#i was only there for two years but turnover was so fast i ended up being the lead employee somehow

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

and yknow what. saying this as someone who has been in a work environment where i was ACTUALLY the only one who knew what i was doing and i was the only one capable of keeping things running, including the person who was technically in charge of me*:

even if izzy was right. even if izzy was the only one who kept ed's ship actually running. hell, even if lucius, pete, and wee john were actually slacking off when there was important things to be done!!

you do not effectively lead a team by yelling at them and telling everyone how useless they are and how much they suck. you don't get people to get off their ass and do their fucking job by screaming "BITCH" in their face. you don't!! get things done!!! if you just stand there and tell other people what to do!!!!!

*which is v much not the case w izzy and ed but i have seen this written into some fics, for some fucking reason

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Now That's What I Call Music! 7 2001 R&B / Hip Hop / Dance-Pop / Pop / Teen Pop / Alternative Rock / Pop-Rock

Hey, gang, it's time for another look back at some of those early 2000s, with this spoonful of top 40 and radio nostalgia, provided by the most pervasive compilation series that the US has and will probably ever know, the one and only Now That's What I Call Music!

So, let's first set the mood right with an ad for this particular release, shall we? And, by the way, when you order it by credit card or check/debit, you'll also receive a Now sunglass case absolutely free! Wow!! 😲😎🆒

So, this seventh installment of Now actually appears to represent a pretty significant change for this whole series, because, for the first time, with this highly popular enterprise that had been pretty much aimed exclusively at kids, the executive decision was finally made to *really* let hip hop in. See, prior to this album, the first six volumes of Now had only ever included a total of *three* rap tunes on them: Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life," Mystikal's "Shake It Fast," and The Rugrats Movie theme, "Take Me There," by Blackstreet and Mýa, featuring Blinky Blink and Mase (and if you wanna be charitable, there was also Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" too, I guess). So, with a pretty glaring omission of a very popular genre such as hip hop, those releases made for predominant blends of mostly teen pop, adult contemporary, and radio-friendly alterna-rock. And that no doubt still yielded a solid reproduction of hits from the conglomeration of labels that agreed to join forces and put out these CDs and cassettes in the first place, but they were also pretty clearly somewhat incomplete too.

But with this album, things were starting to shift around a bit, and rap was getting its due at the expense of less alterna-rock, and since the boy band wars were coming to a close, slightly less teen pop as well. So, on this seventh volume of Now, we finally see five songs that could be categorized as hip hop: Nelly's "Ride Wit Me;" Mystikal's "Danger (Been So Long);" R. Kelly's "Fiesta Remix," which featured Jay-Z and Boo & Gotti; Eve's "Let Me Blow Ya Mind;" and The Neptunes' remix of the Backstreet Boys' "The Call," which featured Clipse. Clearly, a very big and sudden change here.

But of course, there was still some teen pop, alterna-rock, and a whole lot of R&B to surround all this newly introduced rap music too. And no tune among them happened to go any harder than Destiny's Child's' "Survivor," a song that took the group's criticisms and jokes made about their own personnel turnover to task and ended up resulting in the most ferocious and intense single that they'd ever made; an absolute, certified, string-frenzied banger that you can cathartically wallop a punching bag to 🥊😤. Beyoncé's entry is just so electrifying on this one, and the chorus' constant background chants of "What?" à la DMX, are super infectious too.

And following that one, in order to calm things down a bit, was Janet Jackson's relaxed dance-pop smash, "All for You," which goes on a little bit of a disco tip of its own, thanks to its sampling of those rich keys from Change's "The Glow of Love," a 1980 song that, just two years prior, had also been famously sampled by UK dance duo Phats & Small for their own enormous global house hit, "Turn Around." And to bring all of this full circle here, guess what the name of Phats & Small's debut album was that included that "Turn Around" tune on it? Now Phats What I Small Music! 😮

Also, who could forget that socially conscious and gratuitously gritty portrayal of impoverished single motherhood, "What Would You Do," by New Jersey one-hit wonder City High, that also happened to be a total singalong bop and managed to climb all the way up to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100? And it had that iconic, completely unexpected beat change on its bridge to Dr. Dre's "The Next Episode" too? Huh?!? A pretty essential entry for one of those 'Only Y2K Kids Will Remember These Songs' kinda list, though, I think.

And yet, despite the fact that 2000 and 2001 had clearly produced a lot of quality mainstream hip hop and R&B tunes, the most played song on American radio in 2001 was still a rock track. And, absurdly, it was that inescapable piece of soft and tamed post-grunge, "Hanging by a Moment," by Christian contemporary band Lifehouse. Certainly a fun one to listen back to and reminisce on, but in hindsight, it also happens to sound like pretty damn generic garbage 😅. And the ridiculous Eddie Vedder/Scott Weiland/Scott Stapp vocal affect definitely didn't help things either. How did we all just sit there and, not only tolerate, but fully embrace that gimmick for so long?! It's so bad!

And last, but certainly not least, on this album is American Hi-Fi's "Flavor of the Weak," a super catchy tune that, along with SR-71's "Right Now," really seemed to presage that whole Warped Tour-branded deluge of safety scissors-power pop-mall punk that was on the way. That pair of similar singles would come out in the latter half of 2000 and hit big on Billboard's alternative chart, and then acts like New Found Glory, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, and Avril Lavigne would all soon achieve fame over the next couple years. And as stupid as it was, you have to admit that the "too stoned; Nintendo" line was actually also kinda perfect!

So, a bit of a different excursion here with this seventh volume of Now. And maybe it was a little risky too, to change the formula in order to include a whole lot more hip hop on it, especially when plenty of parents were still very averse to allowing their kids to listen to the genre. But those fears were most likely assuaged when the numbers started rolling in: #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, the series' highest opening week in sales at 621,000 copies sold, a triple-platinum seller, and their first installment to hit Billboard's Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart too, managing to peak at #3. Volume 7 was one of the series' biggest commercial successes to date, and it clearly proved that the hip hop was certainly capable of helping the series move some serious units 🤑.

Another terrific trip down memory lane here, courtesy of this extremely popular series 🥰.

Highlights:

Destiny's Child - "Survivor" Janet Jackson - "All for You" Samantha Mumba - "Baby, Come Over (This Is Our Night)" Jennifer Lopez - "Play" Backstreet Boys - "The Call (Neptunes Remix W/ rap)" 3LW - "Playas Gon' Play" Nelly feat. City Spud - "Ride Wit Me" Mystikal feat. Nivea - "Danger (Been So Long)" R. Kelly feat. Jay-Z, Boo, Gotti - "Fiesta Remix" Eve - "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" City High - "What Would You Do" Lifehouse - "Hanging by a Moment" American Hi-Fi - "Flavor of the Weak"

[plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows]

Here's something I was thinking about irt Cybertron and its gnarly space ingredients: Cybertron has only had one mass extinction event. Two if you count the war. Whereas on Earth we're on number 6 if you just count the big ones. I'm thinking that there's something about Earth that makes our evolutionary turnover rates crazy fast compared to the rest of the galaxy. Maybe it's the chaos god robo-cocaine.

Make that 7; the Capitanian extinction event is a Big One in its own right. :D And there's two in the Cambrian and one at the end of the Ediacaran that also likely measure highly in severity, it's just that we know shit all about them due to very little preserved evidence.

(and then also consider that Cybertron's civilization lasted for like 4 billion years and they only have two extinction events to show for it, one of which is self-inflicted, vs. Earth, with between 7 and 20 mass extinction events depending on who u ask, within only about 542 million years.)

Anon u have no idea how much I love this idea, I'm folding it into my TF Belief System effective immediately <333

Here's the thing: plate tectonics, and things that are probably mostly related to plate tectonics, are implicated* in not just all of the big mass extinction events (prior to the current one, which is really just our fault) but also like... most of the smaller ones too. Plate tectonics as they work on Earth are pretty much just an Earth thing - there are other planets which have some sort of tectonic activity, but none of them match our mobile-lid style.

*correlation vs. causation is in question for a lot of these; eg. how much of a role Deccan Traps volcanism played in the K-PG extinction vs the Chicxulub impactor is up for debate. With that said, it's likely that in most cases mass extinctions occur via a number of processes which all kind of interact and make each other worse. (It's just that several of those individual processes might be ultimately caused by the stuff we fold under the umbrella of 'plate tectonics.)

What's probably mostly related to plate tectonics? A good chunk of large igneous provinces - both associated with the opening of ocean basins (CAMP, NAIP, Karoo-Ferrar etc.) and the closing of them (Emeishan, Wrangellia). Significant (non-glacial) sea level changes, and changes in ocean current circulation, both in response to reorganization of continents in regards to each other. Significant climatic changes - as a result of large-scale volcanism, or just large-scale increases in weathering/erosion caused by mountain-building. And a bunch of other second- and third-order phenomena that can result from all of the above things, such as episodes of ocean anoxia, large-scale degassing of various shit out of volcanics into the atmosphere, ocean acidification, so on and so forth. You can even link the current icehouse period to plate tectonic processes, although the icehouse climate itself isn't thought to have much to do with extinction rates beyond creating a climate which worked great for the eventual rise of humans...

What causes plate tectonics? We think it has something to do with convection cells in the mantle, but tbh we kind of aren't sure. The main driver of plate motion is subduction - plates essentially being pulled down into the mantle. How did this get started? And also when? There's evidence of some form of plate tectonics from very early in our planet's history, but whether this is similar to modern regimes, and whether it has continued to the modern day or quit and had a break for a while... there's a lot of uncertainty.

So, looking at this from a TF-specific lens... 👀👀👀

I genuinely think that making Unicron be the actual core of Earth is one of the most interesting sci-fi worldbuilding decisions TF canon has made. There are SO MANY IMPLICATIONS. You could tie it in to the Giant Impact Hypothesis and the creation of the goddamn moon, potentially the LLSVPs (which may be the source of some hotspots), the motion of the mantle, initiation and drivers of plate tectonics, and through that the supercontinent cycle, and all of the fun stuff I mentioned above. And THEN there's also the question of how intertwined these things are with the development of life.

(and that's without getting into the chaos-god robo-cocaine. XDD)

[robert-the-greyhound]

"Need Gone by Friday"

There's a phrase that floats around the Greyhound Rescue World that makes the hair on all seasoned rescuers neck stand on end. "Need Gone", usually accompanied by a short deadline. Greyhounds who don't earn their keep simply have to go, and if there's no rescue space available, well, then they'll be dealt with in other ways, and will still be gone by the end of the week.

The calls often come on "Dump Day", Monday morning. After a weekend of racing and vets clinics being closed, Monday brings trainers to the door, dogs in the back, to be put to sleep. Then come the desperate calls from the veterinary staff. "Can you take a greyhound?", "Do you know anyone who will take a Greyhound?", "Space for a Greyhound?".

And the reality is there never truly is space. Kennels are already full. Hounds who have waited their turn on wait lists, hounds saved from the kill list in pounds, hounds picked up off the side of the street, and often, last week's Need Gone Grey's. The desperate calls to every rescue in the country might pull up a short term foster or an emergency kennel space but it's never a proper solution and just puts even more strain on already overburdened rescues. The GRI and Pro-Racers claim that most Greyhounds are rehomed, but continue to count Greyhounds being dumped on private rescues as rehoming.

I recently had a discussion with a trainer who didn't see anything wrong with "moving on" hounds from their kennel to a pound for 'rehoming'. They claimed that "We can't keep them all" and didn't see any issue with that statement. One of the hallmarks for an ethical, responsible dog breeder is 'backup for life', in which a dog can always return to the breeder for rehoming should the home situation go belly up. For Greyhounds, overbred by 1000% by the gambling industry's demand for fast dogs, this statement doesn't apply. Breeders churn out litters, cherry pick the fastest and to hell with the rest. They are only "wastage" right? To them, the dog has to earn a kennel space, and if it's not earning it's keep, then it simply has to go.

No other dog sport requires such a high turnover of dogs to function. You'll never see an ex-flyball dog on the kill list in a pound, or a rescue dedicated to ex-agility dogs. And why is that? Because those are actual dog sports, where people and their pets compete for fun, a few titles and perhaps a small prize. Greyhound racing is an industry, built on overbreeding, exploitation and discarding of healthy dogs to the tune of 6000 a year according to industry commissioned reports.

The latest "need gone" call came, as usual, on a Monday, and featured four greyhounds in need of rescuing. Two young dogs, around two years of age, and two older dogs. The second I heard "Four Greyhounds", my heart sank. Finding space for one hound is difficult enough as is, let alone four. The fact that the dogs were apparently nervous, particularly one of the older ones didn't help the situation. By the end of the day, I'd say every rescue this side of the country was involved in finding space for these hounds, and unfortunately, one did end up being euthanised. Three out of four is a miracle on such short notice, but I cant help but mourn the one. The one hound who never got to know life outside of the industry built around her exploitation. The one hound who perhaps, with time and care, could grow in confidence and blossom into a beautiful, happy hound. The one hound who didn't make it.

"Need Gone", the sentence that signs the death notice for so many Greyhounds across the country. Sounds to me that the only thing that "needs gone" is the Industry built on the exploitation of these gentle dogs. If you love dogs, don't support Greyhound Racing.

TW: #AnimalAbuse, #AnimalNeglect, #AnimalDeath, #DogAbuse, #DogNeglect, #DogDeath, #Euthanisation

[fatefulfaerie]

Domesticity

Zelink Week 2021 prompt #5/7 @zelinkweek2021

Word Count: 1,951

Incarnation: Breath of the Wild 2 (post)

Additional Prompts Followed: Hearts, Family

No Trigger Warnings

“Is one of us dying?”

The feast was definitely unsettling to Wendie, and although she was mostly joking, she couldn’t help but think that such a nice dinner at such a random time of the year was odd. Of course her dad was a great cook, but this was a step above, despite there being no family birthdays for at least three months and no holidays for five.

“No,” her mother said as she placed on the table a large bowl of goat-buttered mashed potatoes, one of Wendie’s favorite foods. She had said it with a slight motherly laugh and a warm smile. “No one is dying. We’re just having a family dinner.”

The mother, who went by the name Zelda, had aged gracefully over the past twenty years, blonde hair highlighted with streaks of white that her husband would often call angelic and ethereal when she would doubt her beauty. At the moment, her age-hued hair was swept into a single braid behind her head, messy yet secure.

“Our family dinners aren’t usually this elaborate,” Wendie observed. “You made mashed potatoes and seafood rice balls—which is Elyjah’s favorite food—grilled carrots, meat pie, mushroom skewers and you have an apple turnover on the counter for dessert!”

“Nothing gets past you,” her father said, putting a bowl of baked and salted radishes on the table. His blue eyes looked over to Zelda. “I think we raised them too smart.”

“Nonsense,” Zelda said, walking forward and using the rag that was just draped over her shoulder to wipe a smattering of flour off of Link’s forehead. “Where’s Elyjah?”

Wendie made a sound that sounded a lot like a lazy “I don’t know” while shrugging her shoulders where she sat at the table.

“He can just eat when he gets home,” Wendie reasoned. “There’s more than enough food.”

Wendie didn’t see her parents exchange glances, the seventeen-year old not caring in the slightest that her twin brother wasn’t here to ruin her first dibs on dinner.

“I’ll try and find him,” Zelda said with a sigh, Wendie looking back up at her parents. Link nodded as Zelda departed. Wendie once again questioned what was going on.

“Ly!” The father and daughter heard outside, Zelda from just the doorstep of their modest Hateno home calling out to the entirety of Hyrule. Link sat down across from his daughter, elbows on the table and arms folded into each other. The deep thought he was in concerned Wendie greatly. He wouldn’t even meet her glance. Was she in trouble?

