flop

Christ that's bleak, stiggles.

not wrong, but it does widen the window for the sixers, and it loads the lakers up for one "last" big run at a title. that seems congruent with both organizations likely goals for this offseason.

Russell for Harden?

I’d probably say yes to that. And it will probably blow up on them, like so many elderly superteam transactions have done in the past. But just maybe it gets you to the 2024 Finals.

If that can be arranged the tough part is length of the extension. Does Harden insist on the max 4? Or is he willing to do a shorter deal and be part of LeBron’s last dance?

harden was willing to take a team friendly deal last summer, so that could go either way. either he figures he's done his good deed for the decade, or he'll be willing to do it one more time to have a chance at a ring.


to be clear:

i haven't seen anything about this from anywhere else, and i don't think it's likely to happen, but i've been wrong before and i've been right before, so you never know...

Re: LeBron and picking his spots, it's both impressive to see him do this and also a sad reminder of Father Time because you know that effort is going to cost him somewhere else in the game/series.

The situation reminds me of the movie Logan, where an aging Wolverine can still do his thing, but it hurts him more and more with passing time.

What is the Sign & Trade hard-cap?

Because I could see a Russell/Harden swap being a problem for the Lakers if they want to also bring other guys back. The hard cap gutted the Warriors for a year when they picked up Russell.

Inside and outside the box possibilities for Philly if Harden leaves.

(1) Lillard. Harris + Melton is an exact salary match, and uh, I kind of like that for Portland actually. I think it improves them for 2024 - not that they are a contender - and gets them off an onerous future obligation.

(2) Dump Harris on the Spurs. Spurs can take his entire contract into space, and I think the Spurs would be interested in putting actually good players on the court with Wemby as soon as possible to maximize his development and contending window. This would create a $39m TPE and open up a max slot under the cap for Philly. Then they could sign one max FA into cap space (Middleton?) and then sign & trade for another near-max guy (VanVleet?).

Don't you sign Reaves at any price, and let Russell go unless it is for quite cheap. What does Russell provide that you can't get elsewhere? Reaves, on the other hand, is actually irreplaceable. He was 53/40/86 this year, while being an excellent playmaker with low turnovers. You can't get that in free agency and you can't trade for it.

What does Russell provide that you can't get elsewhere?

Matching salary for potential trade for a better player in the future?

What does Russell provide that you can't get elsewhere?

The salary slot, which may eventually be filled by somebody other than Russell.

Overpaying Russell instead of having nobody at no cost is how the Warriors ended up with Wiggins (and Kuminga) and they almost certainly would have not have won the 2022 title without doing that.

Coke to Russlan.

Reaves was good this season, but I have a hard time seeing teams lining up to pay him much more than 4/$51m based on one season and not much pedigree/track record before that.

I can absolutely see it. A combo guard with good size, great efficiency, can play on-ball defense, shoot the three, and is willing -- even with Lebron on the floor -- to be the guy making things happen. If he weren't a restricted FA, he'd be making a stupid amount of money just based on this breakout half-season. Part of the problem with the Westbrook acquisition was that the Lakers had to lose Caldwell-Pope, Caruso, and Hart. Reaves looks like he's better than all those guys.

With new salary cap rules how important is preserving these salary slots? It doesn't do any good to preserve a salary slot if it means you have to let someone else go to stay under the second apron.

I guess in the case of Russell you are doing it so you can replace Lebron when he retires, but in terms of actual contributions to winning it seems like he is way down the list of priorities.

James
Davis
Reaves
Hachimura
Schroder
Vanderbilt
Walker

I mean, Russell might be more valuable than Walker, but if you have to let any of the other guys go to keep Russell aren't you cutting off your nose to spite your face.

All these guys are more important right?

This would create a $39m TPE and open up a max slot under the cap for Philly. Then they could sign one max FA into cap space (Middleton?) and then sign & trade for another near-max guy (VanVleet?).

It doesn't work like that. They'd have to renounce the TPE to use the cap space, or keep the TPE and operate as an over-the-cap team.

Reaves was good this season, but I have a hard time seeing teams lining up to pay him much more than 4/$51m based on one season and not much pedigree/track record before that.

It only takes one team. And much like others have said, his skill set is rare and highly valued if you think it's sustainable in his current role or mostly scalable in a larger role. From the ASB through the playoffs, that's a full half season of being a hyper-efficient scorer on decent volume, floor spacer, and secondary ballhandler with nearly a 3:1 A/TO. His profile is actually quite similar to the Mavs version of Jalen Brunson, and that free agency bet is looking pretty good for the Knicks. Check out their full age 24 seasons side by side.

Yeah, for $120M/4 sometimes you get Jalen Brunson, other times you get Jordan Poole, RJ Barrett or Tyler Herro. Though FWIW Poole was coming off a much stronger playoffs last year than what Reeves put together this year. $100M/4 feels about right for Reeves.

I think it makes a ton of sense for Utah to extend a 4/100 offer sheet to Reeves.

