#coming from somebody who picks up on trivial things and remembers all sorts of random facts

[mothman-stolemyeyebrows]

Tim Drake is a coffee gremlin who solely survives on excess amounts of caffeine to get through cases: not entirely backed up by canon characterization but overall harmless

But consider! Tim Drake is an AuDHD king and caffeine has a paradoxical effect on him. It’s the hyperfixation of it all that keeps him going

[junker-town]

How the NBA’s suspended season will affect its best teams

The implications of the NBA’s suspended season for its best teams.

These are the implications of the NBA’s suspended season for the best teams in the league.

Before Covid-19’s accelerated, unnerving reach made everyday life feel like it was dangling by a thread, the NBA was connective tissue for millions of people who treated any random weeknight’s slate of games as both part of their daily routine and the most reliable way to preoccupy areas of the brain that might otherwise be wracked with anxiety or stress.

My doctor instructed me to self-quarantine for at least 14 days after I came in contact with Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell at Madison Square Garden earlier this month. Actually testing for the coronavirus isn’t an option, so I’ve bunkered down in my apartment, writing, podcasting, reading books (a new copy of David Halberstam’s classic The Breaks of the Game has been sitting on my night table for the past few weeks), and, for my own sanity, stealing quick solitary walks around my Brooklyn neighborhood. I’ve also, off and on, thought about what all this means for the NBA, in a world where the line between temporary and permanent grows blurrier by the hour.

As trivial as this seems, with the league’s current season on the verge of cancellation, so many long-term consequences that are unrelated to epidemiology exist. For some, pondering what may or may not occur a few months from now is a valuable distraction. This is all bewildering on an unprecedented scale, and, frankly, slow-drip speculation about how an NBA team will look on the other side of such turbulence is almost peaceful; a way to make everything feel as normal as it possibly could be.

With all that in mind, here are some theoretical, fluttering implications for a few different teams, whether the season is cancelled tomorrow or postponed until after it would normally end.

Milwaukee Bucks

If the postseason is scrapped, no good team will be flung into a more sweeping state of uncertainty than Milwaukee. All year they were the NBA’s new boogeyman, stomping through 29 other teams with near-historic ferocity. But the Bucks also had questions that could only be answered in the playoffs, when we’d finally see how their successful albeit rigid system and rotation would translate, whether they’d need another playmaker, if Eric Bledsoe would melt into a puddle, etc.

Tied to those on-court topics is Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future. No playoffs means Antetokounmpo would be robbed an opportunity to learn some critical information about his team’s championship potential before they offer him a super-max extension during the offseason. If, in the absence of knowing how far his Bucks could’ve gone in the playoffs, Antetokounmpo turns down the offer and tells Bucks general manager Jon Horst he wants to play out the final year of his current contract and then play things by ear, how will Milwaukee respond?

Antetokounmpo is the exact type of franchise player who’s worth betting the farm on. Trading him would not be on the table unless he demanded it. But several teams — in larger markets, with more resources and attractive complementary pieces — will have max cap space in 2021, and an opportunity to sell him on their vision. Losing Antetokounmpo for nothing would obliterate a franchise that’s constructed around his generational ability.

The NBA’s economic future may change how players and owners view long-term, multi-million dollar contracts as a whole, but operating off how we currently see things, no team was more looking forward to the playoffs than Milwaukee, and no team better hope they’re still played, be it in empty arenas, practice facilities, or blacktop playgrounds.

Boston Celtics

Relatively speaking, the Celtics are in decent shape if no more games are played this season. They’re young, and Jayson Tatum’s emergence as (at least) a top-15 player over the past couple months allowed for a clear hierarchy to establish itself. The league’s sudden financial uncertainty all but guarantees Gordon Hayward will opt into his contract. Nothing is guaranteed in the NBA, but this team should have as much top-end continuity as any contender next year. If games resume in a couple months, that’s critical time for Kemba Walker’s knee to recover from whatever has been bothering it.

Brooklyn Nets

Remember when Kenny Atkison got fired 19 years ago? Well, even before that happened Brooklyn’s gap year was an unmitigated disaster. Kyrie Irving had season-ending shoulder surgery on March 3, and despite Caris LeVert’s crafty scoring prowess and Spencer Dinwiddie’s pseudo-all-star capability on any given night, the Nets were skidding into a buzzsaw, regardless of who they played in the first round.

