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jadelotusflower · 4 years

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November Roundup

Some writing success this month - I finished and posted a new chapter for Against the Dying of the Light, and made progress on The Lady of the Lake and Turn Your Face to the Sun. I didn’t work much on my novel, but I did do some editing on the first third so that’s progress.

Words written this month: 6647

Total this year: 67,514

November books

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo - joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood) this was an engrossing and interesting read. Stylistically unusual formatting and scant use of punctuation that is a bit jarring at first, but you quickly adapt as you read. There’s no plot as such - instead the story is formed by vignettes of twelve black women and their disparate yet interconnected lives. We have mothers and daughters, close friends, teachers and students, although the connections aren’t always obvious at first - we can be exposed to a character briefly in the story of another with no idea that she will be a focus later on. It’s very skillfully done, to the point whereupon finishing I wanted immediately to re-read (but alas, it was already overdue back to the library). There is so much ground covered that we are really only given a glimpse into the characters lives, but there is a diversity of intergenerational perspectives of the African diaspora in the UK, and I highly recommend.

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett - after finishing The Pillars of the Earth I had intended to read the sequel, but this was available on the library shelf and I had to place a hold on World Without End, so the prequel came first. Set sixty years before the Conquest (150 before Pillars) it primarily addresses the growth of the hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry into the town of Kingsbridge, through the lives of a monk with a strong moral code, a clever and beautiful noblewoman, and a skilled builder, working against the machinations of an evil bishop. Sound familiar? This is Follet’s most recent work, and I do wonder if he’s running out of ideas as this covers very similar thematic ground.

Ragna is a compelling female character, but once again the romance-that-cannot-be with Edgar is tepid, Aldred is a very watered down version of Prior Philip, and there’s no grand framing device such as building the cathedral to really tie to all together (although things do Get Built, and it’s interesting but not on the level of Pillars). This is the tail end of the Dark Ages and it shows - Viking raids, slavery, infanticide - and while it seems Follett’s style is to put his characters through much tragedy and tribulation before their happy ending, I wish writers would stop going to the rape well so readily. But at least the sexual violence isn’t as...lasciviously written as in Pillars? Scant praise, I know. But Follett’s strength in drawing the reader into the world and time period is on display, made even more interesting in this era about which we know very little.

Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - I have a great deal of respect for Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister who was treated utterly shamefully during her tenure and never got the credit she deserved, perhaps excepting the reaction to her iconic “misogny speech” whichyou can enjoy in full here:

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the first woman to be Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, was also the former Managing Director of the World Bank, and currently a candidate for Director-General of the WTO.

This is an interesting examination of women in leadership roles, comparing and contrasting the lives and experiences of a select few including (those I found the most interesting) Ellen Sirleaf, the first female President of Liberia, Joyce Banda, the first female President of Malawi, New Zealand’s current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and of course, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala themselves.

November shows/movies

The Vow and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult - I’ve been following the NXIVM case for a while now, when the news broke in 2017 I was surprised and intrigued that it involved actresses from some of my fandom interests - Alison Mack (Smallville), Grace Park and Nikki Clyne (Battlestar Galactica), and Bonnie Piasse (Star Wars). Uncovered: Escaping NXIVM is an excellent podcast from that point in time that’s well worth a listen. There’s been a lot of discussion comparing these two documentaries and which one is better, but I feel they’re both worthwhile.

The Vow gives a primer of NXIVM as a predatory “self improvement” pyramid scheme/cult run by human garbage Keith Reniere, from the perspective of former members turned whistleblowers Bonnie Piasse, who first suspected things were wrong, her husband Mark Vicente who was high up in the organisation, and Sarah Edmondson who was a member of DOS, the secret group within NXIVM that involved branding and sex trafficking. Seduced gives more insight into the depravity and criminality of DOS from the pov of India Oxenburg, just 19 when she joined the group and who became Alison Mack’s “slave” in DOS - she was required to give monthly “collateral” in the form of explicit photographs or incriminating information about herself or her family, had to ask Mack’s permission before eating anything (only 500 calories allowed per day), was ordered to have sex with Reniere, and other horrific treatment - Mack herself was slave to Reniere (as was Nikki Clyne) and there were even more horrific crimes including rape and imprisonments of underage girls.

Of course each show has an interest in portraying its subjects as less culpable than perhaps they were (there were people above and below them all in the pyramid after all) - Vicente and Edmondson in The Vow and Oxenburg in Seduced, but what I did appreciate about Seduced was the multiple experts to explain how and why people were indoctrinated into this cult, and why it was so difficult to break free from it. This is a story of victims who were also victimisers and all the complications that come along with that, although I’m not sure any of these people are in the place yet to really reckon with what happened and all need a lot of therapy.