1. He's a real hard worker, coaches son, plays the game the right way, just a coach on the floor out there.
2. It means the Lakers have a huge cap hit on their books if they match riiight about 2027 when that FRP is due.
3. The opportunity cost is minimal. It's not like someone else is going to take their money.

Even if you only count Poole's breakout year, he has never been as good a player as Reaves was this year.

Poole: 60 TS 1.6 A/T ratio,
Reaves: 69 TS, 2.2 A/T ratio

Poole has a higher usage, but given the efficiency gap I am not convinced it is a good thing that Poole is taking all those extra shots. And that is without considering defense, and all those plays that add up to winning basketball.

Even at his best, is there a single thing Poole does better than Reaves? Shoot free throws is the only thing I can think of.

Reaves is a steal at 4/100. Every team in the league would want to pay that.

2113--Thing is, though, he'd need a new nickname--what do we think about the "Caucasian Carmelo"?

Didn't LAL bail on Caruso before the Westbrook debacle? IIRC, they chose THT over Caruso (and probably some tax dollars) and boy was that a mistake.

I think it makes a ton of sense for Utah to extend a 4/100 offer sheet to Reeves.

They could have had Reaves a lot cheaper if they just drafted him like I did for Utah in the mock. Well, the Lakers are going to match but if they hypothetically didn't.

I had planned to take Reaves at pick 30; then decided to move down to dump Favors, and still got him at 56.

2113--Thing is, though, he'd need a new nickname--what do we think about the "Caucasian Carmelo"?

Utah, not Denver.

He has disavowed AR-15 (understandably) so he can't be the successor to AK-47.

The Millennial Malone?
The Deliverance Dantley?
The New Hornacek?

Redneck (Bryon) Russell

Austin "Soaking" Reaves--because the jumper is soaking wet
Austin "Jump Hump" Reaves--because he's a great cutter
Austin "Zion Curtain" Reaves--because he can defend the Pelicans' forward on a switch

The first couple minutes of the game held some hope for the Celtics extending this series. Then the next six minutes happened.

There's a lot of time left, but (yet again) Boston has more turnovers than assists.

I don't know if the Celtics can sustain 41% from 3, but this second quarter should come as a relief for witnesses of Game 3 who just want to watch competitive basketball.

They could have had Reaves a lot cheaper if they just drafted him like I did for Utah in the mock.

I thought Reaves' agent made it clear he wasn't going to sign if drafted in the second round (because they had an agreement with LAL).

Edit: receipt

I thought Reaves' agent made it clear he wasn't going to sign if drafted in the second round (because they had an agreement with LAL).

That sounds more like he wasn't going to sign a two-way if drafted in the second round. But I'm guessing that he would have taken a guaranteed deal over the Lakers two-way.

Amusingly, this game is a reversal of the series previously.

Miami is actually playing better, but losing the 3p shooting battle.

Tatum finally got a Q4 FG in this series. And now more.

#### Jeter and A-Rod. They should have been refused entry to the arena. Seeing their stupid faces tells everyone from Boston that a comeback from 0-3 is possible.

I'm just glad both conference finals didn't end in sweeps.

I mean, takes notwithstanding, there isn't really a reason why Boston *can't* win the next three games (two of which are at home).

This Celtics team has tended to play well in big games, in addition to tending to absolutely #### up games they should win (and fourth quarter leads). They absolutely could do it, though obviously it's not the likeliest of outcomes here.

Also this biased viewer thought the TNT broadcast showing ARod and Jeter as Kevin Harlan reminded us all of the 2004 Sox beating them was tremendous television.

I don't know what will happen with the rest of the series, but I do know I'm gonna be regression to the mean mugging all day tomorrow.

The Phoenix Suns are advancing four candidates to a final round of interviews this week, including two NBA championship coaches: Nick Nurse and Doc Rivers, sources told ESPN on Tuesday night.

Nurse and Rivers will meet with senior leadership along with two rising stars in the coaching profession: Suns associate head coach Kevin Young and Sacramento Kings associate head coach Jordi Fernandez, sources said.

Did Chris Paul and Doc get along at the end of the Clippers era?

Otherwise, if the stars are in charge, and I assume they are, he seems like the likely pick to me.

Maybe they're already looking to move Paul?

fwiw, the suns were reported to be one of the leading candidates to pursue harden this summer.

harden has been reported to have pushed glenn rivers off the cliff here in philly.



lying season started early this year.

Even if you only count Poole's breakout year, he has never been as good a player as Reaves was this year.

Poole: 60 TS 1.6 A/T ratio,
Reaves: 69 TS, 2.2 A/T ratio

Poole has a higher usage, but given the efficiency gap I am not convinced it is a good thing that Poole is taking all those extra shots. And that is without considering defense, and all those plays that add up to winning basketball.

Even at his best, is there a single thing Poole does better than Reaves? Shoot free throws is the only thing I can think of.

Reaves is a steal at 4/100. Every team in the league would want to pay that.

