speech. I would be happy if these people were dead.
Here is a preview of the documentary.
To hold you over until then:
1. The greatest 1 minute of video of all time.
This probably won't mean much to you unless you follow basketball and/or Michael Jordan; for the uninformed, it's a bunch of kids emulating the most famous and iconic plays of Michael Jordan's career exactly. The kid at the 0:16 mark is just hunched over chewing gum but you can immediately recognize the spot-on impersonation. Even the Chinese kid holding the ball out with one hand is an uncanny resemblance. No white people could have done Jordan though? I know I can. The attention to detail in this clip is just extraordinary-
*the "Ehlo" re-enactment even has "Ehlo" throwing his arm in disgust at the exact same moment as the real play.
*the "Jordan last shot against the Jazz in '98" re-enactment has "Byron Russell" slipping in the exact same way as he actually did.
Great song too-- this clip gives me the chills. I'm obsessed with everything Jordan though.
2. I swear to whatever the goddamn hell people are swearing to these days that this is a 100% real and actual quote. I heard this guy say this to his friend while on the subway yesterday:
"Everyone in Brazil has a death squad. It's like Grand Theft Auto every day, man. If you skip out on a taxi driver, he'll get a hitman from his death squad to take you out. It's fuckin' crazy out there, man."
3. A thought: there are all these murders and robberies and horrible acts that are committed around the country every day. It's just awful. But why can't all these murderers and robbers and criminals attack Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church? If you are on tough times and need to rob someone, do it to these guys. I'm speechless over how terrible these people are; the hurt and pain they probably inflict on dead soldiers' families is unimaginable, let alone all the gay people. If you have the stomach for it and an hour to kill, I urge you to watch the documentary on the insane practices of the Phelps family and their church. You can watch the full movie here. I want to do something about this but I don't know what. They're protected under the law due to the freedom of speech. I would be happy if these people were dead.
Here is a preview of the documentary.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
It's Like Arguing With A Creationist
This will be my step-by-step response to his response to my response to his response. This will be much shorter because his response to my response to his response did absolutely nothing to help him. In fact, he contradicted himself so nicely that it proved my point exactly. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll down to where he talks about the 1996 Bulls. He reiterates my point exactly, only he sums it up even nicer. I even bolded it like this. This will be the last of this argument. His writing is in sissy red. Mine is in black knight black.
In response, Mssr. David Steinberg (MDS) seems to have gotten angry and banged his fist on his keyboard semi-randomly for 6-7 hours. I can extract a few main criticisms from the written diarrhea: [Yes, I admit I am not as elegant a writer. Sometimes I spew verbal poop, although I would characterize it more as Type 2 sausage-shaped but lumpy, rather than diarrhea. That takes nothing away from the valid points I make, and his decision to point this out is an attempt to try to take the attention away from those valid points.]
1. You can't apply odds to sports.
2. Your argument implies that favored teams cannot be impressive. Since that's not true (see the 1996 Bulls or Tiger Woods for counterexamples), you're wrong.
3. Your assumptions that lead to 49.7% odds for the Lakers reaching the 2008 NBA finals are wrong.
4. Your joke about igniting the party wasn't funny.
[These were maybe half of the criticisms I made. He has just ignored the ones that he had no answer too.]
Response to criticism 1: Odds apply to sports. Period. This is why there's a spread when you bet on sports. The line adjusts the odds so that the both teams have 50% odds of beating the spread. Suppose there weren't spreads (implying both teams have a 50% chance of winning straight-up). I would make money by betting on the Lakers to beat the Clippers. I would be right more than 50% of the time. I would have a deeper understanding of reality than everyone else - like Neo! - and I would make lots of money.
[You can apply odds, of course, to anything you want. I can apply odds on whether I will write an Oscar-winning screenplay in my lifetime (2:1) or whether my butt will itch when I wake up tomorrow morning (2:1). My point that the pre-determined odds have no indication of who the better team is remains unaddressed, or the process by which these odds are determined.]
Basketball, and most sports besides track, are intricate and complicated. But you can approximate the chances of one team beating another based on the available information. [He never addresses my criticism of the "available information." Besides what I wrote in original points 1 and 2, the odds are shown to be wrong over 30% of the time! (really, I'm not making this up, see here.) (Thought: if MDS doesn't believe in odds, why aren't I betting against him all the time? I could steal those mega-bucks he's raking in from the credit-score ads on this side of his blog.) [You would never.]
A clarification: odds do not mean the outcome of a game is predetermined. On a given night, the underdog can beat the favorite. They can even outplay the favorite. Odds simply give an indication of how likely that is to occur. When the odds are long, it is more difficult for the underdog to pull it off. They need to play near perfectly to pull it off. They need to put in an impressive performance to pull it off. The longer the odds, the more impressive the performance needed to win in the game. [I mostly agree. This states it is more impressive when a long underdog wins (and says nothing about how winning as a favorite is not impressive). I find it more impressive when the Celtics beat the Cav's in a 7-game playoff series in which they had a 0.5% edge rather than when the Mavericks beat the Spurs in a 4-game series during the regular season in which they were a 10% underdog. Why? Because of all the intangibles and external variables that go into a basketball game. And the playoffs. And everything else I said in my first post which has not been refuted.]
A second clarification: when a non-favorite wins, that is not necessarily impressive. How long do the odds need to be for a win or accomplishment to be impressive? That's a matter of taste. How difficult does a feat need to be to really impress you? [Apparently a lot. Like I said, watching the Bulls and Jordan absolutely dominate teams that they were technically "clearly favored over" was immensley impressive to me. THB was not impressed-- hence, the robot analogy. There is also a HUGE difference between a feat being difficult and the odds of achieving that feat. THB clearly swung a missed on this point. In order to achieve something really difficult, it is better to be really good at what you do. Hence, the odds leaning in their favor. Does that suddenly mean that the feat is no longer difficult? If someone has climbed Everest once already, the odds are they will make it the second time. Does that not make it impressive?]
Response to criticism 2: MDS misrepresents my point. In a single game, the outcome of the favorite winning is not impressive. That does not mean the win cannot be impressive. [Okay, you're splitting hairs here over semantics-- let's see where you go with this one.] It can be impressive in at least two ways: [That's it? Just two?]
1. The favorite can win by an impressive margin. The Celtics played the Nuggets in Denver on Monday. Is the fact that they won impressive? I don't think so. The odds that the Celtics would win (away and without KG) were probably in the 40-60% range. What impressed me was the margin of victory. What are the odds that, under those circumstances (away and without KG) the Celtics beat the Nuggets by 40? I won't bother guesstimating. But they're low. The win was impressive because it was such a drubbing - the Celtics put in an impressive performance.