Focusing on individual journeys also narrows the scope - there are other NXIVM members interviewed I would have liked to have heard a lot more from. There is also a lot of jumping back and forth in time in both docos so the timeline is never quite clear unless you do further research. I would actually like to see another documentary one day a bit further removed from events dealing with the whole thing from start to finish from a neutral perspective. The good news is that Reniere was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison so he can rot.

I saw value in both, but you’re only going to watch one of these, I would say go for Seduced - if you’re interested in as much information as possible, watch The Vow first to get a primer on all the main players and then Seduced for the full(er) story.

The Crown (season 4) - While I love absolutely everything Olivia Coleman does, I thought it took a while for her to settle in as the Queen last season and it’s almost sad that she really nailed it this season, just in time for the next cast changeover (but I also love everything Imelda Staunton does so...) This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t completely sold on Gillian Anderson as Thatcher - yes I know she sounded somewhat Like That, but for me the performance was a little too...affected? (and someone get her a cough drop, please!)

It is also an almost sympathetic portrayal of Thatcher - even though it does demonstrate her classism and internalised misogyny, it doesn’t really explore the full impact of Thatcherism, why she was such a polarising figure to the extent that some would react like this to her death:

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But I suppose it’s called The Crown, not The PM.

Emma Corrin is wonderful as Diana, and boy do they take no prisoners with Charles (or the other male spawn). I was actually surprised at how terrible they made Charles seem rather than both sidesing it as I had expected (but perhaps that’s being saved for season 5). It does hammer home just how young Diana was when they were married (19 to Charles’ 32), how incompatible they were and the toxicity of their marriage (standard disclaimer yes it’s all fictionalised blah blah). The performances are exceptional across the board - Tobias Menzies and Josh O’Conner were also standouts and it’s a shame to see them go.

I was however disappointed to see that the episode covering Charles and Di’s tour of Australia was not only called “Terra Nullius” but the term was used as a very tone deaf metephor that modern Australia was no longer “nobody’s land/country”. For those who aren’t aware, terra nullius was the disgraceful legal justification for British invasion/colonisation of Australia despite the fact that the Indigenous people had inhabited the continent for 50,000 years or more. While the tour was pre-Mabo (the decision that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and acknowledged native title), there was no need to use this to make the point, especially when there was no mention at all of the true meaning/implication of the term.

The Spanish Princess (season 2, episodes 4-8)- Sigh. I guess I’m more annoyed at the squandered potential of this show, since the purpose ostensibly was to focus on the time before The Great Matter and give Katherine “her due” - and instead they went and made her the most unsympathetic, unlikeable character in the whole damn show. (Spoilers) She literally rips Bessie Blount’s baby from her body and, heedless to a mother’s pleas to hold her child, runs off to Henry so she can present him with “a son”. I mean, what the actual fuck?

I’m not a stickler for historical accuracy so long as it’s accurate to the spirit of history (The Tudors had its flaws, but it threaded this needle most of the time), but this Katherine isn’t even a shadow of her historical figure - she’s not a troubled heroine, she’s cruel and vindictive, Margaret Pole is a sanctimonious prig, and Margaret Tudor does little but sneer and shout - the only one who comes out unscathed is Mary Tudor (the elder), and it’s only because she’s barely in it at all. It’s a shame because I like all of these actresses (especially Georgie Henley and Laura Carmichael) but they are just given dreck to work with.

This is not an issue with flawed characters, it’s the bizarre presentation of these characters that seems to want to be girl power rah rah, and yet at the same time feels utterly misogynistic by pitting the women against each other or making them spiteful, stupid, or crazy for The Drama. I realise this is based on Gregory so par for the course, but it feels particularly egregious here. (Spoilers) At one point Margaret Pole is banished from court by Henry, and because Katherine won’t help her (because she cant!) she decides to spill the beans about Katherine’s non-virginity. Yes, her revenge against the hated Tudors is...to give Henry exactly what he wants? Even though it will result in young Mary, who she loves and cares for, being disinherited? Girlboss!

This season also missed the opportunity to build on its predecessors The White Queen/Princess and show why it was so important to Henry to have a male heir - the Tudor reign wasn’t built on the firmest foundations and so needed uncontested transfer of power, at the time there was historic precedent that passing the throne to a daughter led to Anarchy, and wars of succession were very recent in everyone’s memory. At least no one was bleating about The Curse this time, which is actually kind of surprising, because the point of the stupid curse is the Tudor dynasty drama.

But it’s not all terrible. Lina and Oviedo are the best part of the show, and (spoilers) thankfully make it out alive. Both are a delight to watch and I wish the show had been just about them.