Last year in the playoffs, Poole averaged 17 a game on 65.4% TS. Reeves in the playoffs this year: 17 a game on 61.6%. In last year's first round series against Denver, we also got to see what Poole could do with Steph Curry hurt/on minutes restriction. Poole started and averaged 32 minutes, 21 points on 55/48/85 splits. Closer than I thought, but I think that still generally supports my contention that Poole had a better playoffs last year than Reeves did this year. Also, Reeves did it in his age 24 season while Poole did it in his age 21.

Poole, while less efficient this season, is much more a primary creator than Reeves and for stretches of the season was asked to create offense while Steph was out, which is a more expensive skill. Poole's usages the past two years as a full time rotation member are 26% and 29% -- those are lead guard numbers. Reeves is at 16%. Poole also played a lot more minutes than Reeves at 2458 vs. 1843.

FWIW, we don't even disagree -- I already posted that $100M/4 seems right for Reeves. I'm pretty sure he'll get that based on recent contracts in that size.

I do also think that there's some recency bias going on with Poole. He really crapped the bed in the playoffs this year, no doubt, and the drama between him and Draymond kind of dominated the narrative about him this season, but I do think between the lines he actually had a decent regular season. Played 82 games, averaged 20, took a step forward in USG and assists and subjectively in creating for some beleaguered units with Steph and Wiggins off the floor for various reasons. One stat that jumped out at me -- he scored over 1600 points this season to Reaves's 800. Didn't realize Reeves only played 62 games this year. I am sure there's a good player in Poole.

The Warriors need a player of his archetype -- a lead guard who can take the load off Steph and create when he's not on the floor. Draymond and Klay are just not up to that anymore, and who else is gonna do it? Moody? Kuminga? Donte Divicenzo? I just hope that the situation with the Warriors hasn't deteriorated to the point where that player can't manifest with them.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out this offseason. No idea how other front offices value him or how Bob Myers or Mike Dunlevy Jr. value him.

Can't edit above: Poole was 22 last season not 21.

Poole’s decision making and defense were much worse. He was on pretty limited minutes for stretches of multiple series, as I recall.

Poole’s decision making and defense were much worse.

That's definitely true of this year's playoffs but not last year's. The Warriors company line through the season has been that they've asked him to expand his game, create more for others, really grow into the lead guard role. In the regular season there were growing pains but also a lot of numbers/qualitative views on the Warriors blogs that showed a lot of growth here. To me, relative to Reaves, it's the USG rate that explains the difference between them. In the playoffs, we saw the ugly side of a young player exploring the limits of his game in an even tougher environment than the regular season, where he was already skating the line between maximizing his game and doing too much. Can he grow as a player and figure out how to pick his spots? I sure hope he does it on the Warriors, we'll just have to wait and see.

Re: Defense, in the regular season he also had stretches of better effort and being just regular bad vs. catastrophically bad. That regressed in the playoffs. At the risk of armchair psychoanalyzing him, he seems like someone whose mindset really affects his output. He does have unusually large splits in his stats when he's a starter vs. coming off the bench. If that's the case, it's something he'll really need to work on as well. Who knows, Wiggins seems to be his best friend on the team, maybe having him away for over half the season had some impact there too.

Not sure how I've found myself the Jordan Poole truther here -- it's very possible that he's never able to grow into the bigger role that he clearly wants for himself and is also unable to play within himself in a Lou Williams microwave scorer kind of role that he clearly has the ability to play. Or that he could/will do that but not in a Warriors uniform because of the baggage with Draymond and the reality that it's harder to grow into that on a contending team.

When he signed his deal it put him in a pay bracket with Jalen Brunson, RJ Barrett, Tyler Herro. At the time I was bullish that he would be as good as any of them. Since then Brunson has pulled away, RJ Barrett still kind of sucks and Tyler Herro has gotten injured. From a the Warriors point of view I think you have to take swings like that when you have a contender just given how few options you have for adding incremental talent when you're usually picking at the end of the first round and are capped out.

Jordan Poole's '22 Nuggets series is just the perimeter version of Jerome James '05 Kings series.

EDIT: A mediocre playmaker who is awful defensively and below average efficiency while using a lot of possessions...is a bad basketball player and that's what Jordan Poole's career numbers say he is.

I don't know what to make of Poole.

He was a good player last year, but that was a big leap forward and the Warriors still controlled his rights for at least 2 years (as many as 5 years if he wants to get paid sooner). Given that, I would have expected the Warriors to let him just play out his rookie deal and then match whatever offer he gets in RFA if they want to keep him or get two bargain years if signs the QO.

Keeps him hungry, and limits the downside risk if he regressed (which happened).

Last offseason, Ayton signed a max offer sheet and got 4/$133m; Poole's getting $128m over the next 4 years; one more year of salary growth, but the Warriors took on all the risk for a potential upside of maybe 10% future cost savings IFF he proved to be a max player.

