Wmcmanus

It's a tough day... just found out that one of Matt's best friends and former roommates in Tampa, and someone many of you I know have met and partied with has passed away. Jake Blake was not even 30. I'm completely gutted. I saw it coming based on some of his erratic Facebook posts, that's the worst part. Don't know the circumstances of his death but I have a strong sense that it was self inflicted. He was tortured in many ways in recent years. God rest his soul. One of the good guys. I'm lost for words. https://www.facebook.com/jaggedyer

The great thing about this team is that even when Curry, Thompson, KD and Green are not all on the floor at the same time, they will still be extremely difficult to defend. So ya, hard not to get steamrolled. But the other good thing about KD's presence is it will allow for freer substitutions, which then also gives the guys on the court their moments to shine or take over. You see that already with Curry/Thompson. The minute one is resting, the other lights it up. Even without the need to feed the egos of individuals, it's always nice to "get yours" at some point during a game. If Kerr manages the rotations properly, they should just roll over pretty much everyone. I don't "remember" either, but the '27 Yankees comes to mind in terms of the spread of weapons, offensive, defensive, pitching, everything, and by all accounts they weren't unexciting! They drew sellout and SRO crowds everywhere they went. So I don't see this as bad for the sport necessarily.

I agree. I mean, I think they'll be a lot of fun to watch, and it's all within the player rights as well as teams rights, so I'm not crying about anything at all. Just kind of sad in a way because of what it will mean in terms of the competitiveness of the league. But it was the same thing in the LeBron Miami years. Just because you get to the Finals doesn't mean you're going to win. Anything can happen in a 7 game series. So from that perspective, the building of "super teams" can be a net positive, and maybe the Cavs will try to take the same approach by adding a Jimmy Butler type or a maybe top of the line center... next year.

Keep your ugly fucking gold bricking ass out of my socialism forum.

Van Gogh through a tilt shift lens. Way cool. Article. http://laughingsquid.com/the-dizzying-beauty-of-vincent-van-goghs-art-as-seen-through-a-tilt-shift-lens/ More pics. http://imgur.com/a/DqErg

Sad news about Buddy Ryan. Those '85 Bears were something else, and he was a big part of that success. Most dominant defensive team in the history of the sport. RIP.

RIP, Pat Summitt, 64, legendary University of Tennessee women's basketball coach. She was the winningest coach in the history of the game, and a gem of a woman in every way. She suffered from alzheimer's for about 5 years. Sad day. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pat-summitt-death-sports-world-reactions_us_577278cbe4b0dbb1bbbbe51f?ir=Sports&section=us_sports&utm_hp_ref=sports http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/before-pat-summitt-was-a-coach-she-was-a-player_us_5772bc03e4b0d1f85d476907?section=

Accessories are the key, right? We're all geeks, right? Well, here you go... http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/24/483380243/need-for-steed-this-bike-gadget-gallops-like-king-arthur?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160625

The Onion strikes again! http://www.theonion.com/article/waters-tested-as-12-year-old-says-shit-in-front-of-31953

Too easy, I suppose.

I remember Austin Carr (Mr. Cavalier) quite well. My dad was a big Notre Dame fan, so we watched all of the games. He played with a guy named Gary Novak, who was from LaSalle, IL (just a 5 minute drive, across the Illinois River from Oglesby, IL where I grew up). These are small towns, so for someone to be a 3 year starter for ND, it was a big deal. Novak (now a doctor) was a really smart player. Kind of a role guy, shooting forward, great defender and rebounder. He might have averaged 10 points, but it was really all about Carr. He was just an amazing, prolific scorer. Lots of 50+ points games. He was the best of the best in Notre Dame history.

^ Sounds like something Howard Cosell would have said.

Definitely a quiet 25 points. More like a Kobe shooting night for Curry. But even the best aren't "on" every night. Reasons aren't important, only results. So he's got 2 more chances to prove himself as the MVP he is, or at least blend in and help to make everyone else play better.

The only part of the equation I'm troubled with is the cumulative nature of the rule, over the entire span of the playoff season. It just doesn't seem "right" to me that one team (at any round in the playoffs, but particularly in the finals) can come into the series with a pre-existing edge over the other team. I'm not sure exactly when Green picked up his other 3 flagrant 1 fouls during the 2016 playoff season, but they weren't all against the Warriors. I think at least one must have been against OKC, right? Maybe more than one? So what I'm getting at is that if one team, the Warriors in this case, has been through a particularly rough series (physically, emotionally, etc) and several of their players have picked up flagrant 1 fouls along the way, then that team enters the next round of the playoffs against another team that had zero to do with those flagrant 1 fouls. Yet, certain guys are marked men from the beginning of that series and thus need to play much more cautiously. Based on what? Based on what they did wrong in games against other teams, not the team they're now competing against. Just doesn't sit well with me. Penalize a guy within the series in which he causes the infractions. Maybe suspend him for a game after committing 2 or 3 flagrant 1 fouls, rather than 4, but impose that suspension in that series, not the next series. Otherwise, the advantage accrues in favor of a team against which no harm, or very little harm, was done (in this case, the Cavs are catching an unwarranted break because of the "bad boy" label that Green carried into the series).

You're 100% right. It's a clear cut rule. You're allowed to accumulate 3, but not 4 flagrant 1 fouls, throughout all rounds of the playoffs, or it's an automatic 1 game suspension. Dreymond, of course, knew this, as did the announcers who have been referring to it during every game of the series. "The NBA determined Green’s “retalitory swipe to the groin” of LeBron James constituted a flagrant 1 foul of which Green has collected four. Four flagrants gets you an automatic one-game hiatus."

RIP, Christina. Horrific news.

Very sad. Sudden heart failure. Makes you wonder. RIP Chris.

This guy is pretty funny. #5 and #15 were my favorites, and #30 for truthiness. http://twentytwowords.com/this-is-what-happens-when-you-ask-the-wrong-guy-for-photoshop-help/

^ Aka, "rope a dope" which was a brilliant strategy.

That was really good, Steve. So sad though, because despite the obvious shock and surprise and all of the joy that it brought to him, you can also clearly see that the brain damage had set in and he already wasn't himself at that point. He had regained his title by beating Spinks that year ('78), but it seems that the head injuries probably traced back a couple of years earlier to his 3rd and final fight with Norton in September of '76 at Yankee Stadium, which I remember clearly because it was my 14th birthday. But it's really hard to pinpoint. Late in his career from age 33 onward, most of his fights went the full 15 rounds, ending with the two very sad fights against Holmes and Berbick when he was only in it for the money. Those last two fights did untold damage and it just wasn't right. Yet, I don't think anyone anywhere near the condition he was in before the Holmes fight could ever get medical clearance again, so perhaps there may be a silver lining in there somewhere.

Yes, it seems so. Reports are still conflicted, but Wikipedia now shows Ali as having died on June 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali RIP, champ. You were indeed The Greatest, no doubt about it.

http://www.theonion.com/article/gorilla-sales-skyrocket-after-latest-gorilla-attac-30860?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing