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junker-town · 3 years

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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.

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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?

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beyond4lines · 6 years

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NBA Trade Deadline for Each Team

I’m going to dive in what the team needs and what possible trades can happen at trade deadline on February 7.

Eastern Conference

1. Raptors

Trade assets: Norman Powell, CJ Miles, Delon Wright

Needs: Wings that can shoot/spread the floor, Playmakers

Trade for Raptors:

· Norman Powell for TJ Warren

· Norman Powell and CJ Miles for Kent Bazemore

2. Bucks

Trade assets: George Hill, Jason Smith

Needs: shooters, a big that can rebound

Trade for Bucks:

· George Hill for Wesley Matthews

· Something involving Hill and Terrence Ross

· Hill for Enes Kanter

· Jason Smith for Ed Davis

3. Pacers

Trade assets: Kyle O’quinn *Myles Turner, TJ Leaf, Ike Anigbogu, Darren Collison, Cory Joseph

Needs: Stretch 4 if decide to trade Myles Turner, a playmaker with Olidipo out for the season.

Trade for Pacers:

· Myles Turner and Davon Reed for Nemanja Bjelica

· B.Bogdanovic and Doug Mcdermont for Kent Bazemore

4. 76’ers

Trade assets: Markelle Fultz *Ben Simmons

Needs: Shooters

Trade for 76ers

· Wilson Chandler for TJ Warren

· Markelle Fultz for Courtney Lee and future 1st

· Markelle Fultz for Terrence Ross

· Wilson Chandler for Trevor Ariza

· Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz, Wilson Chandler, and 2021 Miami (via PHX) 1ST rounder for Anthony Davis

5. Celtics

Trade assets: Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier

Needs: Knock down shooter, slashers that can get to the free - throw line and bigs that can rebound.

Trade for Celtics

· G. Yabusele and Jabari Bird for Ed Davis

· Terry Rozier for Jerian Grant and future 1st or a 2nd round pick

· Terry Rozier for Luke Kennard or Reggie Bullock

6. Nets

Trade assets: Allen Crabbe, Demarre Carroll, Rondae Hollis Jefferson

Needs: Dump Cap for summer

Trade for Nets

· Allen Crabbe for Iman Shumpert

7. Heat

Trade assets: Hassan Whiteside, Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters, Wayne Ellington

Needs: Dump Cap

Trade for Heat

· Finding trade partners are hard considering how many bad contracts they have.

8. Hornets

Trade assets: Nicolas Batum, Marvin Williams, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, *Kemba Walker, Frank Kaminsky

Needs: Players that can support Kemba IE floor spacing and another playmaker.

Trades for Hornets

1. Nicolas Batum to the Cavs for Jr Smith in a 4 team trade between Cavs, Suns, and Kings.

· Dragen Bender from Suns to Hornets

· Rodney Hood to Suns

· David Nwaba to Kings

2. Marvin Williams for Tim Hardaway Jr.

9. Pistons

Trade Assets: Reggie Jackson, Andre Drummond, Jon Leuer

Needs: 3 and D wings, figure out if the Griffin/Drummond pair is working

Trades for Pistons

· Luke Kennard or Reggie Bullock for Terry Rozier

· Langston Galloway for Wayne Ellington

10. Magic

Trade assets: Evan Fournier, Nikola Vucevic, Terrence Ross, John Simmons*Jonathan Issac, *Aaron Gordon

Needs: Letting go of some assets and bad contracts, a point guard and choose between Gordon and Issac because Issac is more of a 4 than a 3.

Trades for Magic

· Jonathon Simmons and first rounder for Dennis Smith Jr.

· Jonathan Isaac and first rounder for Dennis Smith Jr.

· Nikola Vucevic for Marcin Gortat and future 1st round pick from the Clippers

11. Wizards

Trade Assets: Otto Porter, Bradley Beal, Trevor Ariza

Needs: 3 and d wings, floor spacing, playmakers, and figuring out their future with Wall out for the foreseeable future.

Trades for the Wizards

· Trevor Ariza for Rajon Rondo and Lance Stephenson and a future 2nd rounder

12. Hawks

Trade Assets: Kent Bazemore, Jeremy Lin, Dewayne Dedmon, Taurean Prince

Needs: get rid of assets like Bazemore,Lin and Dedmon, maybe Prince as some feel Prince might have hit his ceiling and will demand more money the Hawks are willing to pay in the future. In return get guys that can service young core.

Trades for Hawks

· Kent Bazemore for Norman Powell and CJ Miles

· Prince for Denzel Valentine and a 2nd rounder

· Jeremy Lin for Solomon Hill and a 1st rounder

13. Knicks

Trade assets: Enes Kanter, Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee, Frank Ntilikina, *Kristaps Porzingis

Needs: Create Cap for summer, and get a point guard for the future.

Trades for Knicks

· Tim Hardaway Jr. for Marvin Williams

· Enes Kanter for George Hill

· Courtney Lee for Markelle Fultz

· Enes Kanter for Zach Randolph

· Enes Kanter or Tim Hardaway Jr., Kristaps Porzingis and 2019 1st rounder for Anthony Davis

14. Bulls

Trade assets: Jabri Parker, Cristiano Felicio, Robin Lopez

Needs: 3 and D wings, playmakers, getting off Jabari Parker contract

Trades for Bulls

· Robin Lopez for Brandon Knight

· Jabari Parker for Zach Randolph

· Jabari Parker for Wesley Matthews

· Denzel Valentine for Prince

15. Cavs

Trade assets: Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, JR Smith

Needs: get rid of overpaid players

Trades for Cavs

· JR Smith for Brandon Knight

· Tristan Thompson for Evan Turner

· Tristan Thompson for Jonas Valanciunas

West Conference

1. Nuggets

Trade assets: Mason Plumlee, Will Barton, Trey Lyles

Needs: Floor spacing, more depth

Trades for Nuggets

· J. Hernangomez and Torrey Craig for Jonathon Simmons “Magic”

· Trey Lyes, J. Hernangomez, Torrey Craig for Courtney Lee “Knicks”

· Trey Lyles for Luke Kennard “Pistons”

2. Warriors

Trade assets: None

Needs: NONE they are the Warriors they have 5 all-stars yeah FIVE!

Trades for GSW

· None

3. Thunder

Trade Assets: Patrick Patterson, Alex Abrines

Needs: defensive wing depth, big depth

Trades for OKC

· Patrick Patterson to Kings and Alex Abrines to Magic for Terrence Ross “Magic” and Scal Labissiere “Kings”

· Alex Abrines for Wayne Ellington

4. Trailblazers

Trade assets: *CJ McCullum, Evan Turner, Meyers Leonard

Needs: Length and 3 and D guys

Trades for Trailblazers

· Jake Layman and Nik Stauskas and a 1st rounder for Taurean Prince

· Myers Leonard for Courtney Lee

5. Clippers

Trade assets: Gallinari , Avery Bradely, Marcin Gortat

Needs: free up cap space

Trades for Clippers

1. Marcin Gortat and a 1st rounder for Nikola Vucevic

2. 4 team trade involving Clippers, T’Wolves Cavs and Kings

· Clippers receive Iman Shumpert, Jayred Bayless, and Rodney Hood

· T’Wolves receive Avery Bradley and Milos Teodosic

· Cavs receive Mbah a Moute

· Kings receive Gorgui Dieng

6. Spurs

Trade assets: Pau Gasol, Rudy Gay

Needs: 3 and D wing

Trades for Spurs

· Rudy Gay for Courtney Lee

7. Lakers

Trade assets: anyone but Lebron

Needs: shooters, a star

Trades for Lakers

· Lance Stephenson for Wayne Ellington

8. Rockets

Trade assets: Brandon Knight, Marquess Chriss

Needs: rebounding, and shooting

Trades for Rockets

· Brandon Knight for JR Smith

· Brandon Knight and Marquess Chriss and future 1st and 2nd for Enes Kanter

· Brandon Knight for Robin Lopez

9. Jazz

Trade assets: Derrick Favors, Dante Exum, Jae Crowder

Needs: Playmaker/Scorer to relieve Donovan Mitchell

Trades for Jazz

· Dante Exum, Jae Crowder, Ekpe Udoh for Jabari Parker

· Derrick Favors for Jabari Parker

10. Kings

Trade assets: Zach Randolph, Iman Shumpert

Needs: floor spacing, 2 way big

Trades for Kings

1. Zach Randolph for Enes Kanter

2. Nemanja Bjelica for Myles Turner and Davon Reed

11. T’Wolves

Trade assets: Jeff Teague, Gorgui Dieng, Taj Gibson

Needs: playmaker, perimeter scoring

Trades for T’Wolves

1. Refer to the 4 team Avery Bradley deal I made for the Clippers

2. Jeryd Bayless for Cory Joseph “Pacers”

3. Jeryd Bayless in a 4 team trade for Dennis Smith Jr.

· Minnesota receive Dennis Smith Jr.

· Mavs receive Brandon Knight and Jeryd Bayless

· Rockets receive Wesley Matthews and Pat Connaughton

· Bucks receive Carmelo Anthony

4. Taj Gibson in a 3 team trade for Markelle Fultz and Kosta Koufos

· T’Wolves receive Markelle Fultz and Kosta Koufos

· 76ERS receive Anthony Toliver and a Future 1ST rounder

· Kings receive Taj Gibson

12. Mavs

Trade assets: Harrison Barnes, Wesley Matthews, *Dennis Smith Jr.

Needs: perimeter defense, rebounding off bench, perimeter shooting depth.

Trades for Mavs

· Wesley Matthews for Courtney Lee and Noah Vonleh

13. Pelicans

Trade assets: Jrue Holiday, *Anthony Davis, Solomon Hill, E’twaun Moore

Needs: Defense, Perimeter scoring, rebounding

Trades for Pelicans

· Solomon Hill and Tim Frazier for Kent Bazemore

14. Grizzlies

Trade assets: *Mike Conley (has an early contract termination on final year of contract “2020-2021”) Marc Gasol, Chandler Parsons

Needs: get younger, get supporting pieces for Jaren Jackson , Kyle Anderson, and Dillon Brooks.