Then, earlier this week, Kevin Durant and three of his teammates tested positive for coronavirus, firmly placing professional athletes in an important role they’ve had to fill: vanguards who can spread awareness and even some modicum of hope about an illness that could very well cripple every element of life as we knew it.

In a world where those four recover — along with every other player who tests positive in the coming weeks and months — and games resume, the delay could have the slightest of basketball-related silver linings.

Regardless of what Durant’s business partner Rich Kleiman has to say in the middle of March, if the NBA playoffs pick up in July and Durant is healthy enough to compete, knowing the following year won’t begin until Christmas, it’s hard to imagine him not itching to do so. This doesn’t mean Brooklyn would be considered a favorite to come out of the East, but if Durant is able to contribute for 30 minutes a night there’s no reason why they can’t upset the Toronto Raptors in the opening round.

The trickle down effect Durant’s mere presence would have on everybody else is huge. His all-time talent overrules the power of continuity and cohesion. Throw him the ball in the fourth quarter and get out of the way. With Dinwiddie, LeVert, and Joe Harris also on the floor, guarding Brooklyn’s offense would be agonizing.

As Rudy Gay told me in a conversation about the value of chemistry earlier this year: “It’d be tough not to be able to play with somebody like Kevin Durant.”

Philadelphia 76ers

It’s always hard to get a read on this year’s most disappointing team. Even if the season comes back, their pieces still won’t fit. Al Horford won’t be younger, have a quicker release on his three-point shot, or look more comfortable as the fifth option in Philadelphia’s starting lineup — assuming he won’t come off the bench.

But the larger question here surrounds Ben Simmons. If, by June, all concerns about his ailing back are gone and Joel Embiid miraculously shows up to the practice facility in shape, this team’s ceiling may rise closer to where it was back in October. A spark of optimism will be tied to the Sixers for the first time in a long time.

Utah Jazz

Whether games are played or not, the Jazz will be greeted by two seismic decisions shortly after the NBA calendar resumes. Gobert and Mitchell are both eligible for contract extensions during the offseason. Mitchell is a lock to receive a max offer, but Gobert, who qualified for the supermax when he made an All-NBA team last year, is in a different situation.

All data collected during the playoffs would be a critical factor here, and if Utah is robbed of a chance to see how Gobert would’ve performed in that setting with Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic folded into their system, how would they approach it all? In other words, if Gobert — who turns 28 in June and just made his first all-star team — is expecting the supermax, how will negotiations go? To say nothing about the state of his relationship with Mitchell — a variable that obviously matters and is unknown at the moment — the Jazz probably don’t want to invest a healthy chunk of a dropping cap in someone who barely touches the ball.

As painful as it’d be considering they clearly saw themselves as a title contender before the season began, the Jazz may take a step back for the sake of their long-term health, by shopping Gobert, letting Conley walk in free agency, and then rebuilding around Mitchell. That or they’ll come to some sort of agreement with their franchise center that’s well under the max and carry on like the shrewd franchise they are.

Houston Rockets

If the season does not return then Mike D’Antoni has likely coached his final game in Houston. Daryl Morey might not be the man who gets to hire his replacement, either. And with no firm evidence as to how their small-ball strategy would work in the playoffs, PJ Tucker, Eric Gordon, Robert Covington, and every other Rocket not named James Harden or Russell Westbrook would immediately find themselves in trade rumors.

However, if this season does return, few, if any teams will benefit more from the extended break. The tax Houston pays with their physically exhausting style of play will be less steep if Tucker, Harden, and Westbrook have several months off to recharge their batteries and hit the ground running on a chase for their first title.

Golden State Warriors

Steph Curry returned from hand surgery shortly before the break, but the Warriors are too far behind in the standings for Klay Thompson’s health to matter, whether he’s good to go in June or not. Here’s another angle, though: What happens to their draft pick?

Assuming the Warriors are looking to move that asset for more win-now contribution at some point before the draft, how does the absence of March Madness, the combine, and every other annual way for teams to study prospects impact how said teams value the picks in this year’s pool? With no obvious franchise-altering player for the taking, and no opportunity for anyone to improve how they’re perceived by evaluators, is this year’s first overall pick the least important in recent NBA history? And if the Warriors get it, knowing their unusual circumstance for a team in that type of position, what will they do?

