The Curious Case of Kobe the Facilitator

There are few things more hilarious to me in the world of sports than analysts and commentators heaping praise on a player/coach/owner/general sports figure for doing something they should have been doing for a long, long time. The most recent case, these past few days, has been the overabundance of acclaim that Kobe "Bean Black Mamba (self-given TM)" Bryant has been given for actually dropping some dimes and acting like a facilitator in the Lakers current 3 game winning streak.

Kobe is an all time great, but passing has never really been his forte. Unlike the innumerable horde of KobeKoolaide (trademark pending) drinkers, I always thought this to be a flaw in his game and, especially when he was younger, indicative of a selfish, I will get my numbers regardless, mindset. I applaud the fact that he is now looking to get his team more involved and is shooting less attempts per game, but why are people acting like this is some great revelation that he should be praised for. One would think that Kobe would have been taught in his second grade rec league that a double or triple team means that there is at least one player wide open and the ball should be passed to such an unmarked man. The math here is not all that hard. When Kobe has less than 20 shot attempts in a game, the Lakers tend to win and that has been the trend in the last 3 games where Kobe has had over 10 assists and less than 15 field goal attempts in each. This trend, however, has been present for the entire season. Of the 20 Lakers wins, 14 have come when he has shot less than 20 times per game (70% of their wins) and only 6 have come when he has attempted 20+ field goals. Considering the starting depth of their team with Steve Nash, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard, this is not at all surprising. Kobe should absolutely not be shooting over 20 attempts a game with all the other all-star caliber players requiring touches.

While it's great that Kobe is coming around to a team first mentality, and considering the Lakers current sub-.500 record, perhaps analysts should probably be screaming "FINALLY" rather than throwing acclaim at the new and improved Facilitator Model Kobe.


IMAGE: via BleacherReport.com

Crowdfunding: Rise of the Talent

Andrew Sullivan, former blogger for The Atlantic who now uses The Daily Beast over at Newsweek as a platform, recently announced a new, and independent, business model where he will go off on his own (with his team), spurn advertising and request that his somewhat abnormally loyal readers donate to the effort subscribe. As Sully himself pointed out, Jay Rosen has an insightful and well-written take on the move. Rosen suggests:

In other words, core users have been “giving” to Sullivan’s site for years. They have been giving their time, their persistent attention, their loyalty (meaning: a bond strong enough to withstand the moments when Sullivan offends the user with his opinions and unruly emotions) and such other contributions as can be seen only by sifting though the inbox. 

I think that he is correct in that assertion and that the actual $20 yearly subscriptions only make that investment explicit. Further, investment seems like the right word here. As Sullivan has stated on his site, one could still visit the site and will not trigger the meter used for the non-subscribed if they do not click the "Read On" expansion link for articles. Thus the money pouring in seems more analogous to a media kick starter where those subscribing probably now feel a sense of ownership of the blog. Or, more accurately, are now validating the sense of ownership they have felt all along (although Sully mainly sidesteps sports, think of the fan ownership of the Green Bay Packers).

Though, as some have already rightly pointed out, I think the Louis CK comparison is closest to the mark. Both men have a tremendous fan base who appreciate and, more importantly, respect what they are trying to do in throwing of the yolk of their respective traditional media models. Louis CK's forays have already been wildly successful and, from the initial 1/3rd of a million subscriptions received in the first day, it appears that Sullivan and the Dish crew will be too. 

At least, I sure hope so. Louis CK has already got some of my money and Sully will be seeing his taste very shortly as well. If you truly appreciate independent commentary, you should think about investing on the Sully ground floor too.


IMAGE: TheDailyBeast via Google Images

Mr. President, Close. Down. That. Prison...

