#all that was missing was a woj goal or something

[garciapimienta]

how the fuck did we not only come out alive but actually won this akslkalkskla

[writingonjorvik]

Interview Footage Stream

So I have some amazing news that I’m so excited to get out. If you’ve been on the WOJ Discord (or on @zojj-a‘s Discord server, message nem for an invite) you may have seen me talking about an opportunity to interview a dev. And after working through questions and getting approval from the rest of the team, I’m excited to say that we have a date scheduled to actually have the interview and it’s Saturday. This Saturday morning to be precise. At least for me. Timezones make it a little weird.

It’s not going to be live, I want to be able to record and edit it in case there is anything that ends up being said that needs to be cut in respect to the dev’s NDAs, as well as I’m going to be making an effort to censor any cursing. I want this interview to be as available as possible to as many people because of the questions I’ve gotten approved and what I think these answers would mean for the community.

That said I do need background footage for the interview since it will largely be audio on that end and I want something to look at and that’s where y’all come in. In combination with me being very excited with SSO doing more of these community challenges like this week’s race goal, I’m going to be continuing the stream after we wrap up Autumn Riders this weekend by switching to SSO and doing races, poorly on my part, but hopefully with y’all. I’d like to get some of the “Race To” and “Collect The Flags” knocked out since I still need those achievements myself, so if you need some, come join us.

Other than the date itself (Feb 8th), there’s not much I can give in the way of time since I don’t know how long it’ll take us to finish Autumn Riders. That stream will start at 2 CST and I would guess we’d be starting SSO around 5 CST based on last time and where we left off. But I do know that it’ll be on Freezing Crater (NA server) and I hope y’all come to join, either in chat or in game when we hop on. I’ll be Amelie Eveningstorm, big witch hat and deer ears at the Windmill Hill Race. Can’t miss me.

And I genuinely cannot wait for this opportunity to talk about the game development with an SSO dev. Thank you, all of you, for supporting WOJ’s journey. This blog and this chance wouldn’t be here without y’all’s support in keeping this blog going. I will do my best to get the full video out as soon as I can and I look forward to more of this openness from the team moving forward.

[galaxykhaleesi]

Just my two cents on today’s match (bc I’m wide awake af at 5am)

- Midfield was okay. I think Rabiot just needs more play time and confidence playing in his position, given he missed out almost an entire year. He showed potential during preseasons, and it may take a while to see him play consistently. Ramsey is good. He and Dybala linking up play is awesome. I feel like we’re gonna see amazing things from him in the future.

- Dybala, Dybala, Dybala. You left me breathless here. A goal would’ve topped it all but nonetheless you proved to everyone how you deserve play time (and ofc, to stay).

- Woj blunder early on was something that could’ve been avoided, but he managed to pull through during crucial moments, and given how he’s been consistent until now... I’d cut him some slack.

- Attack can be a bit congested. At times, they’d end up bumping each other. Perhaps if we spread out more or allow a player to move around and create spaces for our players to come through, that would probably be helpful.

- Defense has its moments when it’s stable and it’s not. Meanwhile, Alex Sandro, reliable as always.

- Sadly, this was not Pipa’s day. I’m sure he’ll get his chance soon.

[junker-town]

The ABA’s ideas have finally taken over basketball

Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“Loose Balls”, Terry Plato’s history of the American Basketball Association, documents a league whose ideas are finally coming into their own.

The American Basketball Association waged a war against the NBA throughout its nine-year history. From the beginning, it was an unfair fight. The NBA had better players, better arenas, and most importantly, a network television contract that gave it more visibility and way better funding.

But the ABA had one thing going for it. The league simply refused to play by the NBA’s rules. It cared little for the sanctity of contracts and broke the unwritten prohibition against signing college underclassmen.

The ABA opened its doors to players who had been blackballed from the NBA like Connie Hawkins, Doug Moe, and Roger Brown, and found a home for players deemed too small or just plain too weird. You can’t understand the history of pro basketball without the ABA, and you can’t be any kind of a basketball person if you don’t know Willie Wise and Bob Netolicky.

The ABA survived in spite of itself, largely because it had a keener eye for talent. That manifested itself in players like Julius Erving, George Gervin, and Mel Daniels who went on to become Hall of Famers, along with scores of players like Mack Calvin, Billy Keller, and Steve Jones who thrived in its open-ended game.

