JAM: (doing a huge line) Well, John, with all due respect, I’m a bit confused.

“After some deliberation, I said Cousins, assuming money is no object.”

But players aren’t just the workers — they’re the product.

Not at all — I don’t expect Houston to beat Golden State. But I’ve never seen them try, either, and I can’t say that about Toronto and LeBron.

I understand what you’re getting at, but this Raptors core has been doing this for five years running now, and is 2-12 against LeBron to show for it. Houston hasn’t established nearly that level of futility in the D’Antoni (and now Chris Paul) era.

Cue the cavalcade of Smart Football Guys going “don’t you get, it’s a test of CHARACTER! They need to see if you’re a VIOLENT LOOSE CANNON!!” Yeah, thank goodness the league has cracked the code on weeding out dudes who fly off the handle.

Thank god this foolproof system has prevented both NFL teams and police departments alike from hiring violent hotheads.

And make sure somebody plays a damn cleric!

My Step 1 was going to be: “Bard.”

Possession arrow counterpoint: It’s a LOT better than the NBA system, where a normal human ref tries in vain to throw a ball up straight into the air in between two giant men so they both have a fair chance at it, with about six false starts and mind games and “you can’t stand there” negotiations to drag it out. A…

Season pass holder here who hasn’t touched it since shortly after Osiris. In my view, the most fundamental thing they missed on is this:

The other thing is that if nix conferences, you probably have to balance the schedule (or balance it more, anyway), and that creates its own set of issues. There’s no great way to make 30 teams play each other in a more-or-less fair arrangement over 82 games, and doing so will erase the regular-season travel…

“You can be proud Italians, Irish, or German.”

And I wouldn’t exactly be out there trying to hit the best time.

That’s just not true. How do you think most people who follow the NFL — or any sport today — got it into? Sitting down on their own, flipping to a game and deciding it was cool? Seeing a commercial for football during Saturday morning cartoons and begging their parents to let them watch?

I don’t think the argument is to get rid of Thursday necessarily because the games are bad or the short rest or whatever. I think the issue is oversaturation and eroding the scarcity (and tidy time commitment) that helped make the league so successful. There’s such a thing as too much NFL, and the NFL has been awfully…

I just love watching my black stars score those Professional Basketball Goals. Pretty exciting watching LeBron chase MJ’s all-time Goal-Scoring record.

On top of all of this, the high-end veterans available just aren’t that good this year. Right now it’s two good starting pitchers pushing 32, J.D. Martinez, and then what? Eric Hosmer? Lance Lynn? Jonathan Lucroy? None of those guys is driving the market. Let’s have this conversation in a year after Bryce Harper,…

Not only does this make a ton of sense, it already applies many wage-earning suckers like me! Many state income tax refunds are federally taxable!

Fire everyone, shutter the athletics department and have the school pay for the scholarships of the displaced athletes at programs of their choosing.