[Wrong in so many ways. I will outline just TWO WAYS though, hehe. One, beating a team by 40 could mean the other team simply did not show up. They could tank, give up on their coach--- teams play really shitty every now and then. That is sports, that is life. It is difficult to maintain the consistency, especially in the circumstances surrounding the NBA (I spoke about this in point 6). It happens more often in the NBA than in any other sport for these reasons.
Two, a team winning a really intense game where both teams played evenly and brought out the best in eachother is extremely more impressive than winning by 40. Back to the Celtics analogy, the Celtics beating the Nuggest on an off night by 40 (w/o KG) is not as impressive as the Celtics playing a great game against a great Lakers team where it goes down to the wire and the Celtics pull out a close win. I would like to see how THB argues with this.]
2. A team (which could be the favorite) can win from improbable circumstances. What's a good example here? Let's stick with the Celtics. Is the fact that they won Game 4 of the 2008 NBA finals (an away game) impressive? Not very. Their odds of winning were probably somewhere in the 30-50% range. Fast forward to the third quarter when they trailed by 24 points in the third quarter. At this point, their odds of winning were very low. If you played the game from that point, the Lakers win almost every time. It's difficult for the Celtics to come back from that position. But the game is only played once, and the Celtics were gutsy enough to win it. That's impressive. [Yes, this is also impressive. Similar circumstances, on a much smaller scale, occur in every win. A team wins due to some factor, that factor usually being an impressive performance by a player or by the team.]
(There are lots of similar examples: Tiger Woods winning the 2008 US Open by coming from behind on broken leg and torn ACL, Nadal winning the 2009 Australian Open against Federer on hard courts in five sets after playing a 5+ hour match two nights before, and, yes, Kobe scoring 15 in the fourth quarter to help beat the Spurs in the 2008 playoffs).
In addition, a favorite can impress by winning consistently. A good example is the 1996 Bulls. Take any single game. The outcome of the Bulls winning, with arguably the greatest team ever, is not surprising or impressive. (They could win in impressive fashion in either of the two ways above, but the outcome itself is not impressive). The fact that they won 72 games is impressive. Why? Although they are favored to win each game, the Bulls also have some chance of losing each game. That chance is not insignificant - they're playing other NBA teams, as MDS is quick to point out. To win 72 out of 82 games requires a 88% winning percentage. That means the 19996 Bulls either had a 88% chance (on average) of winning each game, or it means they beat the odds by consistently performing on such a high level. [Contradiction: so the odds of the 95-96 Bulls winning their division, conference, and championship (at the beginning of the season) would be much higher than everyone else according to you (you state they were possibly the greatest team ever). You have already stated how this is not impressive. However, you then state that beating the odds by consistently performing on such a high level is impressive. This is exactly my point about the 2008 Lakers winning the Western Conference title. In the same way the Bulls were always favored, the Lakers were always favored. This is why good teams and good players are impressive. No, I'm not saying that the 2008 Lakers were as impressive as the Bulls winning 72 games.]
Finally, individual plays and players can impress in all kinds of ways. They can make really difficult shots. They can make difficult shots consistently. They can perform athletic feats that we thought weren't possible. They can perform well in the toughest/most critical of circumstances (when most would be unable to succeed). They can do all three:
Response to criticism 3: Who cares? Make the assumptions much lower. Assume the Lakers have a 60% chance of beating the Nuggets, a 57.5% chance of beating the Jazz, and a 55% chance of beating the Spurs. They still have a 28.5% chance of making the Finals, and their odds are still better than any other team in the West. The outcome of the Lakers reaching the 2008 Finals is still not that impressive to me. If you had to guess who would make it, you would guess the Lakers. [This matters for two reasons. One, it is irresponsible and inaccurate to apply these odds since you have no idea. You just admitted you have no idea, and your entire argument rests upon these odds. You state earlier that the degree to which a team is favored matters in how impressive the win is (which I have already shown is just silly). So these odds do matter for the sake of your argument.
Two, you say they now have a 28.5% chance of making the Finals. How is this not impressive according to your logic? Would you find it impressive if the Orlando Magic overtook the Cav's and the Celtic's to win the Eastern Conference this year? Because those odds are around 28.5%.]
Response to criticism 4: It was funny. The kitchen smelled like gas. One of the hosts said, "Oh shoot, you're leaning the stove." "Just trying to ignite the party," I shot back, without a moment's hesitation. I counted 3-4 chuckles, ranging from polite to almost-genuine, out of the 5-6 people in earshot. And MDS himself gave a chuckle, nay a short chortle, if I remember correctly. He might say he was laughing at me, not with me. Impossible. Because I was laughing at my own joke. [True, I laughed at the comment. I lied because I was jealous-- I was thinking of something really stupid (along those lines) to say to her as well, but you were too quick. We can't all be like The Todd
Monday, February 23, 2009
Nick thinks we're living in The Matrix!
This is my response to Nick’s post, see here. I suggest you have one person click over, print the post, then make copies for all your friends so as not to boost his numbers. We had an argument for what makes an occurrence in sports impressive, that was sparked after I stated that the Lakers making the NBA Finals last year was impressive. This post is very long and very messy but very right. If you make it to the end you will be rewarded with a bonus contribution from a high-profile contributor. If you would like, bear with me through it. This is a total smackdown. Nick, prepare to get humiliated.
In this post, Nick=THB=The Honest Bro (Debatable)
[Updated 2-24: I added categories 10 and 11. I actually only skimmed his post at first, after going through it a second time, I fortunately was able discover two more points of contention that should have been previously mentioned.]
Now, I will not use any childish and underhanded tactics to prove my point here. That is a sign of weakness and used by someone to try to spin the argument in their favor in which they are clearly at a disadvantage (THB uses this right off the bat). If you're right and a winner, you don't need to employ such tactics. That's why the best are the most graceful (i.e. Federer, Woods, etc). I would also like to mention that at a party this weekend, Nick accidentally leaned on the stove and turned on the gas, putting all of our lives in danger. When it was discovered what he did, he said “I was just trying to ignite the party.” No one laughed. One girl walked into the room then walked out. This guy right here is THB:
THB posing with his championship trophy.
So here is my rebuttal to THB's argument, that falls apart in the first third of his middle school essay when he lies numerous times to raise himself up even higher (I don’t remember speaking in all caps and cutting him off, even once. He completely fabricated this part of the story to make himself seem composed so he would look better) and prove there is a matrix. You see, Nick is a robot, a thoughtless and emotionless robot who is the second coming of the terrible Skip Bayless.
Here is the actual definition of impressive by the way (THB makes up his own):
Impressive: making or tending to make a marked impression : having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration
Abstract: His entire argument rests on the odds/numbers, which as I will show, are completely irrelevant. THB is what is known as a “sports snob”, he doesn't appreciate good play because he doesn’t find a display of tremendous skill “impressive.” In fact, he doesn't understand that being favored before a game isn't the same thing as actually going out and winning. After the game is completed, who is to say what team was really favored? Sports is not some computer program where you type in odds, run a simulation, and see who comes out ahead. If this were true, THB might have a point about what is impressive. However, we do not live in the matrix.