But the ABA never intended to defeat the NBA. Its goal all along was to force a merger. After nine years of players, coaches, and even refs jumping leagues, lawsuits and countersuits, the NBA finally absorbed four teams: Indiana, Denver, San Antonio, and New Jersey into the league in 1976. The war was over, even if the NBA could never bring itself to call the terms a merger. More like a conditional surrender.

That bruising battle served as the backdrop for Loose Balls, Terry Pluto’s oral history of the ABA. Published in 1990 at the dawn of the NBA’s most prosperous era, it felt like a time capsule of a mythological era filled with sex, drugs, and all the craziness that the 70s had to offer.

Reading it again now, I’m drawn to another conclusion. The ABA not only won, it’s been vindicated. As former Kentucky Colonels coach Hubie Brown put it, “We were ahead of the NBA in so many ways. The only thing they didn’t take was the red, white, and blue ball.”

Lacking franchise-caliber big men, ABA coaches like Brown innovated with forwards playing center, guards playing forward. Those non-traditional lineups served as a precursor to the modern-day game where positions are fungible and skill beats size. Then and now, the 3-point shot is the great equalizer.

The ABA prioritized the dunk to such a degree that it introduced the slam dunk contest, later adopted by the NBA and turned into the marquee event at All-Star Weekend. Desperate to get people to come to the arenas, ABA games became sideshows of giveaways and promotions. It’s impossible to walk into an arena today and not feel the ABA’s insistence on providing fans with something more than just the game.

The ABA also gave us unfettered player movement and backroom deals. When in doubt, have a draft, and the ABA had a ton of “secret” drafts with far more intrigue than any lottery drawing could ever hope to have. By going after college underclassmen, the ABA exposed the sham of amateur athletics, even going so far as to sign the first player directly out of high school in Moses Malone.

Only four ABA franchises survived, but the league afforded an opportunity for pro basketball to take root in non-traditional markets like Memphis, Utah, and New Orleans. In all, a dozen ABA cities eventually hosted NBA teams.

Most of all, the ABA gave us style and it gave us stories. Pluto collected them all in Loose Balls, crafting the definitive document of a rebel league that has stood the test of time.

One of my favorites concerns the sale of Gervin from Virginia to San Antonio. Even by ABA standards where teams were constantly in danger of going under, the Squires were notoriously short on cash. At one point the sheriff’s department was coming to repossess the team’s uniforms before a game because they owed $2,000 to the manufacturer.

Spurs owner Angelo Drossos called up his Virgina counterpart Earl Foreman with an offer: Sell us Gervin for $225,000. There was a catch. The All-Star game was scheduled to be held in Norfolk in a few months and Foreman, having already sold Julius Erving, Rick Barry, and Swen Nater, didn’t want to surrender his last remaining star.

Drossos suggested a “delayed-delivery deal.” Cash up front for Gervin’s services after the All-Star game. Eventually the press caught on and Foreman had second thoughts. The commissioner Mike Storen got involved and suggested Drossos could have his pick of any player on the Squires’ roster except for Gervin.

Drossos said no way, he had the contract and he had Gervin already stashed in San Antonio after agreeing to indemnify Gervin and his agent. Storen then said he would forfeit every Spurs game until Gervin was back in Virginia. Drossos sent the league a telegram that read, “Fuck you. A stronger letter will follow.”

The league sued, but it went to Federal Court in San Antonio where a judge who happened to be a season-ticket holder ruled in favor of Drossos and the Spurs. The Squires were out of business just before the merger with the NBA. Gervin, meanwhile, blossomed into the Ice Man in San Antonio, cementing a love affair between the city and the sport that exists to this day.

Could you imagine any of that happening today? Take DeAndre Jordan being held hostage by the Clippers to prevent him from signing with the Mavericks and multiply it by David Stern’s Chris Paul trade-vetoing, “Basketball Reasons” and maybe it would rival the particulars of that insane story.

There would be Woj Bombs left and right, NBA Twitter would implode, a hundred think pieces would angle for clicks. In the ABA, it was merely another hilarious sidenote. The thing about the ABA was, you really had to be there. It was barely on television and it wasn’t like there were highlight shows running down Memphis Tams scores.