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

Elyjah.

Of all the people to be in trouble, surely it was him. He had never gotten into anything truly bad but he was the biggest prankster in Hateno. The only shop he wasn’t banned from was the dye shop. The green-eyed troublemaker was here nonetheless and Wendie prepared herself for another fun show. Zelda moved to sit down next to Link at the table but Elyjah stopped as soon as he saw the table, mouth popped open and body frozen.

“Is someone dying?”

He had looked over to his sister when he asked the question.

“Yeah,” she said. “You.”

“What?” Elyjah asked, almost believing it.

“Wendie, that’s enough now,” Zelda said, before looking over to her son. “No one is dying. We would just like to talk to you both.”

Elyjah sat next to Wendie with the same bewildered look as her, trying to figure out what it was before their parents spit it out. It was like Hylia’s Day presents except they didn’t have a good feeling about this, especially when Link took Zelda’s hand and looked at their children, ready to address them.

And yet it was Zelda who started.

“Do you two remember the fairytale we used to tell you?” Zelda inquired, her voice shaky. “The bedtime story? Of the princess and the knight?”

Neither Elyjah nor Wendie had any clue of the relevance, but they both remembered the tale well.

“The one with the weird ending?” Wendie asked nonetheless. “Where he rescued her and then that was it?”

“Yeah,” Elyjah said. “Didn’t they just stare at each other in silence? After all they had been through, it seemed like there should have been more.”

Link dove his hand into his forehead.

“Zelda, you could have given them a better ending,” Link suggested.

Zelda scoffed and put her hands on her hips.

“It was a lesson in imagination,” she said. “And clearly none of you have any.”

“But that’s besides the point…” Link said, prompting Zelda in a different direction.

“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding at Link and returning her gaze to their children, confused as ever. And yet she smiled at them.

“You both have grown up so fast,” Zelda said. “We both love you very much and cannot believe that you have blossomed right before our eyes into adults.”

Zelda’s smile became sad and she bowed her head.

“You see it’s a lot easier to lie to children.”

Wendie’s brow furrowed.

“Lie…” she repeated from her mother.

When Zelda’s head tilted back up, green was glazed with waves of coming tears, making the emeralds that Link fell in love with a hundred years ago shine even brighter.

“That fairytale…” Zelda said. “The princess who used her sealing power to keep away Calamity Ganon and the knight who slept in a ruined Hyrule for a hundred years in order to recover from his injuries and save her…”

Zelda stopped herself. Twenty years of keeping it in and it seems it wanted to stay in. She wrestled with her conflicted heart, kept it at bay long enough for her to blurt it out.

“It’s true,” Zelda said, no weakness in her voice, no lie, no apprehension. “The knight and the princess really did fight the calamity, really did survive a century to see it through and then some. Once they tracked down the cause of the anomaly, destroying the true form of Ganon, they settled down in Hateno. They got married and eventually gave life to twins, a boy and a girl.” Zelda’s eyes were proud as she looked upon her children, although they glistened with tears. Her heart hurt to see their faces in shock, but the outspoken truth felt better than she could have imagined. She felt Link’s grip tighten around her fingers.

“You both have royal blood in you,” Zelda said. “Even though I stepped away from the throne in the search of a simpler, more fulfilling life, you both still have claim to the titles of Prince Elyjah and Princess Wendie. We wanted you to know in case that path would prove fulfilling for you and…well, now that you’re adults you have the right to know the truth.”

Wendie stood up and walked out of the house, her parents not daring to stop her. Elyjah, however, just sat in shock, piecing it all together in his mind. Link and Zelda both could see his green eyes working, much like his mother’s did when she went over schematics or theorized about plant life.

“The story,” he finally started, “everything you went through…the pressure…you wanted to protect us from that…you wanted to give us the childhood you never had…that neither of you had.”

Link nodded.

“That’s right.”

Elyjah pursed his lips and nodded. Sometimes he was just like his dad. He shrugged.

“Okay,” he said, replacing his empty plate with the one filled with the seafood rice balls meant for the whole family. “Cool,” he continued, or at least it sounded like the word “cool”, his mouth mostly filled with rice.

Link raised his eyebrows and looked over at Zelda.

“Apparently we’re…cool.” Link said the last word as if it were completely foreign.

“Not all of us,” Zelda reminded her husband. She started to stand up. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

Yet Link placed a hand on her arm.

“I’ll go,” Link said. “You stay and enjoy the food.”

Link found his daughter on the banks of Firly Pond, knees hugged close to her chest and water lapping at her bare toes.

At first he waited with his hand on the bark of the near apple tree, pursing his lips. Sometimes he was thrust back in time twenty years, when he felt he had no idea how to be a dad. This was one of those moments.

Link saw in his mind’s eye Wendie’s big blue eyes staring up at him, stubby arms reaching for him. He smiled. She grew up so fast.

“I know you’re there,” he heard Wendie say. She didn’t turn her head away from the pond. “Did you come to give me a speech?”

Link walked towards her.

“Maybe.”

He sat down next to her and Wendie only gave him the smallest of glances.

“I feel like I don’t know my parents at all,” she finally said.

Link nodded.

“I understand.” He said. “I don’t agree, but I understand.”

Wendie looked over to his profile, trying to ascertain how he could be serious. The calamity was real and her parents fought it. Sheikah technology really could heal fatal wounds and the goddesses power really was wielded by a mortal, not to mention her own mother, who never seemed like a princess in the slightest. Her father was a knight in a kingdom that really did exist and she?

Well she was a princess. This whole time, she was a princess. The girl who was called the “ugly duckling” of the family as a child was a princess in peasant’s clothing. She almost wanted to go brag to the town, but that seemed petty for just a small ounce of appreciation from the people her age who used to tease her when they would play as children.

Her parents were legends and in comparison, what was she?

Definitely not a princess.

“You know us as what we became after everything we went through,” Link finally said, having taken the time to get his words together. “The people we were before…”

He hesitated.

“We were nothing more than what the kingdom wanted us to be…statues, legends, weapons…we were never fully ourselves, and we could never afford to be ourselves with an entire kingdom looking at us to save them from a calamity. The slivers that were left of us found a friendship in each other, one that grew into love in time. After everything was settled, we began to truly find ourselves, basking in the freedom to do so. It’s something that usually occurs in a fifteen year old but your mother and I were a hundred and twenty years old when we solved the identity crisis. She did not want to be royalty and I did not want to be a knight. When we finally did not need to be those things, we took our first breaths as Link and Zelda. We wanted our children to take those breaths from the very second they were born, and that is why we let you grow up before we told you the truth. We wanted royalty to be an option for you two, not a necessity. We wanted you to become yourselves, not tiny versions of us. I only hope we have…at least I think we have.”

Wendie smiled.

“You have,” she said. “If you want your daughter to have absolutely no idea what she wants to do with her life.”

Link brought his daughter closer by hugging her far shoulder, bringing her close enough to kiss the top of her head.

“That’s exactly what I want,” he said. It sounded strange but Link didn’t mean it as a bad thing. “Because finding out your passion for yourself is the most exciting thing in this entire wild land.”

[antiloreolympus]

6 Anti LO Asks

1. Artist here: that pay Rachel is offering is in fact underpaying, especially considering how much inks and flats actually make up of the final product and how, according to her, 20 panels is a third of an entire episode. I’m not dunking on her for needing help, but she is clearly undervaluing her assistants, especially when she will see all the profits, not them for doing the bulk of her work. That’s not fair and is predatory for Rachel to take advantage of her young fans’ worship of her to get cheap work that only she benefits from. I really expected better from her. 

2. To add to the art discourse, the people saying it’d only take “30-45 minutes” are not realizing the work would be done by someone who is not used to working in Rachel’s style (or lack thereof) meaning they aren’t used to her workflow and thus there will be a learning curve, meaning the actual time would likely be longer, especially when its on a time crunch and not fiat colors and inks are the bulk of the actual work. More so, she confirms LO eps are only 60 panels, then that one person has to do 1/3rd of the entire episode. That’s a bad look no matter how you cut it. 

3. am i the only one who is looking at this discourse and just being concerned her team has such a high turnover rate and theyre working on such a time crunch? like a big turnover rate can explain why the art looks even worse now, but the time?? girl please take some actual time off and make a backlog instead of asking for cheap, rushed work from ppl who dont know how to emulate ur style the week of. no wonder the end product looks like that?? she seems stressed and burned out, tbh.

4. i dont think the issue is rachel needs help (tho the fact she has a 5+ person team its like ??? ma'am what do you do exactly) but i dont really get how other people are just kissing up to her like I GET PAID EVEN WORSE THIS IS GOOD PAY like??? no?? use this situation to demand better pay and conditions?? because lets be real here rachel is easily making more than all her art team combined so like, dont excuse her actions, demand both her team AND yourselves get better pay.

5. ngl the best part of the pay debate is ppl trying to defend her by being like its supposed to look rushed and flat!! like no its not??? ive seen many other webtoons who only have one or two ppl working on it and its light years better than what LO produces on a whole art team. also isnt that insulting her lmao. like its SUPPOSED to look awful with no effort put into it!! how is that a defense lmao, it just seems like dunking on her for her bad final product disguised as a "gotcha" statement 💀

6. really not a fan of the webtoon creators being like "youre jus JEALOUS!!" when its like?? i want every webtoonist to be paid well, i dont give a shit rachel makes more money off fast pass and books, who cares, i just want everyone on webtoons to get a living wage and benefits, not hoping the marketing team pumps a bunch of ads for them like they do for rachel. rachel herself should be advocating for them getting better too, not having them resort to "my haters" defense to appease her ego.

[defensefilms]

The Milwaukee Bucks Are 2021 NBA Champions

After 6 games and some absolutely heart-stopping defensive plays, The Milwaukee Bucks are officially the 2021 NBA champions, defeating the Phoenix Suns 

In a game that started nervously for both teams, with the Suns struggling to score in the 1st quarter and then the Bucks struggling in the 2nd quarter. The Suns even came back from an 18 point deficit and kept the lead for most of the 2nd quarter.

In a completely fitting ending and career defining performance, Giannis Attentekounmpo had his playoff high in career points. A staggering 50 points, 14 rebounds, 2 assists and 5 blocks in game of stops that eventually came down to who had the best player.

The third quarter was a close run affair though the Suns lead by 7 points at the start of the 2nd half that lead would utterly dis-integrate after an emphatic Brook Lopez dunk. 

The Suns would manage just 6-25 from 3-point range and the Bucks weren’t much better on that front either, a paltry 6-27 didn’t matter for the eventual champions.

The score was tied at 77-77 at the start of the 4th quarter. 

The Bucks edged in to a slight lead after a Jrue Holiday pull-up 3 and Bobby Portis turning down a 3 and getting to the basket on the next possession.

And while we’re at it, let’s take a moment to give a standing ovation to Bobby Portis. +16 in +/- for the game, he was 6-10 from the field, shot the ball with cold blooded confidence, mostly off of one the dribble, had 16 points, 3 rebounds and a block and made some absolutely critical shots. He proved to be an x-factor in a game that turned in to two teams that wanted to get to the basket and every look was contested.

That moment where he prevented Chris Paul getting to the ref after the ball went out of bounds on a Bucks fast break lay-up. Absolute. Just exemplified the edge that he brings, understanding how much of the Suns game was gonna be based on pressuring the refs. 

Giannis’ free throws gave the Bucks a slight lead and Bucks led 94-88 with just over 6 minutes to play and you know what time it is when it’s close in the 4th for Milwaukee and once again, Khris Middleton made huge shots, absolutely clutch once again. 

First he made a shot off the dribble over Devin Booker with just over 4 minutes remaining to make the score 96-90 . Then with the game winding down to the final minute, Khris again comes round an off ball screen, gets the ball from Giannis and makes a Kobe-esque midrange pull-up, to ice the game. 

With that the moment had arrived and the Milwaukee Bucks could once again call themselves NBA champions for the first time since 1971. 

So why did the Suns lose this series?

A week and a half ago, the media were predicting that the Suns would sweep the Bucks. So how did we get to this point.

1) Lack of Size and front court depth

Earlies this season, the Denver Nuggets signed, Aaron Gordon and although what resulted for them was 

Deandre Ayton was the biggest casualty of this lack of front court support. The idea that we saw Frank Kaminsky for the first time in game 6 of the series is not a good look at all. When Dario Saric went down, Monty Williams should have leaned on the veteran big a little bit more than he did.

The Suns basically had their normal line-up which is a small ball line-up and then they had a smaller lineup than even that. 

2) 3-point shooting negated and no big contributions from role players

When you look at the individual contributions of each player on either team, it’s clear why the Suns lost. Mikal Bridges and Jae Crowder looked like they would be among the reasons the  Suns would go on to win this series.

Instead they were largely neutralized. Smooth ball movement and the open looks that it generates were harder and harder to come by an they did not impact the shooting throughout the rest of the series. Bridges had 27 points in game 2 but was nowhere near that output as the Bucks defense wore the Suns shooters down. Crowder scored in double digits  for a large part of the series and he averaged 41% from 3-point distance. His 2-9 in game 6 hurt the Suns more than any of his his individual games.

As a team the Suns were held to 38.4% from 3 for the series.

3) Chris Paul 

There will be much made about CP3′s series but where we should start in analyzing his problems is with Jrue Holiday. 

Once Jrue Holiday was assigned to pressure CP3 full court, it definitely altered what CP wanted to do. 

Chris Paul’s turnover at the end of game 4, was a gut-wrenching moment and it permeated the rest of the series. You wondered if CP3 had another 30 point game in him like he did in game 1.

 The issue is it was followed by average performances in game 4 and 5. Then in game 6 CP manages 26 points and just 5 assists but he had 3 turnovers. He lead his team in scoring in the close out game but does that negate what you saw over the course of a series where he got worse and by the time he found his aggression in game 6.

Devin Booker is not blame-free either. He definitely didn’t help in game 6 when he shoots 8-22 from the field. His 19 points is a big dip from the back to back 40 point games he had in games 4 and 5. 

Ultimately the media will point the finger at the guy they saw or appointed as the leader and that’s Chris Paul. CP didn’t bother shaking hands with his finals opponents before vacating the court, the kind of bad sportsmanship that people tend to excuse from Chris Paul.

For the Finals MVP, and the only player that should have ever even been considered for Finals MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo now joins the rarified air of Hakeem Olajuwon, in being a player of African descent to win an NBA championship.

He is also among the few to win MVP, DPOY and Finals MVP. I believe Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan are the other two. 

For me personally, it’s rewarding to see this guy in this position, he joins Hakeem, Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam, Festuz Ezeli and Nazi Muhammad as African players who also became NBA champions. This is a global event here people, couldn’t be any more proud of Giannis, he was one the big reason I started this blog.

Next year it’s Joel Embiid.

[junker-town]

Western Illinois, Year 40, 2046-2047

The final season of our sim dynasty with Western Illinois in College Hoops 2K8 is here.

Welcome back to our simulated dynasty with the Western Illinois Leathernecks in College Hoops 2K8. You can find a full explanation of this project + spoiler-free links to previous seasons here. Check out the introduction to this series from early April 2020 for full context. As a reminder, we simulate every game in this series and only control the recruiting and coaching strategies. Dynasty mode runs for 40 years.

Before we pick up with the Leathernecks at the start of Year 40, here’s a recap of everything that happened last season:

Western Illinois entered Year 39 trying to three-peat as national champions for the first time in program history. We lost two starters early to the NBA coming into the season, but still had enough talent to be ranked No. 10 overall in the preseason polls.

We ran through the regular season schedule, losing only one game to UCLA during the non-conference season and sweeping Summit League opponents once again. We entered the NCAA tournament at 29-1 on the year and earned a No. 4 seed to the big dance.

