I was really hoping Zach Lowe would write Grantland's worst NBA contracts column, but Simmons saw fit to put his best basketball writer on the riveting story of the Cavs' playoff chase instead.

For the most recent year available, Gary Bettman earned $83 million.

Fan-fucking-tastic. This is going to make Mo's farewell tour look like an Irish goodbye.

Aside from the Rick-Reilly-esque introduction, this is a good summary of the allegations against Jimmy Haslam, which, if true, will put him in jail for a while and hopefully the street after he's done getting sued. Maybe link to it in this post? I had no idea this was going on until you alluded to it here.

With a lot more poop smeared on your floor, as opposed to a litter box.

I thought Crash was basically a slightly modified ripoff of Magnolia.

"Amateur."
- Kool Aid Man

Hold on, it was on tape delay? Weren't those Olympics in Lake Placid?

The issue here is not whether academics are studying things that are applicable to the problems of society at large (and in the case of Sloan, the point is moot, since sports are a distraction). The issue is how industrialists choose to participate in the scientific community, which they oftentimes do such that it…

This is a big problem at conferences in the hard sciences as well (my specific experience is in the field of chemical engineering). Academics want the details so they can vet results and conclusions in a scientific way. Folks from industry want to participate in the scientific community while not giving away the shop.…

He's a rich man's Anderson Varejao basically, and that's not a dig on Varejao.

Absolutely not. But if you went by raw EPVA, might you not be tempted to skew your lineups to include playmakers at the expense of size on defense?

The reason that you need to adjust for position when using advanced metrics of this type is the same in basketball as in baseball: defense. I agree that a good point guard is probably the most important offensive part of an NBA team. But EPVA is going to distort Chris Paul's value relative to Roy Hibbert's, because…

There was no need to change the Steelers' logo. They did the work for him a long time ago.

Why don't you go up to someone of Native American descent, call them a "redskin," and see if it's dead as a slur. I'll wait.

The term "saint" is not a slur. The term "redskin" is. It's the same as using the n-word.

Don't get me wrong — Fleury isn't blameless. He's capable of at least two plays a game where you just have to shake your head (or whip your remote at your TV if you're a Pens fan). But a lot of the goals that get scored against him come playoff time are the result of similar headshaking plays by the defense that go…

Fleury is the favorite playoff whipping boy of Pens fans, and the dude is a head case, but he's also been unfairly cast as a scapegoat for the inconsistent defense he's had in front of him.

"Never."

THESE TEXTS BETWEEN AN NFL PLAYER AND HIS SON WILL MELT UR HEART