Now? Poole might still be worth his contract on the open market. He was legitimately good last year, and while not good this year he still flashed the skills enough that it's a definite possiblity that he bounces back. This is different than Barrett who has never been worth his deal and it's just dreamed-on potential. But he isn't worth what the Warriors as a way-over-the-tax-line team would pay (>$150m including tax) so I think he will be moved, and I think there will be a market. But it might be during the season instead of over the break (e.g. Wiseman).

I think last season the Warriors viewed Poole's contract as an asset, so not much risk in signing it. They might not be wrong about that even now. The contract only had $123M guaranteed, and with the luxury tax $10M/year savings is more like $50M a year savings, so not nothing either.

Obviously yeah the way things have played out it might have been better not to sign it, but I at least didn't view the contract negatively at the time.

EDIT: A mediocre playmaker who is awful defensively and below average efficiency while using a lot of possessions...is a bad basketball player and that's what Jordan Poole's career numbers say he is.

Poole's career numbers include his abysmal first year when he bounced back and forth between the G-league and the NBA. The last three years his TS numbers have been: 2021 - .581; 2022 - .598; 2023 - .573. Going by statmuse that's above avg in 2 of the last 3 years, and close last year. Tyler Herro has never had a season above .566 TS or where he played more than 67 games. RJ Barrett has never had a TS above .535.

This is splitting hairs, but I think he'd probably be a solid starting lead guard for a mid level team, but likely never the main lead playmaker for a contender. He's being paid more average starter money than All Star money so I think that's okay.

After getting clocked in the face, I would understand if Poole went through the motions somewhat this year. Not saying he did, or that it's okay if he did, but it would be understandable.

he drama between him and Draymond

the only "drama" was between Draymond's fist and Poole's face.

PS I asked a page or two back if any Conference Finalist ever had a losing record in the playoffs, and the Denver Nuggets went 9-10 in the bubble playoffs. I'm sure there are others.

On Tuesday, the NBA announced that recently eliminated Warriors megastar Steph Curry has been named the league's 2022–23 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion
[...]
perhaps you watched Curry briefly join the TNT broadcast of Celtics-Heat, where Shaquille O'Neal joked about Curry "getting me in trouble." He's referring to the FTX class action lawsuit, which alleges that Curry, Shaq, and other celebrities endorsed a scheme "designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors" that essentially funneled people into what the plaintiffs call a Ponzi scheme. Curry was one of the most prominent endorsers of the now-disgraced crypto exchange, appearing in several commercials (like the one screenshotted for the lead image of this blog, in which he carves an ice sculpture of a Bored Ape, another company that Curry endorsed and that got him into legal trouble) and he also introduced FTX executives to Warriors brass, who soon signed their own partnership.
[...]
Curry's work as a crypto-huckster and his unabashed NIMBYism doesn't taint the admirable stuff he's done, but if we were to triangulate all of it with Curry winning a social justice award, what emerges is an NBA-endorsed vision of social justice where economic justice is glaringly absent. Given the NBA's priorities as a multibillion-dollar business, maybe he's a worthy award winner after all.

I don't think it's appropriate to blame athletes for crypto being a scam.

I don't think it's appropriate to blame athletes for crypto being a scam.

curry has made 500 million in his career, and so i would argue that him going out of his way to huck financial instruments that he doesn't understand is a very appropriate criticism in this context.


crypto ponzi schemes, payday lending and get rich quick schemes are not generally the stuff of "social justice champions".

and so i would argue that him going out of his way to huck financial instruments that he doesn't understand is a very appropriate criticism in this context.

At minimum, certainly not unreasonable nor inappropriate.

At a minimum, every cent they made for the ads should be on the table. Though otherwise yeah they're pretty far down the list of people I'd like to see prosecuted for crypto.

It's not reasonable for athletes to do anything beyond customary due diligence. FTX were actively defrauding their customers, regulators, and employees.

If news were to come out that triple-stuff Oreos caused cancer, that wouldn't be cause for criticizing people who endorsed them.

It's not reasonable for athletes to do anything beyond customary due diligence. FTX were actively defrauding their customers, regulators, and employees.

Apparently, many of the famous faces in those FTX commercials were paid in part with FTT tokens. Nobody ought weep for Curry or Tom Brady or Larry David, of course.

Curry's NIMBYism is much more of a problem. California's urban housing, power, and water consumption issues are massive, and unsolvable because people with money -- like Curry -- have made sure they can't be addressed.

It's not reasonable for athletes to do anything beyond customary due diligence. FTX were actively defrauding their customers, regulators, and employees.

maybe in general (but i could also argue curry's recruitment of money marks is not that dissimilar to wilpon's involvement in the madoff scheme), but again, in the context of being named the NBA's "social justice champion", this has to be fair game.

you can't tell me the NBA doesn't have one single person among their 500+ contracted players who has done similar public goods (or greater...because eh, curry's good deeds don't exactly jump off the charts) without being the face of a crypto ponzi scheme.

you can't tell me the NBA doesn't have one single person among their 500+ contracted players who has done similar public goods (or greater...because eh, curry's good deeds don't exactly jump off the charts) without being the face of a crypto ponzi scheme.