We beat Brown in round one, knocked off Georgia Tech in the round of 32, beat Indiana in the Sweet 16, and lost to Florida in the Elite Eight. We know enter the final season of my career tied with John Wooden with 10 national championships.

We added three players in our last ever recruiting class: five-star JUCO SF Jerald Obasohan, four-star SG Erwin Walls, and four-star PF Kenny Butler.

Here’s a first look at our roster for Year 40:

It feels like only yesterday that a fresh-faced, 25-year-old came to the small town of Macomb, Illinois with big dreams. Coach Rick was hired by Western Illinois to do the impossible: win a national championship with arguably the worst team in college basketball. After 39 seasons at the helm, our tiny program has accomplished that and so much more. Now it’s time to hang it up.

Our journey at Western Illinois is finally coming to an end. In literal terms, College Hoops 2K8 forces mandatory retirement upon coaches in dynasty mode after 40 seasons. All good stories need closure either way. As we start our final season, we have some big stakes attached to our swan song.

Western Illinois has won 10 national championships in the Ricky Charisma era. That ties us with UCLA legend John Wooden for the most in history. What started as a mission to win a single national championship has now left us with a different goal: to become the undisputed greatest program in the history of the sport.

While we failed in our bid to three-peat last season — falling to Florida in the Elite Eight — we did bring back all four breakout juniors for this season. We only lost starting center DJ Foster to graduation. Yeah, it’s been a while since we last published Year 39 (thanks for your patience), so let’s go over the roster:

PG Christano Ngounou, junior, 89 overall: Ngounou made major strides after being forced into the starting lineup last season, and now looks like a rock solid contributor going into our final year. An international recruit out of Cameroon, Ngounou is a fast 6’3 guard with lockdown defensive ability and a slightly above average three-point shot. We have bigger names on this squad who will be expected to carry the scoring load, but Ngounou is going to play a huge role because he’s way better than every other point guard on the roster. We need quality minutes from him in the tournament. Former five-star international recruit with B potential.

SG Bernie Doyle, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Doyle is an incredible talent who enters his senior year looking to fully blossom into a superstar. The 6’9 shooting guard uses his immense size on both ends of the floor. He’s elite at getting into the passing lanes and forcing steals (a team-high 1.8 per game as a junior) on the defensive end, and has a sweet three-point stroke offensively. Doyle is such a smooth scorer and dominant defender that it feels like he has the natural talent to develop into an all-great in his senior year. Let’s hope he’s up to the challenge. Former No. 36 overall recruit from Detroit with C potential. Projected lottery pick.

SF Floyd Keller, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Keller checks every box for a small forward. He has good size at 6’7. He has a three-point rating in the mid-80s. He’s the best dunker on the team. He’s an elite offensive rebounder for a wing with a rating in the low 90s, which helps equip him to play minutes at the four. After a tough shooting night in our Elite Eight loss last season — he went 1-for-7 from three — we’ll need Keller to be consistently great if we want one more run through the bracket. Former No. 101 overall recruit out of Dallas with C+ potential. Projected second round pick.

PF Oscar Fray, redshirt senior, 88 overall: Fray enters his third year as a starter with a fascinating combination of size and skill that could set him up for a breakout senior year. The 7-foot power forward is a great three-point shooter for his position with a rating just below 80. Defensively, he’s the top-rated shot blocker on the team, and also does a pretty good job on the glass. Former No. 118 overall recruit out of Lynn, MA with C potential. Projected second round pick.

C Brody Munoz, redshirt senior, 92 overall: Munoz finally gets the spotlight as a senior after backing up DJ Foster — a one-time NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player — for his entire career up to this point. We’re expected big things, and not just because he’s tied for the highest rated player on the roster going into the regular season. What Munoz lacks in elite size at 6’11 he can make up for with strength, agility, and rebounding. We expect him to be really good at forcing turnovers, grabbing putbacks, and helping fortify the paint. Former No. 169 overall recruit (No. 6 center) out of Nashville with B potential. Projected lottery pick.

We have an incredibly deep bench for our final season. Center Logan Polk (85 overall) will be our sixth man, and should be able to form a three-man front court rotation with the two starters in the tournament. After that, we have a lot of options but not a lot of good options.

Here’s the rest of the bench: wing Jaycee Queen (80 overall), wing Jerald Obasohan (79 overall), guard Archie Howell (78 overall), wing/guard James Haranga (74 overall), guard Edwin Walls (74 overall), and power forward Kenny Butler (74 overall).

This is really it. Year 40. The last dance. What a ride it has been. We start the season at No. 4 in the polls.

How did the regular season go?

For our final regular season, we tried to schedule a good mix of local schools and historic big conference rivals with a couple in-season tournaments thrown in for good measure.

Here’s how the regular season went:

Win over Bradley

Win over Nebraska

Win over UTEP

Loss to Southern Illinois

Win over Florida

Loss to Northwestern

Win over New Mexico

Win over DePaul

That sets up a rivalry game against Illinois. We’ve played the Illini in almost every season, and we don’t want to end this dynasty without one more dub. The losses to Southern Illinois and Northwestern were a real bummer, and we need a palate cleanser. Let’s go!

Big win, 102-68. Look at Cristano Ngounou hanging 17 points and six assists on the Illini. Love seeing both starters in the front court — seniors Oscar Fray (13 points, 10 rebounds) and Brody Munoz (18 points, 11 rebounds) — each dropping a double-double, too. And how about our new five-star JUCO addition Obasohan chipping in 12 points off the bench? Really promising performance from the boys.

We get a big win over Kansas in our next game. That sets up another marquee game with a program we don’t like very much out of the state of North Carolina: Duke. We’ve battling with Duke on the court and on the recruiting trail for 40 freaking years. Can we end this rivalry with a dub?

Ugh, loss, 88-83. Nice games from Bernie Doyle (19 points, four assists) and Oscar Fray (14 points, 12 rebounds), but it isn’t enough. That’s our third loss of the season. Get bent, Duke.

We end the year with three more non-conference games.

Win over Illinois-Chicago

Win over American

Win over Arizona State

While we may have lost the final battle to Duke, I won the war over Coach K with a significantly better career by any measure (more on that in a minute). Now it’s time to jump into conference play in the Summit League.

Did we go undefeated in conference season?

Yes we did, another perfect 18-0 stretch.

Now we enter the conference tournament. Can we punch one more automatic bid to the NCAA tournament?

Win over UMKC

Win over Southern Utah

Win over UL-Calcutta

We’re going to the NCAA tournament for the last time, but that isn’t even the headliner after winning the Summit League. Im taking home the conference tournament championship, I won game No. 1,171 of my career. That currently puts me ahead of Coach K for the most wins all-time.

We have built a great legacy at Western Illinois. Before we enter the NCAA tournament, let’s take a look at our statistical leaders:

What a year for Munoz. Dude sat on the bench for four seasons before finally getting a starting spot, and all he did was lead our team in scoring at 17.2 points per game. Fray was awesome, too, averaging a hair under 15 points per game while chipping in nearly two blocks and six rebounds per game. It’s good to see Keller and Doyle both hit double-figures in scoring. I’m a bit surprised Cristano couldn’t even put up seven points a night after his big game against Illinois, but the assist and steals numbers are solid. We’re going to need him in March.

The Leathernecks are heading into the NCAA tournament at 32-3 on the year. I can’t wait to see what seed we get.

2047 NCAA tournament

Well, we couldn’t end this dynasty without getting swindled by the Selection Committee one more time. We’re a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament. I thought we should have been a top-four seed without question.

We’ll open the tournament with a game against No. 11 seed Syracuse. Sheesh. Before we get to the game, let’s check in on our roster one more time:

I’m loving the way this group progressed through the year. We have two awesome wing scorers with an elite combination of size and shooting in Keller and Doyle. We have plenty of beef up front with Munoz, Fray, and Polk. Ngounou entered the program as a 77 overall and shot up to a 92 in three years without a redshirt. The bench also really improved during the season and should give us plenty of different lineup options in March.

This is going to be a tough run, starting with Syracuse. The Orange have knocked us out of the big dance before, and consistently put together really strong teams.

Our last dance starts now. As always, we’re simulating every game, I’m not controlling the ‘Necks.

Let’s go!

Win, 105-73! What an absolute beatdown. We’ve moving on to the round of 32.

Long-time followers of the series will know that our Leathernecks have always been known as a second half team. It happened in a big way in this game. Syracuse ended the first half strong to cut our lead to nine points, but we quickly turned it into a blowout out of the break.

I thought this was a tremendous all-around team effort. Six players hit double-figures in scoring with no one putting up more than Floyd Keller’s 15 points. Everyone who played recorded an assist. I loved this play from the first half when we set two screens for our five-star JUCO Obasohan that helped get him an easy layup.

Our bench is a big question mark coming into this tournament, mostly because it’s filled with a lot of fresh faces who haven’t played big minutes in clutch spots before. I have to say, the performance of our reserves in our tournament opener was super encouraging. Obasohan in particular looks like a keeper after scoring 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting and knocking down a three. We always need wing depth, and he should be able to provide that on this run.

The clear highlight of Obasohan’s night: this sick two-handed dunk in transition for an and-one.

We love to turn defense into offense, and Ngounou and Doyle’s ability to get into the passing lanes really helps us out there.

Speaking of Ngounou in transition: he had a beautiful finish on the break to put the game fully out of reach. That’s what you want out of your point guard.

The win sets up a second round game against Colorado State

The Rams have been a solid program throughout this sim dynasty, regularly making NCAA tournament appearances. We have a decisive edge in talent heading into this game.

We are one win away from going to the Sweet 16 and extended our run in the big dance. One time, ‘Necks. Let’s go!

Win, 109-79! We’re going to the Sweet 16!

We didn’t need to be a second half team in this one. Our ‘Necks blew the doors off Colorado State from the opening tip-off. I thought we played a great game offensively thanks to our inside-out ball movement.

We had five scorers in double-figures in this one, but it was senior starters Bernie Doyle and Oscar Fray leading the charge. We know Doyle is capable of taking over a game at his best, and he was awesome in this one: 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the field and 4-of-6 shooting from three. The real story was Fray, though.

Fray was probably the least appealing long-term prospect of our recruiting class when he entered the program alongside Doyle, Keller, and Munoz. That was mostly because of his 74 rating and C potential grade. While he’s always been rated a few points lower than his classmates, Fray’s skill set on the court is so important to us. He’s a massive 7-foot power forward who can protect the rim and shoot threes. What more do you want?

Fray went off in this game: 22 points, eight rebounds, two assists, two steals on 9-of-11 shooting. I love watching the big man shoot from deep. This was from NBA range.

Here’s one more catch-and-shoot three for good measure.

Fray might get slept on a little on this team, but he’s absolutely critical to our success if we want to win it all.

I also want to shout-out the bench for another solid performance. I liked what I saw out of Obasohan (11 points) and Howell (10 points). Since we already have two Obasohan clips in this post, why not make it three? Love him hitting this triple in the first half to help us open up the lead.

We’re rollin’.

The win sets up a Sweet 16 game vs. Alabama

We’re now four wins away from ending this dynasty with a national championship. A Sweet 16 game against Bama is going to be an absolute battle.

In our simulated future, the Tide have become a basketball school. This program seems to make the tournament every year, and they’ve given us plenty of trouble in the past.

A trip to the Elite Eight is on the line. Let’s go!

Win, 112-69! We’re onto the Elite Eight!

Say it with me: SECOND. HALF. TEAM. After a tight first half left us with a six-point lead coming into the break, our ‘Necks absolutely torched the nets in the second half to come away with the blowout win. Seriously: we scored 66 points in the final 20 minutes. That was an offensive clinic at its best.

I had a good feeling about the second half when Cristano got this three hit the rim like 50 times before falling. Sometimes you need some good luck on your side.

A couple possessions later, Floyd Keller came down a ripped another three. We finally had a double-digit lead, and we’d never look back.

It was great to see Keller (15 points) get going from deep. He hit all three of his attempts from beyond the arc.

While we don’t have any clips of the front court from this game, they absolutely deserve credit for the win.

Fray turned in another incredible performance, this one somehow even better than his last. He ended the game with 25 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, three steals, and three blocks on 10-of015 shooting. He didn’t attempt a three (booooo) but he dominated the game on both ends. His front court mate Munoz was almost as good. The senior center finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds. We kept going inside — Munoz and Fray combined for 35 (!) field goal attempts — and they were making the Bama defense pay.

Not the best Bernie Buckets game (9 points on 3-of-10 shooting), but I clipped this shot from the first half, so I might as well embed it here.

Elite Eight, here we come.

The win sets up an Elite Eight matchup against No. 1 seed Indiana

Our run in the NCAA tournament has been a breeze up to this point, but I fear things about to get a lot more difficult. Our plucky No. 6 seed is about to run into one of college basketball’s blue bloods: the top-seeded Indiana Hoosiers.

The Elite Eight has been something of a bugaboo for us. We lost in this round last year. We’ve lost in this round many times before. I don’t want it to happen again.

A Final Four trip is on the line. As always, we’re watching a simulated version of this game; I am not controlling the Leathernecks. Let’s go!

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***

Loss, 96-86. Oh my gosh. And just like that, our dream of ending this dynasty with a national title is over.

I am devastated. I really thought this team was good enough to send me out on top, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Hoosiers’ outside shooters did us in. Indiana’s guard-heavy lineup caught fire from deep (10-of-21 for 47.6 percent), and our perimeter attack couldn’t keep up. We only hit 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) attempts from three.

What happened to our second half team this time? We were only down two going into halftime, but we were outscored by eight over the final 20 minutes. Tough scene.

There were some solid individual performances. Munoz went out strong with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Bernie Doyle dropped 21 points and hit this three-pointer to keep us in it early.

Floyd Keller just didn’t give us enough on the wing. He shot 1-of-8 from three in the loss. He did give us a little juice in transition, at least.

Cristano played all 40 minutes, and had eight points and nine assists. I really wish I got another year with him as a senior next season.

Unfortunately there is no next season. After 40 years at Western Illinois, our sim dynasty is over. Here are some final numbers on the series:

Final record: 1,177-213

10 national championships (tied with John Wooden for the most in men’s college basketball history)

15 Final Four appearances

25 Sweet 16 appearances

Final NCAA tournament record: 113-27

38 Summit League regular season championships

35 Summit League tournament championships

38 seasons with 20+ wins

61 players drafted

The thing I’m most proud of? After we made the NCAA tournament for the first time in Year 3, we didn’t miss it again the rest of this dynasty.

Is Ricky Charisma the greatest men’s college basketball coach ever?

I think so. Here’s how we stack up to other top coaches in NCAA history in important categories.

Total wins

Ricky Charisma: 1,179

Mike Krzyzewski: 1,170

Jim Boeheim: 1,083

Roy Williams: 903

Bob Knight: 899

Dean Smith: 879

Jim Calhoun: 877

Adolph Rupp: 876

Bob Huggins: 828

Eddie Sutton: 806

Tournament wins

Ricky Charisma: 110

Mike Krzyzewski: 94

Roy Williams: 77

Dean Smith: 65

Jim Boeheim: 57

Tom Izzo: 52

Jim Calhoun: 49

John Wooden: 47

Final Four appearances

Ricky Charisma: 15

Mike Krzyzewski: 12

John Wooden: 12

Dean Smith: 11

Roy Williams: 9

Tom Izzo: 8

Rick Pitino: 7

Denny Crum, Adolph Rupp, John Calipari: 6

Consecutive tournament appearances

Western Illinois: 36

Kansas: 31

North Carolina: 27

Arizona: 25

Duke: 24

Michigan State: 23

Gonzaga: 22

Winning percentage

Ricky Charisma: 84.7

Mark Few: 83.44

Sam Burton: 83.33

Clair Bee: 82.444

Adolph Rupp: 82.1

John Wooden: 80.3

National championships

Ricky Charisma: 10

John Wooden: 10

Mike Krzyzewski: 5

Adolph Rupp: 4

Roy Williams: 3

Jim Calhoun: 3

Bobby Knight: 3

Who is the best player in Western Illinois history?