All that remained were the stories, and the oral history structure of Loose Balls offered Pluto the perfect vehicle. There’s no need for a narrative arc when a former coach casually recounts the time he offered a $500 bounty to any of his players who would take on legendary tough guy John Brisker.

A bench player named Lenny Chappel said he’d do it and decked Brisker on the opening tip when no one was looking. Brisker, it’s been said, disappeared after running off to Uganda to become a mercenary for Idi Amin.

Or the time Marvin Barnes missed a series of flights and wound up chartering a plane from LaGuardia. He arrived 10 minutes before the game wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a floor-length mink coat with his uniform underneath. After proclaiming, “Game Time is on time,” he went out and scored 43 points.

During the game, the pilot showed up in the team huddle demanding to be paid. Barnes sent the trainer to the locker room to fetch his checkbook and cut the pilot a check during a timeout. (Accounts varied on how much it actually cost.)

All of that would have been lost without Loose Balls. It’s served as the foundational source material for dozens of documentaries and features. Pluto, ever the gracious caretaker of the league’s history is prominent in many.

Yet, Loose Balls is more than a historical document of a bygone era. It’s a blueprint for how pro basketball finally began to find its way as a major sports entity. It would take years to fully grasp the ABA’s importance, but it’s all right there every night on League Pass and in arenas across the country. The ABA won, all hail the ABA.

[flauntpage]

Sixers Draft Prospects: Michael Porter Jr., Lonnie Walker, Grayson Allen

I know you’re dying for Bryan Colangelo news, or more Eagles vs. Donald Trump content, but let’s take a quick break to look at a few more Sixers draft prospects.

This is part three of a series that I’ll keep doing until I no longer feel like it. We’re going three players at a time, and started on Monday with Mikal Bridges, Miles Bridges, and Jevon Carter. Tuesday I touched on Wendell Carter Jr., Trae Young, and Collin Sexton.

Today we’re gonna take a look at Michael Porter Jr., Lonnie Walker, and Grayson Allen, and that’s the bottom line, because Stone Cold said so. 

Michael Porter, Jr. (Mizzou)

There’s always some guy who enters the draft with injury concerns, and this year it’s the 6’10”, 210 pound Missouri combo forward.

Porter played just 3 games during a freshman season that was almost entirely wiped out due to spinal surgery. In fancy medical terms, he needed a “microdiscectomy of the the L3-L4 spinal discs.” In layman’s terms, he was suffering from herniated discs in his back, went under the knife, and missed the majority of the year.

Drafting a guy with injury history might be a non-starter for Sixer fans who are weary from the Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons situations, but look at how those guys turned out after getting healthy. There’s an element of risk involved, certainly, but the upside is there, and Porter was seen as a potential lottery pick coming out of high school.

For starters, he’s just got a wonderful athletic profile, a tall and fluid player who strides in transition and just makes a lot of things look really smooth. We obviously didn’t get much film from his short stint at Mizzou, but he looked like a future pro at the 2016 FIBA Americas U18 championship, where he played alongside Markelle Fultz, Mo Bamba, Jarrett Allen, and others:

That was two years ago.

And the competition wasn’t amazing, but you see some Kevin Durant in him, don’t you? He’s got smooth mechanics (maybe a bit slow and deliberate) and a high release that should let him shoot over pretty much anything at the next level. He glides around the court and I could easily see him getting a bunch of transition opportunities running the floor with Simmons and others.The first minute of that video is basically all transition offense before he starts knocking down three pointers.

Similar to Durant, one knock seems to be his overall strength. Defensively, I don’t know how he’d match up in the post against a bigger power forward with more meat on the bones. He’s got a monstrous wing span and sort of engulfs smaller players, but he doesn’t slide his feet at an elite level and sometimes is a bit slow to rotate or recognize what’s going on in that half of the court. That said, there’s plenty of room to grow, and he should be able to guard most NBA twos and threes relatively well.

Because of the injury, Porter lands all over the place on mock drafts. I’ve seen him listed as high as four or five in some mocks, while Adrian Wojnarowski thinks he’ll fall out of the top-10 entirely:

Woj said he doesn’t think Michael Porter Jr will be a top 10 Pick. You may roll your eyes but think about how well connected Woj is. He said he expected Fizdale to be a strong candidate for the Knicks the day after Hornacek was fired.

— Daniel (@DanielM2k2020) June 4, 2018

For what it’s worth, Porter told media at the combine that he felt like he was the best player in the draft. There’s no shortage of confidence there, and if he was fully healthy throughout the year you’d probably see him in the conversation at #2 along with Luka Doncic and Marvin Bagley, assuming Deandre Ayton is a lock to go to the Suns with the first pick.

There obviously isn’t a lot of college game film to look at, but he came back towards the end of the year to play in the SEC and NCAA tournaments. He didn’t shoot the ball particularly well in the losses to FSU and Georgia, but you see the occasional flashes of brilliance:

If he falls to #10, it’s going to be hard to pass him up.

Lonnie Walker IV (Miami)

Lonnie hails from the ALMIGHTY Berks County and is a Reading High School product. Reading is a good school, but not as good as Boyertown, in my opinion.

The 6’4″ shooting guard will reportedly work out for the Sixers on Monday:

Former Miami guard Lonnie Walker (@lonniewalker_4) will participate in a group workout with the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday, June 11, league sources told The Athletic.

— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) June 6, 2018

Scotto says Miles Bridges will also take part in that workout.

Walker is seen as a guy who likes to have the ball in his hands, an excellent spot-up shooter who can also explode to the basket and finish through contact. He’s got good body control, not dissimilar to the way that Alabama’s Collin Sexton attacks the rim. He’s also got a quick release, not at a Trae Young level, but he’ll get the ball up and out with relatively ease and smoothness.

In these clips, you’ll see him curl off screens, square up, and fire:

He’s a 2-guard but did play a bit of point at Miami, so you can put him in the pick and roll and work off of that. That’s not something the Sixers did a lot of with two non-shooting point guards last season, preferring to run JJ Redick in dribble hand-off and off-ball designs instead.

Defensively, Walker does have the tools to defend different positions, hitting the scale just below 200 pounds and featuring a 6’10” wingspan. In the video above, you see the segment where he sometimes would leave his feet early or lose that first step and not be super competitive trying to body an opponent on a drive.

One of the other negatives with Walker is his offensive consistency.

He’d score in the single digits for a pair of games, then fluctuate into double digits and sometimes crest 20 points, but there were definitely some poor shooting nights during his Miami season, a year in which the Hurricanes went 22-10 and 11-7 in a competitive ACC.

You see the ups and downs in this chunk of his game log I clipped, where the parameters from left to right are minutes played, field goals, three pointers, and finally his total points on the far right:

Definitely some hot and cold there – 5 points, 16, 19, 12, 25, 23, 16. He had some clunky shooting games and needed a ton of shots to get his points against the better ACC teams. Look at those losses against Clemson and Duke in there, where he shot 12-33 overall. He wasn’t a guy who was always able to impose his will on the game.

I’ve seen some mocks sending Walker to Charlotte at 11. Others have him in the bottom end of the lottery, maybe 13 to the Clippers. If the Sixers have one of Mikal or Miles Bridges available at 10, or Michael Porter somehow continues to fall, I don’t think Walker will be in the equation, but they could do worse than a guy who can score the basketball at a high level when he’s on his game.

Grayson Allen (Duke)

He was in Philadelphia for a workout Wednesday, according to Keith Pompey.

You probably know about the disciplinary issues he had, the accusations of tripping opponents and the petulance he showed on the bench. He was a controversial player and a classic villain, so teams are gonna have to dive into the interview and determine where his head’s at.

But no one ever really talks about his skill as a basketball player, so let’s reroute in that direction.

Allen was a four-year player at Duke, a 6’4″ shooting guard who put up these numbers:

He had his best year as a sophomore, scoring 21.6 points per game on the strength of 46.6% shooting and a 41.7% mark from three. Those numbers dipped significantly as a junior, but came back up slightly during his senior year. He finished with 14.1 PPG on 43% shooting after four years in Durham.