Almost certainly yes. It would be incredibly unlikely for the player most committed to the public good to be a star player.

Embrace the nihilism, Stiggles. I've given up. It hasn't made me feel better, but I've caught up on a lot of great television. Surrender, and you too can binge "Fringe" with me!

Embracing the nihilism actually makes "Succession" even more enjoyable.

Curry's NIMBYism is much more of a problem. California's urban housing, power, and water consumption issues are massive, and unsolvable because people with money -- like Curry -- have made sure they can't be addressed.

Housing issues are hard.
Power issues are not so very hard, just very expensive.
Water issues are not that hard--it's literally just make tree nut farmers pay for water, and congratulations you have solved water use issues.

Water issues are not that hard--it's literally just make tree nut farmers pay for water, and congratulations you have solved water use issues.

There are other issues.

crypto ponzi schemes, payday lending and get rich quick schemes are not generally the stuff of "social justice champions".

Part of what made crypto so insidious, is that people went extremely touting the premise of lifting the poor and downtrodden up. The "we're all going to make it" stuff. And a #### ton of people (including people who very much should have known better) bought that stuff hook line and sinker.

To what extent Curry knew what he was selling versus believing the hype is of course unknowable. But it isn't inherently crazy to think that he actually believed he was doing people a favour by steering them towards guaranteed prosperity.

Water issues are not that hard--it's literally just make tree nut farmers pay for water, and congratulations you have solved water use issues.
There are other issues.

In a lot of places that is true. But few places grow as much and as water-intensive crops as California does. Agricultural water usage is four times the size of personal use in Cali. So yes, making farmers use less water is really the only feasible way to address this.

There are other issues.

Rich people use more water than poor people, this is true. But Agriculture uses 80% of all water in CA. Tree nuts alone use 16% of all the water in CA.

Rich people use more water than poor people, this is true. But Agriculture uses 80% of all water in CA. Tree nuts alone use 16% of all the water in CA.

And the state can't legislate to address that because the people who benefit the most from the sales of California almonds, pistachio, etc., are rich people.

Making people a market clearing price for water would go a long way towards addressing the problems in the West.

My wife did some reporting on California's water issues for an SF public radio station a few years ago, when we lived in the city. I will agree with tship to this extent: the ideal solution is significantly simpler than any legally and socially feasible option. There is a vast and complex patchwork of active water rights, including ones to this day that were originally established when some forty-niner nailed a piece of paper to a tree by a river calling dibs. And now, of course, the legal and financial stakes are vastly higher, and all that without getting into the fact that there is an enormous amount of long-established, population-dense development in places that have practically nonexistent water supplies. It's true that they use far less water than agriculture, but it significantly complicates the path to long-term sustainability. Also, fun fact about that agriculture: alfalfa farming for cattle (the vast majority supplying foreign ranching operations) are very quietly draining far more than the nut tree farms, in ways that are every bit as suicidally shortsighted and finance-driven. It's a real gordian knot, and a lot more complex than it looks on the surface.

To clarify: the alfalfa farming is mostly done outside of California, but if you, like much of the state's population, rely on water from the Colorado river basin, you probably should care anyway.

It's a real gordian knot, and a lot more complex than it looks on the surface.

1. This is a bizarre tangent even for the NBA thread.
2. Agree and disagree on the whole difficulty.
3. The whole thing is an asymmetric level of care about water rights. The incumbent business interests like ranchers and tree farms care a ton. Most other people don't really care and don't really think about it a bunch.
4. So while it is currently complicated to resolve, that level of complexity only exists if you give a #### about tree farms and cattle ranchers making money.
5. As soon as people realize that the whole reason why there's a drought is because we grow almonds in the San Joaquin, things will get a lot simpler because 99% of the state does not care about tree farm owners.
6. This is (almost) entirely a state issue (or at least not a federal one), so as soon as there is sufficient political will, the issue will disappear.
7. In any case, swimming pools are a red herring.

6. This is (almost) entirely a state issue (or at least not a federal one), so as soon as there is sufficient political will, the issue will disappear.

Ignoring that #7 is LOL, the reason this tangent exists is because "as soon as there is sufficient political will" never comes around because NIMBY, locked into place by monied folks like Steph Curry.

If people actually, really cared, we wouldn't have gotten to this point. We're at this point and not remotely slowing down because people. simply. do. not. care. Embrace the darkness, folks.

I doubt Steph Curry cares about tree farm owners or cattle ranchers.

I don't know what his NIMBY deal is, but I imagine that it's mostly the standard opposing new housing development/increased density so that residential property where he lives remains scarce and values remain high.

That's contrary to the public welfare, but it has jack #### to do with agricultural water usage.

This is a bizarre tangent even for the NBA thread.

One day without playoff hoops and look at us. Can't believe no one made a "splash brother" joke, though. It was right there!