That’s the big question within the fanbase right now. Before we get to it, let’s look back at our greatest recruiting wins.

We landed five five-star recruits out of the domestic high school ranks during my time at Western Illinois. We also signed nine five-star JUCO recruits, and six five-star international recruits from places like New Zealand (shout-out Dave French), Montenegro (anti shout-out Vitor Andrisevic), France (what up, Kim Kone!), and Cameroon.

The highest-rated recruit in program history was Sammy Yan at No. 10 overall in 2032. He was pretty much a disappointment. The program’s all-time leading scorer was center Vinnie Harmon with 2,452 career points during his career. He was the No. 122 overall recruit and the No. 8 center (those that followed the series or played the game know that centers are always weirded underrated on the recruiting trail).

Here are some more numbers during tournament games only (aka, the games we streamed), from the amazing Leathernecks Database maintained by our fans:

The highest rated player in program history is a tie between small forward Nic Cummings and point guard Duncan Martinez, who are the only players to reach 97 overall. Cummings in particular is a great choice for the GOAT. He ended his career with three national titles, though only one as a starter. He’s top-10 for me, but not No. 1.

The people’s choice for the GOAT is Deke Van, the legendary center who helped carry us to our first national title in Year 8. Deke’s turn from from Year 7 goat to Year 8 GOAT is the most memorable we’ve ever had. We couldn’t have done any of this without you, Deke.

When Coach tell you youre guarding @deke_van https://t.co/RDhmDAPRA8 pic.twitter.com/fm2udgvMZT

— Ryan Thomas (@RTtheSID) May 10, 2020

As the series went on, other great players emerged who finished with gaudier stats and better resumes.

My personal favorite might be Bert Draughan, Mr. Basketball out of Chicago (No. 29 overall recruit), who went on to win a title with us in Year 13 and also starred for our Year 11 team that began the season 35-0 before losing to Michigan State in the Final Four. Harmon is another fine choice. Skip Clemmons helped us win three national titles in Year 23, Year 24, and Year 26. Albert Jagla, Clemmons’ former teammate, played a big role in our first back-to-back championship squad, and is arguably the greatest perimeter bucket-getter in program history.

All-time favorite moment? Impossible to say. The first one that comes to mind is Kim Kone’s go-ahead corner three in the 2024 tournament. Najeeb Goode’s steal vs. UCLA in the Final Four to help us win our second title in Year 13 also stands out. There was also the time superstar power forward Allen Cunningham took off his pants mid-game.

Thank you to everyone who read, watched, and interacted

I started this series on April 11, 2020, a few weeks after the pandemic had shut down all ‘real’ sports. At the time, I was gearing up to cover the 2020 NCAA tournament. That never happened. I had college basketball on my mind, and I always wanted to write something on ‘College Hoops 2K8’, probably my favorite video game ever. This project is what came of it.

I had no idea if anyone was going to read this. I definitely did not think I’d finish out all 40 years like a complete lunatic. I didn’t think I’d write the equivalent of multiple books in terms of total word count.

Just before I dropped the first post in the series, I tweeted this:

Got a real dumb blog post coming

— Ricky O'Donnell (@SBN_Ricky) April 11, 2020

I wrote around 70 posts in the series, counting the inaugural Hall of Fame induction (read a big Deke Van retrospective at that link) and two posts of my Deke Van x Seattle Supersonics spin-off. I’m estimating I wrote 200,000 words in this series. That’s about the length of “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

I still can’t believe everything that came from this series. The Washington Post wrote a profile on it. I went on WGN TV and did a few radio spots promoting it. We sold a Deke Van t-shirt with Homefield Apparel. Our series inspired a new friend in Japan named Thanh Nguyen to write a pair of e-books adding greater depth to our story. Friend of the program Mike Rutherford did an amazing hype video for our first championship run. When I moved the series to Substack for a few months, more than 7,000 people signed up for email updates and still remain. Our first Twitch stream for the Year 8 Final Four drew more than 7,000 total viewers, and had 2,500 concurrent viewers on it at as we were closing out the win. On SB Nation, the series has been viewed more than 500K times.

What really made the project special was always the community around it. Some quick shout-outs:

The Leathernecks Database is an amazing companion to this series. You can lost in there. Thank you to the diehards to helped maintain it, and reader Evan for starting it.

Thanks to my guy who started the Leathernecks Nation instagram fan page and whoever is behind the wondrous fake Deke Van twitter account.

Thanks to everyone in the Discord who maintained ‘Necks discussion always and forever.

Thank the diehards that came out for every Twitch stream. I don’t want to name names because I’ll forget someone, but you know who you are. I love you all. I also want to thank the readers for keeping up with the recaps, and everyone who emailed me feedback throughout the series. I also want to thank my buddy Scott for introducing me to the game and running through multiple 40-year dynasties with me way before I ever considered blogging through it like this. This series would not exist without him.

What a ride it’s been. As I sim through to the end of the calendar, I’m greeted with this message.

Thank you, everyone. Go ‘Necks.

[hoekaashi]

HQ Skincare hcs

a/n: i had too much fun with these hehe, hope you enjoy! onto my next series which will be longer than the skincare ones characters: kageyama, kenma, kuroo, oikawa, iwachan, atsumu, osamu warnings: none other than my language lol taglist: @babydabi @suckersuki @bakugoustanaccount @animoozies @haiikyuuns @depths-of-your-soul @differentballooncollection @waitforitillwritemywayout​

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⇾ growing up as in going to middle school with oikawa, he picked up some stuff ⇾ small things, like which cleanser is better for his skin, what type of skin he has, the difference between toner and essence, what daytime moisturizer he should use and what nighttime one ⇾ things like that ⇾ and even once he was no longer around oikawa, skincare became something that he enjoyed doing ⇾ he would look up new products on his own and he was always willing to try new products too ⇾ his teammates are always so awestruck by his dedication just to his skin ⇾ wouldn’t mind splurging every once in a while on a holy grail product, but everything else is pretty much drugstore stuff ⇾ until he started getting products sent to him in pr packages once bokuto and atsumu let it slip in an interview that kags has a dedicated routine ⇾ his 4 step routine turned into 12 very fast and unfortunately for him, half the time he doesn’t know what he’s doing and ends up bothering oikawa about it

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⇾ he’s a rich bitch and it shows ⇾ he gets a facial two to three times a month, doesn’t care that he shouldn’t get them too frequently ⇾ his mentality is that if he’s not washing his face every day, it’s okay for him to get facials more frequently ⇾ he just really enjoys the massages they give him, but after learning that he doesn’t do anything at home to take care of his skin, they make him a list of products to use and create an entire daytime and nighttime routine for him ⇾ and because he can, he buys the fancy shmancy products that are overpriced ⇾ his favorite part of the routine is putting a cold sheet mask on his face and letting it marinate on his skin ⇾ he ends up buying a beauty fridge and stocking it up with mostly sheet masks ⇾ but because he doesn’t want to be wasteful, he ends up learning how to recycle them properly along with how to make his own sheet masks ⇾ his facialist starts crying when she finds out that he’s actually taking care of his skin now

*+:｡.｡　　｡.｡:+*

⇾ literally didn’t do shit for his face ⇾ but as he got older, he would look into ingredients more - not only with what he was putting in his body, but also on it ⇾ around his last year of high school, he decided to start a routine but it wasn’t anything too fancy ⇾ proper face wash and a moisturizer ⇾ slowly he started to build it more looking into the benefits of using toners and the difference between fermented products and regular ones ⇾ you can pry nerdy science kuroo from my cold dead hands but rigor mortis will make that even harder for you to do haha ⇾ once he got his fancy schmancy job, he had the money to splurge on skincare so not only did he get products that were good for him, he also got the expensive ass ones that typical people would save up for and make it last way past the expiration date ⇾ kenma got him hooked on sheet masks ⇾ he has a mini fridge in his office and whenever he’s stressed or just super tired, he’ll pop one on with some eye patches and just take a 10-20 minute nap in his chair ⇾ even though he’s not very active on social media (most of his followers are people who found him through kenma), he will still email companies and ask them to add him to his pr list ⇾ will bug kenma whenever he isn’t added to the pr list

*+:｡.｡　　｡.｡:+*

⇾ this bitch has a full 12 step routine that he perfected at a young age because he wanted to preserve his youth ⇾ ”why do you wait until you start aging to use anti-aging products? if i start at a young age, i’ll never get wrinkles and people will forever think i’m 20 years old” ⇾ rotates out one product whenever it finishes so his skin doesn’t get used to it ⇾ takes pride in his looks so he would never hesitate to drop money on a product that he knows works ⇾ but on the other side, he also doesn’t mind drugstore products if they do a bomb ass job too ⇾ tried to change the other seijoh third years to have better routines and they all either ignored him or assaulted him with body wash bottles or anything else laying around ⇾ everything is displayed in his bathroom in an aesthetic way ⇾ easily notices if even one product is off ⇾ has a travel sized version of his entire routine and it doesn’t matter if he’s away from his place for even one day/night, he will take the entire thing with him wherever he’s going ⇾ has never missed a single day of his routine which is why iwa went through his acne phase through puberty and oikawa didn’t he still holds it against him to this day

*+:｡.｡　　｡.｡:+*

⇾ literally uses bar soap to wash his face and moisturizes with coco butter BODY LOTION ⇾ oikawa has a heart attack whenever he sees him do this and proceeds with his cardiac arrest when iwa tells him to fuck off ⇾ wanted to punch oikawa in the face whenever he teased him about not having breakouts since he took care of his skin while they were growing up, but once puberty was done and his hormones were balanced, he never saw another pimple on his face again ⇾ will go to grave without a soul knowing, but his acne pissed him off so much he actually bought products to treat it ⇾ advocate for Proactiv MD ⇾ eventually grew out of his bad habits with skincare but still doesn’t do anything more than face wash, toner, and moisturizer ⇾ will never spend more than 25 bucks on a single product. ever. ⇾ enjoys how oikawa gets jealous knowing that he does the bare minimum and his skin looks as great as it does ⇾ quietly thanks his parents for their good genes

*+:｡.｡　　｡.｡:+*

⇾ aha ha ha he’s awful ⇾ rinses his face with water after practice, and if he’s showering, he’ll use his 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner to wash his face ⇾ complains about the weird coating it leaves on his face and when osamu tells him it’s because hair products aren’t for his face, he just says it’s extra moisturizing and walks away ⇾ wanna know why he copied osamu’s hairstyle in high school? it’s because his greasy ass forehead was covered in acne from the sweat, clogged pores, and lack of proper hygiene ⇾ in desperation, he stole osamu’s skincare products and used it to clear up his forehead their last year of high school ⇾ for once in his life, osamu let him get away with it because he was tired of hearing his brother complain about his skin ⇾ his patience ran out when he saw his brother using coconut oil on his skin - the kind you use for cooking ⇾ atsumu sat through three hours of his brother telling him what was good for his skin and what was bad - coconut oil was bad especially for his oily face ⇾ as an adult though, he has the money to spare to get facials and visit a dermatologist regularly ⇾ ironically became the face of a new skincare line and osamu never laughed harder when he saw the ads

*+:｡.｡　　｡.｡:+*

⇾ not super involved as a teenager but knows what products work for him and what don’t ⇾ definitely reads the ingredients and knows the good stuff from the bad stuff ⇾ doesn’t mind splurging on a product or two in high school, but nothing more than that he’d rather spend his money on food ⇾ as an adult it’s up to his mood on whether he would drop money for skincare or not ⇾ he enjoys getting microdermabrasion facials and gets one every 6-8 weeks to help his skin cell turnover rate ⇾ never misses his nighttime routine but not because he’s dedicated to his skin, but because he uses the time to relax before bed and just unwind ⇾ will have either relaxing music playing or complete silence as he does his routine - do NOT talk to him while he’s doing this though it’s his ‘me’ time just like when he works in the kitchen but that’s neither here nor there he needs a lot of ‘me’ time ⇾ if he can’t go to his facial, he will be working in the kitchen with a headband pushing his hair back and sheet mask on ⇾ has an anonymous blog where he rates and reviews new skincare products that’s pretty popular

[carewyncromwell]

((Previously on “Quest for the Quidditch Cup”...))

At long last, the long-awaited Quidditch Final had arrived. There was an astounding energy in the air, the likes of which could only have been built up over the course of years. Slytherin hadn’t been so close to winning the Quidditch Cup in a decade, and all of the students lined up in the green-and-silver-decked stands were pumped up.

As the crowd roared, commentator Murphy McNully took hold of the megaphone, his dynamic voice booming out over the stands effortlessly.

“Witches and wizards! Professors, students, caretakers...Mrs. Norris! The time has come! The match that will decide which House team wins the Quidditch Cup is upon us!”

Murphy directed his gaze to the entrance of the Quidditch pitch.

“Presenting your reigning Quidditch champions...Ravenclaw!”

Seven blurs dressed in blue robes slashed through the air, fluttering around the goal hoops at the left end of the pitch and over the blue-decked Ravenclaw stands. They came to a halt in their starting positions, with Andre as Keeper guarding the three goal hoops and their three Chasers at the center of the pitch, with Erika Rath and her Beater cohort flanking their left and their Seeker on their right.

“And the challengers to the title,” said Murphy, unable to hide his clear excitement, “...Slytherin!”

The Slytherin stands began to cheer as their seven players flew out onto the field like emerald-colored hawks in flight.

Carewyn felt like her ears had been completely stoppered by the deafening applause from her house. She flew in formation as she’d seen the Slytherin team do many times before from the audience, stopping near the center of the pitch with Orion and Cara, while Night and Quinn flew to their right and Kaylisa stayed on their left. Ashok had already separated from them, no doubt heading for the Slytherin goal posts.

“Two teams, vying for the Quidditch Cup trophy and glory for their house!” cried Murphy. “Who will be victorious?”

The entire stands were in a frenzy now. Carewyn glanced at the red and yellow sections that belonged to the two houses not competing. She was surprised how many green-and-silver banners she saw -- even Gryffindor, which usually considered Slytherin their mortal enemy, had a few.

‘I guess there are some Gryffindors who want Ravenclaw to lose even more than they dislike us,’ thought Carewyn dryly.

When she looked at the Gryffindor stands more carefully, though, she was a bit taken aback.

One of the largest green and silver banners was being held by a familiar young man with a ginger ponytail, a “C”-initialed maroon sweater, and an army green jacket.

“KICK THEIR SORRY ARSES, CAREY!” Carewyn could just barely make out what Charlie was mouthing as he waved up at her.

Jae, who was sitting on Charlie’s right side, waved too. Ben, who was on Charlie’s left, didn’t wave, instead sitting back with his arms crossed and looking very focused -- he was probably a bit nervous, but trying to show a brave face all the same.

Carewyn waved down at them, her red lips spreading into a tiny smile too.

“Referee Madame Hooch steps out onto the field!”

Murphy’s lively commentary brought Carewyn back down to earth. She turned away from the stands, facing the Ravenclaws on the opposite end of the Quidditch pitch.

Carewyn immediately met Rath’s eyes. The Ravenclaw Beater’s gaze was as fierce as a tiger’s.

Carewyn met that gaze with a steely blue look of her own.