The Government Accountability Office ("GAO") found that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba can be safely closed and the remaining prisoners transferred to prisons on US soil with no ill effects. This should be done immediately. First off, this was a promise made by President Obama before his FIRST term in office, yet we are still discussing it (barely) four years later. One of the prime reasons for using Guantanamo was for security reasons and as a means to keep these enemy combatants from having the right to habeas corpus. With the GAO largely dismissing the security concerns and those combatants left are mostly being held without charges, why is it still open?

With everyone currently raving about Lincoln, rightfully so having seen it myself, there is an applicable part of the movie where President Lincoln is discussing with his cabinet the various things he has done because he felt them necessary and right despite the possibility of the actions being unconstitutional. He was mainly referring to the Emancipation Proclamation but of equal import was his suspension of habeas corpus using his powers as a war time President. These powers were again evoked, with a nod towards President Lincoln and the exigencies required by war, after the attacks of September 11th. The difference between the two, however, is that unlike the Civil War, the Authorization for Use of Military Force that followed the 9/11 attacks and preceded the official War on Terror is very open ended. Thus, the suspension of habeas corpus for those at Guantanamo Bay, and many previously at Guantanamo have been found to have done nothing related to terrorist activity but were simply picked up during the fog of war, remains open ended.

The point of that previous paragraph's aside being, President Obama did not open Guantanamo for that use and has no skin in the game. His promise to close the prison is now almost half a decade old and the GAO has stated that it is more than plausible to safely close it and transfer the prisoners to the continental U.S. So, does President Obama recognize the moral hazards of making decisions that may exist in the gray area where the President's war powers and the unconstitutionality meet like President Lincoln did? And, if so, why is the prison still open at the same time the President is winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Basically, Mr. President, please do as you promised and close down that prison.


IMAGE: Wikipedia.com

The Day the NY Jets Crashed

The day they got clowned by Harry Reid. Here we have just another one of many examples (See Fireman Ed's retirement due to harassment by fellow Jet "fans," anything related to Tebow or manufactured QB controversy, etc.) that has Jets fans hoping for a Mayan Apocalypse before the year is out. Now Harry Reid used to box so I am going to go ahead and assume that he's not a "let us got to the match of football" type Mormon like Mitt Romney, but he still kind of looks like an aged Harry Potter pwning the entire Jets fan base. It is truly embarrassing. The most astonishing part of this Jets season, however, is that they are actually in contention for a Wild Card spot and, due to their cream puff of a remaining schedule, they could win out and crash land (PUNS!) into the playoffs. Considering that the Jets played almost the entire year without their best offensive and defensive players, that would be an accomplishment and very quiet, almost whispered, testimonial to Rex Ryan's abilities as coach, despite all the distractions, and hopefully keeps him at the helm.

Not that anyone should be holding out hope for miracles in the future. The Jets, thanks to the incompetent mismanagement by Tannenbaum and Johnson (I don't care what he says, Woody was definitely instrumental in pushing the Tebow trade), have a hole-y (PUNS!) mess of a roster. Although the offensive line is generally good, there are almost no weapons on offense outside of Holmes. Keller has fallen off despite showing promise last year, a #2 receiver hasn't revealed himself yet, and Shonn Greene has proven himself to be a bust. Bilal Powell has shown some ability this year but he is a small upgrade, if anything, over Greene. Concrete Hands McKnight has yet to shown anything to open up hope that he could be an effective back and, Sparano be damned, the Jets still have not figured out how to use Tebow in the Wildcat. The defensive side, though still looking good this year, is old and much of the Jets' scheme revolves around a healthy Revis. To be fair, Cromartie did a good job in his absence and Sexy Rexy and his lieutenants did a good job of adjusting the defensive scheme so that the D was still effective.

Unless some changes are made, and I do not even know if the front office is competent to make them, the Jets may squeak into the playoffs this year but will most likely remain grounded next. Here's to hoping, I am wrong.


IMAGE: amazon.com

Is Hot Bag of Air That Is Grover Norquist Finally Floating Away?