And that’s really the first takeaway here; you’re getting a guy with experience. 99% of the guys projected to go in the top-ten are one-and-done players with a ton of upside but also plenty of question marks due to their small overall body of work. Allen won a national title as a freshman and played alongside the likes of Jayson Tatum and Brandon Ingram and against guys like Dennis Smith Jr. and Justin Jackson and Donovan Mitchell. There really isn’t going to be much of a curve for him; what you see is what you’re going to get. The floor and ceiling are pretty much known quantities.

The question is whether that’s good enough. Allen is a nice shooter and is sneaky athletic, but not elite in that department. He doesn’t look like he has the first step to beat NBA defenders and I don’t see him finishing consistently at the rim at the next level. You’d probably need to spring him with screens and off-ball movement to find open looks for him, and the Sixers already have enough guys on this squad who can’t really create their own shot. Robert Covington, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Jerryd Bayless, and Justin Anderson all had that covered last year.

One of the things he does really well is stay consistent with his mechanics. He gets his feet set, squares up, and shows good balance as a perimeter shooter, which you see a lot of here:

Beyond that, he was pretty aggressive driving in the half court and also transition and drew a good chunk of fouls in the process.

Defensively, he’s capable, but not going to light the world on fire. Experts seem to think he can make up for his lack of tools on this end with effort, and he can definitely be a high-energy pest on a second unit. Problem is, he seemed to turn off completely at times, especially when put in the pick and roll, which is NBA bread and butter.

Some people wonder if Allen has already plateaued because of the ceiling he hit as a junior, but he had a strong combine and tested very well. He worked out for the Jazz, who pick at #21 overall and could use a second unit scorer. And that’s probably going to be his NBA role, an energy guy off the bench who isn’t going to blow the doors off, but he’ll knock down some open shots and hustle and become one of those guys who you love if he’s on your team, but you hate if he’s on the other team. Most mocks have Allen going late in the first round or in the top half of the second round, so while I think it would be premature to use the 26th overall pick on him, the Sixers could take a chance with #38 or #39.

For what it’s worth, Duke Vitale says this:

I agree. 6th or 7th guy. Valuable rotation guy that can play multiple spots. Steve he has a keen passion & a chip on his shoulder to prove that the naysayers r wrong / someone taking him around 20 in the @NBADraft will be rewarded .

— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) June 5, 2018

And listen, I hated JJ Redick in college. Most people did. And yet here he is, more than a decade later, playing well for the Sixers as one of the more respected guys around the league. If Allen evolves his maturity issues into that cliche of “Philly tough” behavior, he could certainly become a T.J. McConnell-esque fan-favorite. Say the right things, dive into the stands for a loose ball, ya know, that kind of stuff. It doesn’t take much.

I posed the question to Twitter to gauge the temperature of the fan base:

As a huge Duke fan not sure how he fits in today's NBA. Although athletic can he guard guys who he needs to? Can he get his shot off?Luke Kennard had a combine just like him last year and he hasn't impressed me in the NBA.

— Jawn Connors (@Joe_Connors81) June 7, 2018

He can shoot which is needed to eventually replace jj (if jj resigns)… read reports saying he is better at defense… depending on when they draft him wouldn’t hate it. If BC stays though doubt they draft him. They use late picks at draft and stash. Kinda his MO

— rob manoff (@manoffrm) June 7, 2018

Love. Will be a Marcus Smart type player. Good Defense. Hit some shots.

— alex armstrong (@ArmstrongAlex) June 7, 2018

Ted Cruz lookin headass. Don’t want him.

— Nick Carraway (@_Silence_Dogood) June 7, 2018

And, of course:

he’s not an NBA player, the stuff he did at Duke won’t work against elite athletes

— Philip Keidel (@PhilKeidel) June 7, 2018

  The post Sixers Draft Prospects: Michael Porter Jr., Lonnie Walker, Grayson Allen appeared first on Crossing Broad.

Sixers Draft Prospects: Michael Porter Jr., Lonnie Walker, Grayson Allen published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[flauntpage]

Your Tuesday Morning Roundup

The Process just got a lot more expensive.

A Woj Bomb was dropped last night as the new ESPNer reported that the Sixers, and Joel Embiid agreed to a max contract extension worth up to $148 million.

Before you go crazy on the Andrew Bynum-esque nonsense, this could be a smart deal:

Embiid's extension has been described to me as "perhaps the most complex" in NBA history. Expect a lot of details to trickle out.