Trades for Grizzlies

1. Marc Gasol for Allen Crabbe, T. Graham and future 1st ronder

2. Mike Conley to the Suns in a 4 team trade involving the Grizzlies, Suns, Pelicans, and Kings

· Grizzlies receive Solomon Hill, Josh Jackson,Skal Labissiere, and Frank Jackson

· Suns receive Mike Conley and Time Frazier

· Pelicans receive Zach Randolph

· Kings receive Ryan Anderson

15. Suns

Trade assets: TJ Warren *Josh Jackson, *Kelly Oubre, *Mikal Bridges

Needs: point guard, bench depth

Trades for Suns

· Kelly Oubre for Dennis Smith Jr. and Bucks 1st rounder

· Mikal Bridges for Dennis Smith Jr and Bucks 1st rounder

· Josh Jackson for Frank Ntilikina

#NBA #nbaseason #nba basketball #basketball #sports #trade deadline #sports blog

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musicals256-blog · 6 years

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Musicals

Message me if you’d like any or have any of my wants. If you need, I can also help you find stuff, even if I don’t already have it. :)

VIDEO Aladddin- BWAY (BCEFA speech from AJ at end) Adam Jacobs, Courtney Reed, James Monroe Iglehart, Jonathan Freeman Amelie- 2017 OBC A Very Potter Musical A Very Potter Sequel A Very Potter Senior Year Bandstand- OC Be More Chill- Off-BWAY (2018) Roughly 1st 20 mins Will Roland, George Salazar, Gerard Canonico, Stephanie Hsu, Lauren Marcus, Katlyn Carlson, Jason Tam, Jason SweetTooth Williams, Tiffany Mann Bonnie and Clyde- BWAY Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes The Book of Mormon- Workshop (Sept 1, 2010) The Book of Mormon- OBC (March, 2011) The Book of Mormon- BWAY (2012/13) KJ Hippensteel, Jon Bass, Nikki M James, Rory O’Malley, Justin Bohon The Book of Mormon- Chicago (Dec 23, 2012) Nic Rouleau, Ben Platt, Syesha Mercado, Pierce Cassedy, James Vincent Meredith, Christopher Shyer, David Aron Damane The Book of Mormon- West End (May 29, 2013) Gavin Creel, Daniel Buckley, Alexia Khadime, Stephen Ashfield, Giles Terera, Tosh Wangho-Maud, Haydn Oakley, Tyrone Huntley, Ashley Day The Book of Mormon- Costa Mesa (Evening, May 17, 2014) David Larsen, Cody Jamison Strand, Tallia Brinson, Pierce Cassedy, Jeff Heimbrock, James Vincent Meredith, David Aron Damane, Christoper Shyer The Book of Mormon- Brazil (2015) The Book of Mormon- Cincinnati (Matinee, Sat April 2, 2016) ‘Orlando’ backdrop needed resetting. Ryan Bondy, Cody Jamisson Strand, Candace Quarrels, Daxton Bloomquist, Sterling Jarvis, David Aron Damane, Edward Watts, CJ Pawlikowski, Jacob Haren The Book of Mormon- West End (Matinee July 20, 2016) KJ Hippensteel, Brian Sears, Alexandra Ncube, Stephen Ashfield, Richard Lloyd King, Dean Maynard, Delroy Atkinson, Kelly Agbowu, Philip Catchpole, Christopher Copeland, Brendan Cull, Joseph Davenport, Jonathan Dudley, Harry Francis, LLydia Fraser, Tyrone Huntley, Reece Kerridge, Alex Lodge, Joshua Lovell, Nicholas Mclean, David McMullan, Tania Mathurin, Briana Ogunbawo, David O’Reilly, Oliver Ormson, Sean Parkins, Stephen Rolley, Jacade Simpson, Rhys Taylor, Kayi Ushe, Ellena Vincent, Rodney Vubya, T’Shan Williams The Book of Mormon- Orlando (Dec, 2017) ‘You and Me- But Mostly Me’, ‘Sal Tlay Ka Siti’, ‘I Believe’ Kevin Clay, Connor Pierson, Kayla Pecchioni, PJ Adzima The Book of Mormon- Melbourne (Dec, 2017) Ryan Bondy, Nyk Bielak, Zahra Newman, Bert La Bonte, Rowan Witt, Josh Mulheran, Daniel Assetta, Todd Jacobsson, Eddie Grey, Matt Holly, Mitchell Mahony, Morgan Palmer, Josh Russell, Andrew Broadbent, Augustin Aziz Tchantcho, Jayme-Lee Hanekom The Book of Mormon- West End (Jan, 2018) ‘I Believe’ lyrics change “FORMER president of the church” KJ Hippensteel, Cody Jamison Strand Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- BWAY (2017/18) Christian Borle, Kathy Fitzgerald, F. Michael Haynie, Ben Crawfordm, Emma Pfaeffle, Alan H. Green, Trista Dollison, Jackie Hoffman, Michael Wartella Dear Evan Hansen- OBC (2016) Falsettos- Revival OC (2016) Falsettos- Revival OC (2017) Proshot Frozen- Denver OC Hairspray Andrew Rannells Hamilton- OBC (Act 1) Hamilton- OBC In the Heights- OBC Mean Girls- OBC Newsies- Proshot (2017) Newsies- OBC Newsies- BWAY Corey Cott Spring Awakening- OBC Spring Awakening (Deaf West)- OBC Tuck Everlasting- OBC

AUDIO Be More Chill- Off-Broadway Revival (2018) The Book of Mormon- Chicago (July 19, 2013) Nic Rouleau, AJ Holmes, Syesha Mercado, Pierce Cassedy The Book of Mormon- West End (Matinee, Sat Jan 17, 2015) AD 2nd last show Ashley Day (u/s), David O’Reilly (s/b), Alexia Khadime, Mark Anderson (u/s) The Book of Mormon- West End (May 26, 2015) Ross Hunter, Brian Sears, Alexia Khadime, Stephen Ashfield, Richard Lloyd King, Chris Jarman, Hugo Harold-Harrison The Book of Mormon- West End (July 14, 2015) Nic Rouleau, Brian Sears, Dentee Benton, Stephen Ashfield, Richard Lloyd King, Chris Jarman, Hugo Harold-Harrison, Ross Hunter The Book of Mormon- (2013/14) Nic Rouleau, Cody Jamison Strand, Brian Sears The Book of Mormon- West End (July 19, 2016) KJ Hippensteel, Brian Sears, Alexandra Ncube, Stephen Ashfield, Richard Lloyd King, Delroy Atkinson, Dean Maynard, Brendan Cull, Joseph Davenport, Jonathan Dudley, Harry Francis, Joshua Lovell, Nicholas Mclean, Jacade Simpson The Book of Mormon- BWAY Nic Rouleau, Brian Sears, Nikki Renee Daniels, Stephen Ashfield The Book of Mormon- BWAY (Evening, June 24, 2017) Nic Rouleau, Brian Sears, Kim Exum, Stephen Ashfield, Billy Eugene Jones, Stephen Christopher Anthony, Lewis Cleale, Bud Weber, Marja Harmon, Delius Doherty, John Eric Parker, Derrick Williams, Tommar Wilson, J. Casey Barrett, Tallia Brinson, Christian Delcroix, Ben Estus, Oyoyo Joi, Carole Denise Jones, Ben Laxton, Darius Nichols, Hardy Weaver, Maia Nkenge Wilson Dear Evan Hansen- BWAY (2017) Colton Ryan, Olivia Puckett, Kristolyn Lloyd, Garrett Long, Mike Faist, Will Roland, Michael Park, Jennifer Laura Thompson Dear Evan Hansen- OBC (Evening, Nov 19, 2017) Ben Platt’s final show Dear Evan Hansen- BWAY (March 15, 2018) Alex Boniello’s first show as CM Alex Boniello, Rachel Bay Jones, Michael Park Newsies- OBC Mike Faist as Jack Kelly Mike Faist SCORE BOOKS PIANO VOCAL 13 A Very Potter Musical Be More Chill Dear Evan Hansen Found/Tonight Mamma Mia Mary Poppins Rocky Horror The Wizard of Oz West Side Story Wicked Xanadu Young Frankenstein

CONDUCTOR SCORE 42nd Street A Chorus Line American Idiot Annie Annie Get Your Gun Anything Goes Avenue Q Barnum Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Blood Brothers Bonnie and Clyde The Book of Mormon The Boy From Oz Bring it On Cabaret Carousel Carrie Cats Chess Chicago Dreamgirls Evita Hair Hairspray Hedwig Jersey Boys Jesus Christ Superstar The Last Five Years Les Mis Little Shop of Horrors Next to Normal Oliver Once on this Island Pippin Ragtime Rent The Secret Garden The Sound of Music Tarzan Titanic Wicked Wicked (2nd version) Willy Wonka

WANTS Aladdin- Any cast from Australia (V/A) Be More Chill- full 2018 revival cast (V) The Book of Mormon- any I don’t already have (V/A) Nic Rouleau/Stephen Ashfield (V) Melbourne/Sydney cast (V/A) Dear Evan Hansen- Any understudies, Noah Galvin (V/A) Mean Girls- P/V or conductor score Honestly, anything else you have, I’ll probably be cool with.

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Dust, Volume 7, Number 6

Shannon McNally

We’re halfway through the year now and, aside from a disconcerting proliferation of double albums, things seem to be returning to normal. Some of us have been to in-person concerts. Most of us are at least thinking about it. After all, things seem pretty safe now, and if 2020 taught us anything, it was do it now, or you may not be able to later. But meanwhile, the flood of new music continues, from wild free improvisers and mind-turning droners, from doom-death metal outfits and gritty country singers and the assortment of hard to classify experimenters. We knock off another batch of worthy recordings in this mid-year Dust with contributors including Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Chris Liberato and Jennifer Kelly.

Alberto Braida / Giancarlo Nino Locatelli — From Here From There (We Insist!)

from here from there by alberto braida, giancarlo nino locatelli

Pianist Alberto Braida and clarinetist Giancarlo Nino Locatelli have been performing, sometimes as a duo and sometimes with additional associates, for 25 years. And while their partners have included such uncompromising figures as Gino Robair and Peter Kowald, in spirit they’re closer to Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron. It’s not so much the straight horn and piano parallels as the deep jazz roots spiked with studiously applied dissonance, all shared with a congeniality that clues you in to the fact that you’re listening in on a friendship that runs quite deep, and no matter how deep it goes, the warmth persists. This performance was recorded in Lodi, Italy in 2012, and one suspects that the record might still be on a hard drive in someone’s back shelf if the lockdown hadn’t landed when it did. After all, why spend your time editing and mixing when you could book a gig and have another tete-a-tete as rewarding as this?

Bill Meyer

Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage — Blues Alif Lam Mim (Blank Forms Editions)

Blues Alif Lam Mim by Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage

This is the fourth emanation from Blank Forms Editions of Catherine Christer Hennix’s music, and it mines a vein that is more contemporary than past releases, which focused on archival recordings from the 1970s. Presented on vinyl for the first time, this pair of platters reveals the inaugural 2014 performance of the Hennix composition “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis.” With this piece, the Swedish musician and composer sought to locate the origins of the blues in the musical traditions of Indian raga and Turkish makam. It was performed by her ensemble Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which included live electronics, a brass section, and multiple vocalists singing a hymn written by Hennix in Arabic, praising Allah. The music unfolds similarly to how multiple wafts of smoke eventually fill a room. Many simultaneous tonal colors combine into a multi-dimensional sonic organism, becoming a voluminous drone. It feels as if the infinite frequencies and timbres of the universe are weaving themselves together. This immensity causes the listener to become entrained within the sound itself, feeling like part of the proceedings. The vocals add additional hallucinatory sensations to the already vortex-like drone cloud. Getting lost in these sounds is easy, such that when they disappear at the end of each side of vinyl, the sudden shift back to reality is jarring.

Bryon Hayes

Coffin Lurker — Foul and Defiled (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Foul and Defiled by Coffin Lurker

The title pretty much says it all, but just to be clear: If the words “filthy,” “cavernous” and “suffocating” are meaningful to you in relation to death doom, then you’ll know what you’re in for. And even if they aren’t, and hence you don’t, spend a few seconds considering the terms’ semantic baggage and you’ll be at least halfway there. Where? Somewhere chin-deep in a moist hole in the ground. Do you really want to dig these sounds, to unearth them from their tomb? Should you? Does the prospect of moping with a vague sense of menace in your local boneyard’s fetid shadows hold any appeal? If not, why the heck are you still reading this? For those of you still slogging along (or sliming or sleazing — Coffin Lurker is a death-doom outfit, out on the grosser, grimier end of that spectrum), the players involved might further pique your interest: Rene Aquarius is one half of Cryptae, whose Nightmare Traversal was one of the most interesting death metal records released last year, and Maurice De Jong hopefully doesn’t need any contextualizing introduction. The combination of the men’s sensibilities is quite effective, and perverse as it may sound, all the unhappy gruesomeness ends up constructing a really good record. Songs like “Crypt within a Crypt” and “Cadaverous Odor” sound massive and simultaneously oddly muffled, as if all their weighty, woeful noises were attempting to rumble and blast their way out of a sarcophagus, up through rock and clay and beyond the grave. That may be the idea — but songs this doom- and deathstruck might be better off following the hopeless endeavor suggested by the band’s name. Dig it, dig down, dig in.

Jonathan Shaw

Emily Duff — Razor Blade Smile (Mr Mudshow Music)

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Emily Duff brings a healthy dose of New York grit and attitude to the ten tracks of classic country rock on her latest album Razor Blade Smile. Duff has a raspy lived-in voice that calls to mind Bonnie Raitt and particularly Maria McKee as she inhabits songs of loves troubled and true. The twang is there but never overplayed and her lyrics play with the tropes without resorting to cliché. She is well-served by her band, especially keyboard/accordion player Charlie Giordani who adds Garth Hudson like flourishes to tracks like “Done And Done” and “Feelin Alright.” Duff’s songs are hooky, toughly defiant and tenderly bruised odes to longing and survival. While Razor Blade Smile doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it is the work of a gifted songwriter backed by a very good band. It’s an excursion with much to enjoy.

Andrew Forell

Paul Dunmall & Mark Sanders — Unity (577 Records)

Unity by Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders

Unity may bear only half of the name of Albert Ayler’s E.S.P. debut, but it’s by no means music of half measures. Paul Dunmall hoists three horns from his big bag o’ saxophones and plays each with equal measures of grace and muscularity; Mark Sanders balances his partner’s sonic heft with drumming that makes a virtue of airiness. These two English musicians have played and recorded together many times, including on the little big band records Dunmall made for Cuneiform a dozen or so years ago, but they’ve never waxed a duo. It’s probably a good thing that they waited, because younger, less confident musicians might not have been so willing to let their singing and swinging be complemented by so much blank space. As it is, Dunmall’s calory-rich tone and each man’s fluent management of undulating sound shapes say all that needs to be said.

Bill Meyer

EXEK — Good Thing They Ripped Up The Carpet (Lulu’s Sonic Disc Club)

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Effectively melding and updating sounds from late 1970’s inner Melbourne, EXEK’s new album is a terrific blend of spacious, snarky electronic post-punk that mixes the cerebral jazz funk experiments of Clifton Hill bands like Asphyxiation and Equal Local with the more anarchic sounds of Little Band Scene stalwarts Whirlyworld and The Primitive Calculators. Good Thing They Ripped Up The Carpet runs on dubby bass, bleepy synths, flashes of sax and guitar, fractal drumming and leader Albert Wolski’s sardonic half-sung, half-spoken lyrics, all disaffected put-downs and dismissive observations of lives lived by remove. There are echoes of better-known bands — Cabaret Voltaire, The Pop Group, Tuxedomoon — but this is a record steeped in the eclectic dissident spirit of Melbourne’s avant underground. Well worth your time and if it leads you to explore some of EXEK’s progenitors even better.

Andrew Forell

Exhumation — Exhumation – Opus Death (Transylvanian Recordings)

EXHUMATION - OPUS DEATH by EXHUMATION

Indonesia’s punk and metal scenes can appear endless: so many tapes, so many records, so many bands. That’s not surprising, given how endless Indonesia itself seems: so many islands, so many cultures, so many languages. It can all be a bit daunting — where to start? This reissue of Exhumation’s 2014 Exhumation – Opus Death, originally released as a small-batch cassette by Morbid Bastard Records, may be as good a place as any to locate some listening. Exhumation refuses, with an unyielding attraction to the atavistic, to move on from the sounds of mid-1980s. The band’s musical touchstones are pretty apparent, especially early death metal records like Macabre’s Grim Reality (1987) and especially Possessed’s Beyond the Gates (1986); Exhumation’s extended piano interlude “The Sleeping Darkness” even sounds like a lo-tech tribute to the bombastic synth “Intro” to that crucial Possessed record. Old school stuff, indeed. But Exumation’s music also feels sort of timely: while the death metal vibe runs deep, there are also blackened edges, a punk production sensibility and thrashy riffs that respond to our current moment of endless sub-sub-subgenres and cross-pollinations. That last metaphor might be the wrong figure to invoke in relation to a tape that includes tunes like “Labyrinth of Fire” and “Death Dealer”; life-sustaining biological processes are less important to Exhumation than soul-destroying sonic violence. “Opus Death,” indeed.

Jonathan Shaw

Flanafi with Ape School — The Knees Start to Go (Boiled)

The Knees Start To Go by Flanafi with Ape School

Flanafi is the musical moniker of Philadelphia’s Simon Martinez. On this new collaboration with Ape School (Martinez’s former university tutor, Michael Johnson), there’s a decidedly hazy, whirlpooling quality to the songs, as hushed vocals turn circles offer muffled beat-work, pitch-shifted guitars and washes of keys. Though the ingredients suggest they might melt into the background, the way they’ve been treated brings them to the foreground to jostle and tumble amiably. One of the songs is called “Birds Toss and Turn in Their Sleep,” which is an apt image for the atmosphere created: small and appealing creatures dreaming fitfully. At its simplest, such as the nylon-string guitar and vocals of the lovely, meandering “Habra,” it could almost be a soft-focus singer-songwriter record. Elsewhere it feels like Boards of Canada have had most of their high-end gear stolen and are woodshedding with what’s left. Though these 36 minutes pass by easily, while the album’s on it’s like being gently massaged while wearing a well-worn jumper: warm and fuzzy, mostly lovely and comfortable, but also, at times, a little itchy.

Tim Clarke

Paul Haslinger — Exit Ghosts II (Artificial Instincts)

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Austrian composer and former Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger follows up 2020’s Exit Ghost with another collection of piano-based compositions augmented with strings and occasional electronic touches. While it pushes no boundaries, this is a quite lovely collection of short pieces that radiate cautious optimism and hope for better days after long months of darkness and fear. Haslinger moves easily from the Phillip Glass-like chordal progressions of “Cambium” to the kaleidoscopic string arrangements on “Meristematic.” His music is stately, considered and calm. Elsewhere he references the beguiling simplicity and unselfconscious eccentricity of Satie, as well as literary figures like Dostoyevsky’s impossibly selfless hero Prince Myshkin and Goethe’s lovelorn Werther as he explores reactions to isolation and trepidation about the new social realities. Exit Ghost II offers consolation and prompts questions: “Who were we?” “Who are we now?” “Who do we want to be?” The latter is as vital as the former, the answers perhaps more so.

Andrew Forell

Intersystems — #4 (Waveshaper Media)

#4 by Intersystems

The Toronto-based multimedia art experience called Intersystems rubbed elbows with many counter-cultural figures during its brief existence in the late 1960s, but never did get much renown during the Flower Power era or afterward. It wasn’t until 2015 when Alga Marghen reissued the three LPs that comprise the totality of the group’s recorded output that many heads became attuned to their consciousness-altering sight and sound productions. The quartet combined poetry with elaborate stage setups and exploratory electronic sound into what they referred to as “presentations,” which must have been amazing to experience first-hand, but are just as intriguing when absorbed via the eardrums. In the decades since, musician John Mills-Cockell has enjoyed moderate success in Canada, and poet Blake Parker passed away. Artist Michael Hayden and Mills-Cockell have reignited the flame, creating new material which is captured in this recording. Dik Zander, who rounded out the original quartet, was not involved. Parker appears as a spectre, his poetry delivered by a computer programmed to utter language in a variety of eerie vocal temperaments. Coupled with Mills-Cockell’s brooding synthesizer soundscapes, #4 continues the pattern that the first three LPs established back in the 1960s. If you were into the pan-generational experiments that William S. Burroughs was doing near the end of his life, this record will certainly appeal.

Bryon Hayes

Charmaine Lee / Zach Rowden — Butterfly Knife (Notice)

Butterfly Knife by Charmaine Lee and Zach Rowden

For music on the cutting edge, this stuff sounds quite antique and better for it. Vocalist Charmaine Lee’s electronics tend towards sounds people once wished their CB radios would not make when they aren’t nicking tonalities from the songs insects sing on overheated summer afternoons, and her mouth sounds are resolutely pre-linguistic. If no one told you he plays double bass, you might wonder how Zach Rowden got away with slapping so many contact mics onto a functional galleon’s rigging. But their interactions are undeniably in tune, albeit in a manner closer to the gravitational push and pull of cosmic bodies than the to and fro of the well-schooled improvising musicians they happen to be. Sometimes you want music to stir your feelings; this is for when you want the music to feel like something.

Bill Meyer

Magic Tuber Stringband — When Sorrows Encompass Me ‘Round (Feeding Tube)

When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round by Magic Tuber Stringband

Magic Tuber Stringband is a pair of fresh-faced North Carolinians who share a birth month, if not year, with Tony Conrad, John Cale and Angus MacLise. Since the stars are not to be denied, they’ll pour more than a couple fingers of raw drone into your glass. But since they’re also true to the earth, they churn up enough happy hoofing cadences to make you salt the ground with your sweat. It’s tempting to compare guitarist/banjoist Evan Morgan and fiddler Courtney Werner to the Black Twig Pickers, but they seem less concerned with receiving and re-projecting the elders’ wisdom into ongoing decades than they are with the practical application of this music to keep one’s joints loose. So set your tape player on repeat and proceed to trample the ground.

Bill Meyer

Magda Mayas’ Filamental — Confluence (Relative Pitch)

Confluence by Magda Mayas' Filamental

Concept dictates content on this concert recording. Pianist Magda Mayas has long aspired to assemble a string ensemble of size. When the Music Unlimited Festival in Austria gave her the chance, she chose the geographic circumstances of another Alpine burg to guide the paired cellos, reeds, harps and single violin that accompanied her prepared piano. She used a series of photos of the confluence of the Rhône and Arve rivers in Geneva, Switzerland as a score that proposed degrees of resistance and surrender to the inevitable convergence of their flows. Sighing harmonics, agitated whorls and drizzling metallic tones swirl and splash, forming vectors that arc around each other and never completely combine. This music rewards the active spotting of eddies and rippling currents more than the passive drifting; consider it a present to your pattern-seeking brain.

Bill Meyer

Shannon McNally — The Waylon Sessions (Compass)

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The idea behind Shannon McNally's The Waylon Sessions makes it sound like it's an academic experiment, an exercise in recontextualization or a feminist statement. The singer-songwriter's plan to cover a record's worth of Waylon Jennings songs does, of course, do those sorts of things, and it's hard to hear the album apart from the current conversations about women in country music (particularly on the radio). Fortunately, the album does something more. McNally digs into these songs with the enthusiasm of a long-time fan and then performs them with the skill of a stellar artist. Although she gets help from guests like Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Jessi Colter (Jennings' widow, but not only that), McNally makes each of these tracks her own. If we find more nuance here and there (“a feminine perspective hidden” in the songs, according to McNally), that's a tribute to Jennings and the songwriters behind the cuts, but it's also a comment on McNally's own artistry. This album could be a statement in a variety of ways, but mostly it's just a set of great songs performed wonderfully.

Justin Cober-Lake

nubo — Nu Vision (Western Vinyl)

Nu Vision by nubo

Japanese electronic artist Yuji Namiki, working as nubo, taps into an idealized, transcendental vibe. These compositions blend traditional Japanese percussion with serene patterns of synthesizer. “Rain Won’t” begins with sharp thwacks of percussion at odd intervals, bells, shakers, a bit of space age satori in the wandering bits of flute. “Ennichi” runs a bit faster, alluding, perhaps to the time nubo spent working on hip hop beats. It clatters and frolics with a middle eastern swerve in its whistling melody, a polyrhythmic intensity in its tonal percussion foundation. “Thinking With Your Soul” glimmers and glitters in edge-less, timeless calm, making space for meditation and wordless, still-centered calm.

Jennifer Kelly

Rambutan — Parallel Systems (Sedimental/Tape Drift)

parallel systems by Rambutan

Eric Hardiman, who records with Michael Kiefer as Spiral Wave Nomads, spent the pandemic months soliciting original music from some 69 well-known and less well-known collaborators, then working the source material into 33 distinctive collages, collected on this two-CD set. The pieces vary a good deal, one to another, though they share a certain open-ended willingness to experiment, a disdain for the straight-jacketing qualities of structure and an appreciation of natural and found sounds. “Parallel 32,” for instance, opens with a Scottish-accented voice proclaiming, “I’m listening to the stork” and the birds’ squawks layered over striated sounds of bowed violin (Jenifer Gelineau apparently, though the cut also credits Ali Robertson, Euan Currie, Holland Hopson, Pete Fosco and, as always, Eric Hardiman.) “Parallel 3” starts with the domesticated sounds of water pouring, as Karen Schoemer, a poet who plays with Hardiman in Sky Furrows, declaims “with spineless scales/with pyramidal whorls” amid a mess of birdsong and Loren Connors-ish guitar frame (that’s Jeff Barsky from Insect Factory). Jon Collin, whose last album emphasized the sounds of water and stone, turns up for “Parallel 10,” conjuring a pastoral atmospheres out of languid guitar licks juxtaposed with the buzz and twitter of the natural world. Not all these cuts are quite so bucolic. Mike Watt makes one of two appearances in “Parallel 4,” laying down an ominous bass mutter, while electronic whistles and melodic tones grow up around this resonance. Sound artist Gayle Brogan who records as Pefkin and Glasgow experimental guitarist Andrew Paine conjure an eerie mesh of ringing tones and moody atmospherics around the steady progress of Watt’s bass. Hardiman’s Spiral Wave Nomads partner, Michael Kiefer contributes to a number of these tracks, adding surging drum rolls to the stately “Parallel 2” and thoughtful, introspective bursts of clatter to “Parallel 5,” which also features Glenn Galloway, once of Trumans Water. Elsewhere Fugazi’s Guy Piccioto, Mission of Burma’s Peter Prescott and Blues Control’s Russ Waterhouse chip in, though none of them sound much like their other projects. The point is that every track is its own world and none relate too closely to places you’ve been before. The pandemic left all kinds of artists with unexpected time on their hands, and even Hardiman might have been surprised by how many people decided to participate. At 33 tracks and two and a half hours, Parallel Systems is just too unwieldly to appreciate as a whole, but taken in small doses, bit by bit, it does the trick.

Jennifer Kelly

Rivet — On Feather and Wire (Editions Mego)

On Feather and Wire by Rivet

Rivet’s music vibrates with chilly intensity, edging right up to the hedonism of body-moving techno but never going over the line. “Ordine Kadmia,” for instance, rides a denatured rock and roll beat — the same boom cha boom foundation that Phil Spector used— but chilled and reserved to an extraordinary degree. Synths construct something like a syncopated guitar scramble atop it, but again, it is nothing like guitars. There is a blooping, looming keyboard melody, the notes slippery and changeable. Crank the heat up just a few degrees and you’d have a triumphant dance floor celebration, but that is not to be. A bit later, a voice declaims in clipped, echo-shrouded fragments, sputtering a harsh, consonant heavy language. That makes sense since when not recording as Rivet, Mika Hallbäck records and produces records under the Grovskopa name. He’s the head of Kess Kill, a label influenced by 1970s German new wave and post-punk. And so, while there are certainly references to punk, dance and techno in these artfully constructed rhythmic meditations, that energy has been diverted into unreal, electronic channels. When you hear a voice, as in “Pearling Woes,” it sounds like a wounded animal, wordless, moaning, penned in pixelated captivity. Not that Of Feather and Wire isn’t enjoyable. “Mag Mich” rumbles and clatters like machinery rolling downhill, a deadpan chatter narrating its progress. “Sooty Wing Flecks” hazards a wobbling treble line across rattling wireframe beats. The synth sounds gain shape and confidence as they go, now blurting like a sax, now playing tag with a reedy keyboard line. There’s something precise and contrapuntal about the way different parts move together, slipping into the chilly interstices left by the other’s silences.

Jennifer Kelly

Theodore Cale Schafer — It’s Not a Skill, It’s a Curse (Longform Editions)

It’s Not a Skill, it’s a Curse by Theodore Cale Schafer

Every month or so, Longform Editions releases a handful of pieces of music intended to be conducive to immersive listening. While what any particular listener wants to rise above their ears may vary, most LE contributions meet the criteria for ambient music. In other words, they’ll satisfyingly tinge an environment if you run them in the background, but they’ll also justify your attention if you choose to tune in. The contributors are split between people that you’re fairly likely to have heard of, and names that’ll be new to most. Detroit-based composer and musician Theodore Cale Schafer is new to this correspondent, but he sounds like a guy who has been at it long enough to have found his compass and to know where he wants it to point. “It’s Not a Skill, It’s a Curse” starts off in chamber music territory, with quicker, higher pitches sighing over a denser, unhurriedly evolving sound field. But as it progresses, one can hear voices conversing behind the strings. They never get too high in the mix, but their presence invites the listener’s ears to prick up, so that when shimmering electronics overtake the strings, you’ll be sufficiently tuned in to perceive the gently tectonic nature of their passing.

Bill Meyer

Cicada Waves by Ben Seretan

Ben Seretan — Cicada Waves (NNA Tapes)

Cicada Waves is the sound of adaptation. While recording at an artist’s retreat in rural Georgia, with the noise of the natural world competing with the sound of the Steinway, Ben Seretan only saw one option: In classic “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” fashion, he threw the windows open wide and let the outside in. The result is a set of sparse and tentative piano explorations that marries the approaches of the Jewelled Antler Collective and Morton Feldman. On “Cicada 1” Seretan’s playing slips softly forward through the unblazed field of sound that is the insect’s pulsing song. The album’s six other tracks — mostly named for the environmental accompaniment and time of recording — follow a similar approach, with Seretan’s musical ideas acclimating to storms of bugs and rain. By the final song, “Fog Rolls Out of Rayburn Gap,” his playing has been noticeably affected by his surroundings. When a songbird joins Seretan for a duet midway through, his phrasing mirrors the sound of the rainwater dripping, or maybe the dancing sparkle of the sun peeking out from behind the clouds post-storm. In our everyday lives, the sounds of the world around us are not always so complimentary to the task at hand, though, and in this regard Cicada Waves provides solace. Note to my neighbor: there’s a reason that none of the tracks on this album are called “Homicidal terrier mix, 7 am.” My response during little Charlotte's remarkably slow walks around the neighborhood is to pull a reverse-Seretan, shut my windows tight and turn Cicada Waves up. I’m “adapting.”

Chris Liberato

The Van Dammes — Finally There (Rockstar)

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As of today, June 10th, Finland’s national soccer team is one day away from its first-ever appearance the European Championships. The team qualified for a berth in Euro 2020 in November of 2019, but after generations of misfires, close-calls and heartbreaking squeakers, the Finns were again delayed for a year by COVID-19. They will be playing Denmark on Saturday, and after that who knows? (Ed. Note: The Finns won a bizarre opener against Denmark, in which one of the Danes had a heart attack and nearly died, but then were eliminated in the first round.) But if you’re asking, instead, who cares, allow me to introduce you to the Van Dammes, a gleefully bare-bones garage punk band with much owed to the Ramones and a big crush on the Finnish team. The Van Dammes care so much that they have recorded a three-song EP for the occasion, which is, footy fan or no, 100% fun. Its centerpiece is “Finally There,” a blistering romp of punk pop, pummeled by drums and manic guitars and some sort of antique keyboard. The main verse insists that the band doesn’t care whether the band wins or loses, because they’re “finally there,” which is probably untrue but charming, nonetheless. Go Finland!

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists—DJ Amir Presents Strata Records: The Sound of Detroit Volume 1 (BBE)

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Strata Records only released 10 records in its 1974 to 1975 heyday, but the label, run by Kenny Cox shepherded a diverse array of jazz, funk, soul and world music artists in its brief run, defining a mid-1970s Detroit sound. The label’s archives have been in the hands of 180 Proof since DJ Amir (aka Amir Abdullah) of 180 Proof struck a deal with Cox’s widow, and over time, 180 Proof has been re-releasing Strata’s catalogue. The project got a boost in 2018 when Amir discovered a long lost recording of the Charles Mingus Quintet laid down at Strata’s Concert gallery in 1973. For this set, Amir has selected 23 tracks representing the full spectrum of Strata artists, starting with founder Kenny Cox’s infectious, Caribbean-flavored “Island Song” and running through two extraordinary selections from the Mingus concert, “Pithecanthropos Erectus,” and “Dizzy Profile.” Along the way, Strata mainstays like Detroit Artist Workshop founder Larry Nozero and Afro-Cuban organist Lyman Woodard take the spotlight, and Elvin Jones protégé Bert Myrick leads a rendition of “Scorpio’s Child” (written by Kenny Cox) that cool enough to induce shivers. It’s not all jazz either. Sam Sanders croons a quiet storm up in torch song “Face at My Window,” and a little known outfit named the Soulmates gives Curtis Mayfield a run for his money. There’s quite a lot of different music here, but it fits together remarkably well for continuous listening.

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists — Pick ‘N’ Mix, Volume 1 (EEG Recordings)

Pick 'N' Mix, Volume 1 by EEG Recordings

This benefit compilation for the Climate Emergency Fund intersperses space-age guitar drones with folky meditations from mostly six-string up-and-comers of various stripes. Adeline Hotel’s “Untangling” unfurls flurries of acoustic picking while Toby Oler’s “Doubles to Dozens” (one of a couple with vocals) tips a hoedown guitar riff into dark and ominous territory. Tarotplane’s PJ Dorsey is, as always, intriguingly open-ended, his “Allowing for Space” doing that, but also bending it and time in mystic, reverberating ways. Not all the cuts are guitar-centric. Petridisch, from Boston, kicks in a blippy, twitchy, techno-operetta in “In the Red,” while the Modern Folk’s eerie, echo-shrouded, “Don’t Let My Heart Grow Cold,” gets its point across with keyboards, voice and electronic effects. Ragenap’s “A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse (Long Version)” is, as the title implies, extended, but nicely conceived out of gentle guitar licks and hovering after tones. It’s a nice mix of sounds, and a bit of the entry price goes towards saving our beleaguered planet. What’s not to like?

Jennifer Kelly

Mike Uva — Are You Dreaming? (Self-Released)

Are You Dreaming by Mike Uva

Mike Uva, long one of my favorite unjustly overlooked songwriters, spent some quarantine time with the bedroom recording set, distilling a year and a half of nothing much into sleepy, low-key pop. “I’m wandering around these halls, bouncing off the painted walls, I see Tina and she laughs at me, did you have a couple drinks or three?” asks Uva on the next-to-opening “Safety Zone,” encapsulating as well as anything a COVID year spent in sweatpants and stupor. These eight fuzzy meditations are even more homemade and loosely put together than usual, made of offhand guitars, some keyboards, a rattle of programmed and actual drums. And yet, there’s a Sebadoh-ish flare of melody in the chorus, a bit that lifts off briefly before sinking back under the surface. The title track ambles in on scratchy, waltz-time rock guitar strumming, a bemused survey of cobwebby interior landscapes. “When the day doesn’t measure to much in events, anything to remember of how it was spent, do you paint a wild painting or take to your bed?” croons Uva, and somehow the answer is both.

Jennifer Kelly

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alexexumshow · 6 years

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BOMBS AWAY! *POOF* $69 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT UP IN SMOKE | 10.25.18

#bombs #exum #kelly #megyn #nbc

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savetopnow · 7 years

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2018-03-13 15 SPORTS now

SPORTS

Barstool Sports

Girl Scouts Change Their Rules And Make It Okay To Sell Girl Scout Cookies In Front Of Weed Dispensaries

College Baseball Announcer Becomes Befuddled While Reading A Pitcher’s Bio Filled With Always Sunny Quotes

Rory McIlroy Announces Tiger Woods Is The Undisputed Greatest Player Of All Time

Is It Acceptable For Some Strange Lady To Take A Selfie With My Dogs Without Permission?

Michael Rapaport gives an inspirational Slam Dunk contest speech and his NBA mid-season awards

Deadspin

Tom Brady Chugs "Beer" On Late Show

Venus Williams Beats Serena 6-3, 6-4 At Indian Wells

Brandon Jennings Brought A Near-Triple-Double For The First Game Of His 10-Day Contract

Report: NCAA Tournament Turns Its Back On Ted Valentine For Turning His Back On Joel Berry

Whoever Wrote Kirk Cousins's Farewell Blog Used "Vikings" And "Jets" Tags

ESPN

Spurs come up empty on road trip, leaving them in an unfamiliar position

Richard Sherman: Jimmy Garoppolo had 'huge part' in decision to join 49ers

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Damian Lillard puts up 32-10-5 in win over Miami Heat, as Portland continues its push for the 3 seed.

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Cristiano Ronaldo funded the education of a 7 y.o. survivor of the horrific 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. The boy was found 21 days after the disaster, alone and wearing a Portuguese national football team jersey. The boy grew up to be a football player and was signed by Sporting Lisbon

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Why the Broncos will reportedly sign Case Keenum

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Report: Case Keenum Intends to Sign With Broncos When Free Agency Opens Wednesday

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Yahoo! Sports

2018 NFL Mock Draft: Bills trade up to get Sam Darnold, Giants trade back then up

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Curry’s personal trainer: Warrior star’s ankle injury ‘nothing major’

#sports

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goonsquadme-blog · 6 years

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Authentic Eddie Robinson Jersey

Running back Adrian Peterson was inactive for the Arizona Cardinals against the Los Angeles Rams because of a neck injury.Peterson injured his neck a week ago and had been listed as questionable.Also missing among the late games in Week 13 on Sunday was New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore http://www.neworleanssaintsteamonline.co…ard-jersey , out for the second consecutive game because of an injured left ankle.Article continues below …The Saints were also facing the Carolina Panthers in a key NFC South matchup without another key rookie defensive back, safety Marcus Williams, already ruled out with a groin injury.The Panthers were without tight end Greg Olsen, who has been dealing with a broken foot.Earlier, Darrelle Revis made his season debut for the Kansas City Chiefs against his former team, the New York Jets – and as a captain, no less.Signed by Kansas City last week as a free agent, Revis was active at the Jets and started.Revis played two stints with the Jets, from 2007-12 and 2015-16, but wasn’t nearly as dominant last year as he was in his ”Revis Island” days, and the Jets allowed him to leave after last season.Revis was out of work until signing a two-year deal with the Chiefs, who have lost five of their past six games.Second-year linebacker Darron Lee was a surprise inactive for the Jets. There was no immediate reason given for Lee not playing. Lee, second on New York with 86 total tackles, wasn’t previously listed on the team’s injury report.—LOS ANGELES RAMS-ARIZONARams: WR Robert Woods (shoulder), QB Brandon Allen, RB Justin Davis, RB Malcolm Brown, CB Kevin Peterson, T Cornelius Lucas, OLB Connor Barwin.Cardinals: RB Adrian Peterson (neck), WR John Brown (toe) QB Matt Barkley, IlB Denoe Bucannon (ankle), DL Corey Peters (neck), S/CB Rudy Ford, WR Carlton Agudosi.—CAROLINA-NEW ORLEANSPanthers: TE Greg Olsen (foot), C Ryan Kalil, OT Amini Silantulu, QB Garrett Gilbert, DE Zach Moore, CB LaDarius Gunter and LB Andrew GachkarSaints: CB Marshon Lattimore (ankle), S Marcus Williams (groin), RB Jonathan Williams Authentic Danny Salazar Jersey , OL Cameron Tom, T Bryce Harris, WR Austin Carr and DE Al-Quadin Muhammad.—NEW YORK GIANTS-OAKLANDGiants: LB Jonathan Casillas (neck, wrist), G Justin Pugh (back), CB Eli Apple (hip), QB Davis Webb, WR Travis Rudolph, LB Jeremy Cash, DT Khyri Thornton.Raiders: WR Amari Cooper (concussion, ankle), CB David Amerson (foot), LB Cory James (knee), QB Connor Cook, DL Jihad Ward, T Jylan Ware, DT Darius Latham.—CLEVELAND-LOS ANGELES CHARGERSBrowns: QB Kevin Hogan, WR Sammie Coates, WR Bryce Treggs, RB Darius Hillary, OL Marcus Martin, TE Matt Lengel, DL T.Y. McGillChargers: QB Cardale Jones, RB Branden Oliver, LB James Onwualu, OT Michael Ola, TE Sean Culkin, WR Mike Williams, DT Corey Liuget—KANSAS CITY-NEW YORK JETS:Chiefs: RB Charcandrick West, LB Tamba Hali, LB Dee Ford, QB Tyler Bray Authentic Satchel Paige Jersey , S Eric Murray, OL Jordan Devey, OL Parker Ehinger.Jets: LB Darron Lee, CB Juston Burris, OL Ben Ijalana, OL Jonotthan Harrison, QB Christian Hackenberg, CB Robert Nelson, LB Freddie Bishop.—DETROIT-BALTIMORELions: WR Bradley Marquez, RB Ameer Abdullah (neck), RB Dwayne Washington, CB Jamal Agnew (knee), S Rolan Milligan, C Travis Swanson (knee), T Emmett Cleary.Ravens: WR Breshad Perriman, RB Terrance West, CB Jaylen Hill, G Maurice Shakir, DE Bronson Kaufusi, DE Chris Wormley, G Jermaine Eluemunor.—DENVER-MIAMIBroncos: RB De’Angelo Henderson, T Cyrus Kouandjio, G Ron Leary, QB Paxton Lynch, NT Domata Peko, WR Jordan Taylor, DE Derek Wolfe.Dolphins: QB Matt Moore, RB Damien Williams, CB Torry McTyre, DT Davon Godchaux, G Isaac Asiata, G Jermon Bushrod Authentic Eddie Robinson Jersey , TE A.J. Derby—HOUSTON-TENNESSEETexans: WR Will Fuller V, WR Cobi Hamilton, OLB LaTroy Lewis, OLB Brennan Scarlett, G Kyle Fuller, OT Julien Davenport, NT Chunky Clements.Titans: QB Brandon Weeden, WR Rishard Matthews, CB Kalan Reed, FB Jalston Fowler, G/C Corey Levin, DE David King.—NEW ENGLAND-BUFFALOPatriots: DL Trey Flowers (rib), OTs Marcus Cannon (ankle) and LaAdrian Waddle (ankle), WRs Chris Hogan (shoulder) and Matthew Slater, LB Trevor Reilly (concussion) and RB Mike Gillislee.Bills: WR Kelvin Benjamin (right knee), TE Nick O’Leary (back), FB Mike Tolbert (hamstring), CB Shareece Wright, OLs Cordy Glenn (foot/ankle), John Miller and Conor McDermott.—MINNESOTA-ATLANTAVikings: T Mike Remmers (back), QB Kyle Sloter, WR Stacy Coley, RB Mack Brown, T Aviante Collins, DE Tashawn Bower, DT Jaleel JohnsonFalcons: CB Desmond Trufant (concussion), CB Brian Poole (back), LB Sean Weatherspoon, T Austin Pasztor, WR Nick Williams, RB Terrence Magee, G Sean Harlow—TAMPA BAY-GREEN BAYBuccaneers: RB Doug Martin Authentic Corey Knebel Jersey , S Josh Robinson, CB Vernon Hargreaves III, S T.J. Ward, C Joe Hawley, DE Robert Ayers Jr., DT Clinton McDonaldPackers: CB Kevin King, CB Donatello Brown, OL Lucas Patrick, OL Adam Pankey, WR Michael Clark, DT Montravius Adams, LB Chris Odom—INDIANAPOLIS-JACKSONVILLEColts: CB Rashaan Melvin, C Ryan Kelly, CB D.J. White, TE Darrell Daniels, TE Ross Travis, OT Tyreek Burwell, DT Hassan Ridgeway.Jaguars: LB Telvin Smith, G Patrick Omameh, WR Allen Hurns, CB Jalen Myrick, DL Eli Ankou, OT Josh Wells, OT William Poehls.—SAN FRANCISCO-CHICAGO49ers: DB Antone Exum Jr., LB Pita Taumoepenu, DL Aaron Lynch, DL D.J. Jones, DL Tank Carradine, C Tim Barnes an. Womens Brandon Parker Jersey , Cheap Aaron Gordon Jersey , Authentic Womens J’Mon Moore Jersey , Adidas Justin Faulk Jersey , Download from Source link

Authentic Eddie Robinson Jersey was originally published on GOONSQUAD COPYBOT FORUM

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mystlnewsonline · 7 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/raiders-cooper-against-chiefs-afc-west-showdown/49940/

Raiders will have Cooper against Chiefs in AFC West showdown

/December 10, 2017 (AP)(STL.News) —

The Oakland Raiders will have wide receiver Amari Cooper available for their AFC West showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Cooper, who dominated the Chiefs with 11 catches for 210 yards in their first meeting, was active after clearing the NFL’s concussion protocol this week.

Cooper also had a left ankle sprain that had him questionable for the matchup between AFC West leaders.

He will face a Chiefs defense missing suspended All-Pro cornerback Marcus Peters.

Buffalo rookie quarterback Nathan Peterman will start in place of the injured Tyrod Taylor against Indianapolis with the Bills (6-6) trying to stay in the AFC playoff picture.

It’s Peterman’s fourth appearance and second start in four weeks after he threw five interceptions in the first half of a 54-24 loss at the Los Angeles Chargers on Nov. 19.

Taylor sustained a bruised left knee when sacked on the first play of a 23-3 loss to New England last week. He continued playing through the start of the fourth quarter before being carted off the sideline.

Carolina quarterback Cam Newton will have both tight end Greg Olsen and center Ryan Kalil available against Minnesota.

The Bengals are feeling the aftermath of their physical loss to Pittsburgh on Monday night, missing five starters — including cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones, who was placed on injured reserve Saturday with a groin injury.

The Packers will be without starting linebacker Nick Perry when they face the winless Browns in Cleveland.

Green Bay’s secondary caught a break as starting cornerback Davon House will play after being kept out of practice with a shoulder injury. The Packers need all the help they can with Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon back for his second game after being suspended for two seasons.

Cleveland will be short-handed on defense as starting safety Jabrill Peppers (knee) and tackle Danny Shelton (ribs/chest) are both out against Green Bay. Also, Kevin Hogan will back up rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer. Cody Kessler has been Cleveland’s backup the past six games.

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DALLAS-NEW YORK GIANTS

Cowboys: DL David Irving, CB Orlando Scandrick, LB Justin Durant, WR Brice Butler, RB Trey Williams, DT Daniel Ross, TE Blake Jarwin.

Giants: OT Justin Pugh, LB B.J Goodson, WR Travis Rudolph, CB Eli Apple, WR Tavarres King, QB Davis Webb, DT Khyri Thornton.

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INDIANAPOLIS-BUFFALO

Colts: WR Donte Moncrief, TE Darrell Daniels, C Ryan Kelly, CB Rashaan Melvin, RB Matt Jones, OT Tyreek Burwell, DT Hassan Ridgeway.

Bills: QB Tyrod Taylor, CB Leonard Johnson, OLs Cordy Glenn, Seantrel Henderson and John Miller, TE Khari Lee and WR Brandon Reilly.

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OAKLAND-KANSAS CITY

Raiders: OL Jon Feliciano, LB Cory James, DL Jihad Ware, CB David Amerson, WR Isaac Whitney, RT Jylan Ware, QB Connor Cook.

Chiefs: CB Marcus Peters, C Mitch Morse, RG Parker Ehinger, QB Tyler Bray, SS Eric Murray, DT Justin Hamilton.

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MINNESOTA-CAROLINA

Vikings: QB Kyle Sloter, WR Stacy Coley, C Pat Elflein, OT Mike Remmers, TE David Morgan, DE Tashawn Bower, DT Jaleel Johnson.

Panthers: LB Shaq Thompson, C Tyler Larsen, QB Garrett Gilbert, CB LaDarius Gunter, FB Alex Armah, OT Amini Silatolu, DE Zach Moore.

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SAN FRANCISCO-HOUSTON

49ers: RB Jeremy McNichols, DB Antone Exum, Jr., LB Pita Taumoepenu, OL Trent Brown, DL Leger Douzable, DL D.J. Jones, DL Ronald Blair III.

Texans: WR Braxton Miller (concussion), WR Cobi Hamilton, RB Alfred Blue, LB Jelani Jenkins, OT Julien Davenport, OLB Ufomba Kamalu, NT Chunky Clements.

___

GREEN BAY-CLEVELAND

Packers: RB Devante Mays, CB Demetri Goodson, LB Nick Perry, T Ulrick John, G/T Adam Pankey, WR Michael Clark, LB Chris Odom.

Browns: QB Cody Kessler, WR Bryce Treggs, CB Briean Boddy-Calhoun, S Jabrill Peppers, DL Danny Shelton, OL Marcus Martin and TE Matt Lengel.

___

DETROIT-TAMPA BAY

Lions: WR Bradley Marquez, RB Ameer Abdullah, RB Dwayne Washington, CB Jamal Agnew, LB Nick Bellone, T Rick Wagner, T Emmett Cleary.

Buccaneers: QB Ryan Griffin, DB Josh Robinson, CB Vernon Hargreaves III, S T.J. Ward, OL Mike Liedtke, WR Bobo Wilson, DT Clinton McDonald.

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CHICAGO-CINCINNATI

Bears: QB Mark Sanchez, DB Adrian Amos, DL Eddie Goldman, DB DeAndre Houston-Carson, OL Cameron Lee, LB Pernell McPhee, RB Taquan Mizzell.

Bengals: CB Dre Kirkpatrick, RB Joe Mixon, S Shawn Williams, LB Vontaze Burfict, LB Nick Vigil, G Christian Westerman, DT Josh Tupou.

___

By The Associated Press, By Associated Press, published on STL.NEWS by St. Louis Media, LLC (AS)

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#AFC West #Chiefs #Raiders

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buddyrabrahams · 7 years

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Most disappointing teams of the NBA season so far

“With great power comes great responsibility,” a fictional arachnid man’s uncle once famously said. Personally, I would revise that adage to say, “With great expectations come great responsbility.” Many an NBA team has lived up to said expectations so far this season, and many others have flopped worse than Marcus Smart. Here’s looking at those who fall into the latter category.

*Stats courtesy of NBA.com and ESPN*

Oklahoma City Thunder

Going back to actual team basketball after Russell Westbrook’s “I AM the Senate” season was always going to be difficult, especially with the arrival of glitzy but needy new running mates in Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. But the Thunder have been such mayhem that Allstate won’t even touch them. The ball sticks like velcro, weak-side motion is eschewed in favor of a merry-go-round of isolation play, and fourth-quarter crunchtime is where the entire team goes to die.

Rest assured, there’s reason for optimism — Oklahoma City’s hyper-switching defensive scheme ranks third in the league with a smothering 99.2 points allowed per 100 possessions, and they are still a tremendous offensive rebounding team despite the loss of Enes Kanter. A blowout win over Golden State on national television Wednesday was nice too. But 8-10 is not good for a team that had such high expectations heading into the year, and the luxury of time unfortunately doesn’t exist in the abusive Western Conference.

Milwaukee Bucks

The Bucks have an MVP frontrunner megatron in Giannis Antetokounmpo and swung an earth-rumbling trade for Eric Bledsoe to give Antetokounmpo a confident and legitimate pick-and-roll/playmaking partner. So why are they hovering at just 9-8 on the year? True, a Jabari Parker-sized hole is proving tough to fill for the time being. But Milwaukee is operating at the third-slowest pace in the league — not exactly the best strategy when they also own its 23rd-ranked defense. Coach Jason Kidd can hardly figure out who he wants to trot out on the nightly beyond Antetokounmpo, Bledsoe, and Khris Middleton.

This is a team that can topple elites like San Antonio on one night and get their clock cleaned by cellar dwellers like Dallas the next, so until they start showing some consistency, those “Bucks in six” memes will live forever.

Utah Jazz

Dante Exum, Joe Johnson and, most importantly, Rudy Gobert are all down for the count, and that’s bad news on the doorstep for a thinned-out Jazz roster. Rodney Hood (a career 41.5 percent shooter from the field) leads the team in shot attempts, and Ricky Rubio (career 37.6 percent) isn’t far behind. That’s just not a winning formula, even if Joe Ingles is good and Donovan Mitchell has been a revelation in his rookie season. The sad part is it’s not Utah’s fault — Gordon Hayward left just when they were knocking on the door of contention. But it’s hard to sugarcoat going 8-11 against one of the NBA’s weakest schedules so far with a bottom-six offense and a quickly-tumbling defense sans Gobert. At least they can still fall back on their sense of humor.

Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers have been cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey by injuries. Danilo Gallinari, ideally the team’s No. 2 option offensively, and Milos Teodosic, the best pure passer on their roster, are still in the midst of multi-week absences. Meanwhile, top defensive guard Patrick Beverley returned on Monday against the Knicks after missing the last five games only to promptly undergo right knee surgery that will sideline him for the remainder of the season. Three starters biting the dust will put a cramp on any team’s vibe, but that doesn’t absolve the Clippers entirely. Their defense (106.6 points allowed per game) often looks like a human rights violation, and they were outscored by a farcical 88 points during their just snapped nine-game losing streak. [cues up “Baby Come Back” on iTunes while cradling a picture of Chris Paul]

Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavs are currently riding a seven-game winning streak, but it has been a mere Band-Aid covering their bacterial infection of a regular season so far. Granted, “regular season” is the operative term here as Cleveland does this dance every year only to pancake the entire conference come the spring. But their issues are becoming progressively more concerning. The Cavs have by far the oldest roster in the entire league, and the few 20-something players that they do have (Isaiah Thomas, Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert, Derrick Rose) are hurt. Their sewer-line defense has also been the NBA’s worst all year, and their overall sloppiness has resulted in the second-lousiest assist to turnover ratio in the East to this point. Now to be fair, screaming “LEBRON JAMES” in all caps is usually enough to stymie any argument of “Are the Cavs vulnerable?” But that still won’t make the image of them apathetically tripping over their own feet these next several months any less painful on the retinas.

Washington Wizards

The Wizards have been talking like a 18-0 team when in reality they are a 10-8 team. John Wall and Bradley Beal are still nightmare fuel for opponents, Otto Porter is playing like he’s got the shoes from “Like Mike,” and Kelly Oubre’s emergence as a quality sixth man has been a cool story. But beyond that is where the uncertainty abounds.

What is a power forward? What is a bench? What is fashion? These are the basic questions the Wiz have been forcing us to consider with their largely unspectacular start to the season that has already featured Ls to Dallas, Phoenix, Charlotte, and the Lakers. On the bright side, only two more seasons or so until they can get out of Ian Mahinmi’s contract.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2hQdvSh

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flauntpage · 7 years

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The Outlet Pass: Jazz Should Tank, Cavs Should Try; Let's Measure Legs

1. Eric Gordon Has Been Great, Chris Paul Can Make Him Better

Eric Gordon entered the league as a scorer who could shoot. As the years went on, injuries hit, his function on different teams began to change, and he transformed into a shooter who could score. But this year, with a spike in usage and his points per 36 minutes average at a career high, Gordon is balancing the two labels splendidly.

Chris Paul is expected to return on Thursday night, which will bump Gordon back to the bench and diminish his role just a bit. But even if Gordon can't average more than 22 points per game the rest of the way, Paul’s brilliant ability to lull defenses to sleep will help Gordon find even better options from behind the three-point line and at the rim (where he’s shooting a ridiculous 66 percent—up 10 points from last season).

Gordon has slayed defenses with pull-up threes, nailing an unsustainably awesome 41.5 percent of them on more attempts than everyone except James Harden and Damian Lillard. Those opportunities will dwindle, assuming he’s always on the court with Harden and/or Paul from this point forward.

But if we imagine Gordon assuming a similar role to what J.J. Redick had as Paul’s backcourt mate on the Los Angeles Clippers, all of a sudden Houston’s offense becomes even more dynamic in a half-court setting than it already is.