According to a lot of press lately, which was even accompanied by some minor scolding from his own party, it seems as if Grover Norquist might be losing his kung-fu grip on the balls of the republican party when it comes to anything and everything involving his favorite four letter word... tax. But in the harsh light in the post-election morning, GOP politicians are beginning to realize that the napoleonic GOP tax emperor has no clothes. Or more realistically considering the climate and how the Republicans are polling against the President on the so-called fiscal cliff, they realize that threat of Mr. Norquist holding (most of) their previous anti-tax pledges against them in a future primary battle is rather hollow in the face of refusing to let the Bush tax cuts expire against the highest two tax brackets (I am not even going to get hysterically started on how the Bush tax cuts were ALWAYS supposed to sunset after 10 years). The majority of people support the raising of the wealthiest and most will also blame the GOP if a deal gets done. The bet being made many is that it is a lot more dangerous to the electoral prospects of those involved to obey Grover rather than to ignore him.

The party has not put Grover in the corner yet, however. He is now trying to use the debt ceiling to get what he, and many far-right conservatives in the House as well (to be fair), wants on the fiscal cliff. Boehner has now even stated that "everything has a price" as an barely implicit threat to use the debt ceiling despite the fact that it threatens the full faith and credit of the US, led to a downgrade of the US' credit rating last year and 60% of Americans support raising taxes on the top 2% of Americans (oh, and that little 332 and 51% election win by POTUS).

Due to that last bit, and because the majority of Americans will blame the Republican Party for a failure to avert the fiscal cliff, the President is refusing to back down from either his promise to raise taxes on the top 2% OR his conviction to take the debt ceiling off the table for the future so it can no longer be used as a threat nuclear option bargaining chip by the GOP. As President Obama still appears to have a massive chip stack in front of him, it strikes me as the right play. Not only is the raising of taxes on the wealthiest something he ran hard on and won on this fall, but the debt ceiling argument last year cast a black cloud over the United States last year. The President did not get overly blamed on that, but it still caused many to doubt the sanity of the political process. These negotiations during this lame duck session may be an important step to illustrate that this past election was the first sign that sanity is starting to creep back into our Congressional halls.

Here's to hoping, because the world is still watching. Maybe only with one eye because they have their own shit going on over in the EU and China, but watching nonetheless.

IMAGE: Mediaite via Google Images

THE RETURN

                                                       


No, not of blog posts here. No one gives a damn about that. This is about the GLORIOUS return of the flat top haircut. More specifically, on the basketball courts of this nation.See Exhibits A, Iman Shumpert on the left, and B, Nerlens Noel on the right, and just really soak it in. The world hasn't seen a resurgence of the hair tower of power since the golden years of Patrick Ewing and Kendall Gill (although Shump is looking more like he rolled out of Kid N Play).

I, for one, could not be more excited. I can only intuit that this means a banner year for the NBA, and a NY Knickerbocker's championship banner (he said with the slightest, and saddest, but of hope in his voice). Cheers to you Flat Top. And welcome back.

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

In all honesty, I have no idea how to start one of these things. Do I go fawning and describe how I was an insta-supporter after the 2004 DNC and that the support only strengthened throughout your eventual Presidential campaign/election? Do I mention my recent disappointment, not Andrew Sullivan-like but there nonetheless, at the first debate and the related tightening of the polls? I guess I go lazy and lead with those questions (what hackery!). I was not, however, one of those was most angered by your seeming malaise in the debate but was rather incensed at how easily Mitt Romney lied, obfuscated and changed tack throughout. I suppose he should have been called out, but the shamelessness of it all was almost unbelievable. Even sadder, the American people bought it and, at the very least, Mr. Romney is basically tied with you in the national polls and is right on the bumper in many swing state polls. Some say you should be as pugnacious as Vice President Smokin' Joe Biden, but I, for whatever that is worth, would pledge caution. Call Mr. Romney out, certainly, but do so calmly and civilly. This should not be your concentration, however, as the real reason Americans fell for Mr. Romney's schtick is because they believed it as a viable new course for America that would set them back on the path to prosperity (despite the fact that that path was actually lined with heaps and heaps of cow patties).