Being a good team, with the weight of the pressure of everyone gunning for you against stiff competition, whether favored or not, and winning is an achievement and impressive at that. Sure it’s more impressive when an underdog beats the heavy favorite, but does that mean if the favorite had won it would be completely devoid of any impressiveness? Is it impossible to be impressed with a winning team that was favored? If you really want to be technical, before the game starts, each team has a 50% chance of winning. That is what makes sports and the spirit of competition so great. It means nothing under THB’s “computer system.” It shames me to include him as a fellow sports fan. He should take a long look at his life and see if he really understands and enjoys the game as much as he thinks he does, because if some team featuring one of the greatest players of all time leads his team to the finals and he just expects this to happen and doesn't find any of it impressive, then he’s got problems. This really cuts to the heart of his apparently dark soul.
That was sort of rambly, but allow me to delve further.
*The Lakers actually were impressive by his logic: 49.7% to make the finals, meaning they were technically not likely to do it. And this was calculated using his arbitrarily inflated numbers he assigned to each series. What a docheschnozzel. Although this ends the argument in my favor since I just proved that it is impressive by his standards, I will go on--- please follow me.
Now I will break it down Dr. Jack Ramsay style into a 9 categories so I can organize my thoughts better.
1. Guess how you find out who the better team is? You play the game and see who wins! Hooray!
His entire argument rests on numbers; this demonstrates a fundamental flaw in his argument-- that he doesn't understand basketball at all. The Dallas Mavericks we're probably 90% favorites (again, I am pulling this out of my ass because no one knows at all. This is a number I would assume THB to come up with) to beat the Golden State Warriors in the 2007 playoffs in the 1 vs. 8 matchup. The Mav's had the better regular season so they were rightfully awarded the #1 seed and therefore were favored to win the series-- they lost. Why? Because the Warriors were the better team for 7 games. It wasn't chance; teams don't lost "by chance." THB's view would point toward the logic of numbers and explain away the loss as "bad luck" or losing in the "game of chance." However, this is simply not true--- the Mav's lost because the Warriors played better. Therefore, the numbers before the game were wrong-- which they always are (Vegas gets the odds/spread right about 1/1000 times), which is exactly my point. Nothing matters except the end outcome. And in a game where the best players in the world are playing at such a high level and you have to bring it your all every night, nothing is even close to certain. Once again, I fall back on the computer program analogy-- if we were living in the matrix, then yes, it wouldn't be impressive for the Mavs to have won that series.
So to recap, if the Mav's win, it is not impressive at all. However, the Warriors beat the Mav's making them the better team in the playoffs, which is the only time where being the better team matters. After the fact, would he still say it wouldn’t have been impressive if they won? Oh, but the Warriors had a great energetic home crowd, and a frantic style of play that perfectly matched up against the Mav's lackluster defense, and their coach Don Nelson knew the Mav’s style of play inside and out, and Matt Barnes and Baron Davis played out of their minds, and…oh, so you mean these other variables can come into play in a basketball game? Get out of town! Really? So a basketball game isn’t a simulated computer program based on pre-calculated odds? But wouldn’t that make his entire argument moot? THB thinks that the better team just cruises on autopilot and takes their chances (maybe he thought they would try to draw a blue pen out of a hat filled with 9 blue pens and 1 red pen because they had an arbitrarily assigned 90% chance of winning?) Wait, maybe there is more to basketball than that. And this is where THB does a disservice to the game of basketball by reducing it to numbers that are 99.9% wrong and calculated before the fact. Acting as if being the better team going into the game is the same thing as actually going out and winning is untrue and dishonorable. Basketball is an incredibly emotional game as explained later...
The better team is decided by whoever wins the game, not running a bunch of numbers through a computer simulation (or actually, a bunch of fat lazy sports bookies from Las Vegas who have no life and watch wayyyyyy to much TV). An economist would laugh in his face at the way he manipulates the numbers, as if he had never heard of an external variable. Hell, they would laugh at just the way he tries to explain away such a complex and intricate game to a game of numbers and odds and chance and f&*k you THB (this is PG-13 rated).
NOW FOR A QUICK BREAK: A little monkey wearing people clothes and riding a little motorbike.
BACK TO ACTION!
2. Get your basketball game odds/lines here--- Every prediction wrong or your money back!
The fact that he made up all his numbers is completely irrelevant. His arguments fall upon the fact that the favored team has nothing to gain at all and everything to lose. In other words, what are we doing here. This is what most amateur sports announcers and tabloid NY-Post-esque sports writers use all the time to debase a sports team and cause a stir. The players and coaches always disregard this as bullshit because that basically places no value on what they have accomplished to get to that point, and places no value on what they accomplish if they win. Therefore, he only gets excited by watching an unfavored team win-- his definition of being impressed. That is profoundly obnoxious. This sounds exactly like Skip Bayless, the most abhorrent individual in the sports media. If there is nothing impressive about good teams winning, then why does ESPN spend so much time highlighting these teams? Is there some vast conspiracy where none of their viewers find these teams impressive yet ESPN still loves talking about these teams? I think it has something to do with teams, like the 2008 L.A. Lakers, having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration
And these odds that he bases his argument off of? Holds up about as much as his interior defense holds up against my baby-hook; that is, not at all. Here is a great TMQ article (TMQ=Tuesday Morning Quarterback=Gregg Easterbrook) that breaks down the “favorites” and “predicted odds” of the 2008 NFL season in his annual "Bad Predictions Review." TMQ consistently criticizes all the prognosticators for putting specific numbered chances on teams winning because they are always wrong and unless you can predict the future, they mean nothing. Sure one team can have a better chance of winning, but according to THB, that makes their potential for being impressive non-existent. Read on to see how ridiculous this logic can take you.
3. THB's understanding of basketball is the equivalent of my understanding of NASCAR
...which is, I really don’t understand it at all. I just wait for a car crash to happen. I don’t care who wins or who is a good driver. I assume the true NASCAR fans actually enjoy watching a good driver display his superior driving skill and win the race. I don’t, because I don’t care nor understand why people enjoy it. I admit this. THB is only impressed by car crashes (upsets) in basketball. The only "impressive" thing about the NBA, according to THB, is when a team that is mathematically favored loses. He sees numbers and makes a decision on what is impressive. I don’t understand how this doesn’t make THB a super hot and sexy robot.
I mean robot.
4. Nick tried to use the “refs decide the outcome of the game” argument when talking about chance
3 things:
a. Everyone knows this argument is silly; as if the better team lost because of some calls. In the heat of the game, the losers make these excuses, but we all know that’s not true. I think I learned this was not true once I hit age 12; it’s just like learning there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. In the matrix, refs consistently decide outcomes of games.
b. If this we’re true, it would further prove my point of the unpredictable nature of a basketball game. It would make the odds of one team winning less accurate.
c. I didn’t walk out of the room and go brush my teeth when he said this; I respected his idiotic behavior and responded in kind. I wasn’t hiding from anything.