The Rockets already have actions designed to provide Gordon with solid catch-and-shoot looks, and he’s a pro’s pro at shaking his defender and creating separation before the pass hits his hands. But Paul sets the table in a way few others can. Here’s one example: a baseline inbounds play wherein Paul casually takes a dribble handoff and feigns like he’s going to flip the ball to Luc Richard Mbah a Moute over on the weakside.

Instead, in one motion he spins back to Redick (who pops off DeAndre Jordan’s screen) and feeds him for an open three. Defenses have to be alert during every second Paul has the ball. He’s a magician who thrives off misdirection. As the Rockets try to fit him into their offense (which already ranks fourth in points per half-court play), guys like Gordon will recalibrate their current responsibilities. It’s not an easy process, but Paul eventually will make life easier for everyone involved.

2. Dear Utah Jazz: Please Tank

The Utah Jazz are flailing in the face of a few unlucky events that have struck over the past few months. They were spurned by Gordon Hayward in free agency, watched Dante Exum suffer another soul-crushing preseason injury, and most recently lost Rudy Gobert for 4-6 weeks to a bruised right tibia. Even though Utah has been better on both sides of the floor when their franchise player is off the court, no team in the West (except to nobody's surprise the San Antonio Spurs) can compete without an All-NBA contributor in the lineup for an extended period.

The bad news gets worse after a quick glance at Utah's schedule, which turns into The Perfect Storm during Gobert’s expected absence. The easiest, broadest, and most annoying response here is to call for the Jazz to tank, but assuming they're ready to face the harsh realities of an impending rebuild, it's also the correct response.

Already submarined by an offense that can’t generate anything substantial sans Hayward, Utah’s focus now that making the playoffs is incredibly unlikely should be morphing into sellers at the trade deadline (moving on from Derrick Favors’ expiring contract is what most point to as a no-brainer, but what could they get for Rodney Hood or Joe Ingles?).

They own all their draft picks and have one of the 10 oldest rosters in the league. This is a perfect chance to tear down a group that's going nowhere and build around a Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, 2018 lotto pick core. It's not fun, but opportunity is knocking on Utah’s door; to ignore it now could cost them down the line.

3. Why Is Effort Still An Issue In Cleveland?

Kevin Love has spent the last three seasons as a scapegoat. Whenever things look bad in Cleveland, Option A is to fire up the trade machine and scrounge around for semi-realistic transactions that would theoretically improve the Cavaliers' championship chances and rid them of Love.

Even though they play, at times, like a grotesque abomination, the Annual Round of Kevin Love Trade Speculation has yet to pick up steam for a few reasons: A) integral Cavs aren’t healthy, B) Love’s value isn’t nearly what it used to be, and C) it’s not even Thanksgiving. Cleveland’s defense is atrocious whether Love is on the floor or not, as a standalone center or beside another beefy body in the frontcourt.

This isn't Love's fault, and there are some things he can’t help. Athletic limitations put a hard cap on how effective he can be trying to prevent the other team from scoring. That, combined with a supporting cast of mostly below-average individual defenders, makes his margin for error paper thin.

For the most part, he makes up for it with intelligence and admirable effort—rotating over to take a charge against Dwight Howard, as Love did on Wednesday night, deserves a medal. Knowing opponents plan to attack him relentlessly in the pick-and-roll, he shuffles his feet and executes whatever coverage Ty Lue has deemed appropriate. But for whatever reason, one seemingly inconsequential and unrelated sequence during last week’s loss to the Houston Rockets stands out in my mind.

Midway through the first quarter, the Rockets deflected a pass and sent the ball rolling towards Cleveland’s baseline. As its intended recipient, Love watched it go out of bounds instead of sprinting to pick it up. It was a simple lack of hustle that forced Cleveland to inbound the ball from beneath its own basket, and allowed Houston to set up its defense with a full-court press. Here’s what happened next:

Harden went on to draw a foul at the rim. This criticism might come off as a bit harsh; on its face it has nothing to do with Cleveland’s wretched defense. But effort matters! And moments like this one are a symptom of bad habits that will come back to bite the Cavaliers when it matters most.

4. Lauri Markkanen’s Wrists Make All The Difference

Everyone who made fun of the Chicago Bulls (my hand is raised) for not just trading Jimmy Butler, but also selecting Lauri Markkanen—every draft prognosticator who I read leading into the 2017 draft's punching bag—has to do 25 pushups.

Even more impressive than the rookie’s startling per game averages (14 points and seven rebounds isn’t bad!) is a shot release that’s faster than a snapping rubber band. Only four players in the league are launching more threes per game with a touch time between 0-2 seconds.

A seven-footer who can shoot threes is still one of the finest luxuries any team can have. The space he figures to provide for a very long time will make life easier for guards like Kris Dunn and Zach LaVine as they come off high screens, and, down the line, could even make Chicago a more attractive free agency destination for ball-handlers who enjoy wide driving lanes. (According to Synergy Sports, Markkanen is currently the NBA’s most efficient pick-and-pop scorer. Anyone who’s ever watched J.J. Barea play basketball with Dirk Nowitzki knows how enjoyable this can be.)

Beyond the ancillary benefits, Markkanen’s quick release sharpens how convenient he can truly be. Unlike uniquely useful yet limited stretch bigs like Kelly Olynyk—someone who will pump fake his way into a phone booth whenever a defender’s closeout gets too close for comfort—Chicago’s rookie combines his height with crackling wrists and enough confidence to fire away even when he isn’t wide open. That’s all very nice to see, and could speed up Chicago's rebuild.

5. Jaylen Brown’s Closeouts Are Hysterically Passive Aggressive

The Celtics allow 99.1 points per 100 possessions when Jaylen Brown is off the court. In almost any other context that number would be a bad thing. But in Boston, where the best defense in the NBA is currently being played, that’s the highest on/off defensive rating for any individual on the team. (The Celtics only allow 94.2 points per 100 possessions with Brown in the game.)

Even if his strength, length, quickness, and ability to walk on water theoretically makes people think he’s one of the best on-ball defenders in basketball, the 21-year-old is still a work in progress who hasn't quite reached the All-Defensive team level he is striving for. He’s fouling less than a year ago, but is still antsy on the ball, prone to falling for ball fakes; all too eager to show off his leaping ability when staying grounded is the better call.

Here’s what Brown had to say after he got a key stop against DeMar DeRozan at the end of Boston’s win last Sunday: “He’ll pump fake and pump fake and pump fake until he gets you off your feet. I’m thinking like, ‘He’s gotta be shooting one of these (bleeps).’ But he’ll keep pump faking and pump faking and pump faking, and you have to do a good job of staying down.”

This leads us to his closeout technique, which, in all honestly, makes me laugh out loud just about every time I see it. Instead of leaning in at a diagonal angle to try and contest the shooter or even block the shot, Brown halts his momentum, bends his knees, and jumps straight in the air, sometimes with both arms stretched high above his head.

On one hand, he eliminates any chance of committing a foul and can’t be condemned for laziness. On the other, I’m not sure this has any impact whatsoever on the shooter—other than him thinking to himself “what the hell is happening right now?”—as he launches the ball. It’s so much effort doing something that probably has no tangible positive impact. It will never not be hilarious. Jaylen for President.

6. I'm (Still) Not A Fan Of Julius Randle

It’s fair to label what Julius Randle is experiencing “a breakout year.” The 22-year-old is averaging 21.1 points and 12.4 rebounds per 36 minutes, with significant bumps in usage, block percentage, free-throw rate, and True Shooting. All this is promising and nice and may convince one of the league's 29 other teams to draw up a hefty offer sheet this summer.

But even beyond his strange spells of in-game apathy, Randle still doesn’t make any of his teammates better, turns the ball over a ton, and remains prone to clueless mistakes on the defensive end. Despite his new and improved body, bad habits and physical limitations feel like they will forever outweigh all the good he does.

Julius Randle is not a smart defender

Randle's outside shot is still cracked, and it’s unclear what his role/position would be on a good basketball team. A couple years ago I asked former Lakers head coach Byron Scott if he thought about experimenting with Randle at the five. He, somewhat understandably, began his response by laughing out loud. When you’re a big whose range doesn’t extend beyond the paint with a wingspan equal to Nick Young’s, it’s hard to be much help without a very specific cast of supporting skills at your side. Randle is more Kenneth Faried than Draymond Green.

In a fit of curiousity, I looked back at the 2014 draft class just to see how many players I could talk myself into taking ahead of Randle, who was selected seventh overall by the Lakers. I came up with 10 guys. In order of personal preference, they are:

10. Doug McDermott 9. Elfrid Payton 8. Jusuf Nurkic 7. Rodney Hood 6. T.J. Warren 5. Dario Saric 4. Clint Capela 3. Gary Harris 2. Zach LaVine 1. Nikola Jokic

Randle is still extremely young and there’s obviously plenty of time for him to round out the worrisome parts of his game and become a winning player, but so far all he's done is max out on strengths he already possessed.

The fact that Kyle Kuzma has played 159 more minutes in the same number of appearances is quite alarming. According to Cleaning the Glass, L.A.’s Expected Wins total drops by 11 games when Randle is on the court—by far the best number of his career.

(The following take is fresh out of an oven, but I think I’d also prefer Pascal Siakam.)

7. Tobias Harris vs. Robert Covington

Photo by John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports

These two aren’t identical, but close enough to make a worthy comparison. They exist as similar 6’9” pivot points who play for a pair of hungry teams in an Eastern Conference. Both are now (wildly) exceeding individual expectations and, in the process, somewhat dramatically elevating their team’s ceiling.

Now here’s a fun question: As two versatile wings with varying yet proportional strengths and weaknesses, who would you rather have?

It literally feels like every time I flip to a Sixers or Pistons game, one of them is about to catch a kick-out pass and nail a three. Only three players have made more threes than Covington this year, and only six—including Covington—have made more than Harris. Also, only three players have been more accurate from beyond the arc than Harris, while just seven are more accurate than Covington. Long story short: Right now they’re two of the best three-point shooters alive.

Covington gets the edge as a defender, but isn’t nearly as effective creating his own shot. Nearly 25 percent fewer of his field goal attempts are unassisted relative to Harris. Covington turns 27 next month and Harris turns 26 this summer. According to Synergy Sports, Harris ranks in the 93rd percentile as an overall offensive weapon, while Covington is 96th. Neither passes the ball.

When you take the average annual salary of Covington’s reported extension, both earn about the same ($15-16 million). It’s hard to choose one over the other, but by roughly 0.5 degrees my personal taste shades towards Covington. Even though he may not have the same offensive impact when his outside shot doesn’t fall at a 50 percent clip, he’s more plug-and-play than Harris, and—debatably—more accepting of his role within his roster’s hierarchy.

Ideally, RoCo would get far more minutes at the four than he’s afforded in Philadelphia, while Harris is able to slide up and take advantage of slower bigs. Here are the numbers if you want to toggle around and see how close they are for yourself.

8. How Does T.J. Warren Do It?

T.J. Warren is a well-rounded offensive basketball player whose primary skill is the willingness to attack in myriad ways. Warren will back cut you to death. He’ll pull up off a high screen. He’ll Eurostep in the open floor. He’ll worm through a maze of screens. He’ll put back a missed jumper (even his own). He’ll post up smaller defenders. He’ll face up against stronger fours.