Los Angeles Lakers

Los Angeles Clippers

Ever since Kawhi Leonard chose the Los Angeles Clippers over the Los Angeles Lakers, the basketball world was building towards a showdown between those two teams. Apologies to the Bucks, Rockets, Celtics, and Raptors, but a playoff series that doesn’t leave Staples Center was always the most important subplot of the season.

If it does not return, both franchises are humongous losers. Each has tethered itself to the present day. All their draft picks and intriguing young talent can now be found in Oklahoma City and New Orleans. LeBron James is 35 years old. Leonard and Paul George are in the middle of their respective primes but can become unrestricted free agents in 2021.

Stripping both teams of the opportunity to capitalize on the amount of talent they’ve compiled in the here and now could crush basketball in Los Angeles, even if Anthony Davis re-signs a five-year deal with the Lakers this off-season (which, like everything else in the world right now, is so far from a sure thing).

[geekprincess26]

Four Weddings and a Blizzard: Chapter 2

Written for Day 3 of the Jonsa 2017 Summer Challenge hosted by @jonsa-creatives.  I chose the “Fixations” theme.

“I never did get that girl’s fixation with flannel,” groused Jon Snow.

Sansa Stark grinned.  “Come on, Jon,” she teased.  “You’re from Wisconsin.  Surely you understand the whole state’s fixated on flannel?”

Jon Snow rolled his eyes at her, and Sansa caught his lips turning upward for a fraction of a second before they reverted to their customary frown.

“Right,” he replied, “but she’s a lot more fixated than 99.9 percent of the state.”  He gestured in the general direction of the lake for emphasis, as if the water itself would turn to flannel on cue.

Sansa grinned again.  Her sister Arya had married Gendry Waters that afternoon on a plot of wooded land they owned in the forests of northern Wisconsin.  It was the last day of August, and a hint of autumn had colored the breeze that had ruffled the bride’s hair into her groom’s face as they had spoken their vows under a white wicker arch in front of the lake.  Gendry had outfitted his groomsmen, including Jon, in blue jeans and gray plaid flannel shirts at the behest of the bride, who had in turn chosen gray flannel shirtdresses for Sansa and the other bridesmaids.  Arya herself had worn an enormous gray-and-blue plaid flannel sash over her plain linen wedding gown and tied a matching strip around her bouquet.  The bridesmaids’ bouquets had been tied with strips of blue flannel, and the entire bridal party had spent the hours before the ceremony draping flannel cloths over the tables inside the white vinyl reception tent and tying pieces of flannel around Mason jars full of sunflowers.

If Sansa had still been in high school, or even college, she would have spent the day with her nose planted in the air and her classiest black heels fused to her feet.  But she was years past high school, college, and a failed attempt at graduate school, and more than years past cringing at the sight of sunflowers paired with witch hazel or gray shirtdresses paired with brown hiking boots.  For one thing, the black pumps would not have gotten her anywhere near the site of the family photo shoot on the mucky ground next to the lake, let alone through the entire photo session; and she could never have gotten this far away from the reception tent without her boots. Sansa, who had spent her first two and a half years after dropping out of the Master of Fine Arts program at the Rhode Island School of Design at a succession of temp jobs, was by no means ungrateful to have landed a secretarial position in the English department of the University of Pittsburgh six months ago.  However, after four hours she had had her fill of hearing remarks, both innocent and snide, about what a shame it was for such a brilliant and talented girl as Sansa Stark to have to stoop to working as a secretary.  Besides, she had not seen Jon Snow for some time, and she had promised Arya she would ensure that he did not spend the entire weekend apart from the ceremony holed away in his hotel room.  Not that she would have blamed him entirely for holing himself away.  For one thing, Ygritte, Jon’s girlfriend, had unceremoniously dumped him the day before they were due to leave New York for the wedding.  For another, Theon Greyjoy, who was Robb’s and Arya’s most annoying friend and quite possibly the world’s least deserving groomsman, had made matters worse by greeting Jon straight off the plane by asking him if that meant they could go out chasing girls together all weekend.