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) October 9, 2017

We need more details to make a decision on the contract, but we know it is all about the game:

#TrustTheProcess #$$$@JoelEmbiid http://pic.twitter.com/cCxia5nP6M

— Triple H (@TripleH) October 9, 2017

And the CB store now has this new shirt (which just dropped as this news did). Get it NOW:

Embiid is here to stay, just hope for health.

The Roundup:

T.J. McConnell shows that he is a man of the people, but not for those in Cleveland.

The Sixers did hit the hardwood last night for another preseason game, against the Celtics, again, and it resulted in a loss, again.

There are probably a few things the team needs to cleanup before the regular season begins:

This is the brokest free throw form ever of all time http://pic.twitter.com/kR51EchOnk

— #Mickstape (@MickstapeShow) October 9, 2017

Aside from the lackuster preseason performance thus far, the Sixers are poised to be a mainstay in the NBA playoffs for years to come. Will they be playing a Western Conference team in the first round eventually? Maybe:

“Reformatting the playoffs is something we’ll continue to look at,” Silver said before a preseason game between the Golden State Warriors and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Mercedes Benz Arena. “I think though it would require revisiting the regular-season schedule as well. As I’ve said before, we don’t play a balanced schedule now, as I’m sure you know. And for those that don’t, that means that teams in the East play each other more than they play teams in the West. And our feeling is, if we were going to seed 1-16, we would need to play a balanced schedule to make it fair for everyone if we were going to seed 1-16 in the playoffs. It may be that as we continue to experiment with the number of days over which we can schedule 82 games that it will create more of an opportunity for a balanced schedule.”

—

The Eagles got a lot of love yesterday. I’ll have more on the pulse of the media in a post dropping later today here on CB, but yesterday we had you covered with wall-to-wall Birds coverage.

Kevin Kinkead broke down his ten takeaways from the game:

Your Philadelphia Eagles looked more like the ’85 Bears on Sunday afternoon, scoring early and often to complement a stifling defensive performance. They did it again without Fletcher Cox and Ronald Darby, holding the Cardinals to 33 rushing yards and forcing Carson Palmer to chuck it 44 times in a 27-point loss.

Kyle was all over it as well with his usual must-read Bird Droppings:

The Eagles are slowly, but surely, like an effective Doug Pederson offense, proving to us that they are among the best teams in the conference. Wins over the Redskins, Giants, Chargers and Cardinals aren’t exactly enough to print those Super Bowl tickets, but it’s encouraging that the Eagles are improving and, yesterday, demolished an opponent as the heavy favorites.

Additionally, Kevin analyzed the defensive unit, which primarily flown under the radar so far this season.

The defense, as well as special teams and the offense, led by Carson Wentz, played well in the three-phase win over Arizona on Sunday. According to Pro Football Focus, however, Wentz was average on Sunday:

@PFF_Steve can’t help but notice that Wentz seems to get unfairly graded compared to others… http://pic.twitter.com/3w2FGFncOH

— Brian McLaughlin (@BriMcL17) October 9, 2017

Unfortunately, cannot bask in this win for too long as the Eagles visit the Panthers on Thursday night at 8:25 p.m. The Birds will likely be without Lane Johnson for that one.

—

The MLB playoffs are heating up. The Astros eliminated the Red Sox, the Cubs are leading the Nationals 2-1, the Yankees forced a decisive Game 5, and the Dodgers swept the Diamondbacks last night.

The Phillies are looking to find the next manager for the team. One name on that reported short list? Ruben Amaro Jr.

—

The Flyers shuffled some goaltenders around yesterday, sending one out west and acquiring another, placing him with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

The team returns to the ice tonight at 8 p.m. against the Nashville Predators.

—

More NFL news…

Week 5 in the NFL wrapped up last night with the Vikings defeating the Bears on a late-game field goal. Sammy Sleeves got benched at half and more importantly missed out on a good game of Duck, Duck Goose:

This duck, duck, goose celebration is Top 5 http://pic.twitter.com/Wqqo8P8d7R

— Barstool Sports (@barstooltweetss) October 10, 2017

Malcom Jenkins has been at the forefront of the anthem protest with his raised fist and has publicly gotten support from Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, but what if Lurie threatened playing time, like Jerry Jones?