With that in mind, why not reframe the debate and bring your own vision for the future to the fore. For instance, the 47% Mr. Romney so easily dismissed are not too lazy or too downtrodden to find work that they must rely on the government dole, many jobs they would have been taking no longer exist because of productivity gains or because corporations looking to pad their already overstuffed earnings have shifted them abroad. Instead of counting them out or writing them off, let's empower them. They do not need redistributive "handouts," they need training for the post-recession new normal. How about we redistribute the money that we have, for far too long, pledged in corporate welfare? Oil companies making billions do not need billions more in subsidies and favorable tax treatment. The banks that have been the beneficiaries of the public's largess derived from our tax dollars are sitting on that money rather than making loans or lowering mortgage rates. They say they are in the business of making profits, not public welfare; I say the American public is no longer in the business of helping them do so. Mr. President, any Wall Street money you were getting is probably already in so there's no holding back now. Mitt Romney is the ultimate plutocrat, so why no embrace the populist within you? Instead of practicing corporate welfare, that money is going to be "earmarked" (let's take that word back too!) for education. And not just improving education in pre-K and kindergarten, areas where it is proven to have the most impact, but also job training to help those out of work land more highly skilled jobs. Lets create more of these jobs by encouraging the modernization of our grid and the retrofitting of buildings that will not only lead to more jobs but will have the added benefit of eliminating wasted in providing heating and electricity for our homes. It even has a tailor-made tagline: "It's not about welfare for people suckling at the public teat, it is removing the already fattened corporations from the teat so our middle class can start the American comeback." Or something. I'm sure your election team can work on that...

Once you've laid that out, ask Mr. Romney was his plan is. Specifically. Ask him how those that have been looking but cannot find a job are going to be helped by the Romney/Ryan plan. Ask him if we are REALLY just hoping for the magic tax cut bean to spur growth once again? How are the policies currently espoused any different from the previous Bush plan? Shouldn't the fact that R.Glenn Hubbard, main Conservative tax cut cheerleader for decades, is the chief economist and seeming architect of economic plans belie the fact that a Romney administration will just be repeating recent history rather than learning from it?

And if Mr. Romney brings up a plan to privatize social security, whooo boy! It could not be easier to point out that the only benefit such a plan would bring would be to Mitt's buddies on Wall Street who would be chomping at the bit to get their hands on that money. They could then charge hundreds of millions of dollars of management fees for the possibility to mismanage the American public's money as bad as the banks did before the Great Depression. Doesn't that sound great?!?

How about immigration? If it doesn't get brought up, bring it up. I think the vast majority of people who are against the DREAM Act were probably not voting for your re-election anyway Mr. President. Ask Mr. Romney where he stands and, if he changes his tune, why he is standing to the left of the spot he stood two months ago. Stress the importance of the need to keep highly educated and highly immigrants, especially those who came to this country for that education, in the country. These are the drivers of innovation and growth that we so desperately need.

I cannot even be bothered to go into the social issues as I've already run too long and I think almost everyone knows where Romney/Ryan stand on that anyway (aside from abortion; where do they stand on that? Okay, maybe bring up abortion after Ryan's VP debate performance). Do not run on the past, except where you need to emphasize that Romney/Ryan will be repeating past mistakes. President Bill Clinton already made the case for you record, it is time for you to make the case for why you are the man to look to for the next 4 years. The refrain from the DNC and from numerous commercials has been about "moving forward," so how about you show the American people where you will be driving us. Many of your supporters are already in the tank and are confident you are to lead us on the right path. It is high time to show the rest of America. You rode into office on the inspirational wave of the change you would bring and you need to inspire Americans to their better natures again.

Thank you for your time Mr. President. The American people are counting on you.

With the utmost sincerity,


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