One day without playoff hoops and look at us.

your welcome.

A brief history of water basketball. Believe it or not, this was an official Big Ten sport from 1914 to 1925.

Can't believe no one made a "splash brother" joke, though. It was right there!

That is pretty disappointing guys. Anyway, rare BBTF tangent that I enjoyed!

One thing I know about water basketball: dribbling is hard work.

Ah, rare DOUBLE TANGENT that hits two areas where I am IRL expert! I used to be a climate scientist - my politics are basically Sandra O'Connor, and my elevator pitch was that I could bring a pragmatic center-right perspective to the climate debate. Around 2008 I realized the swim lane for that had totally disappeared, went to law school, and now I'm a lawyer and through circumstance, have a bunch of connections to FTX and other crypto companies.

Some of this overlaps from the recent As-to-Vegas thread, and its all colored by my decidedly non-progressive politics. But anyways!

1) tshipman is right from a science perspective. Water issues in the US are dead easy, if you strip out law and politics. Conveniently, humans are physiologically very good at not wasting water unless we're sweating. What goes in one hole more or less comes out the other hole. Because of that, and a pretty robust regulatory regime, we've gotten exceptionally good at limiting residential water usage. So even in the "west" - which for water purposes is defined roughly as everything west of a line drawn from Houston to Fargo, because that's where the net precip-evaporation budget is such that you don't have a surplus of surface water - if it wasn't for agriculture, we not only could easily support the existing population out there, but substantial continuing population growth. There are some local exceptions to that rule - mainly in truly arid parts of Arizona / SoCal - but most of the West is semi arid or adjacent to reasonably well-watered high country, and again, you really don't need much water for residential use and even judicious pools and golf courses. Vegas is a great exemplar of this because they've managed water use intelligently by, for example, switching the landscaping of highway medians to aesthetic rocks and succulents, reducing the max permitted size of residential pools, and limiting water use for lawns; while preserving water use for things that have high QoL bang for buck, like small residential pools and golf courses.
(Now, it is truly stupid that on the East Coast, with effectively infinite water, I'm prohibited from buying high flow toilets and showers because some ######## chose to live in the desert, but whatever. If one is suitably motivated, there is a thriving secondary market for grandfathered toilets that can flush anything.)
Anyways, that means water issues are basically all agricultural use, which is absolutely massive.

2) But don't make the mistake of accepting the politically-motivated framing of water usage as being for "tree farmers" and such, which is an intentional rhetorical choice to make it sound like the agricultural use is gratuitous and wasteful. It's not, and here's where the complexity starts. There are really good reasons why we grow so much stuff in dry places like the western slope of CO or interior southern california. Assuming you have a source of water, commercial monoculture agriculture is much easier in places that are hot, dry and sunny. There's much less disease pressure, you need to use less pesticide, plants mature faster, stuff tastes better, and there's lower risk of frost and other weather damage. We have a huge surplus of agricultural land in the US, so it's of course true that you could ultimately plug the gap if you took, say, the San Joaquin Valley offline from an ag perspective, but food - particularly fresh produce - would be more expensive, have more crap on it, and generally lower quality. So there's an equity issue here - solving for water issues triggers inflation in food prices that not only affect poor people disproportionately, but disincentivize consumption of the stuff that we're trying to get people to eat more of so they don't become fat diabetic puddles.\

Similarly for alflafa and other livestock feed - there's lots of good data that shows that meat is a deeply desirable basic luxury. What I mean by that is - take someone who is really poor, theyre eating rice or corn, the cheapest staples. If you give them one extra dollar, an enormous share of that dollar will go to adding meat to the diet. And this cuts across all cultures - it is something fundamental and not a social construct. Humans crave meat, and it's a massive QoL boost if you can deliver it to them. So you have another equity issue here - activist-type people advocate for vegetarian diets and minimizing or eliminating meat consumption, but that runs smack into the wall of human nature. What they are in practice advocating for - and would be the effect of minimizing water use for feed growth, or limiting land use in the high plains and other semi arid regions - is a reduction in the supply of meat that necessarily will increase the price of meat. And all that does is take meat out of the diets of the lowest income people - especially, in this case, in lower-income countries. This is a bad thing, even if it doesn't harm GDP or life expectancy, because we're trying to deliver pursuit of happiness to people and meat makes them happy.

3) Now the legal issues. Simply put, water rights are property rights, and so there are Fifth Amendment / takings clause issues with changes to existing property regimes regarding water rights. That being said, the SCOTUS has so deeply eviscerated takings law that I suspect creative lawyers could work around this and the legal hurdles could be overcome.

4) But the political issues are harder. This has all the attributes of an issue that is challenging to solve in a democracy. A-Changes to our water rights regime greatly harm a small number of wealthy, highly motivated citizens, and have a small, dispersed benefit on the vast majority. That kind of policy change is always the hardest to implement. B- These issues cut across jurisdictional borders, and its politically advantageous for each governmental unit to pass the buck to someone else, etc.; in addition, 2/3rds of the population of the US lives in places where water is de facto infinite and they have no motivation to spend political capital to solve these problems at a federal level. C- Finally, as illustrated above, once you get into the weeds water usage doesn't fall neatly onto the current left-right political construct, and people would rather dodge issues like that than face the complexity of real life policy choices when arrayed against ideological objectives.
Take these all together, and it leads to paralysis.