“I would still do it,” Jenkins said. “I mean, I’ve been that committed to it because that decision is not mine. I made the decision a year ago that I was going to use my platform in a way to create positive change both on the field and off the field and having someone tell me I couldn’t do that simply because, you know, a president or your bottom line is getting ready to be affected, that wouldn’t deter me.”

H/T (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Believe it or not, it got even worse for the New York Giants yesterday as Brandon Marshall’s season is over:

Whoa. @BMarshall announces on IG that he’s undergoing surgery…. http://pic.twitter.com/EsYdwUGzL8

— Kimberley A. Martin (@KMart_BN) October 10, 2017

—

Another national media person bashing Philly…yawn:

@CrossingBroad Rocky http://pic.twitter.com/2sQrpDhiRt

— Gordon Brile (@xcgordo) October 9, 2017

—

In other news…

There was an active shooter at Texas Tech last night:

A shooting has been reported at TTU Police Department. Shooter is at large. The campus is on lockdown. Take shelter. https://t.co/jOFvYnGgL6

— Texas Tech (@TexasTech) October 10, 2017

The gunman was brought to Texas Tech Police station during a drug investigation, when he pulled gun and killed the officer, univ. says.

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) October 10, 2017

The shooter was eventually apprehended late last night.

Philly Daily News/Inquirer are making layoffs, but are also hiring too?

The wildfires continue to ravage California. At least 10 dead now. It got real close to where the PGA Tour’s Safeway Open just wrapped up on Sunday:

#AtlasPeak fire ravages #Silverado County Club hours after the #PGA Safeway Open ends. https://t.co/yrA9mKlBn7 http://pic.twitter.com/oqhf3WwCxt

— KPIX 5 (@CBSSF) October 9, 2017

—

It’s only Tuesday, but we are now just one day away from another game day for the Eagles!

Your Tuesday Morning Roundup published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[junker-town]

NFL will never have a team like the Warriors

There’s a level of dominance in the NBA by Golden State that we’ll never see in the NFL.

The Golden State Warriors wrapped up their second NBA championship in three years Monday night with a 129-120 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. They’re an NBA dynasty in the making — a team that is leaps and bounds better than the NBA’s second-best team. It’s something we’ll never see in the NFL.

The New England Patriots are the closest thing the NFL has had to a team that talented. They’ve won five Super Bowls in the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick era dating back to 2001, and there’s no question that’s an impressive feat. But with the Warriors, we’re talking about a season of utter dominance, a team that destroyed everybody in its path and shows no signs of slowing down in the near future.

After all, they coasted throughout the entire postseason, nearly becoming the first team to go undefeated in the playoffs. Instead, they settled for being the first team in NBA history to ever go 16-1 in the process. The Patriots’ most commanding season ended in a Super Bowl defeat after an 18-0 start in 2007.

Golden State has been so good that in the blink of an eye it went from a likable team that was new and different, to villains in the eyes of many sports fans. (I personally don’t mind the Warriors — for now.) It’s not just that creating a team so powerful — we know the end result of the season before it starts — is difficult to do.

The NFL has limitations the NBA does not, which makes it impossible to create a “superteam” like Golden State did by just adding a future Hall of Famer like Kevin Durant.

It’s hard to nail draft selections as perfectly as the Warriors did

Drafting players who would have the same impact that Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green have had for the Warriors is a lot to ask. For most other NBA teams, any one of those three would be a franchise player: one of the best ball-handling guards who’s also the best shooter we’ve ever seen (Curry); one of the most pure shooters of all time who can also put the clamps on defense (Thompson); and a glue guy who’s the NBA Defensive Player of the Year favorite (Green). Aside from their specific and well-fitting talents, those players allow the Warriors a better chance at longevity for a couple of reasons.

The first and most obvious reason is that they’ll have Curry, Thompson, and Green in their primes. They’ve played together since the beginning of each other’s careers, and the continuity and on-court chemistry is some of the best in the NBA.

Second, because the Warriors selected them, they will be able to take advantage of a salary cap rule called the Larry Bird exception. It allows teams to exceed the cap in order to keep their free agents who have been with a team for at least three seasons. The NFL doesn’t care how long Super Bowl MVP Von Miller has been with the Broncos, or four-time Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady has been with the Patriots. Those teams can’t go over the salary cap to retain them.