But Sansa had spent two years holed away from the world at large after dropping out of graduate school, and she regretted it now; so when she had noticed Jon’s chair at the head table sitting empty, she had made her excuses to Arya, left the tent, and tramped a half-mile or so along the lakeshore.  She had found Jon leaning against a rock, taking pictures of the setting sun with the ancient analog camera he’d carried with him for the entire weekend.  

“Well,” she said now, “Arya is Arya.  If she likes something, it just sort of becomes a fixation.”

Jon’s lips turned up much more decidedly.  “Aye,” he agreed.  “Remember when you were all helping me move to New York from Philly, and she was practicing her martial arts maneuvers on Gendry?”

Sansa, who could never in a million years have forgotten the experience or the expression on Gendry’s face as her sister had knocked him flat on his back for the hundredth time, bent over with laughter.

“Oh, I remember,” she said at last.  “Or how about when you and she were helping Robb move me to Pittsburgh from Providence, and she spent the whole trip playing those God-awful tapes half the night because she wanted to learn Russian?”

Jon’s smile widened.  “Right, with Gendry in the front seat the whole time,” he recalled.

“Poor Gendry,” they said in unison, and this time Jon actually grinned.  

“Well, he’s stuck with her now,” he said fondly, and Sansa returned his grin.  

“I heard she’s bribed the editor of the New York Times to use the word ‘FLANNEL’ as the answer to one of its crossword clues in tomorrow’s edition,” she answered, and Jon let out a bark of laughter.  

“‘Arya Stark’s favorite wedding decoration,’” he said, curling the front two fingers of each hand in imaginary quotation marks, and Sansa giggled.  Three years ago, when Sansa had left Providence with her tail between her legs, Jon had helped Robb and Jeyne move her to Pittsburgh, and on that trip they had discovered how much they enjoyed both the Times’s crossword puzzle and beating Robb at Trivial Pursuit.  Ever since then, in between road trips – Jon and Sansa had driven with Robb and Jeyne from Pennsylvania to California when Robb had gotten his public relations job in San Diego, and Robb and Sansa had returned the favor when Jon had moved in with Ygritte – they had enjoyed trading puzzle hints and texting each other random odd facts, which had turned into longer chats about their everyday lives and favorite books and everything in between.

After a few moments, Jon’s smile faded, but just then a red beam from the setting sun snuck out around a layer of glimmering clouds behind the lake, and his eyes widened silver against the golden light.  He positioned his camera carefully and began snapping away.  Sansa smiled and fished her tablet out of her shoulder bag.  She scrolled through the app screens until she found the program she wanted, then opened it and began swiping her fingers in myriad patterns across the screen.  After several minutes she felt Jon’s eyes on her and looked upward.  He flushed and gestured toward the tablet.

“I didn’t know you drew – on that, I mean,” he said.  “Sorry.”  His flush deepened; he had always avoided bringing up Sansa’s stint at the Rhode Island School of Design, and so had Sansa, who for a long time after its end had not so much as touched a piece of clay or chalk.  Now, she only shook her head.

“No, it’s all right,” she said.  “I haven’t been doing it for long.  But I read about this program online, and it looked like it would be interesting to try.  That, and my therapist encouraged me to try it.”  She shrugged.  “Plus, it’s not sculpture.  Drawing was never one of my niches back in the day.”

Jon nodded intently; but his gaze was one of empathy, not pity, and Sansa’s chest, which had tightened as she spoke, began to relax.  Not even Arya knew she had begun doing anything related to art again.

“Do you like it?”  Jon spoke so softly that Sansa barely heard him.  She looked up from her tablet and raised one eyebrow at him.

“The therapy or the art?” she asked.  Jon’s face reddened as he gazed out over the lake, although Sansa could not be sure how much of that was due to the rays of the setting sun beaming scarlet through the clouds.

“Both,” he said.  “I – well, if you feel like saying anything about it, and – I figured after all of this settles down – I’m thinking of moving out of New York, and it can’t hurt to talk to somebody impartial with different ideas.”

Sansa’s eyes widened, but she said nothing for some time.  Eventually Jon turned his gaze off of the lake and onto her.  He must have thought he had offended Sansa, for he looked crestfallen.  She hastily strode to his side and put a gentle hand on his arm.