5) The other issue is that water rights like everything else have become a trojan horse for broader political projects. Rather than being treated as a problem to solve - we have 10 units of water, the old law contemplates usage of 18 units, how do we get usage down to the 10 units we actually have? - they're a point of entry for projects of equity, projects to preserve freedom and autonomy; to increase federal oversight or to reduce it. People care much more about the means than the ends, because everything is merely a part of the holy war. While no one would admit this openly, if there was a clear optimal solution to the water issues (or climate issues more generally) that sat in one side of the political spectrum, the various activists on the other side would rather let the problem fester than accept an ideologically unsatisfying solution. A weird consequence of this is that there's an incentive to let the problem persist for use as a political tool.

6) The suits against the FTX-endorsing celebrities are bullshit. It is generally stipulated that SBF successfully fooled Sequoia Capital and the GC of his US subsidiary. If they couldn't figure it out, Shaq, bless his heart, certainly couldn't with any reasonable amount of diligence. But plaintiff's lawyers gonna plaintiff's lawyers, and as it turns out, crypto customers are a particularly litigious and gullible people who have been fallow ground for hard hustle attorneys.

I love this thread.

People care much more about the means than the ends, because everything is merely a part of the holy war. While no one would admit this openly, if there was a clear optimal solution to the water issues (or climate issues more generally) that sat in one side of the political spectrum, the various activists on the other side would rather let the problem fester than accept an ideologically unsatisfying solution. A weird consequence of this is that there's an incentive to let the problem persist for use as a political tool.

that's a ####### crab dribble, right there, is what that is.

FWIW, at the risk of going all in on being a Curry/Warriors apologist, it seemed what Curry really wanted was just privacy from a new apartment building that would have overlooked his back yard. From the link that Stiggles shared above, and was okay with the building as long as they built a taller fence or maybe put some trees in:

Barring the cessation of the construction, which, again, was mandated by state law, the Curry family asked for "considerably taller fencing and landscaping."

I mean should he be winning a Social Justice award, who knows, but the actuals of the case are a bit more nuanced than Curry == NIMBY.

I love this thread.

In a bizarre way this thread has turned into a microcosm of BBTF, the message board on which it sits. Maybe it's OT threads all the way down.

On water (awesome post 2175) -- everything comes back to changing people's habits. I think that's a combination of developing better meat alternatives and nut alternatives, educating people on the implications of their choices and convincing them to do something different. A lot of these are nascent -- the current meat alternatives like Beyond and Impossible are a good start, but still relatively unhealthy and also relatively expensive. Common American preparations of tofu taste terrible. I stopped buying almond milk, but dairy isn't much better climate wise and oat milk has tons of sugar in it, etc. Making it easy/painless to make ethical, practical changes has to be a big part of the answer. As an optimist and a progressive, I see this being similar to where solar and alternative energy sources were before Tesla. Grinding away at a million different bottlenecks and parts of the solution, but without getting to its Tesla moment where it all comes together. Change like this happens slow, then fast, I hope we get to the fast part soon because I would love to move back to California and raise my future kid(s) there before wildfires make the summers unbearable and make property insurance impossible to get. I want to raise them in a place where they could raise their own kids without turning them into climate refugees trying to swim Puget Sound to evade the Mounties and make it into Canada for a better life.

As an optimist and a progressive, I see this being similar to where solar and alternative energy sources were before Tesla. Grinding away at a million different bottlenecks and parts of the solution, but without getting to its Tesla moment where it all comes together.

Totally - and its important to note that the secret to exploding the market for electric cars was Musk's insight that you could make an electric car more desirable EVEN FOR SOMEONE WHO DIDNT CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. And so he makes cars with cool, futuristic interiors and 0-60 times like a 911 GTS, and boom the market blows up. You see something similar happening with mini/disposable electric cars in China; electric is eating ICE's lunch because for the use case in China, electric is just a better solution setting aside the environmental benefits.

Hollinger's got some article out today about how teams are "stuck" now because everyone's traded away so much stuff. But I feel like I felt that before and it hasn't stopped a lot of offseason movement. Maybe it's at that point now, though.

This is something of a hobbyhorse for me; I'm definitely a leftist, but I'm also a structuralist, so to speak, and I think that appeals to people's better natures are basically pointless when the systems of incentive reward other behaviour.

things that have high QoL bang for buck, like small residential pools and golf courses.

I would vehemently push back on the notion that golf courses provide high QoL bang for buck. Especially in a desert.

I love my electric car. It is a much better vehicle for like 99% of my driving. Admittedly that 1% is a bit annoying.

