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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 18h

I would say that there are exceptions if you're able to do it on movement or with a heavy contest at the Duncan Robinson/Malik Beasley end of the spectrum, but even those guys had some serious years of the wilderness. The rub with Hawkins specifically is that he hasn't even hit the shots.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 1d

Depending on how this works, it might actually enable *more* upsets of the 15-2 variety because those 15 seeds will be better teams in almost every case. You just might not get to see quite as many Patriot League teams running a coaching clinic against a school most people have actually heard of.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 1d

Teams that win an Opening Round game earn money for their conference for winning a game (although they would have to reach the Sweet 16 to get a second share or whatever they're called), so assuming that system isn't changed, it also redistributes more money to mid-majors.

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Nome @nome.bsky.social · 2d

There's a million-dollar mobile game to be made out of the job of line management at airports, by the way. Shortening and lengthening queues so that people are never hanging out in an unmanaged hallway space and never walking through useless empty queues.

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Nome @nome.bsky.social · 2d

Some things I've learned in my first few weeks:

1) There is a grey market candy swapping racket between janitors, TSA agents, CSRs, and everyone else who has to stand someplace all day at the airport.

Hi-chews, sour candies, and gummy anything are in highest demand.

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Lucas Seehafer PhD @seehafer.bsky.social · 3d

They also:

-Have their athletes focus on external cues (i.e. the defense, the rim, etc) rather than internal (i.e. how their legs feel)
-Provide positive feedback and more feedback on what the athletes did correctly versus what they did wrong

You'd be surprised how many coaches don't do this.

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Lucas Seehafer PhD @seehafer.bsky.social · 3d

The coaches who are best at developing their athletes employ significant randomness in their practices. Randomness mimics the competition environment.

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Shaenon K. Garrity @shaenon.bsky.social · 4d

Andrew, explaining pop culture to our son: You see, there was a movie called Anchorman--
Our son, singing, not missing a beat: Anchorman, Anchorman / Does whatever an anchor can / Sinks to the bottom of the ocean / And sits theeeere
Me: Yeah, that's a better movie.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 4d

Probably something cathartic, albeit nowhere near mainstream, about depicting the career of someone like Willie Green (mid-major college, comically bad NBA start, major injury, somehow gets enough chances to cement himself for a decade, all while playing next to AI) finally "sticking".

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Anchorage Man @sethpartnow.bsky.social · 4d

I feel like being a “bad” pro athlete should be a trove of good book/movie/TV show ideas

knickerbacker.bsky.social @knickerbacker.bsky.social · 4d

Imagine being so good at pitching that you make it to the major leagues and then your job is to be the guy who comes in when the game is out of reach because your team literally could not care less if you blew your elbow out

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 6d

Even still - the fact that you remember the conversations you've had in enough detail to routinely repost or reference things you first said a couple of years ago and last referenced months ago (excluding things you said in real life or perhaps on other platforms) feels like a skill in itself.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 6d

How on Earth do you and a handful of other posters have such an encyclopedic knowledge of your own discourse history?

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 10d

Are the desserts better if they have jam?

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slangsonsports.bsky.social @slangsonsports.bsky.social · 10d

This is the first regular season without a no-hitter since there were none in 2005

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Jordan! @jordanjamboree.bsky.social · 10d

Wife brought her 100 year old film camera to that pirates game from a few weeks ago and she got this shot that's just perfect

A black and white photo of a baseball game, you can see that it is mid pitch with a pirate at bat

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Nick (derogatory) ✨ @slothropsmap.bsky.social · 12d

Now this is Content

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Kerith Burke @kerithburke.bsky.social · 11d

The Warriors announce they’ve hired Dejan Milojevic’s son Nikola in a Video Cordinator, Player Development role.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 12d

I'm very optimistic because, while I run a little hot and cold with PTA, the one movie that I truly _love_ is INHERENT VICE, his other Pynchon adaptation.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 12d

I'm so glad that international basketball went to halves, but the trapezoidal paint was a better innovation, darn it!

rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

(The more eye-popping version of this stat is that Ivey and White had an "On-Off" value exceeding +10, far higher than anyone else on the team, but it's harder to describe that stat succinctly.)

rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

The 2001 Indiana Fever, the year before they drafted Tamika Catchings, were not great, finishing 10-22 and having the 2nd-worst defense in the league. However, two players had a positive +/- when they were on the court: Niele Ivey and Stephanie White.

www.basketball-reference.com/wnba/teams/I...

2001 Indiana Fever Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

Roster and Stats for the WNBA's 2001 Indiana Fever

www.basketball-reference.com

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

It never ceases to amaze me how sports played by tens of millions of people around the world can have players so singularly dominant. In a similar vein, Lionel Messi's deserved stature in soccer, even viewed from an extreme and ignorant distance, just utterly destroys my comprehension.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

I don't follow baseball any more, but I'm also seeing that Raleigh won the Gold Glove at catcher last season, so even if he's regressed he's still at worst competent defensively? AND he has hit 60 Home Runs?

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

Fair enough. Having never read that one in the first place, though, I'd probably try to pull on that strand from other (presumably much drier and more academic) sources if I ever wanted to explore the topic.

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rlawrencem.bsky.social @rlawrencem.bsky.social · 13d

Which is why the only Lewis books I will probably read henceforth are once- or twice-a-decade reassessments of MONEYBALL itself.

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