“I think it’s a terrific idea,” she reassured him, “and I’m not just saying that either.  If it weren’t for my therapist, I don’t know if I’d have made it through this weekend.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy as hell for Arya and Gendry.  But I hate that this all makes me think of Joffrey, and I hate that I got so used to being with that scum that I fell apart so badly I couldn’t handle grad school without him, and  I really, really – ” her voice caught an edge, and she cleared her throat – “really hate being Sansa the spinster secretary when my man-hating sister is starting her happily ever after, you know?”  She shrugged and thumbed a tear away from each eye.  “It wasn’t really supposed to happen like this.”

Jon nodded, and his jaw twitched.  It took him a few minutes to reply.

“No,” he said at length.  “It isn’t.  Not that I get it exactly the way you do, but I do get it.”  He sighed, and his voice grew a bitter edge.  “You’re not supposed to be looking at engagement rings one day and get told you’re too boring to build a life with the next.”  He leaned down, retrieved a rock from the ground, and tossed it vehemently into the lake.  The ripples had not yet disappeared when Sansa realized that her hand was still on his other arm.

“You’re right,” she said, and Jon, who had just bent to pick up another rock, jerked around to face her.  His mouth was set in a tight line; but Sansa had felt the pain of both Joffrey Baratheon’s presence and his absence in her life too acutely not to recognize it on another’s face, or to miss the layers of moisture glinting on the surface of Jon’s eyes in the last rays of the sunset.

“You’re right,” she repeated.  “Sometimes you get a shitty ending instead of a happy one, and you end up being happy you’re a secretary instead of being horrified because you wanted to be a famous artist.”  She shrugged.  “Or a shitty middle.  Or a shitty…something in between.”  She squeezed Jon’s arm gently, and his whole body trembled when he exhaled.  He took a step toward her, and she thought he might say something when the loud twang of “Cotton-Eyed Joe” echoed across the grounds from the direction of the tent.  Sansa released Jon’s arm at once and nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Oh, brother,” she said when she could speak again.  “She’s more fixated on that stupid song than she is on flannel, and – oh, shit!”  She whirled to retrieve her tablet and throw her bag back over her shoulder.  “That’s their first dance!  And the next one’s supposed to be us, and – ”

Jon stared at her, bewildered.  “Us?”

Sansa gestured at him to hurry.  “The bridal party – next song – we’ll have to run!”

Jon’s eyes widened, but he retrieved his camera at once and turned to follow her.  They raced back the way they had come, and burst into the tent not a minute after the song had ended.

“Oh, there you are, Sansa,” Arya said, and turned toward the head table.  “Right.  Bridal party – out!”

Chairs scraped, bridesmaids giggled, groomsmen took hasty sips of beer as they stood, and Theon Greyjoy gave Jon a very amused look.

“So, Snow,” he said, “I see it didn’t take you long to find a girl.”

Jon flinched at that, and Sansa swept to his side, raised her arm, and smacked Theon straight across the back of the head.

“You heard her,” she said and jerked her head toward the dance floor as Theon cursed and clutched his own.  “Bridal party – out.”

She whirled around and marched to the middle of the dance floor, where the bridal party members were still shuffling to get into place – except for Gendry, who grinned and gave Sansa a high-five.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all weekend,” he muttered.  “Guy’s a pain in the ass.”

Sansa found herself grinning back at him.  When she turned around, she saw Jon standing next to her, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You hit a guy for me,” he said at last.  Sansa did not know whether he was horrified or amused until one corner of his mouth quirked upward.

Sansa shrugged.  “You hit a guy for me once at a wedding,” she replied.  “I still owe you for that.”

Jon shook his head.  “You don’t owe me anything,” he said gruffly.  “Besides, that was Jory’s doing too.”

Sansa nodded.  She had not thought of Joffrey’s attack on her at Robb’s wedding for some time; and when her memory had visited that night before, she had often struggled not to panic, let alone been able to bring it up to anyone aside from her therapist.  But Sansa did not panic now, and Jon was not just anyone, and she took a deep breath.  Then she smiled at him and nodded toward Jory, who was sitting next to Sansa’s parents with his wife Beth.

“Tell you what,” she said.  “If we can both get through this dance without tripping over Arya’s sash, I’ll get all three of us a drink.  Deal?”

Both corners of Jon’s mouth tilted upward this time.

“Deal,” he replied.