‘I might not have any bad feelings toward you, Rath...but I will NOT let you get in the way of us winning this match.’

“The Bludgers are up!” cried Murphy. “As is the Golden Snitch!”

Carewyn watched both Bludgers bounce off through the air. She thought she saw the Snitch too, but the flicker of gold moved so fast that she had no idea what direction it was heading in before it disappeared completely.

The Snitch, however, wasn’t her focus. Her “gold” at the moment -- if one followed the idea of being as tenacious as a Niffler -- was the scarlet-colored ball Madame Hooch lifted out of the Quidditch trunk with both hands. Her hawk-like eyes drifted from Ravenclaw to Slytherin to back again: then, abruptly, she flung it up into the air.

“The Quaffle is released -- AND WE’RE OFF!”

Immediately one of the Ravenclaw Chasers, Liddell, snatched up the Quaffle. Before she could get far, however, Cara swerved in front of her to block her -- Carewyn then barrel-rolled up from below, snatching the Quaffle out of Liddell’s hands, darting back toward the Ravenclaw goal posts.

“Cromwell’s taken hold of the Quaffle -- moving up the pitch -- she just barely dodges Urquart when he tries to steal! She passes to O’Donnell -- O’Donnell passes back to Cromwell, avoiding Liddell -- Cromwell passes to Amari -- Amari heads for the goal hoops -- ooh hoo! Amari whips out his trademark move, Inspired Broom Surfing! He weaves -- he shoots -- score! Slytherin takes an early lead, 10-0!”

It was incredible how much faster a real Quidditch match felt, in comparison to the friendlies Carewyn usually played in. It felt like there was never any time to breathe -- as soon as one goal was scored, you almost immediately had to try to find a way to snatch the Quaffle back again, purely due to how fast the turnover was between rounds. Soon Ravenclaw and Slytherin were at each other’s throats, with their Chasers fighting over the Quaffle as if it were made of pure gold.

“Cromwell’s in possession -- Rath hits a Bludger at Cromwell -- yes! Cromwell dodges! That could’ve been nasty! Cromwell still in possession, Urquart and Trotter on her tail -- passes to Ama -- NO! Intercepted by Liddell! Liddell’s taking the Quaffle back up the field, toward the Slytherin goal posts -- dodges a Bludger hit by Rhea -- O’Donnell tries to steal -- OUCH! O’Donnell just barely avoids another Bludger hit by Rath -- Liddell in possession, she shoots -- score! 10 points to Ravenclaw! Slytherin still leads 80-60!”

‘We need an at least 70 point lead,’ Carewyn recalled.

She glanced at the Slytherin stands. Somewhere down there, she knew Skye was watching.

Her bright red lips spread into a huge smirk, and in a second, she’d flown after Orion, flying alongside him.

“Orion, let’s pince him!”

Orion’s smirk was even whiter and brighter than Carewyn’s as he took off again. Nearly in tandem, he flew down and slammed his side up against Urquart’s right side, while Carewyn pinned him on his left. Having figured out what her fellow Chasers were up to, Cara dived right at them, knocking Urquart up off his broom from below and making him drop the Quaffle as he struggled to regain his posture.

“A perfectly executed Parkin’s Pincer! Skye Parkin must be full to the brim with pride! O’Donnell’s in possession -- passes to Amari -- he Broom-Surfs up and over Trotter -- passes to Cromwell! Ooh, but it looks like Cromwell’s got Urquart and Trotter on her tail again -- how’s she gonna get out of this?”

‘Buzz off!’ Carewyn thought with an irritable glance over her shoulder at the two male Ravenclaw Chasers.

Her blue eyes narrowing, she kept her focus straight ahead, heading straight for Andre at the goal posts. Andre was already guarded, preparing to block her if she shot the Quaffle at the center hoop --

‘Sorry, Andre -- can’t play nice today!’

Just when she should’ve thrown the Quaffle, Carewyn flew right past the goal hoops, drifting backward on her Comet broom so she could loop around in a backwards “C” and shoot for the far left hoop instead.

“WHOA! Cromwell both shakes off the Chasers and sideswipes the Keeper with broom-drifting! 10 points to Slytherin! Slytherin leads 90-60!”

There was an electricity in the air. It crackled not just through the stands but through the Slytherin team themselves, energizing them and making them feed off of each other’s enthusiasm in a seemingly endless feedback loop. Soon they were all bouncing off each other.

Carewyn swooped in to help Ashok defend his right goal hoop by knocking the Quaffle out of the way with her broom so Cara could catch it and take it back up the pitch. Night tossed her Beater’s bat to Orion so he could defend himself from a Bludger hit by Ravenclaw’s other Beater, Crane. And with every passing minute, Slytherin’s Chasers kept scoring -- 100 points -- 110 -- 120 --

“Score! 10 points to Slytherin! Slytherin leads Ravenclaw 130 to 60!”

The Slytherin stands were in a frenzy by now. If their team caught the Snitch now, they’d actually win the Quidditch Cup!

The Ravenclaws seemed to sense that the tide had fully turned against them. Despite their best efforts to take down Slytherin’s Chasers, Cara, Orion, and Carewyn were too strong of a unit for them to pick apart. Even though Andre had always been a talented Keeper, Ravenclaw’s Chasers just couldn’t keep up with Slytherin’s, and Andre could only do so much to prevent them from scoring on his own. But as long as Ravenclaw caught the Snitch before Slytherin did, the Slytherin Chasers’ work would be all for naught --

Carewyn had taken her position in center field, just as planned, while Cara and Orion played keep-away with the Quaffle. It was as she watched the perimeter that she spotted Kaylisa going into a sharp dive.

‘She’s seen the Snitch!’

Carewyn shot her head around, looking for Quinn and Night. Night had hurried to protect Ashok from a Bludger hit by Crane -- Quinn was closer, but had been forced to smack the other Bludger at Liddell before she could steal the Quaffle from Cara, so she was still about fifty feet away.

“CARA!” Carewyn bellowed.

Cara caught sight of Carewyn waving widely up at her. Unfortunately Carewyn hadn’t been the only one to spot Kaylisa -- Rath had too. The Ravenclaw Beater dived, heading straight for the Slytherin Seeker.

Once Cara spotted Kaylisa and Rath, she chucked the Quaffle at Orion, who immediately tore off toward the goal hoops, while she quickly flew up to get Quinn’s attention.

“QUINN!” Carewyn just barely made out Cara yelling. “CENTER FIELD, RIGHT EDGE!”

“ON IT!” Quinn shouted back.

The Slytherin Beater dived. Carewyn watched anxiously as Quinn flew as fast as she could toward them -- Rath was coming up on Kaylisa very fast -- she was only about twenty feet away now -- fifteen -- Rath looked up and around, and then down at Kaylisa -- she raised her bat --

‘Quinn’s not going to make it!’ Carewyn thought in alarm. ‘And Rath’s too close -- even if I try to distract her now, she’ll see me long before I reach her!’

Kaylisa had stretched out her hand -- Rath swung her bat up over her head --

Carewyn made up her mind very quickly.

‘There’s no other choice!’

Charlie being knocked off his broom in the last Quidditch Final flitting through her mind, Carewyn flew out from the perimeter, not at Rath, but so that she would be on a collision course with the Bludger Rath smacked at Kaylisa.

Unfortunately, Carewyn had waited just a tiny bit too long. Rather than ending up in the same position Charlie had been in the last Quidditch Final and getting knocked off her broom when the Bludger collided with her back, the Bludger instead slammed full-force into Carewyn’s chest.

“URGH!”

Carewyn somehow managed to subconsciously wrap her arms around both her broom and the Bludger in a hug-like vice grip as she fell. She landed four feet below, landing in a crumpled heap on her side.

Somewhere very, very far above her, Carewyn could hear Murphy’s voice ringing out like an excitable cluster of church bells.

“UNBELIEVABLE! CROMWELL INTERCEPTS THE BLUDGER HIT BY RATH, ALLOWING FORTESCUE TO CATCH THE SNITCH! SLYTHERIN WINS! SLYTHERIN WINS THE QUIDDITCH CUP!”

The Bludger wrenched itself out of Carewyn’s arms and squiggled away through the air.

Carewyn coughed, her arms still clutched around herself tightly. The upper left side of her chest was throbbing with pain.

‘I really shouldn’t have done that,’ she thought to herself grumpily.

She tried to get up, but she couldn’t quite figure out what way was up. Her heart was beating so fast -- she gasped for air, clutching her chest that bit more tightly as she tried to get up again.

“Carewyn! Carewyn, are you okay?!”

Quinn’s voice echoed overheard. Carewyn blinked up at the navy-haired Beater, offering her bravest, prettiest smile.

“Ow...now everyone...can see why I’m not a Beater...”

The last word came out of her throat very badly. Carewyn choked, trying to get a better breath, but it came out as a wheeze -- she hacked up some dark liquid onto the sleeve of her Quidditch robes --

“Carewyn!”

Quinn’s voice sounded panicked.

“WE NEED A HEALER! GET US SOME HELP HERE, NOW!”

The world was spinning -- Carewyn’s heart was pounding in her ears so loudly, it almost deafened her to the sounds of the cheering crowd somewhere far above them --

“Carewyn!”

“Carewyn!”

Was that Kaylisa and Night? Carewyn wasn’t quite sure...she thought she saw several emerald-colored blurs diving toward her, but she couldn’t tell who they were -- one of the blurs collided with the ground very sharply several feet away, while the other three all landed right next to her, coming right up beside her --

“Help me carry her!”

“Orion, help us -- ”

“We’ve got you, Carewyn -- ”

“Careful -- ”

“Orion!”

The female voices overhead were all blurring together, dissolving away into the loudly echoing heartbeat in her ears. Soon Carewyn couldn’t hear them at all -- she couldn’t see them at all -- and she knew no more.

((OOC: Sorry for the cliffhanger. Next update’s tonight/tomorrow morning, I promise. T.T

MC Slytherin players included are, once again, Cara O’Donnell @unfortunate-arrow​, Night Rhea @nightrhea-hphm​, and Sabrina “Quinn” Mercurenius @danceworshipper​!))

[jackcliu]

On time, value, speculation and the purpose of markets in the economy

Today, I am issuing the first entirely time-backed token on BitCoin - Liu at relayx.com/market/LIU. The intersection of time and money is something that has deeply interested me for a very long time. Whether it was a 2014 blog post about work life balance in the Bitcoin ecosystem, to The Letter which cites “The world is in motion … so people would be able to afford the one luxury that could not be bought - time - by reaping the true value of their labor.” It even spanned attempts to value time in products such as Dimely - intended to pay per second of call time at the prevailing market rate. 

First I want to detail the specifics of the LIU token.

21,900 tokens will be the total circulating supply. 1 token represents 1 minute. This equates to 365 hours. When tokens are redeemed, they are burned. I reserve the right to newly issue to a maximum of keeping the circulating supply at 21,900. There will be no more than 21,900 burned tokens in a calendar year which limits the amount of turnover. I reserve the right to not newly issue tokens at anytime limiting my remaining time to the number of tokens still circulating. 

The initial price will be at the USD equivalent of $5 per token on orders between 1 token and 100 tokens, with some some bulk issuance discounts at $4 per token on orders above 500 tokens in a single listing. 20,000 tokens will be listed for sale with 1,900 gifted as gratitude to those within the ecosystem who I have collaborated with. New issuance will not occur unless at above $5 per token. 

Second I want to detail the personal why of the LIU token.

Personally speaking, my greatest joys in Bitcoin have been in the collaborations that have come out of calls, chats, with our own team, and increasingly in recent months with those behind ‘the first token’ SHUA, ‘the first GIF’, ‘the first creator token’, ‘the first food backed token’, ‘the first bitcoin backed token’ to just name a few. These examples made me visualize value creation and how fast it can be when minds meet. A real-time economy is in the infancy of emerging. At the same time, as many other entrepreneurs have experienced, products may grow exponentially, but our time is always limited. The two do not mix no matter how much one enjoys the creative collaboration that has taken place and how much more I am looking forward to. A time token with me allocating several slots per week using a service such as Calendly (or perhaps one day a native product on BitCoin) allows me to take back ownership of my time while still fulfilling my passion to create value together with people I may not know of one minute, but am brainstorming with the next to possibly shake up an entire industry. 

Third I want to share what I hope my time token will inspire. 

So much of our workforce are employed in the services industry whether it be a yoga instructor, a therapist, a lawyer, a consultant, a tutor, a barber, you name it. Thus far the choices has been to be employed by a company, store, firm, school with relatively stale wages with limited and slow career progression or to go off on your own one by one to struggle to build a client base and most importantly a name and reputation. Time-tokens representing an hour of tutoring, or a yoga class, or a therapy session (whether as NFT’s or FT’s those are merely tools) - could be the single most efficient way to reap one’s true value, receiving near instant feedback, while also bringing a level of trust and transparency to prospective customers. I have concepts and ideas and solutions around how this can most feasibly manifest, and look forward to collaborating. 

Finally on markets and speculation and their role in the economy. 

The ultimate purpose of markets is to find the true value of an asset and facilitate an exchange between a producer and the end consumer. Due to the costs of creating markets traditionally prior to Bitcoin, markets were only created around large size corporations, or commodities or currencies or government bonds. This meant the speculator seen as the liquidity provider or the in between between the producer and consumer needed to serve a large oversized role. Some see the speculator / investor as serving a necessary role to keep markets working but their outsized influence reflects an inefficiency of the market structure itself to form micro-markets, and transient markets. 

Now exists a world enabled by Bitcoin SV and its scaling capabilities whereby 100 billion and much more tokens can be minted at increasingly lower costs. If a yoga instructor only issues an NFT redeemable for tomorrow’s class at 9:30AM and prices it via a Dutch Auction, in all likelihood the token will directly end up in the hands of a prospective student intended on attending the class. That’s a win for the creator and the consumer leaving near no margin for the investor / speculator. Of course the world is not so efficient in practice today, but the Bitcoin blockchain in first principle terms is capable of producing this outcome today. My focus and our focus has always been on enabling the creator and creating markets to bring about a real-time economy that will increase opportunities for all. 

Therefore, do not view this token as a speculative asset. This is merely how I am choosing to value my time. Perhaps my time is not worth this much at all. You should not buy tokens if you are not interested in redeeming the time for yourself. Purchasing tokens on the speculation that someone else in the future will value my time or anyone’s time is not the future of the world. The future is one where you value your own time and perhaps this inspires you to issue your own time token. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing.

[lillupon]

you know i’ve always thought the lack of fanfic in the carat communit was strange. i mean most of it is from 2016-2017, but other than that there’s basically nothing compared to other kpop fandoms. thank you for contributing to the little we have tho🥺🥺

I’m the kind of person that doesn’t stay in a fandom for long. I wrote for Shinee for about two years. I was into Captain America for a year, and then Merlin for a couple of months... But I always end up coming back to Seventeen for one reason or another o(���▽≦)o There’s just so many of them to love?!?

It makes sense to me that the majority of Seventeen fanfics were written between 2016 and 2017; groups tend to be most popular in the first few years following their debut. There’s a really fast turnover of bands in the k-pop industry. To be honest, I’m pleasantly surprised that the Seventeen fanfic community has remained strong for as long as it has. That being said, the steep decline in the number of Seventeen fics produced does make me upsetti spaghetti (｡•́︿•̀｡) 

I wonder if the lack of fan service or ’gay moments’ compared to other k-pop bands has anything to do with it? There’s some seriously good content out there for other k-idol pairings, and I have no doubt these shipping moments fuel fanfic production. On the other hand, the more recent ‘Meanie moments’ videos on YouTube are literally just clips of MinWon standing beside each other LMAo. As much as I enjoy reading and writing about MinWon giving each other love and orgasms, I can’t read their relationship as anything more than good friends. At times, it does make it difficult for me to create shippy content of them. Maybe others feel the same?

