It should be noted, however, that while the NBA did indeed embrace Jordan, that’s partly because it had already long-since gone through its “superior black athlete is beating up on all the white guys” moment, with Wilt, in the 60s, when it reacted exactly the way a lot of these other organizations have: by changing or…

It’s an immensely stupid response that keeps showing up, which is why I was wondering what others thought might happen this time. White people get very threatened when an athlete of color is just dominating the living shit out of their sport, but I don’t know any gymnastics fans (of any color) who have anything but…

Honestly, yeah, that’s why I was wondering.

Curious: do people think gymnastics attempts to “simone-proof” the sport in some way by adjusting the rules, or do they just accept that every sports has its GOAT and ride the wave of dominance (and the increased visibility it tends to bring) for as long as it lasts? I could see it going either way, depending on the…

This is a weird take. All three men are outspoken Trump supporters. Kraft is indeed a billionaire, so he’s basically automatically terrible even before you factor in all of the on-the-record terrible shit he’s done. Belichik’s a grotesque human being by any measure. Tom Brady’s at best an idiot pedaling snake oil.

Is it possible that Gwyneth Paltrow is an idiot?

For the record, I’m a Boston fan. I stopped watching the NFL five years ago for a variety of reasons, but one of those was “Fuck Robert Kraft, fuck Bill Belichik, and fuck Tom Brady.”

Now do one on why the only interior color options are brown, beige, or taupe.

I like that, after about an hour, there still aren’t even any pending replies misunderstanding the point of this series and angrily defending this team’s honor.

LeBron in the 2015 finals was by a wide, wide margin the best player on the court and should’ve won finals MVP even in defeat.

Sure, but the NBA of the 80s and early 90s is not the NBA of today.

Fair enough. I suppose at some point height is enough of a factor to cancel other things out. That said, I’ve seen a several players come through the league for a cup of coffee just because they’re abnormally tall even by NBA standards, but few of them stick for very long unless they’ve got the skill to back it up.

Yeh, by and large it’s not great, and is definitely one of the areas in which the new trilogy shines (the writing’s also generally better). I get that it’s not possible for many people to view the original trilogy objectively, but if you try to divorce yourself from how you felt about them as a kid, some aspects of…

The casino scenes are built to do two things, imo: 1) show Finn’s continued evolution from coward who wants to run away from the fight, to ready-to-die-for-the-cause rebel and 2) to show that in most wars, there’s an elite class that’s not only completely unaffected by what’s happening, but often actively profiting…

This is well-reasoned and I can’t tell you your feelings are wrong. The casino scene doesn’t bother me as much in part because I feel like what Johnon was trying to do there partially succeeds ... it just doesn’t make it all the way for me the way the rest of the movie does.

Just for the record, I can't math, and that should be ten and eleven, respectively.

I haven’t seen it or heard it but I suppose that’s possible - it’s a small group. That said, the US accounts for about 4% of the global population, so I’m confident there are still a whole lot of very tall people who aren’t in the NBA.

I thought Solo was OK and would’ve been five times more fun if they’d put way less fanservice into it than they did and just focused on writing a cool adventure story instead of trying to hit every single “here’s when Han did/said/got this!” moment. That said, I still liked it more than Rogue One, which I found to be…

Empire’s probably next on the list for me. I haven’t seen in it in a long time. But neither Mark Hamill (at that age) nor Carrie Fisher are spectacular actors and Harrison Ford was already in “don’t really give a shit” mode about halfway through A New Hope. The plot is fine but it’s not exactly complex and the only…

It’s been almost two years. I’ve watched the movie five or six times. I acknowledge some of its weaknesses (fuel being important for the first time ever, the casino sideplot being essentially useless busywork for Finn, etc) ... I still think it’s better than any other Star Wars movie, including the two…