5. THB: I'm gonna make stuff up because this is the matrix and who cares
THB dismisses the Lakers for beating the Nuggets and Jazz in last year's playoffs. The Nuggets possessed one of the most clutch players in recent history in Carmelo Anthony (he is #2 in "clutch stats" behind LeBron and ahead of Kobe), not to mention Allen Iverson. Oh yeah and this:
6. Celtics-Hawks, 2008 First Round (The Playoffs Theory)
The Hawks might have been the statistically worst team to ever make the playoffs (they were 37-45, making them 30 games worse than the Celtics), making this 1-8 matchup one of the most lopsided in the history of the NBA. We all know what happened, this series went 7 games. 7 games! Improbable, yes, very. But looking closer, why did this happen?
a. The skill level in the NBA playoffs increases due to the level of the teams that need to qualify to make it.
b. It is exponentially more competitive because it is the playoffs. I mean WAY more competitive. The regular season is long and grueling with many meaningless games. NBA payers are selfish, over paid, and coddled and slack off during the regular season (except for Kobe and the 2008 Lakers). In the playoffs, they can finally try their hardest because it actually matters. Therefore the differences between the two teams even out.
c. The atmosphere, with sold-out arenas and larger fans, plays a larger role. The Hawks won every game that was played in Atlanta against the Celtics. (Also, see Warriors-Mav's in 2007)
The better teams, the pressure, the fans, the competition, it all adds up to increase the difficulty of winning in the playoffs ten-fold. Furthermore, the Hawks received great play from Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson, which underscores another point—there is so much talent in the NBA, especially on a team in the playoffs. All a team needs is one outstanding player to come up big and you can win the game. Bibby and Johnson were those guys—it puts the game on a more equal footing to have one of those guys.
The underlying competitiveness of a post-season highlights the difficulty of winning in the post-season. Why do you think there so many upsets in March Madness? The difference in skill between two teams is even much greater in college basketball than in the pros. This is why we play the games. Odds don’t matter.
Now this is where I will clarify my Bobcats statement that he alluded to—if they would play them in a series, that means that it would be in the playoffs, so the Bobcats could be the Hawks. It wouldn’t be a Celtics-Bobcats 7-game series during the regular season in a season like this (where the Bobcats suck), but an ultra-competitive playoff series encompassing all of the factors described above. The impressiveness factor would be multiplied exponentially. And the Bobcats actually beat the Celtics this year.
7. Parallels between 2008 Lakers and '96 Bulls
Not being impressed by this Lakers team is just like saying he wasn't impressed with Michael Jordan's '96 Bulls. They featured one of the games greatest players, the brilliant Phil Jackson as coach, and ran a beautiful triangle offense that centered around their best player and incorporated a bevy of veterans. Their brilliance was amazing, dare I say impressive. Does that team sound familiar to the 2008 Lakers? The Lakers didn’t win the championship like the Bulls did and that is disappointing. That is because if you are good enough to make the finals, then you are good enough to win. But everything else about them? Impressive. That is what makes them great. But the Bulls in 1995-96 were never impressive because they were favored in every game, THB says. They were most likely to win all their games and win the championship. If this is really true, then this exposes a deeper problem inside THB that I mentioned earlier, that he doesn’t appreciate or truly enjoy good basketball (or know what the hell he is talking about).
8. Tiger Woods's history in WGC Match Play Championship
I am too lazy to extrapolate further, but look up his history. Tiger is great, and favored in every 1 vs. 1 match he plays. THB also thinks Tiger Woods is not "impressive" because the odds are overwhelmingly in his favor every time.
9. Cavaliers-Celtics Upcoming Matchup
When the Cavaliers play the Celtics in Boston, I would assume the Celtics would be a slight favorite. If the Celtics win, THB wouldn’t be impressed. I find this hard to believe. This demonstrates how there are so many other intangibles in deciding what makes a performance impressive. THB, however, and for the twentieth time, relies soley on numbers.
Watching the Lakers dismantle the Nuggets, Jazz, then the almost-dynasty-like Spurs in workman-like fashion is an impressive feat. It would have been more impressive if they had beat the Celtics in the finals, but that doesn’t take anything away from their previous play to get there. Does THB really not admire how Kobe scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Lakers to a come-from-behind victory in game 5 against the Spurs? What the hell is worthy of THB’s admiration then?
He states :"The Los Angeles Lakers making the 2008 NBA finals is not impressive. In no way, shape, or form."
Oh yeah, if it’s the Wizards beating the Pacers in March because they were statistical underdogs. It’s all about odds/chance, right? Who cares about everything else because nothing else matters, right? Can you believe I kept a straight face while he made this argument?
10. THB: "That's a big part of the reason that the probability of the Lakers reaching the NBA finals in 2008 was 49.7% (I prove this in appendix). Yeah, that's as impressive as getting tails when you flip a coin."
I couldn't let this one slide. "Yeah, that's as impressive as getting tails when you flip a coin." Are you f%$king kidding me? Where do I start with this one. He equates a 49.7% chance of winning (again, I don't need to remind anyone that this number is bullshit, made-up, and impossible to ever know, and therefore irrelevant) to a coin flip. I have to give THB credit here, he is exactly right...
wait a tic, we're not talking about poker? I thought he was talking about an 8-8 vs. a A-K pre-flop. Then it would be about a coin flip. This argument essentially summarizes his entire argument-- basketball and poker are no different. Except for the fact that the odds in poker are real and calculated while the odds in basketball aren't, and basketball and poker are 100% different. I finally get what is pissing me off about his robotic crunching of numbers-- he thinks basketball is poker. You mean you're not impressed by a coin flip? Neither am I! If we are to believe his coinflip notion, then we are led to think that every great rivalry in the history of sports, where both teams have an almost equal chance of winning, would never be any kind of impressive.
Next time we play one-on-one, let's just flip a coin to decide since that is such an indicator of who wins (or actually, we'll draw pens out of a hat of 9 red and 1 blue. I'll draw red because I would be a 90% favorite---- again, the baby-hook, it's unstoppable).
11. "Reasonable Assumptions"
This bascially proves that calulating numbers can't work because he doesn't know the numbers. Every single one of his calculations is therefore discredited. I agree, the Lakers we're more likely to win each of the 3 series. As my messy rant of a blog post has already explained, if you're unable to find anything impressive about their run in "any way, shape, or form," that speaks to something larger about your view on sports.
Concluding thoughts:
If it is never impressive for any sports favorite to win, then that means the best and greatest are never impressive. By THB’s logic, I would never want to be the best, because therefore I would never be able to impress!