On a lighter note, Seventeen is still top five in the k-pop fandom on AO3!

Stray Kids ASPLODED though, holy shit. I swear there were only 6k works for Stray Kids when I checked back in 2019.

[big-girl-toaster]

Emily Sonnett - player analysis

A compilation of Sonnett‘s strengths, weaknesses (cause everyone has them) and general observations from Portland and USWNT games (mostly from 2018 and 2019) ft. my irrelevant opinion.

Enjoy!

Before I’ll start a few notes:

I’m obviously not a professional soccer analyst person or whatever, so please don’t come for my ass. These are just patterns or reoccurring things in Sonnett’s game I observed while rewatching tons of PTFC and USWNT games. 

I will focus on a few key points, that doesn’t mean that she has deficiencies in other aspects, sometimes it’s just hard to show them and I tried to avoid stating arguments without giving visual evidence. (All the links and credits are below the gifs)

I would love it if you gave additions, feedback or criticism to this post but all in all I just hope that you enjoy reading a bit about Sonnett’s more professional side and soccer tactics in general.

Please let me know if the format is weird, I’m still figuring out how to make big posts.

I sincerely apologize for the low quality of gifs, as I said, I’m figuring things out and I wasn’t able to upload proper clips.

And lastly, Sonnett is a precious little bean and I enjoyed making this more than I should have. Also, did I use this as an excuse to spend days on end rewatching old games? Yes I did.

I will start with three main strengths I think she brings to the pitch:

Communication / Leading the back line                                               (this is in regards to her position with the Thorns, I will talk about the differences between PTFC/USWNT later on)

As a center back you naturally have a more responsible role in terms of shifting players that are in front of you and communicating things to them they can’t necessarily see. Sonnett embraces that role completely and at 25 years old she is at the level of world class CBs in that regard. A lot of players take on that role much later in their career. Her college coach Steve Swanson for the University of Virginia said about her:

"There is a standard of focus and intensity that Emily demands of the players that play around her. She’s not afraid to hold her teammates accountable in that regard. That was one of the unique aspects of our team dynamic this year, is that Emily's style of leadership is different than the team was used to. I think the team has recognized that the qualities Emily has, we need.“

http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/14100802/virginia-emily-sonnett

This clip I wanted to show you is from a situation that is very common for a defensive line but overlooked bc we as viewers naturally tend to look at the movement of the ball. It’s the intentional shifting of the back line in the exact right moment to let an opposing attacker run into offside. In the original video you can hear Sonnett shout “DROP THE LINE“ and Menges and Kling follow her movement which results in Alex being successfully caught offside at the side line. 

((Tumblr won’t let me upload video clips, so here’s a crappy gif (look at Sonny and Menges), click the link to get to youtube, it’s at 21:30))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGM6Nju0b4

A simple moment but a very crucial part of back line coordination.

      2.    Box positioning

A.k.a. one of the most important parts of good defending. Sonnett covers runs from attackers almost always with textbook precision. She anticipates passes and is able intercept balls which makes her a proactive rather than a reactive player. When she does have to go for a tackle she brings a feistiness that she probably learnt from a certain Kelley O’Hara I can imagine. She usually opts for slide tackles and that decision could be debatable if you’re the coach but it’s just so good to look at tbh

(credit to @geekmythologys for the last gif)

But anyway, her box positioning. Having watched a lot of games with my eyes glued to number 16, I can of course safely say that Sonnett knows what she’s doing. But I’ve been thinking more and more that she often has a sort of intuitive approach when it comes to box positioning in particular. For this next clip I’m gonna need your opinion. Normally I wouldn’t tell Sonnett to abandon her player in that moment, especially bc it creates a 3v2 situation on the attackers left side and also considering the angle in which Dunn is facing the goal. However, she steps in and is able to block the ball.

to see it properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ  at 15:40

What do you think?

Oh and this is just excellent clearance work. AD was certainly hyped about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvcOuadyFu4

    3.   Offensive effort

Sonnett is one of the highest scoring CBs of the league but her offensive efforts aren’t measurable in just goals. For corner kicks she likes to do the near-post run Julie Ertz style and has been successful in the past, most notably the 2-0 in the semifinal 2017 against Orlando (which resulted in this gem of a gif):

She likes to stay up top for a bit when her position is covered by someone else and tbh I’m living for these moments.

Here she encourages quick playing and would have gotten through with it if the nwsl had good refs. She didn’t even touch her. (get it? haha) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

Here she drives the ball after winning it, even if her teammates are pushing up late and then she stays up front to participate in the counter attack. Unfortunately nothing evolves out of this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ

Right. Those were the strengths, in terms of weaknesses, I don’t wanna pick apart the smallest things but this is what I found:

Misjudged midfield positioning

We’ve talked about her excellent positioning in the box, however, a huge part of modern soccer is having the Center Backs pushed up to the half-line (as well as inverted outside backs but that’s another point). And what I’ve noticed is that sometimes during turnovers Sonnett goes in to put pressure on the player and with that an even wider space opens up behind her that the opposing team could exploit. Like in this picture.

Blue is the ball movement, red (Sonnett) goes in when in my opinion green (Lindsey) should have been the one putting pressure on the ball bc now Daly can run into that open space. 

Luckily Sonnett’s speed prevents Houston from getting anything out of it but Daly tried it several times during the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

My second example is that iconic tactical foul against ARod that we all remember.

Her positioning isn’t optimal, Klings pass isn’t the best, ARod gets her off of the wrong foot, she can’t turn around fast enough and has to stop her with a professional foul which is (I’ll say it again) demanded by coaches in situations like that. But anyway, tumblr has talked enough about this game rip

      2. Determining the biggest threat

This is a minor one, because Sonnett is usually really good at reading the game and making the right decisions. However in this game against Australia, she tries to cover the space behind Dahl which is technically reasonable but considering how wide open the Australian is, she should have closed her in earlier. That little hop inside the center of the field made the difference and the opposing player was able to score. 

I think it’s safe to say that stuff like this comes with age and experience. And again, Sonnett is only 25!

(The whole game against Australia is awesome for spotting strengths and weaknesses, plus we get tons of Sonny close-ups thus I can recommend rewatching it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Two more things I wanted to include are two risks that could be relevant in the future.

From time to time she doesn’t control her arm movement in the box.

This is obviously the natural thing you do when you make a move like that but with the new rules by Fifa, defenders are more and more limited and this would have been a penalty if it had hit her arm. Idk it could bite her in the ass at some point.

      2. Intuitive positioning 

We’ve talked about this and people might have different opinions on it. I personally think though that this might make the difference between a great and a world class defender. So I say go for it Sonny.

Phew, I’m almost done guys, congrats for getting this far, I hope it’s interesting at all.

The last thing I wanna mention is this: The difference between Portland Sonnett and National Team Sonnett, a.k.a. CB Sonnett and RB Sonnett.

Even though as a right back your role is more offensive, I feel like Sonnett has to be pushed to go for it. She rarely does those runs in behind the winger and towards the end line. When she does it it’s great but compared to Kelley she simply isn’t there yet. It also seems to me like for Portland she takes more liberties in pushing forward which maybe is a confidence thing as well. She is a given for the Thorns but had to fight to regain that roster spot for the NT in 2017 after not being called up for several months. Maybe the fear of making mistakes bc of being out of position hinders her a bit? (I’m saying this while being aware that I of course don’t know what the coaches want her to do and what the different game plans require of her.) Anyway, I love her 1v1 defending as RB. I think she is underrated and absolutely deserves a spot on the Olympic roster next year. 

One last low quality gif because we gotta stay on brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Well that’s it, I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I’d be grateful for additions, opinions, feedback, whatever. 

Thanks for reading :)

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Mon 2 Sept

"Back to work," said Liam and I'm just gonna assume he meant me cause man, they are making a lot of work for me right now so thank you for noticing Lima so thoughtful!

Louis is of course the man of this week (though the rest are right behind him so next week is anyone's guess), KMM release is closer every minute and we're not to forget it- today we got a lyric tease and a glimpse of some visuals. "The devil in my brain, whispering my name…," Louis tweeted, and a picture of a pen drawing (road, hills) with lyrics (and release info) on it pinned to a board was posted to his instagram. Definitely looks like it could be from another lyric video in the stop motion style of the excellent TOU lyric video (and the JLY video)... And then, a minor German site posted a pre KMM article about Louis, mostly totally standard, except for at the end when it says, "A second song release is already scheduled. As Sony Music announced, the second single We Made It will be released on October 3rd." Some question the source's validity and for sure! This isn't official and could be drawn from (speculative) twitter gossip! But them just carelessly using info that was supposed to be embargoed until a later date is plausible as well. Louis did tell us to expect two singles in close succession, he teased a song called "** **** it" and said that song might be a single, Oct 3 is a Thurs about exactly one month after the KMM release date... I buy it. If it is real and is that song: one, VERY EXCITING, two, we've heard a clip of it! It's the song he posted a clip of in Feb of last year ("a new mix of something for the album.") (Oh my indeed.) And finally, three, it can be about whatever it's about but if he didn't want us to draw a link to Harry singing You're Still The One he could have changed the name and if he didn't know damn well we would he wouldn't have starred it out to save it up.

Liam posted a car selfie this morning titled, as mentioned, "back to work" and then sure enough, got right to it. He showed up at Capitol Records signing a wall, posted a handsome walking-down-the-street pic captioned "I hope you’ve all had a good start to the week," members of his team reposted that pic with the back to work caption, everyone's got a part to do to get the Liam promo machine rolling, he posted a fanart of this mornings selfie (the fast turnover!) and he followed Maya Henry (who then liked his post). We're told by "sources" that he and Maya have "been seeing each other for a while" but were waiting until Liam was promoting a new single to go public. Scott and Chris on BBC Radio 1 mentioned today that they wanted Liam fans to get in touch as 'something cool could go down'; one fan who texted in got a call back and was asked if she was free at 4pm tomorrow (um YES obviously) but given no other details. That show ends at 4 so whatever fan interaction happens is unlikely to be live tomorrow but we'll be hearing from him all week I think: another radio station says that he'll be popping by tomorrow... Tomorrow is also the GQ Men of the Year Awards, co-hosted by Hugo Boss: let's just say I wouldn't bet against him making an appearance but if you want to I'll put big money down in favor

Niall, also gearing up towards release, sat down and wrote an essay on twitter, wow. He writes about how he loves Flicker and how happy he was/is with it, and how appreciative of the response, and how touring it let him see what people responded to and work that into his process, and how excited he is to get the new stuff out. "What's the hold up then," he's asked, and he is like yeah yeah there's a lot that goes into this, and talks about all the different teams working on different parts of things. A good reminder of the iceberg that is a label release: months of work that have to be completed with us seeing only glimpses before the much smaller visible result pokes up out of the water for us to catch sight of at the last minute before we crash and die.

Harry liked a post about a fan's journey to feeling more confident with being gender non-conforming set to a HS1 vs HS2 timeline and a couple pictures from Harris Reed's new (gender fluidity themed) collection and took a fan pic back in London: don't ask cause I don't know, his hair was tucked in a hat.

[mood-swings-for-days]

Thunderstorm Ι Ch. 1 Ι JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Angst, Smut, Werewolf!au

Word count: 5, 283

Warnings: Characters in a less than healthy state of mind, violence, slight body horror, an addicted to cigarettes Jungkook (don’t do drugs, kids!)

Summary: An accidental encounter triggers a series of events that shatter your monotonous life. A new relationship starts to develop, following the stages of a thunderstorm.

Note: Written under the influence of beautiful music

1   2   3   4

Chapter 1: Wind

     The heavy downpour served as white noise to you. Dull jazz seeped all around you and into the cracks of your conscious as you stared blankly at the floor. The clock behind you ticked rhythmically, but it felt like time was no longer a thing. The aisles were void of customers for hours and a while ago you had started wondering if the minimum wage was worth all the time you’d wasted in this tiny shop. Days were getting duller as the months passed, having fallen into the same simple routine, you had become so impassive. Long ago you stopped counting the minutes until your shift ended, because you had nowhere to go anyway, which resulted in you going home late on multiple occasions. Your roommate never questioned it, not even when you came back well past midnight. You two didn’t talk much anyway.

     The small bell ringing as the door opened brought your mind back into the room, but you didn’t look up.

    “Good evening.”

     The customer didn’t bother to return your greeting and proceeded to walk between the aisles of overpriced goods. His wet shoes made a rhythmic squelching sound along the tiles. Absentmindedly you thought to mop the floors before you locked up for the night. Some moments later the customer came over to where you were sitting behind the cash register. With a dry exhale you pushed yourself from the chair you were slumped over in. The customer pushed a bottle of water and some cheap cigarettes toward you. His hands were bony, pale, and raw and bruised along the knuckles. Out of instinct you looked up to see his face. He was at least a foot taller than you, dressed in all black and completely soaked in rainwater. His dripping black bangs fell into his eyes and he wasn’t really trying to make eye contact, instead staring down at his stuff on the counter. Over all he looked like an average twenty-something year old dude, nothing in particular struck you as odd except for his beaten up hands. You scanned his things without much contemplation.

     “That’ll be 6,75.”

     He dug into the pocket of his jeans and threw a damp, slightly crumpled ten-dollar bill on the counter. You reached into the cash register for his change as he started opening the pack of cigarettes before even exiting the store. Clamping one between his lips, he pocketed the $3,25 you gave him and turned to walk out. The door was halfway open when he stopped. The sound of pouring rain from outside becoming even louder.

     “Shouldn’t you be going home?” You heard his voice for the first time. Turning to look at the clock, it was ten thirty and your shift had ended over an hour ago. The bell rang as the door fell shut. You watched his blurry silhouette through the glass as he lit his cigarette and disappeared into the rain.

    In the next thirty minutes’ no one else came in while you moped the floor and counted the shop turnover. In another ten minutes you had locked the place up and were headed home in your 1972 ford f100. The windshield wipers fighting the onslaught of rainwater was about the only dynamic thing in your drive back until you noticed a guy walking down your side of the road several feet down. You recognized him to be the customer from earlier.  He was walking with his hands in his pockets, completely defenseless against the downpour. As you were approaching him, something came over you. Your truck passed him and slowed down to a stop. A few moments later he peeked through your passenger side window with a cocked brow. You reached over the gear stick and opened the door for him.

    “It’s raining.” You pointed, hesitating what to say “We’re headed the same way and figured you needed a ride.”

    The guy looked at you blankly for a few seconds as the heavy rain seeped into the interior of your car. The longer he measured you up, the more you wondered if offering him a ride was a bad idea in the first place. He took his undoubtedly wet cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it behind your car.

    “I appreciate it, but don’t you think offering random strangers a ride is a bit reckless.”

    You blinked at him, fully realizing he was right, but you shrugged anyway.

    “Are you getting in or not? My car’s getting wet.”

    With a chuckle he climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut. You started your truck back up and proceeded to drive without another word. The stranger rolled down his window and lit another cigarette, a dry one. The smell of smoke and wet asphalt flooded the car. He was leaning his elbow against the open window and taking frequent drags from his cigarette, looking at the forest of pine trees that was lining the side of the road.

    “Sorry ‘bout that, but I was dying for a smoke. My last two got pretty messed up cause the rain.” He informed you and you didn’t really mind. The cold air seeping from outside was pleasant on your skin and there was something nostalgic about the smell of cigarette smoke inside this car.

    “My name’ s Jungkook.” He offered “In case you were wondering.”