“Barring the cessation of the construction, which, again, was mandated by state law, the Curry family asked for "considerably taller fencing and landscaping."

Sounds like he’s more of a YIMBY - yes, put some big fences in my backyard. Not something I care to look into, but I guess the controversy could come from him wanting other people to construct the barriers on their property. Or maybe he’s willing to do it on his property, but battling some neighborhood association that sits around and rejects any proposal for a homeowner to make any change on their property.

Guys, Curry lives in Atherton. It's not about the fencing, it's about keeping the poors out.

***

2) But don't make the mistake of accepting the politically-motivated framing of water usage as being for "tree farmers" and such, which is an intentional rhetorical choice to make it sound like the agricultural use is gratuitous and wasteful. It's not, and here's where the complexity starts. There are really good reasons why we grow so much stuff in dry places like the western slope of CO or interior southern california. Assuming you have a source of water, commercial monoculture agriculture is much easier in places that are hot, dry and sunny. There's much less disease pressure, you need to use less pesticide, plants mature faster, stuff tastes better, and there's lower risk of frost and other weather damage. We have a huge surplus of agricultural land in the US, so it's of course true that you could ultimately plug the gap if you took, say, the San Joaquin Valley offline from an ag perspective, but food - particularly fresh produce - would be more expensive, have more crap on it, and generally lower quality. So there's an equity issue here - solving for water issues triggers inflation in food prices that not only affect poor people disproportionately, but disincentivize consumption of the stuff that we're trying to get people to eat more of so they don't become fat diabetic puddles.\

The point isn't that growing almonds is inherently wasteful or whatever, but that if you're in a drought, the logical place to look is where the water is being used. Growing pistachios and almonds in the San Joaquin is unsustainable.

Sources: The NBA’s Competition Committee is discussing potential of in-game penalty for flops that would result in technical foul free throw. Trial is possible at Summer League in July.

Seems like potentially a good idea? I'm curious about execution; most obvious downside is that it could further slow down the game. But I could see flopping actually becoming less common if they really introduce this.

Guys, Curry lives in Atherton.

Aaaaand checkmate.

Seems like potentially a good idea? I'm curious about execution

That seems like a bridge too far. I think a technical foul is a strong enough penalty.

How do you differentiate between flopping and embellishment? Outright flopping is a relatively small part of the problem.

I would propose instead we simply execute Pat Beverly, James Harden, Kyle Lowry and Chris Paul at half time. Red Panda can kick the bowls off one toe from her unicycle, and the bowls landing on her head will trigger the execution mechanism.

Seems like potentially a good idea? I'm curious about execution; most obvious downside is that it could further slow down the game. But I could see flopping actually becoming less common if they really introduce this.

i don't trust officials to get the calls right.

I would propose instead we simply execute Pat Beverly, James Harden, Kyle Lowry and Chris Paul at half time. Red Panda can kick the bowls off one toe from her unicycle, and the bowls landing on her head will trigger the execution mechanism.

marcus smart is curious about your selection of players.

You know, I actually had Smart in there at first and subbed Harden for him to avoid a whole meta argument.

Smart is definitely a flopper! I'm a huge fan of his but it is undeniable. Clearly, he does it to get a competitive advantage; if it was actually going to regularly hurt his team, he wouldn't do it. Hence the upside here. Though I agree that these could be tough calls to get right, and adding more video reviews, if that's what this ultimately led to, is probably not worth it.

You could also throw in PJ Tucker and half the Heat roster. Seems like overkill, frankly, I'd prefer to stick with the techs.

Though I agree that these could be tough calls to get right, and adding more video reviews, if that's what this ultimately led to, is probably not worth it.

It would have to be done with video review. But maybe without stopping the play on court. Let them play on, then a minute later announce a T has been assessed and shoot the free throw. Except of course in the final minute or 2.

It would have to be done with video review. But maybe without stopping the play on court. Let them play on, then a minute later announce a T has been assessed and shoot the free throw. Except of course in the final minute or 2.

you could also balance it by making it a coaches' challenge that, if it's unsuccessful, is ruled a technical foul (delay of game) on the team that made the challenge.

How do you differentiate between flopping and embellishment? Outright flopping is a relatively small part of the problem.

I am only ok with this rule change, if they make refs actually call charges when defenders stay on their feet. Which they won't.

Smart is definitely a flopper! I'm a huge fan of his but it is undeniable.

Definitely undeniable. I think I remember once trying to make the case that he mostly flops on defense, in contrast to the Harden/Paul style free throw hunting? But I understand we're just talking personal preference at that point, probably.

He also does the added layer of acting like he has suffered a career-ending injury like three times a week, it's a little tedious.

Officiating basketball is hard. It will remain hard forever and ever and ever.

I do like the idea of penalizing flopping, but like others I'm curious about the implementation. This season has been so much better with fewer automatic reviews, I'd hate to add more of those back in. But I can't imagine refs would be cool with having their calls automatically overturned in real time by a replay official at the league office, either.

flip