Which leads to the next issue.

The NFL has a hard cap, making roster continuity much shorter

The greatest obstacle in loading up on talent like the Warriors did is the salary cap. In the NBA, there are 10 different exceptions that allow teams to go over the cap — the most well-known being the Larry Bird exception. It’s what we call a “soft cap.”

In the NFL, the cap is “hard,” meaning there are zero exceptions. If a team attempts to make a trade or a signing that would make them go over the cap, the NFL would reject the move. It’s not like we can have a Summer of J.J. Watt where we have Twitter notifications turned on our phones for Adam Schefter, anxiously waiting for an update, Woj-style, to find out where the three-time Defensive Player of the Year will land. It’s an annual tradition in the NBA, where we’ve done it with LeBron James, LaMarcus Aldridge, and most recently, Kevin Durant.

The ability to go over the cap is ultimately what has helped the Warriors take the next step into being a team that’s so damn good some people find it boring to watch. Many of those exceptions reward teams that are able to draft well, but also retain key pieces. I won’t get too into the weeds of the salary cap Olympics here, but if Durant were to take a pay cut, players like Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston could stay because the Warriors will own their Bird rights for tenure.

The closest comparison the NFL has to that is players restructuring their contracts. They can do it to lessen cap hits, but when it comes down to it, the battle is against the cap number.

The viciousness of the NFL makes longevity too tall of a task

Football is the highest-impact sport that is professionally played in the United States. The nature of the game results in sprains, broken bones, and concussions — the biggest injury concern in pro sports.

Basketball has its own similar risks, but they are fewer and far between. It’s still a contact sport — though the chances of players suffering career, or even season-ending injuries are much lower. Curry dealt with ankle injuries early in his career, Durant missed 19 games this season with an MCL sprain, but was able to come back in time for the Warriors’ playoff push.

Injuries could still derail the Warriors in the future, or at least make them less powerful — but they have the benefit of not having to worry about a Von Miller or J.J. Watt coming after them.

In the NFL, the impact is bigger with fewer games. Watt and Luke Kuechly, who together account for all of the Defensive Player of the Year awards from 2012-15, both missed significant time in 2016 with injuries. Watt played in just three games until a back injury ended his season, while Kuechly suffered a concussion that forced him to miss the final six games.

The Warriors rested their players more during the 2016-17 season than 2015-16, and it paid off for them in the Finals. That’s a luxury NFL teams just don’t have. Every week is a grind, and unless a playoff spot has been clinched, players will be on the field.

In the NFL, the other team has to be better for just one night

The beauty of the NBA is that seven-game series are played to help determine a champion. That’s impossible to ask of the NFL because of the wear and tear the game has on the body. At the same time, it makes completing a championship run more difficult, with less room for error.

There’s no better proof of this than in 2007, when the Giants knocked off the 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. That season, the Patriots set offensive records for most points in a season, most games scoring 30 or more points, and touchdowns scored in one season (all of which were later surpassed by the 2013 Denver Broncos).

All it took to take this team down was a little bit of luck. The Giants seemed dead, and then David Tyree’s helmet catch turned everything around, ending the Patriots’ chance of being the best team of all time. Now we talk about that Super Bowl because of the Giants, and not the Patriots’ perfection. Lucky for the Patriots, they’ve been on the other side of Super Bowl heartbreak — like intercepting a ball at the goal line two years ago and overcoming a 28-3 deficit to win this year.

The Warriors have also been on the other side. After all, they did become one of the most widely used sports memes because of blowing a 3-1 lead in last year’s Finals. The only difference is the Warriors added the second-best player in the league the following season. The Cavaliers were better than the Warriors for one night this year, and in the NFL, that’s all it takes. But in a four-game series, the best team prevails more often than not.

The NFL not having a team like the Warriors is fine. Parity in the NFL has made seasons interesting year in and year out. Nobody could have envisioned the 2015 Panthers going 15-1, only to follow it up with a 6-10 season. The Falcons making the Super Bowl was a big surprise as well.

For teams like the Patriots that are able to string together five championships in 16 years, it’s even more impressive. We’re never going to see the NFL version of the Warriors, but it’s what makes the league unique, and keeps fans coming back for more each fall.