    “Y/n”

    Aside from that little exchange, the car ride was mostly silent. Jungkook kept looking out the window while you sneaked glances at him from the corner of your eye. You turned down the road circling the forest and headed for your house. He never mentioned where he was going and somehow you forgot to ask.

    “So, where do you need me to drop you off?”

    Jungkook glanced at you briefly and shrugged. “Anywhere around here’s fine. I’m not gonna make you drive me home.”

    It was a couple miles down the road from your house when you stopped. You turned your attention towards Jungkook and found him looking at you already. By the time you arrived the downpour had somewhat subsided.

    “Thank you.” He said simply but made no move to try and get out of the car.

    You nodded, not really knowing what you were supposed to say. Picking him up off the road was kind of a spur of the moment decision, but you didn’t really want to tell him that. He was looking at you calmly with big brown eyes and a smile. For a few moments you allowed yourself to examine his face. There wasn’t anything spectacular about his features per se, but he was handsome in a weirdly alluring way. You chalked it up to your perpetual lack of contact with the opposite sex. Still, you couldn’t help the way your eyes followed his tongue as it poked out to wet his bottom lip. Now that the window on his side had been rolled up you could smell the rain and smoke on his clothes, but there was also something else, something particularly masculine about his scent. It wasn’t cologne and it most definitely wasn’t sweat, but it smelled familiar. There were a lot of little things about this guy that you seemed to pick up on. It really had been a while, you thought, since you last looked at a guy like that. Jungkook also seemed to look at you with interest as the thoughts stumbled around in your brain. The smile he wore a second ago had given way to a somewhat unreadable expression. He blinked once, twice and leaned toward you. Your breath hitched when his cold lips touched yours. It’s like static burned you for a moment and you flinched. When he pulled back you were left with the taste of cigarette smoke on your mouth.

    “Thanks,” he repeated “but don’t ever pick a random person up off the road again, no matter how hard it’s raining. Others might not have your best intentions in mind and you never know what might be sitting in your passenger seat.”

    You just kept looking at him wordlessly. You couldn’t decide if the kiss or the gentle scolding he was giving you bewildered you more. Jungkook sighed softly and reached for the door.

    “Goodnight.” He offered for the last time and exited the car

    “Night.” You mumbled quietly, but he heard you. You followed his movements as he rounded the front of your truck. In the headlights his eyes flashed for a brief second before he walked off. Just like an animal’s eyes, you thought absentmindedly as you watched his back disappear the further he went. You just stood still until you could no longer see him and then looked down at where he was sitting just a minute ago. The worn out leather of the seat was still very much wet. Your mind went blank and you just stared at the wet spot his body had left. Suddenly your desire to figure out what happened fizzled out. Passively you reached for the key and restarted your truck.

    When you got home your roommate was fast asleep on the couch with a movie still running on TV. You turned it off, ate a bowl of cereal for dinner and quickly fell asleep to the sound of raindrops against your window.

    Your sleep was far from peaceful though. Months ago your dreams had disappeared and every morning you woke from a forgetful slumber. Tonight however images of dark looming pines and a voice carried by the wind haunted the minutes of unconsciousness you managed to obtain between tossing and turning. Your boots were sinking into the muddy grass, lining the forest floor. The wind felt painfully cold against your bare skin as you looked around for the source of the incoherent whispers you were hearing. Seconds later you were sitting up in your bed thoroughly disconcerted and making sure you were alone in the room. Laying back down you blacked out again almost immediately. Back into the woods, the wind was howling all around you, warning of an upcoming thunderstorm. The full moon kept coming in and out from between the clouds and in the brief moments of clarity you frantically looked around. The tall pines swayed against the force of the wind, throwing moving shadows that were suspiciously reminiscent of the human form. You just kept running blindly, being driven by some internal force to keep looking. The damp air around you was both freezing and suffocating. Your breath was coming out in white puffs the faster you ran, slipping on moss and stumbling over your own feet. And that damned whispering could still be heard all around you. The wind only seemed to amplify it. Abruptly, you stopped. Where were you going exactly? Were you running to where you assumed the exit of the forest to be or were you running towards the supposed source of the whispering? Your escape came unexpectedly when you opened your eyes for the umpteenth time that night. Your eyelids felt so heavy and your body was aching, your limbs felt cold and heavy. With a trembling exhale you stared out your window. Just beyond your back yard you could see the very forest that made your night so restless. By now the rain had stopped, the sky was clearing and just behind the pines you could see dawn approaching. A heavy yawn tore from your lungs and you couldn’t resist the fatigue anymore. Falling against the pillow you slipped into deep, dreamless sleep.

    The next few weeks trickled by uneventful as ever. Your faithful routine once again becoming inescapable. In the morning you went to work, doing twelve hour shifts five days a week, sometime around nine or ten you went home, ate whatever was most convenient at the time and fell asleep. In comparison to your time awake, your dreams were wild. Running around the woods for hours on end, clinging to every little sound or movement and waking up on multiple occasions with chilled skin and goosebumps all over. On your days off your body desperately tried to recover from all the sleepless nights. You frequently passed out all over the place. On the kitchen table, on the couch while watching a movie, in bed every time you laid down, and even on the toilet a few times, literally anywhere you stayed immobile for an extended period of time. All the sleep however had the opposite effect on you. Instead of getting some rest you felt like the exhaustion was crushing you. Human interactions started to sound like white noise to you and your vision was blurry, so much so you stopped driving your truck to and from work in fear of losing control and crashing. You took the 45-minute walk twice every day with a blank stare ahead and zero sense of your surroundings. The damned woods kept you company, lining your periphery with all their rustling branches and unseen inhabitants.

    Soon enough the new university year was about to start, reminding you why exactly you chose to stay in this wilting part of the world in the first place. However, starting your lectures didn’t exactly bring with them the sense of purpose you were hoping to obtain. The only things that added to your routine were a whole bunch more school work to do and a certain bubbly character to accompany you in what little free time you had left. Your childhood best friend was back from her trip abroad to start another year at university. Your obscure dreams never ceased to keep you on the brink of existence and anything you tried to do took twice as long as it normally would, which left you with very little free time and patience to deal with Yara.

    You two were huddled up in a tight booth at the back of your local café, sitting opposite each other with your laptops open and a lengthy MS Word document on your screen.

    “Writing essays is damn near impossible!” Yara pouted and sipped on her sugary latte.

    You directed your attention toward her over the laptop screen. Her short, pumpkin-orange hair was held back by two bow-shaped clips on either side. It stood out against her pale skin and fluffy white sweater. You followed the carmine smudge her lips left on the rim of her drink and couldn’t help but think how the sugary beverage perfectly matched her sweet attitude and appearance. You on the other hand had picked up the habit of drinking copious amounts of bitter black coffee in your attempts keep your sanity.

    “You know,” Yara picked up a different tone to her voice “ever since I came back you’ve been acting kind of…” she paused to study your face for a moment “kind of off, I guess. You’re like a shell of your former self.”

    A shell of your former self? Yeah, that was one way to put it, you chuckled. Yara was staring at you with the intensity of a stubborn preschooler. A hint of irritation clenched in your chest at that expression she wore. How were you supposed to tell her that some random guy kissed you after you picked him up off the road in the dead of night and you’ve been having this oddly specific dream disrupting your sleep when she was looking at you like that. To be honest you didn’t think the two were connected in any particular way just because they happened to happen on the same day. The look on her face however was really starting to annoy you. Her cheeks were slightly puffed out, lips pursed and eyes narrowed with the silliest kind of determination. Deep down you knew it was only her ever insatiable curiosity that drove her to ask about your life.

    “What are you scowling at me for?” Yara grumbled without breaking eye contact.

    “How about you mind your own fucking business for once!” Your built up irritation suddenly exploded in her face. The annoying look of determination quickly disappeared and for once Yara seemed to be caught off guard. She stared at you wordlessly and you were already starting to regret your outburst.

    “Yara, I -”

    “Y/n, you can yell at me if that helps, but something really is wrong with you.” You couldn’t meet her eyes anymore; guilt was eating away at your conscious. When did you become like this? Was your life that pathetic that you felt threatened by your best friend trying to catch up because you had nothing to offer but an outlandish story about some guy and a stupid dream? Maybe you were jealous because Yara had her life together? It was your own fault for choosing to live your life so monotonously, waiting for some magical event to break up your routine. It was your own fault for deciding to deprive yourself from things like traveling, human interactions and meaningful relationships. And it wasn’t like you were building your future either. You were simply trapped by your insecurities and fear of ‘what ifs’, fear of commitment and at the same time inability to let go.

    “Hey, don’t freeze up like that!” Yara’s gentle touch pulled you from your destructive self-criticism. “If you feel uncomfortable, I won’t ask again. I’m just worried, because you seem to be in pretty rough shape.”

    The genuine warmth you found when you finally looked into her eyes felt like a punch to the gut. There you went again, distancing yourself from the person who had your best intentions in mind. Yara had been with you through it all, you realized, and she was interested in your because she was your friend, not because she was being nosy or trying to poke fun at you. Seriously, what was wrong with you to immediately feel threatened?

    “I’m sorry.” You struggled and failed to mask the tremble in your voice.

    “Stop beating yourself up over it.” You flinched “That’s not a healthy state of mind to be in, believe me.”

    You breathed s heavy sigh, but decided to be honest with her.

    “I’ve been having some trouble sleeping lately…” You started a bit hesitantly “… There’s this weird dream that I keep waking up from and I can’t seem to get rid of it. It’s really stupid, I keep hearing someone whispering and then I start running through the woods, and I don’t know where I’m going, and I keep waking up before I can figure it out. Every time I fall asleep everything starts all over again and I’m sick of it. I wake up at least 5 or 6 times every night and it’s been driving me insane for weeks.”

    Yara quietly waited for you to finish your rant. All throughout your gaze kept bouncing between her and the table in front of you, checking for any sign of mockery, but it never came.

    “Have you ever tried to go out there?” She suggested out of nowhere

    “Go out where?”

    “Out in the woods.” Yara shrugged “Dreams are a form of expression of our subconscious desires, you know. Your dream seems straightforward enough and I don’t really think there’s some hidden meaning behind it.”

    You were looking at her suspiciously. “You know there’s bears and stuff in the woods, right?”

    “Look, I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I had a better idea. Next time you wake up from that dream, get some bear spray and a flashlight and go out there for a bit. I mean, if you have a better idea, I’m listening.”

    “I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about any solutions, so I guess this is something.”

    “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll come over. When you decide to go out there, wake me up and I’ll be waiting for you to come back.”

    “That could work.” You nodded “There’s something else I want to tell you.”

    “I’m not going anywhere.” Yara smiled

    “The day my dreams started… God, I hate the way that sounds, but back when it started I accidentally stayed late at work. It was raining really heavily and this guy came in the store and -”

    Your words died in your throat when you saw a familiar face walk in through the door of the coffee shop. You hadn’t seen him in over a month, but there he was in all his dark and looming glory. Jungkook walked over to the barista with his hands in his pockets and you hated the way your adrenaline spiked at the sight of him. Yara was staring at you in silent bewilderment, but you couldn’t muster the strength to look away from him.

    “That’s him. That’s the guy I’m talking about.”

    “Who?!” Yara shrieked as she whipped her orange head around to scan the vicinity of the café.

    Upon hearing the unnaturally loud noise, Jungkook slowly turned around to look for the source. His eyes quickly zeroed in on Yara blatantly staring at him. They had a brief stare down, during which you just wanted to crawl under the table and out of sight. Just as suddenly as before Yara Jolted her head back around to look at you instead.

    “Isn’t that… oh, what’s his face? Jeon Jungkook?”

    But you couldn’t answer her because, now that Yara wasn’t serving as a distraction, Jungkook’s attention had shifted to you. He looked good, better that the first time you saw him anyway. This time he was dry, wearing simple torn blue jeans and a long black jacket. His hair was covered by a beanie and there was a seemingly empty backpack swinging on his shoulder. Jungkook picked up his drink from the counter and turned to leave, offering you a small nod as a parting gift. Your eyes followed him out the door and through the window. Just like he did over a month ago, he stopped to pull a cigarette out and light it before proceeding to walk away.

    “Sooo,” Yara started “what’s up with you and that Jungkook guy?”

    Embarrassment tinted your cheeks red upon realizing you had been caught. Yara was grinning at you and you could practically see the onslaught of questions that were bubbling up in her throat. By the time you started speaking she was barely holding back.

    “It’s nothing special, calm down.” You attempted to counteract her excitement. “He was my last customer for the night and while I was driving back home I saw him walking down the road in the rain. I don’t know why, but I gave him a ride. That’s all. The weird thing is that my dreams started that same night. I don’t think it’s related, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.”

    You decided to skip the part where he kissed you, because you weren’t sure what that was about.

    “That’s it?” Yara stared at you with the most disappointed face “And here I was thinking you two hooked up in your dad’s old truck.”

    “Told you it’s nothing special.” You sipped on your now cold coffee and the bitterness of it gave you chills. You didn’t even like coffee in the first place. “Anyway, how do you know him?”

    Yara shrugged “I know pretty much everyone in our university.” Upon seeing your confused expression, she continued “Yeah, I even noticed him attending some of our lectures. He always sneaks into class late. Dude’s a freaking magician, I can never catch him when he comes and goes. He’s pretty cute, but is also kinda weird and always keeps to himself. I’ve seen him hang out with very few people, I guess he has a tight friend circle or something.”

    You just sat back and listened in awe to all the information she was feeding you about this guy you’ve never seemed to notice before. Since when was Yara this well educated about people’s lives, you wondered.

    “He’s not much of a player too, despite what people think. I heard he’s hooked up with two or three girls that were older than him and already graduated by now. That’s about it.”

    Yara nodded in satisfaction when she finished her little resume of Jungkook’s history on campus. You guess she was people watching every time you assumed she was spacing out. You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you at the thought of Yara eavesdropping on people’s conversations and keeping tabs on people she never even talked to.

    You two stayed in the coffee shop until closing time, rekindling your relationship and laughing wholeheartedly at each other. After you left, you ate doughnuts for dinner and went back to your place, determined to watch movies until you both passed out.

    A random horror movie was playing on the TV and you seemed to be the only one paying attention. Yara was buried somewhere under an ungodly amount of blankets, dozing off repeatedly but trying her damnedest to stay awake. Her half-conscious face was bobbing up and down and she released yawn after yawn until she finally gave in. She fell face first into the blankets and started snoring softly. For a while you tried to follow suit, but sleep never came by to take you. Still you stubbornly squeezed your eyes shut and tried to find the most comfortable position. On TV the movie was still playing so you decided you might as well watch it. Maybe it could work some magic and put you to sleep. The movie was about a train breaking down in the middle of the woods. As you watched the looming drone shots of the foggy forest you couldn’t escape the weird feeling crawling up your chest. Overwhelming curiosity was eating you alive and making you excited at the thought of finally figuring out what was pulling you into the woods. Perhaps this was what was keeping you awake. A part of you wanted to just get up and go already, but, as stupid as it may sound, the other part felt like it wasn’t right to do it without being woken up from your dream. You felt like a little kid being told that Santa wasn’t coming unless they were asleep. It was so stupid but you still hesitated to get up.

    Some howling returned your attention to the movie. You didn’t realize it was a werewolf movie when you picked it. You hated this kind of stuff so you immediately reached for the remote and switched it off. The sound of howling gave you the chills and you didn’t want to deal with this bullshit tonight. Blocking the sound from your memory you curled in on yourself and pulled the blankets tightly around you. Not soon enough your eyelids started getting heavy.