What’s the point in watching great teams play? Is nothing they do impressive because they’re supposed to be great? Is Kobe pulling one of his signature “pump-fake then up-and-under” lay-ups not impressive because he pulls it off more than 50% of the time? Where does this end?
Yes, George Mason making the final four was way more impressive than Florida making the final four. But by simply stating that Florida should have made it and is therefore unimpressed is downright silly (All four #1 seeds have made the final four once since 1939, and it was last year). His inability to give a good team its respect for accomplishing something great is another extremely obnoxious move.
My conclusion is that THB is lying. He really is impressed when good teams win because he really enjoys watching the NBA and watching great players (like Lebron, Paul, Wade) do their thing and win games that they’re likely to win. He enjoys it because he is impressed at their skill, which allows the better team to win. I’ve never heard him say after a Celtic’s win, “Big deal, they were supposed to win, I’m not impressed.”
We watch sports to be impressed, otherwise we wouldn’t be watching. I know this because everyone else is. And THB really isn’t a robot.
BONUS!
Fellow blogger Mike G. chimes in. He was a 4-year division 1 basketball player; so were both his brothers; so was his dad; so was his uncle. Basketball runs in his blood. He feels strongly about this:
Q.E.D.
In this post, Nick=THB=The Honest Bro (Debatable)
[Updated 2-24: I added categories 10 and 11. I actually only skimmed his post at first, after going through it a second time, I fortunately was able discover two more points of contention that should have been previously mentioned.]
Now, I will not use any childish and underhanded tactics to prove my point here. That is a sign of weakness and used by someone to try to spin the argument in their favor in which they are clearly at a disadvantage (THB uses this right off the bat). If you're right and a winner, you don't need to employ such tactics. That's why the best are the most graceful (i.e. Federer, Woods, etc). I would also like to mention that at a party this weekend, Nick accidentally leaned on the stove and turned on the gas, putting all of our lives in danger. When it was discovered what he did, he said “I was just trying to ignite the party.” No one laughed. One girl walked into the room then walked out. This guy right here is THB:
THB posing with his championship trophy.So here is my rebuttal to THB's argument, that falls apart in the first third of his middle school essay when he lies numerous times to raise himself up even higher (I don’t remember speaking in all caps and cutting him off, even once. He completely fabricated this part of the story to make himself seem composed so he would look better) and prove there is a matrix. You see, Nick is a robot, a thoughtless and emotionless robot who is the second coming of the terrible Skip Bayless.
Here is the actual definition of impressive by the way (THB makes up his own):
Impressive: making or tending to make a marked impression : having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration
Abstract: His entire argument rests on the odds/numbers, which as I will show, are completely irrelevant. THB is what is known as a “sports snob”, he doesn't appreciate good play because he doesn’t find a display of tremendous skill “impressive.” In fact, he doesn't understand that being favored before a game isn't the same thing as actually going out and winning. After the game is completed, who is to say what team was really favored? Sports is not some computer program where you type in odds, run a simulation, and see who comes out ahead. If this were true, THB might have a point about what is impressive. However, we do not live in the matrix.
Being a good team, with the weight of the pressure of everyone gunning for you against stiff competition, whether favored or not, and winning is an achievement and impressive at that. Sure it’s more impressive when an underdog beats the heavy favorite, but does that mean if the favorite had won it would be completely devoid of any impressiveness? Is it impossible to be impressed with a winning team that was favored? If you really want to be technical, before the game starts, each team has a 50% chance of winning. That is what makes sports and the spirit of competition so great. It means nothing under THB’s “computer system.” It shames me to include him as a fellow sports fan. He should take a long look at his life and see if he really understands and enjoys the game as much as he thinks he does, because if some team featuring one of the greatest players of all time leads his team to the finals and he just expects this to happen and doesn't find any of it impressive, then he’s got problems. This really cuts to the heart of his apparently dark soul.
That was sort of rambly, but allow me to delve further.
*The Lakers actually were impressive by his logic: 49.7% to make the finals, meaning they were technically not likely to do it. And this was calculated using his arbitrarily inflated numbers he assigned to each series. What a docheschnozzel. Although this ends the argument in my favor since I just proved that it is impressive by his standards, I will go on--- please follow me.
Now I will break it down Dr. Jack Ramsay style into a 9 categories so I can organize my thoughts better.
1. Guess how you find out who the better team is? You play the game and see who wins! Hooray!
His entire argument rests on numbers; this demonstrates a fundamental flaw in his argument-- that he doesn't understand basketball at all. The Dallas Mavericks we're probably 90% favorites (again, I am pulling this out of my ass because no one knows at all. This is a number I would assume THB to come up with) to beat the Golden State Warriors in the 2007 playoffs in the 1 vs. 8 matchup. The Mav's had the better regular season so they were rightfully awarded the #1 seed and therefore were favored to win the series-- they lost. Why? Because the Warriors were the better team for 7 games. It wasn't chance; teams don't lost "by chance." THB's view would point toward the logic of numbers and explain away the loss as "bad luck" or losing in the "game of chance." However, this is simply not true--- the Mav's lost because the Warriors played better. Therefore, the numbers before the game were wrong-- which they always are (Vegas gets the odds/spread right about 1/1000 times), which is exactly my point. Nothing matters except the end outcome. And in a game where the best players in the world are playing at such a high level and you have to bring it your all every night, nothing is even close to certain. Once again, I fall back on the computer program analogy-- if we were living in the matrix, then yes, it wouldn't be impressive for the Mavs to have won that series.
So to recap, if the Mav's win, it is not impressive at all. However, the Warriors beat the Mav's making them the better team in the playoffs, which is the only time where being the better team matters. After the fact, would he still say it wouldn’t have been impressive if they won? Oh, but the Warriors had a great energetic home crowd, and a frantic style of play that perfectly matched up against the Mav's lackluster defense, and their coach Don Nelson knew the Mav’s style of play inside and out, and Matt Barnes and Baron Davis played out of their minds, and…oh, so you mean these other variables can come into play in a basketball game? Get out of town! Really? So a basketball game isn’t a simulated computer program based on pre-calculated odds? But wouldn’t that make his entire argument moot? THB thinks that the better team just cruises on autopilot and takes their chances (maybe he thought they would try to draw a blue pen out of a hat filled with 9 blue pens and 1 red pen because they had an arbitrarily assigned 90% chance of winning?) Wait, maybe there is more to basketball than that. And this is where THB does a disservice to the game of basketball by reducing it to numbers that are 99.9% wrong and calculated before the fact. Acting as if being the better team going into the game is the same thing as actually going out and winning is untrue and dishonorable. Basketball is an incredibly emotional game as explained later...
The better team is decided by whoever wins the game, not running a bunch of numbers through a computer simulation (or actually, a bunch of fat lazy sports bookies from Las Vegas who have no life and watch wayyyyyy to much TV). An economist would laugh in his face at the way he manipulates the numbers, as if he had never heard of an external variable. Hell, they would laugh at just the way he tries to explain away such a complex and intricate game to a game of numbers and odds and chance and f&*k you THB (this is PG-13 rated).
