To ensure that he, or any future management, is contractually obligated to do right by his employees. Having an actual contract collectively governing the salary/raise/benefits structure and diversity in hiring is important in any industry or workplace - and for digital media specifically, set policies for…

They just brought Seth Partnow on last week, and that will be more rigorous data analysis from their national desk. Though guys like he and Falk have to walk a very fine line between illuminating and overly math-y.

“Kobe was somewhere between the 7th-25th best player during his four good years; one of the worst players in the league for the next three, and didn’t suit up from 2016-2019. QED, he’s clearly a top-15 player for the decade.”

I think the level of quality in analysis varies wildly depending on which teams you read about - which is obviously how its been for the whole history of sports media, but is more noticeable and jarring when all of the good and bad is consolidated under one masthead.

“If you see even a syllable of criticism of his BASKETBALL SKILLS herein, please highlight it.”

I think this run with Riddle back at EVOLVE is going to pay off for him in a big way.

Yep - to qualify for the supermax, he’d have to win DPOY either in the most recent season, or two of the most recent three. Sames rules for All-NBA.

If you admit he’s a great player but are whining because you’re concerned about his impact on the “brand,” whether that’s the NBA or the Warriors, that’s 100 percent on you. Fuck the brand.

Even before Kaepernick, Nike Basketball and Jordan Brand were considered distinct companies under the same corporate umbrella - at least publicly.

I missed most of those guys, but came back to town and covered high school sports for a few years starting in 2012. So I didn’t get Scoop and Jackson, but I got Jaquan Newton and John Davis at N-G, Garner then Carr/Bostick/Stevens, Rondae’s senior year, BJ Johnson, etc.

I was a high school junior who lived less than five minutes from the St Joe's campus. That team was special.

Tabby Cunningham! Reading this, I’m probably a year or so younger than you, but as a teenager, there was absolutely nothing better than Philadelphia high school basketball around 2000-2004.

So far in 2019, there have been twice as many double plays hit into as there have been sacrifice grounders/flies - sure, a batted ball out can be more beneficial than a strikeout, but it is frequently more HARMFUL to the team than a strikeout as well.

Hey, if you want to change the conversation to “why is Dolan such an incompetent, petty dick?,” I’ll be first in line with posterboard visual aids.

Carmelo was kind of a cranky dick to him, but otherwise I don’t think the Knicks really fucked up too badly (with Lin - they can be blamed heavily for almost everything else). He had a meniscus tear and missed the end of that season just 25 games into “Linsanity,” during which he’d already come back to earth a bit.…

That’s what the Select Team has always tried to do. I don't know the feasibility from a logistics or coaching/training perspective, but I think they should run as full a team as possible for the Olympics, and U-25, or <5-year vets, for the remaining three years of each cycle.

Watching third-tier All-Stars sleepwalk their way through embarrassing losses in the mid-2000s sucked, but there is something nice about more under-the-radar glue guys like Tucker and Thad Young getting the chance to represent the USA. 

Still not the best re-emerging gaijin in the tournament. I was never into KES or his shtick previously, but Archer has been a revelation.

Sportrac has Edmonton still paying $750,000 of Lucic’s contract annually - so this isn’t a salary dump at all, as their payroll bill actually grows by a half-million a year through 2023. It’s just a normal-ass trade where a team gets slightly more expensive to get slightly better.