    Your dreams were unnervingly tranquil. Instead of the frantic running you were used to, there was only darkness. Thick, unmoving darkness rendered your eyesight useless. At your sides, your fingers twitched nervously. The only familiarity presented itself in the form of a cold breeze, brushing against your bare skin and raising goosebumps in its wake. You strained your ears for even the slightest noise, but you heard nothing. You didn’t know what to do with yourself, your limbs felt too heavy to move and your heart was hammering in your chest.

    Smoke? You sniffed the air around you. Cigarette smoke. The wind was carrying it, swirling it around you and blowing it away. Immediately, you thought about Jungkook and felt mildly irritated. Of course the only time you wanted to experience the damned dream this would happen. You blamed Yara and the amount of personal information about Jungkook she dumped on you earlier. A smile stretched across your face and you let your guard down. You couldn’t get mad because you finally had normal human interactions in your life.

    You felt warmth slide up your arms. You flinched but couldn’t move. It was the oddest feeling because it felt like human touch, but you couldn’t sense a human presence. It caressed you from your palms, all the way to your shoulders and back. Moving down your spine slowly, it reached your waist and gently tugged you backward. Your shoulders were met with something firm that emanated even more warmth. Everything felt strangely natural, the touch felt familiar on your body and you seemed to relax right into it. The smell of cigarette smoke was stronger now, blended with the scent of fresh linen and something sweet. You inhaled it in big gulps, almost burning the fragrance into your mind. The more you leaned into it, the presence behind you became more solid, more real. Cold breath spilled along your neck and chest and you didn’t even try to stop the prominent chill that made your spine bow against the firm body behind you. Your hands shifted from your sides to reach backward, your fingers came in contact with a rough fabric you recognized to be denim. Your shoulders were pressed into something much softer like a hoodie, you guessed. Every fiber of your being screamed at you to turn around, but you were scared that this lovely feeling would vanish if you did. So you kept your movements soft and slow, carefully sliding your hand up your chest. You felt electricity prick at your fingertips the closer you got. Agonizingly slow they slipped over the swell of your breast, over your ribs and collarbone and up your throat and jaw. You held your breath the closer you got, just a little bit more, you reached back. Your fingers flinched when they made contact with hot, silky smooth skin. You ventured further, your palm sliding shyly along it, shaking slightly. Your hand was wrapping around the back of someone’s neck, you realized when your fingers touched soft, short hair. The person leaned into your hesitant touch and for the first time you felt his chest expand with a deep inhale against your back. If you focused hard enough, you could even feel his rapid heartbeat onto your shoulder blade. You couldn’t see or hear a thing but, God, you other senses were going into overdrive. Every cell in your body tingled in anticipation of the slightest stimulation and this person’s scent was so pungent all around, you could taste it in your throat.

    A howl tore through the matter of your fantasy. The sound came so suddenly through the silence, that it made tears pool at the corners of your eye. Your body was completely stripped of warmth when a gust of wind slammed into you from behind and left you shivering. Cold droplets started to rattle against your shoulders and when you opened your eyes you were once again faced with the image of tall looming pines. The whispering was also coming back in full force and it only seeped to grow louder the longer you listened. The sudden onslaught of noise made tears stream down your face. Just as the whispers started to morph into screams, you felt a suffocating pain erupt in your throat. Instinctively you squeezed your hands against it until you realized, there was blood pouring out between your fingers.

    Your body shot up with a screeching inhale. Your hands unconsciously palmed at your throat.  You stared right ahead into the darkness of your living room, everything was just as you had left it, Yara was cuddled up under her blanket pile, undisturbed. Your body was trembling and heavy tears rolled down your cheeks and into your lap.

    “Fuck this.” You croaked in a tiny voice “What the fuck just happened?!”

    You turned to look out the window. The first rays of sunlight were starting to creep over the horizon. One thing’s for sure, you weren’t going into the forest anytime soon.

...

Disclaimer: I didn’ come up with the name Yara myself, but instead got influenced by @kinktae ‘s story. Other than that the character has been made up by me. Just giving credit where it’s due.

[junker-town]

Josh Giddey is the NBA draft pick who almost slipped through the cracks

How Josh Giddey went from being cut by his Australian state team to a potential NBA draft lottery pick.

Josh Giddey knew he was down to his last chance. As he arrived at a multi-day basketball jamboree known as the East Coast Challenge, Giddey was one of 60 youth players competing from the Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia hoping to be selected for the prestigious state team.

State basketball is the pathway to a brighter future in the game in Australia, but it had alluded Giddey to this point. Three times he had tried out for state-level basketball, and three times he had received an email at the end of the event telling him he’d been cut. Only 16 years old and already realizing he was at a crossroads in his career, Giddey was determined not to let it happen again.

He had the benefit of a recent growth spurt this time around that taken him up to 6’8 as a point guard. The added height only accentuated the gifts that always made him stand out: his passing and playmaking, and perhaps more importantly his ability to think one step ahead of the next defensive adjustment. After shining at the camp, the anxious hours waiting to hear if he was selected turned into a quiet confidence.

“I kept promising myself I wouldn’t get cut, I wouldn’t get cut, and the last opportunity I had to make the state team I didn’t get cut,” Giddey told SB Nation. “I finally got that one email I was waiting for.”

Giddey’s life has been in overdrive ever since. After shining at a subsequent national event, he was offered a scholarship by the NBA Global Academy at the Australian Institute of Sport. Giddey moved across the country to Canberra, where he would spend the next 18 months developing his game and his body while competing against peer-aged competition around the world. The accolades he earned at the academy eventually led Giddey to become the first Australian player to be tabbed for the Next Stars program in the country’s domestic professional league, the NBL.

After one season with the Adelaide 36ers, Giddey is now on his way to the 2021 NBA Draft. The same player who couldn’t separate himself from his peers in Victoria only two years ago is now projected as a likely lottery pick.

Giddey is at once on a meteoric rise and still just scratching the surface. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft and has a case as one of the most accomplished given his production in a pro league against seasoned adults. He is still growing into his body and refining his jump shot while already possessing the type of mental processing gifts that can’t be taught. It has been a wild ride to bring him to the precipice of his NBA dreams, but Giddey isn’t the type to get overwhelmed by the moment.

“It’s just good to see the work paying off,” he said.

Photo by Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

Marty Clarke remembers the first time he identified Giddey as a future prospect to watch during his days as a college assistant coach at WCC power Saint Mary’s. A fellow Australian, Clarke was a former teammate of Josh’s dad, Warrick, who enjoyed a long professional career with the NBL’s Melbourne Tigers and had his No. 6 retired by the club. He saw the traits that could eventually make the young guard the type of player Saint Mary’s would one day want to target, but he knew it was going to be a while before they could do so. Giddey was only 12 years old.

“When I first went to St. Mary’s in 2013, I said coach (Randy) Bennett, there’s a kid I want to put on the board but it will be like seven years before we can get him,” Clarke recalls. “He can really pass with his weak hand. He can pass full court, off the dribble, or from penetration. He was kind of doing a lot of that stuff as a 12-14 year old. Now he’s a 6’8 person who can do that.”

Clarke would eventually get his chance to help develop Giddey in a way neither could have anticipated. When the NBA partnered with the Australian Institute of Sport and Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence in 2017 to launch the NBA Global Academy, Clarke left Saint Mary’s to take a job as its technical director. Clarke was the perfect candidate as someone who previously had experience as a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, and now had familiarity with American college basketball.

The same place that had produced almost every Australian player to reach the NBA — Andrew Bogut, Matthew Dellavedova, Dante Exum, Joe Ingles, Luc Longley, Aron Baynes, and Patty Mills among them — was now further investing in its connection to the league. Clarke would oversee all aspects of player development and coaching for the 12 high school-aged players who were offered a scholarship to the academy.

“We have a really good blue print,” Clarke said. “The Australian academy has been here for 40 years. This is what this place has always been doing, producing Olympians and future NBA players.”

The NBA launched academies in India, Senegal, Mexico, China over the last 10 years as a year-round development initiative for elite youth prospects. Australia’s Global Academy takes teenagers from around the world. In its partnership with the AIS, players with the Global Academy live in dorms and attend classes while preparing them for life as a professional athlete. Instead of trying to win as many games as possible and compete for championships like a college team, the main goal of the academy is individual development.

The players at the Global Academy go to school and training six days per week with only Sundays off. In a typical week, players will be put through regular full team practices, as well as smaller group sessions that focus on things like connecting the bigs to the smalls by drilling pick-and-rolls and post entries. There’s shooting and skill training every morning before school, as well as weight lifting three times per week, and mindfulness training. Spliced in with all of that is education on nutrition, physiology, and personal learning like financial literacy and social media courses.

“Our goal here is when they leave here, they have lots of options,” Clarke said. “We make sure they’re eligible for universities. We want to make sure every door is open when they leave.”

The Global Academy also plays games against peer-aged teams, and that’s where Giddey continued to raise his profile. Giddey would lead the academy to the championship at the prestigious Torneo Junior Ciutat de L’Hospitalet tournament in Spain and was named MVP of the event. He followed it up with a strong showing at Basketball Without Borders during All-Star Weekend last year in Chicago.

“His development since he got here has been off the charts,” Clarke said. “Because he missed that state-level development, he skipped up to another level and had a lot to learn. He jumped a stage, really.”

Giddey’s time at the academy had given him multiple avenues to explore on what he should do next. That’s when he faced the next flashpoint decision in his burgeoning young career: Was he better off going to college in America or staying home to play in Australia?

Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images

Giddey had a long list of American college basketball programs who wanted him. He had standing scholarship offers from Arizona, Colorado, Rutgers, St. John’s, and more. After one college visit in particular, Giddey felt like he was ready to commit.

“I was 99 percent set on college,” Giddey said. “I took a visit to Colorado sometime in 2020, when I left there after my two-day visit, I was ready to commit there. I was about to commit there but my parents said just wait to we get home and we’ll talk about it.

“So I went home and we started talking to some people and they started talking about the NBL Next Star pathway. I met with Jeremy Loeliger, who is the CEO of the NBL, and they really sold it to me. The way they take care of their kids, the opportunity you’ll get to play against grown men at such a young age, I thought that was better for me personally than going to college to play against other kids.”

On April 16, 2020, at just 17 years old, Giddey signed with the Adelaide 36ers of the NBL. He had become the first Australian to take advantage of the league’s ‘Next Stars’ program, which was originally intended to lure top American prospects who didn’t want to play college basketball. Former McDonald’s All-Americans Terrance Ferguson and Brian Bowen were two of the first signees of the program, but it was a decision by LaMelo Ball and R.J. Hampton to sign in Australia that helped convince Giddey it was the best path for him.

“They surprised everyone with how good they were, especially LaMelo,” said Giddey. “It was good to see because it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to be an NBL player and eventually an NBA player. To see those guys come through gave me the confidence to think I could hopefully do something similar.”

Going from youth tournaments against peer-aged competition to playing against grown men was an enormous adjustment. Giddey struggled with it at first. The ambitious passes that defined his time at the youth level were often becoming turnovers in more meaningful games. He was ice cold as a shooter to start the year, hitting just 2-of-20 shots from three-point range over his first seven games. The biggest issue was playing through contact on both ends of the floor.

“I was struggling with the physicality of the league,” Giddey said of the start to his time in the NBL. “You don’t realize how physical the league is until you actually play against guys that are 35 years old and strong, athletic, and quick. It was just a completely different level to junior basketball. I was playing at a fast pace the whole time. I was rushed, I was nervous.”

He points to his second game as his initial breakthrough, when he finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists against South East Melbourne, and was trusted to take the final shot in regulation. Even though he missed, the 36ers would win in overtime, and Giddey started every game the rest of the season.

Giddey was masterful at times as a facilitator, firing passes to open shooters in the corner with either hand and finding unique angles to get the ball to the big man near the basket. Starting center Daniel Johnson had one of the best seasons of his career at age-33 with Giddey at the controls, and fellow teammate (and former Kentucky big man) Isaac Humphries turned into a dependable scorer, as well. Giddey’s three-point shot also started to come around eventually, hitting 36.7 percent of his shots from deep those first 20 attempts.

“The big thing for me early in the year was I was so down on confidence,” Giddey said. “I was so worried if I missed what people were going to say, what scouts were going to think. There was a point where I spoke to one of my teammates and he told me all of this doesn’t matter. Just shoot every shot like you think you’re going to make it. That was when it switched for me.”

Before season’s end, Giddey had run off three triple-doubles over a four-game stretch and had firmly established himself as a first round NBA draft pick. Given his age and the level of competition, Giddey was remarkably productive: he averaged 10.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and a league-leading 7.5 assists per game on 51 percent true shooting.

Those numbers stack up reasonably well to what Ball did in the same league a year earlier as 6’8 playmaking guard at 18 years old. Ball scored more, but slightly less efficiently (47.9 true shooting) while their rebound, assist, and steal numbers were similar. It is worth noting that while Ball was often deemed reckless as a lead decision-maker, Giddey’s turnover rate was significantly highly at 23.7 vs. Ball’s 12.4.

Giddey isn’t as flexible and shifty as a ball handler as LaMelo, but the baseline similarities and statistical profiles in the same league, at the same age will be tempting for teams, especially following Ball’s run to Rookie of the Year after being the No. 3 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

“To see how (Ball’s) game translated to the NBA, it’s made me feel even better about my decision,” Giddey said.

The appeal of Giddey for NBA teams starts with his intersection of size and passing. Giddey is an impressive facilitator off a live dribble who will fire passes with either hand while on the move. Against a set defense, Giddey is able to make quick decisions with the ball, and loves to zip a two-handed, overhead pass to his big man in the paint. His interior passing is particularly impressive thanks in part to his ability to leverage his length to find creative angles in tight spaces. The big question for his offensive game will be if he can make opposing defenses respect him enough as a scoring threat to fully unlock his playmaking gifts.

There will be serious questions about Giddey’s athleticism and strength, particularly if he has enough standstill burst to beat his man and force the opposing defense into rotation. Even if Giddey can’t put enough pressure on the rim to be a primary creator, he should be custom-made as a ‘connecting’ piece who can be a secondary facilitator and floor spacer as his jump shot comes around. In Clarke’s eyes, it’s Giddey’s overarching feel for the game that will help him overcome the challenges he sees at the next level.

“He’ll often have quiet first quarters or first halves, and then he’ll have monster second halves,” Clarke said. “He can figure things out on the run, and that’s a skill a lot of players don’t have. He can fix things in game.

“It’s not just feel for the game, it’s feel for the opposition and what they’re trying to do to you. A lot of people have feel for the game when the game is mundane and vanilla. He has feel for the game when it’s chaos going on. He can figure things really quickly.”

As the NBA moves into the pre-draft process, Giddey is widely projected to be taken in the lottery. We had Giddey going No. 14 overall to the Golden State Warriors in our mock draft, while ESPN has him going No. 10 overall to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Giddey’s entrance into the league is also an achievement for the academies the NBA invested in around the world. He’ll be the first male athlete to be drafted into the league after being a full-time academy student. Clarke sees Giddey as the type of player the Australian Institute always dreamed about developing.

“He’s kind of the guy we thought of 30 years ago when we started the program,” said Clarke. “Imagine if we had a whole team of 6’8 guys who are multi-dimensional and can pass, dribble, and shoot, defend multiple positions. We’ll stick one big guy in the middle with four guys like that. Josh is kind of exactly that.

“Coaches always ponder what the future is going to be. I think Josh is what we thought about when I first came here 25 years ago.”

If Giddey embodies the dream of what the AIS always hoped to produce, he also came dangerously close to slipping through the cracks. In the course of just over two years, he has gone from a player who couldn’t make it out of his home state to a possible top-10 NBA draft pick. For a player on such a rapid rise, the next question is the most exciting: how much room to Giddey have to grow from here?