NOW FOR A QUICK BREAK: A little monkey wearing people clothes and riding a little motorbike.
BACK TO ACTION!
2. Get your basketball game odds/lines here--- Every prediction wrong or your money back!
The fact that he made up all his numbers is completely irrelevant. His arguments fall upon the fact that the favored team has nothing to gain at all and everything to lose. In other words, what are we doing here. This is what most amateur sports announcers and tabloid NY-Post-esque sports writers use all the time to debase a sports team and cause a stir. The players and coaches always disregard this as bullshit because that basically places no value on what they have accomplished to get to that point, and places no value on what they accomplish if they win. Therefore, he only gets excited by watching an unfavored team win-- his definition of being impressed. That is profoundly obnoxious. This sounds exactly like Skip Bayless, the most abhorrent individual in the sports media. If there is nothing impressive about good teams winning, then why does ESPN spend so much time highlighting these teams? Is there some vast conspiracy where none of their viewers find these teams impressive yet ESPN still loves talking about these teams? I think it has something to do with teams, like the 2008 L.A. Lakers, having the power to excite attention, awe, or admiration
And these odds that he bases his argument off of? Holds up about as much as his interior defense holds up against my baby-hook; that is, not at all. Here is a great TMQ article (TMQ=Tuesday Morning Quarterback=Gregg Easterbrook) that breaks down the “favorites” and “predicted odds” of the 2008 NFL season in his annual "Bad Predictions Review." TMQ consistently criticizes all the prognosticators for putting specific numbered chances on teams winning because they are always wrong and unless you can predict the future, they mean nothing. Sure one team can have a better chance of winning, but according to THB, that makes their potential for being impressive non-existent. Read on to see how ridiculous this logic can take you.
3. THB's understanding of basketball is the equivalent of my understanding of NASCAR
...which is, I really don’t understand it at all. I just wait for a car crash to happen. I don’t care who wins or who is a good driver. I assume the true NASCAR fans actually enjoy watching a good driver display his superior driving skill and win the race. I don’t, because I don’t care nor understand why people enjoy it. I admit this. THB is only impressed by car crashes (upsets) in basketball. The only "impressive" thing about the NBA, according to THB, is when a team that is mathematically favored loses. He sees numbers and makes a decision on what is impressive. I don’t understand how this doesn’t make THB a super hot and sexy robot.
I mean robot.
4. Nick tried to use the “refs decide the outcome of the game” argument when talking about chance
3 things:
a. Everyone knows this argument is silly; as if the better team lost because of some calls. In the heat of the game, the losers make these excuses, but we all know that’s not true. I think I learned this was not true once I hit age 12; it’s just like learning there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. In the matrix, refs consistently decide outcomes of games.
b. If this we’re true, it would further prove my point of the unpredictable nature of a basketball game. It would make the odds of one team winning less accurate.
c. I didn’t walk out of the room and go brush my teeth when he said this; I respected his idiotic behavior and responded in kind. I wasn’t hiding from anything.
5. THB: I'm gonna make stuff up because this is the matrix and who cares
THB dismisses the Lakers for beating the Nuggets and Jazz in last year's playoffs. The Nuggets possessed one of the most clutch players in recent history in Carmelo Anthony (he is #2 in "clutch stats" behind LeBron and ahead of Kobe), not to mention Allen Iverson. Oh yeah and this:
Denver ended up as the 8th seed in the Western Conference of the 2008 NBA Playoffs, and their 50 wins marked the highest win total for an 8th seed in NBA history. It also meant that for the first time in NBA history, all eight playoff seeds in a conference had at least 50 wins. The Nuggets faced the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers (57–25 overall record) in the first round of the 2008 NBA Playoffs. The seven games separating the Nuggets overall record and the Lakers overall record is the closest margin between an eighth seed and a top seed since the NBA went to a 16-team playoff format in 1983-84.THB also states " The Nuggets limped into the playoffs with a team that clearly didn't work." Actually It was the first time since the 87-88 season that the Nuggets finished with at least 50 wins in a season. And they "limped?" They finished the 2nd-half 25-16, vaulting multiple teams to make the playoffs. The Jazz? Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, and one of the most well-coached teams in the game. I'm not even getting into the San Antonio Spurs who had won 3 of the last 5 NBA Championships. Yes, the Lakers were better than these teams; no these series were not equivalent to the USA basketball team playing Ghana. That wouldn’t be very impressive. THB compared these series to a US-Ghana basketball game. THB is a dumb robot.
6. Celtics-Hawks, 2008 First Round (The Playoffs Theory)
The Hawks might have been the statistically worst team to ever make the playoffs (they were 37-45, making them 30 games worse than the Celtics), making this 1-8 matchup one of the most lopsided in the history of the NBA. We all know what happened, this series went 7 games. 7 games! Improbable, yes, very. But looking closer, why did this happen?
a. The skill level in the NBA playoffs increases due to the level of the teams that need to qualify to make it.
b. It is exponentially more competitive because it is the playoffs. I mean WAY more competitive. The regular season is long and grueling with many meaningless games. NBA payers are selfish, over paid, and coddled and slack off during the regular season (except for Kobe and the 2008 Lakers). In the playoffs, they can finally try their hardest because it actually matters. Therefore the differences between the two teams even out.
c. The atmosphere, with sold-out arenas and larger fans, plays a larger role. The Hawks won every game that was played in Atlanta against the Celtics. (Also, see Warriors-Mav's in 2007)
The better teams, the pressure, the fans, the competition, it all adds up to increase the difficulty of winning in the playoffs ten-fold. Furthermore, the Hawks received great play from Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson, which underscores another point—there is so much talent in the NBA, especially on a team in the playoffs. All a team needs is one outstanding player to come up big and you can win the game. Bibby and Johnson were those guys—it puts the game on a more equal footing to have one of those guys.
The underlying competitiveness of a post-season highlights the difficulty of winning in the post-season. Why do you think there so many upsets in March Madness? The difference in skill between two teams is even much greater in college basketball than in the pros. This is why we play the games. Odds don’t matter.
Now this is where I will clarify my Bobcats statement that he alluded to—if they would play them in a series, that means that it would be in the playoffs, so the Bobcats could be the Hawks. It wouldn’t be a Celtics-Bobcats 7-game series during the regular season in a season like this (where the Bobcats suck), but an ultra-competitive playoff series encompassing all of the factors described above. The impressiveness factor would be multiplied exponentially. And the Bobcats actually beat the Celtics this year.