Very few of these qualities stand out or are aesthetically pleasing, but when jumbled together they work just fine. Phoenix’s offensive rating is 8.7 points per 100 possessions higher when Warren is on the floor, and the team is never more feeble than when he sits, in part because him turning the ball over is a weekly occurrence. (Warren doesn’t pass.)

The lack of three-point shooting is a scarlett letter, but this year he's still exploded for 40 points and 35 points in a pair of wins against the Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively. Warren isn’t a minus defender, either. He moves around, hustles, and generally seems to understand how to execute Phoenix’s scheme.

It’s unclear how this diverse skill-set would fare in an environment where winning games is a priority, but until then Warren continues to stand out as a unique being in an increasingly homogenous league. Applaud him.

9. Believe It Or Not, The Kings Did Something Nice

The Sacramento Kings have stumbled into their own tier of incompetence, slightly below the Atlanta Hawks (a team that beat them by 46 points on Wednesday night), Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Bulls, and Phoenix Suns. They shoot themselves in the foot on a regular basis—if Dave Joerger has to watch Willie Cauley-Stein leap out of position trying to steal an entry pass one more time he may pack back on all the weight he lost over the summer—and are less talented than their opponent every single night.

But this is the NBA, where even the worst of the worst is still the best of the best. Here’s one example, where Sacramento’s offensive execution trips up the Washington Wizards.

It's a standard split cut, but instead of coming together and then breaking off in seemingly random directions, George Hill spontaneously dives into the paint before the Wizards have time to deal with their assignment. John Wall and Brad Beal don’t realize they have to switch until it’s too late, and it forces Marcin Gortat to lean in the wrong direction. Garrett Temple breaks free for the open three. Good job, Kings. Good job.

10. Let's Measure Legs

Last Saturday night, I sat down to watch a few games with a good friend of mine who only casually dabbles in NBA basketball. About 20 minutes into Bucks/Lakers, he made an astute and obvious point: Players with long legs have a clear advantage over players with short legs, even if they pencil in at the exact same height.“Brandon Ingram’s waist is where his belly button should be.”

This isn't a new discovery, but it made me think about how wingspan has superseded height in the eyes of talent evaluators around the league. Along the same lines, do teams measure leg length the same way? I don’t know the exact answer—I’d guess there’s a 99% chance NBA teams do in fact measure legs from the waist down—but what I do know is the information isn’t listed on NBA.com, where everything from wingspan to hand width to body fat percentage is calculated. Same goes for DraftExpress.

Maybe the length of a player’s legs doesn’t matter, and useful information regarding how much ground they’re able to cover is already quantified with shuttle runs and lane agility drills. But given the obvious advantage someone like Ingram or Giannis Antetokounmpo has on drives to the rim, maybe stride-spans (a working title; I’m also a fan of glide-span) should be added to the long list of characteristics used to evaluate prospects and players.

11. On/Off Numbers Still Hate Avery Bradley

Photo by Aaron Doster - USA TODAY Sports

For the third straight year, Avery Bradley’s team is significantly better on defense when he isn’t on the floor. There are caveats and explanations—Bradley’s help defense is ineffective, he’s perpetually undersized, every starter on the Pistons has poor on/off numbers right now, etc.—but it’s still strange because Avery Bradley is the last person alive I’d want guarding me in a pickup game.

Last season, Bradley’s Real Plus-Minus ranked one spot below Lou Williams—someone opposing offenses intentionally abuse on a regular basis—and this year he’s 67th at his own position. This continues to be one of the more confusing stats vs. eye test battles in the NBA.

12. The New York Knicks Are the NBA’s Most Likable Team

I know everyone is talking about how fun the New York Knicks are, but speaking as someone who’s seen them play in person multiple times this season, I can confirm that yes, the rumors are true. They are an energetic, fresh, and endearing group, with spunky personality, youthful ignorance, and just enough talent to make it all feel respectable.

When you watch them play, you aren’t thinking about the yolk that’s permanently smeared across James Dolan’s forehead, or the disheartening cap sheet that serves as a reminder of their longstanding off-court dysfunction. Instead they play like a snake that’s shed its skin. Jeff Hornacek is liberated to run his own system. Kristaps Porzingis is able to shoot anytime he wants. (The shedding of Carmelo Anthony and Phil Jackson in one offseason has clearly had a profound impact on everyone involved.)

I wrote a couple weeks back that their newfound identity is essentially Porzingis + Putbacks. That’s still true, but their reason for success goes even deeper. Everything revolves around the franchise player. He is Beyonce surrounded by a dozen Kelly Rowlands. It’s a brittle dynamic that doesn’t work without everyone (including Tim Hardaway Jr.) embracing a back seat. From Lance Thomas to Enes Kanter to Jarrett Jack to Doug McDermott, everybody has.

They screen for each other. They drive and move the ball. They siege retreating defenses in transition. Their offense is an endless reel dish and swish, prompted by a group of castaways, retreads, and rookies. (Your personal definition of "loud noise" will forever change after you witness Frank Ntilikina make a jump shot inside Madison Square Garden.)

There will be time for big-picture analysis, and questions remain as to how they can/should build around Porzingis. But for the moment, let’s all enjoy this team for what it is: the NBA’s Cinderella.

The Outlet Pass: Jazz Should Tank, Cavs Should Try; Let's Measure Legs published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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The Outlet Pass: Jazz Should Tank, Cavs Should Try; Let’s Measure Legs

1. Eric Gordon Has Been Great, Chris Paul Can Make Him Better

Chris Paul is expected to return on Thursday night, which will bump Gordon back to the bench and diminish his role just a bit. But even if Gordon can’t average more than 22 points per game the rest of the way, Paul’s brilliant ability to lull defenses to sleep will help Gordon find even better options from behind the three-point line and at the rim (where he’s shooting a ridiculous 66 percent—up 10 points from last season).

2. Dear Utah Jazz: Please Tank

The Utah Jazz are flailing in the face of a few unlucky events that have struck over the past few months. They were spurned by Gordon Hayward in free agency, watched Dante Exum suffer another soul-crushing preseason injury, and most recently lost Rudy Gobert for 4-6 weeks to a bruised right tibia. Even though Utah has been better on both sides of the floor when their franchise player is off the court, no team in the West (except to nobody’s surprise the San Antonio Spurs) can compete without an All-NBA contributor in the lineup for an extended period.

The bad news gets worse after a quick glance at Utah’s schedule, which turns into The Perfect Storm during Gobert’s expected absence. The easiest, broadest, and most annoying response here is to call for the Jazz to tank, but assuming they’re ready to face the harsh realities of an impending rebuild, it’s also the correct response.

Already submarined by an offense that can’t generate anything substantial sans Hayward, Utah’s focus now that making the playoffs is incredibly unlikely should be moprhing into sellers at the trade deadline (moving on from Derrick Favors’ expiring contract is what most point to as a no-brainer, but what could they get for Rodney Hood or Joe Ingles?).

They own all their draft picks and have one of the 10 oldest rosters in the league. This is a perfect chance to tear down a group that’s going nowhere and build around a Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, 2018 lotto pick core. It’s not fun, but opportunity is knocking on Utah’s door; to ignore it now could cost them down the line.

3. Why Is Effort Still An Issue In Cleveland?

This isn’t Love’s fault, and there are some things he can’t help. Athletic limitations put a hard cap on how effective he can be trying to prevent the other team from scoring. That, combined with a supporting cast of mostly below-average individual defenders, makes his margin for error paper thin.

4. Lauri Markkanen’s Wrists Make All The Difference

5. Jaylen Brown’s Closeouts Are Hysterically Passive Aggressive

Even if his strength, length, quickness, and ability to walk on water theoretically makes people think he’s one of the best on-ball defenders in basketball, the 21-year-old is still a work in progress who hasn’t quite reached the All-Defensive team level he is striving for. He’s fouling less than a year ago, but is still antsy on the ball, prone to falling for ball fakes; all too eager to show off his leaping ability when staying grounded is the better call.

6. I’m (Still) Not A Fan Of Julius Randle

It’s fair to label what Julius Randle is experiencing “a breakout year.” The 22-year-old is averaging 21.1 points and 12.4 rebounds per 36 minutes, with significant bumps in usage, block percentage, free-throw rate, and True Shooting. All this is promising and nice and may convince one of the league’s 29 other teams to draw up a hefty offer sheet this summer.

Julius Randle is not a smart defender

Randle’s outside shot is still cracked, and it’s unclear what his role/position would be on a good basketball team. A couple years ago I asked former Lakers head coach Byron Scott if he thought about experimenting with Randle at the five. He, somewhat understandably, began his response by laughing out loud. When you’re a big whose range doesn’t extend beyond the paint with a wingspan equal to Nick Young’s, it’s hard to be much help without a very specific cast of supporting skills at your side. Randle is more Kenneth Faried than Draymond Green.

10. Doug McDermott 9. Elfrid Payton 8. Jusuf Nurkic 7. Rodney Hood 6. T.J. Warren 5. Dario Saric 4. Clint Capela 3. Gary Harris 2. Zach LaVine 1. Nikola Jokic

Randle is still extremely young and there’s obviously plenty of time for him to round out the worrisome parts of his game and become a winning player, but so far all he’s done is max out on strengths he already possessed.

(The following take is fresh out of an oven, but I think I’d also prefer Pascal Siakam.)

7. Tobias Harris vs. Robert Covington

Photo by John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports

Now here’s a fun question: As two versatile wings with varying yet proportional strengths and weaknesses, who would you rather have?

8. How Does T.J. Warren Do It?

The lack of three-point shooting is a scarlett letter, but this year he’s still exploded for 40 points and 35 points in a pair of wins against the Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively. Warren isn’t a minus defender, either. He moves around, hustles, and generally seems to understand how to execute Phoenix’s scheme.

9. Believe It Or Not, The Kings Did Something Nice

But this is the NBA, where even the worst of the worst is still the best of the best. Here’s one example, where Sacramento’s offensive execution trips up the Washington Wizards.

It’s a standard split cut, but instead of coming together and then breaking off in seemingly random directions, George Hill spontaneously dives into the paint before the Wizards have time to deal with their assignment. John Wall and Brad Beal don’t realize they have to switch until it’s too late, and it forces Marcin Gortat to lean in the wrong direction. Garrett Temple breaks free for the open three. Good job, Kings. Good job.

10. Let’s Measure Legs

This isn’t a new discovery, but it made me think about how wingspan has superseded height in the eyes of talent evaluators around the league. Along the same lines, do teams measure leg length the same way? I don’t know the exact answer—I’d guess there’s a 99% chance NBA teams do in fact measure legs from the waist down—but what I do know is the information isn’t listed on NBA.com, where everything from wingspan to hand width to body fat percentage is calculated. Same goes for DraftExpress.

11. On/Off Numbers Still Hate Avery Bradley

Photo by Aaron Doster – USA TODAY Sports

12. The New York Knicks Are the NBA’s Most Likable Team

They screen for each other. They drive and move the ball. They siege retreating defenses in transition. Their offense is an endless reel dish and swish, prompted by a group of castaways, retreads, and rookies. (Your personal definition of “loud noise” will forever change after you witness Frank Ntilikina make a jump shot inside Madison Square Garden.)

The Outlet Pass: Jazz Should Tank, Cavs Should Try; Let’s Measure Legs syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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