7. Parallels between 2008 Lakers and '96 Bulls
Not being impressed by this Lakers team is just like saying he wasn't impressed with Michael Jordan's '96 Bulls. They featured one of the games greatest players, the brilliant Phil Jackson as coach, and ran a beautiful triangle offense that centered around their best player and incorporated a bevy of veterans. Their brilliance was amazing, dare I say impressive. Does that team sound familiar to the 2008 Lakers? The Lakers didn’t win the championship like the Bulls did and that is disappointing. That is because if you are good enough to make the finals, then you are good enough to win. But everything else about them? Impressive. That is what makes them great. But the Bulls in 1995-96 were never impressive because they were favored in every game, THB says. They were most likely to win all their games and win the championship. If this is really true, then this exposes a deeper problem inside THB that I mentioned earlier, that he doesn’t appreciate or truly enjoy good basketball (or know what the hell he is talking about).
8. Tiger Woods's history in WGC Match Play Championship
I am too lazy to extrapolate further, but look up his history. Tiger is great, and favored in every 1 vs. 1 match he plays. THB also thinks Tiger Woods is not "impressive" because the odds are overwhelmingly in his favor every time.
9. Cavaliers-Celtics Upcoming Matchup
When the Cavaliers play the Celtics in Boston, I would assume the Celtics would be a slight favorite. If the Celtics win, THB wouldn’t be impressed. I find this hard to believe. This demonstrates how there are so many other intangibles in deciding what makes a performance impressive. THB, however, and for the twentieth time, relies soley on numbers.
Watching the Lakers dismantle the Nuggets, Jazz, then the almost-dynasty-like Spurs in workman-like fashion is an impressive feat. It would have been more impressive if they had beat the Celtics in the finals, but that doesn’t take anything away from their previous play to get there. Does THB really not admire how Kobe scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Lakers to a come-from-behind victory in game 5 against the Spurs? What the hell is worthy of THB’s admiration then?
He states :"The Los Angeles Lakers making the 2008 NBA finals is not impressive. In no way, shape, or form."
Oh yeah, if it’s the Wizards beating the Pacers in March because they were statistical underdogs. It’s all about odds/chance, right? Who cares about everything else because nothing else matters, right? Can you believe I kept a straight face while he made this argument?
10. THB: "That's a big part of the reason that the probability of the Lakers reaching the NBA finals in 2008 was 49.7% (I prove this in appendix). Yeah, that's as impressive as getting tails when you flip a coin."
I couldn't let this one slide. "Yeah, that's as impressive as getting tails when you flip a coin." Are you f%$king kidding me? Where do I start with this one. He equates a 49.7% chance of winning (again, I don't need to remind anyone that this number is bullshit, made-up, and impossible to ever know, and therefore irrelevant) to a coin flip. I have to give THB credit here, he is exactly right...
wait a tic, we're not talking about poker? I thought he was talking about an 8-8 vs. a A-K pre-flop. Then it would be about a coin flip. This argument essentially summarizes his entire argument-- basketball and poker are no different. Except for the fact that the odds in poker are real and calculated while the odds in basketball aren't, and basketball and poker are 100% different. I finally get what is pissing me off about his robotic crunching of numbers-- he thinks basketball is poker. You mean you're not impressed by a coin flip? Neither am I! If we are to believe his coinflip notion, then we are led to think that every great rivalry in the history of sports, where both teams have an almost equal chance of winning, would never be any kind of impressive.
Next time we play one-on-one, let's just flip a coin to decide since that is such an indicator of who wins (or actually, we'll draw pens out of a hat of 9 red and 1 blue. I'll draw red because I would be a 90% favorite---- again, the baby-hook, it's unstoppable).
11. "Reasonable Assumptions"
This bascially proves that calulating numbers can't work because he doesn't know the numbers. Every single one of his calculations is therefore discredited. I agree, the Lakers we're more likely to win each of the 3 series. As my messy rant of a blog post has already explained, if you're unable to find anything impressive about their run in "any way, shape, or form," that speaks to something larger about your view on sports.
Concluding thoughts:
If it is never impressive for any sports favorite to win, then that means the best and greatest are never impressive. By THB’s logic, I would never want to be the best, because therefore I would never be able to impress!
What’s the point in watching great teams play? Is nothing they do impressive because they’re supposed to be great? Is Kobe pulling one of his signature “pump-fake then up-and-under” lay-ups not impressive because he pulls it off more than 50% of the time? Where does this end?
Yes, George Mason making the final four was way more impressive than Florida making the final four. But by simply stating that Florida should have made it and is therefore unimpressed is downright silly (All four #1 seeds have made the final four once since 1939, and it was last year). His inability to give a good team its respect for accomplishing something great is another extremely obnoxious move.
My conclusion is that THB is lying. He really is impressed when good teams win because he really enjoys watching the NBA and watching great players (like Lebron, Paul, Wade) do their thing and win games that they’re likely to win. He enjoys it because he is impressed at their skill, which allows the better team to win. I’ve never heard him say after a Celtic’s win, “Big deal, they were supposed to win, I’m not impressed.”
We watch sports to be impressed, otherwise we wouldn’t be watching. I know this because everyone else is. And THB really isn’t a robot.
BONUS!
Fellow blogger Mike G. chimes in. He was a 4-year division 1 basketball player; so were both his brothers; so was his dad; so was his uncle. Basketball runs in his blood. He feels strongly about this:
your rommate's argument is absurd, basketball is the sport where
upsets happen more than any sport followed by tennis. granted, the
longer the series, the better the chance is that the favorite would
win. the lakers did lose to the pistons in 5 i think in the nba
finals though. its not something that can be thought about logically
because it is not math or science, it is more like art (no homo). its
why people play better when they are sick, its why the underdog wins
all the time, its why people cry when its over, its why i dont win
when i bet on it. how about the #1 mavericks losing to #8 golden
state two years ago. he also makes unreasonable assumptions, proven
by the fact that he has to justify his assumptions by labeling them as
being "reasonable" in the first place. no nba team has a chance of
winning another team 75%, and certainly not beating the jazz 65% of
the time. derron williams and kobe bryant dont match up with each
other either. chris paul has never beaten derron williams in a head
to head game since they have been drafted. the jazz average beating
the hornets by over 20.
Q.E.D.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
5 Best of 2008
5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
I put this behind only Knocked Up as the best of the Judd Apatow movies. The humor was dumb, but wasn't too stupid like in Superbad or Anchorman, which was almost slapstickish. I would say the humor was subtle as it evolved out of situations, so it flowed naturally, if you're on my level here. Great "Joe-everybody" leading man too; it was easy to put yourself in his shoes and really live through his anguish.
The Steinboscar for best song from a movie goes to "Peter, You Suck"
4.Frost/Nixon
I really could not see how this movie could be any good. The entire story was centered around one interview. Alas, I was smitten. Frank Langella was crazy delicious as Nixon (though not silly ridiculous like Sean Penn, which is slightly higher on the superfluastic scale) and the supporting actors were top notch. If you're a history buff, which I consider myself to be, this will satisfy your history buffness. And Ron Howard somehow maintains a high level of tension throughout. This is one of the movies you really just have to see to understand why it's good.
And, the whole "admission of guilt" aspect is quite relevant since we're in the thick of the A-Rod steroid revelations. So it's topical!
Frost's girlfriend get's the Steinboscar for "Best Snugglebunny"
3. Religulous
Bill Maher is sometimes funny, sometimes not. Sometimes he is obnoxious. Here, he just kills it. He makes fun of religion and god by basically using each faith's very own scripture. He uses common sense and logic to expose how fraudulent, violent, and irrational religion can sometimes be (with the exception of his final 3-minute diatribe which was over-the-top).
I'm biased because I'm an atheist. I was lucky to be raised with no religious affiliation (I'm Really Not Jewish! and other thoughts). My parents let me choose for myself, which is the way it should be. Religion is a choice, a belief. And children, or even babies, certainly cannot understand the full extent of what those religious beliefs mean. Do whatever you want, as long as you keep it private and don't inundate the public space with it. Unfortunately, that is tough for Americans. And if you are one of the almost 2/3 of Americans who believe in creationism, (see here) you shouldn't be allowed to vote because you are an idiot.
If there was a god, then why would it create Mormons? God, they are awful.
2. Wall-E
I have had a torrent love affair with Pixar movies. I run through the full gamut of emotions (laughter, crying, anger, regret, denial, betrayal, redemption, hunger, thirst, nachos, soft pretzel) when watching Toy Story, Toy Story 2, or Monster's Inc. (brilliant last scene). This is right up there with their best work. The fact that this movie pulls it off while there is no dialouge for the first 35 minutes or so is amazing. People criticized Wall-E for trying to get across a message about the environment-- are you kidding me. It's a fictional movie; the story is set way in the future. Who really knows what the world will be like. They can take any liberties they want when depicting the future. Does this really affect your view of the movie? And who the hell is anti-anvironment?
As a digital arts buff, I can tell you how appreciative you should be of the animation. We've really come a long way since I'm really dissapointed that this wasn't nominated for Best Picture. If you didn't like this movie then I don't like you.
1. Slumdog Millionaire
I am unable to capture how great this movie was. Unfortunately, my opinions don't take themselves seriously enough to offer a proper review of this movie. Slumdog had it all: a seemingly simple story that branched into complex socio-economic and romantic sidestories, a completely original underdog tale, and actors who played their roles perfectly. Everything meshed together smoothly. The flow from one scene to the next was in perfect stride; nothing was out of place, which is tough in a movie that is depicted out of chronolgoical order. The soundtrack was even really good. I think it deserves all the recognition it gets. It has been about as dominant as Stefan from Top Chef: New York, and should continue to be at the Oscars.
Speaking of Top Chef, did you know that Padma was married to Salman Rushdie? Maybe I could get a "fatwa" issued against me like Salman Rushdie - maybe then she wouldn't think my collection of her hair isn't strange.
0.
Obviously this, if I was able to see it. I'm putting it here anyways because this couldn't fail.
I put this behind only Knocked Up as the best of the Judd Apatow movies. The humor was dumb, but wasn't too stupid like in Superbad or Anchorman, which was almost slapstickish. I would say the humor was subtle as it evolved out of situations, so it flowed naturally, if you're on my level here. Great "Joe-everybody" leading man too; it was easy to put yourself in his shoes and really live through his anguish.
The Steinboscar for best song from a movie goes to "Peter, You Suck"
4.Frost/Nixon
I really could not see how this movie could be any good. The entire story was centered around one interview. Alas, I was smitten. Frank Langella was crazy delicious as Nixon (though not silly ridiculous like Sean Penn, which is slightly higher on the superfluastic scale) and the supporting actors were top notch. If you're a history buff, which I consider myself to be, this will satisfy your history buffness. And Ron Howard somehow maintains a high level of tension throughout. This is one of the movies you really just have to see to understand why it's good.
And, the whole "admission of guilt" aspect is quite relevant since we're in the thick of the A-Rod steroid revelations. So it's topical!
Frost's girlfriend get's the Steinboscar for "Best Snugglebunny"
3. Religulous
Bill Maher is sometimes funny, sometimes not. Sometimes he is obnoxious. Here, he just kills it. He makes fun of religion and god by basically using each faith's very own scripture. He uses common sense and logic to expose how fraudulent, violent, and irrational religion can sometimes be (with the exception of his final 3-minute diatribe which was over-the-top).
I'm biased because I'm an atheist. I was lucky to be raised with no religious affiliation (I'm Really Not Jewish! and other thoughts). My parents let me choose for myself, which is the way it should be. Religion is a choice, a belief. And children, or even babies, certainly cannot understand the full extent of what those religious beliefs mean. Do whatever you want, as long as you keep it private and don't inundate the public space with it. Unfortunately, that is tough for Americans. And if you are one of the almost 2/3 of Americans who believe in creationism, (see here) you shouldn't be allowed to vote because you are an idiot.
If there was a god, then why would it create Mormons? God, they are awful.
2. Wall-E
I have had a torrent love affair with Pixar movies. I run through the full gamut of emotions (laughter, crying, anger, regret, denial, betrayal, redemption, hunger, thirst, nachos, soft pretzel) when watching Toy Story, Toy Story 2, or Monster's Inc. (brilliant last scene). This is right up there with their best work. The fact that this movie pulls it off while there is no dialouge for the first 35 minutes or so is amazing. People criticized Wall-E for trying to get across a message about the environment-- are you kidding me. It's a fictional movie; the story is set way in the future. Who really knows what the world will be like. They can take any liberties they want when depicting the future. Does this really affect your view of the movie? And who the hell is anti-anvironment?
As a digital arts buff, I can tell you how appreciative you should be of the animation. We've really come a long way since I'm really dissapointed that this wasn't nominated for Best Picture. If you didn't like this movie then I don't like you.
1. Slumdog Millionaire
I am unable to capture how great this movie was. Unfortunately, my opinions don't take themselves seriously enough to offer a proper review of this movie. Slumdog had it all: a seemingly simple story that branched into complex socio-economic and romantic sidestories, a completely original underdog tale, and actors who played their roles perfectly. Everything meshed together smoothly. The flow from one scene to the next was in perfect stride; nothing was out of place, which is tough in a movie that is depicted out of chronolgoical order. The soundtrack was even really good. I think it deserves all the recognition it gets. It has been about as dominant as Stefan from Top Chef: New York, and should continue to be at the Oscars.
Speaking of Top Chef, did you know that Padma was married to Salman Rushdie? Maybe I could get a "fatwa" issued against me like Salman Rushdie - maybe then she wouldn't think my collection of her hair isn't strange.
0.
Obviously this, if I was able to see it. I'm putting it here anyways because this couldn't fail.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