Oh well. One day maybe we’ll get the Katherine of Aragon show we deserve - at least I can say that the costumes were pretty, small consolation though it is.

#november roundup #long post

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sweetsunrayssr · 7 years

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Comet, Thresholds and Whiteboards

Meta-analysis Halt and Catch Fire, spoiler warning 4x07

Let’s talk the final scene of episode 4x07: Cameron entering the think/meeting room of Comet to be a solace to Joe in their mutual grief over the loss of Gordon. The clue is in the image of Cameron staring through the glass windows, looking at Joe mounted as Shiva-Yogi on the table and the whiteboard with Gordon’s last written words, “Re-Launch”: we see her reflection in the glass. And I want to “reflect” with you all, why the “reflection” is there and what its cinematographic implication in this scene is.

I parallel-giffed it with a 3x07 moment and image in “time”: the moment she stumbles out of Mutiny’s meeting room in ’86 after every business partner (and friend) basically voted her out of the company she started.

First of all, Comet’s meeting room may look and appear different, but is the exact same room where Cameron lost her company, which as Lev once mentioned in S2 she started to “mutiny” against Joe MacMillan, after he went along with Gordon’s decision to take out her OS. And now, in 4x07 she faces a situation where Joe is the sole person in that fateful ex-Mutiny room. She may have long forgiven him for the pain he caused her in ’83 and ’85. She has grown to love him. And she already gained perspective on the loss of Mutiny in ’90. But it does not mean that those personal wounds have fully healed, or that this blending of Joe in the prior Mutiny meeting room is not a triggering wormhole to a deeply painful memory.

THE WAYS OF PAIN

It seems strange that Cameron has such difficulty with entering the Mutiny building and this room in particular after all this time. Didn’t she pick that building on purpose for the www-meeting in 1990 and visited that room then to stare at Bos’s bull horns above the door? Didn’t she play Doom with Gordon in his office? She spent days trying to fix a baby Honda in the building and visited Joe in his basement shrine to bring him the finished browser. She seemed to have no qualms or entering spaces then? So, why is it suddenly highlighted as an issue when the man she supposedly loves so much is inside in pain?

Well, for one a healing process is not linear, nor is pain experience. Think of Gordon’s symptom and pain journals of his disease. One day it’s only level 1, another it’s level 6, then it level 4, etc. You can put the data in flow charts and graphs but find no discernible pattern at all. So, the various times before this 4x07 moment, the intensity of pain she felt about it all, may have varied.

Secondly, there are various ways of dealing with (or using) pain, and some are more successful long term than others. You can self-medicate with painkillers, drugs, opiums, or alcohol, like Donna does. You know that trick when you have a throbbing wound from a cut for example, but you pinch the surrounding area to feel the pain of your nails more than the throbbing? That is self-inflicting extra pain, and it has been proven to work neurologically. But it only works temporarily. You can lash out and hurt others, “kill something”, get it all out, so that at least you’re not alone in your misery. Or you can try to fix it, put it back together and patch it up. Unfortunately some issues and the related pain are chronic, and all you can do is grit your teeth, refuse to surrender to it and live with it. And then there’s mom’s miracle balmy kiss and touch, to help you bear it. What is certain is that it requires “time” to heal anything.

Cameron’s background is such that nobody taught her how to deal with pain when she was a child. When her father died, her mother used distraction in pageants and hemorrhoid cream to mask it. So, that was the first method she was taught: mask pain and pretend to the world you’re happy and perfect (“Little Miss Flawless”). By the time we first meet her, at 22, she already rebelled against this: cut her hair, died it blonde, be aggressive, rude, the total opposite of hiding it. As aggressive as she was throughout most of S1, this had little to do with hurting others, but exposing her pain like an open sore while simultaneously scaring people away. “Don’t touch me, because I’m hurting!”. She acts and behaves like a wounded animal that protects itself from anyone coming close, out of fear of getting hurt or killed.

Even in 1x10 “1984” her lashing out serves to scare Joe away more than hurting him. She hurts him tremendously, but she hardly believes her words would stick and her major intent is to scare him off for good. We know this because when in 2x03 Gordon’s Sonaris wrecks Mutiny and she ends up hearing Joe’s voice at the other side of the phoneline, she instantly hangs up in shock and then orders “Shut it all down!”. Later she has a panic attack. Something very interesting happens here with Tom. He manages to calm her down, make her think of Parallax, chapter 3, the Cave of the Four Wizards (Cam, Donna, Gordon and Joe). “How do you get the dragon’s egg across the chasm?” he asks her. You can’t jump, because then you’ll drop the dragon’s egg. There’s a rope bridge, but with the egg you’re too heavy and the bridge breaks. The solution is “to go back inside and face the Forth Wizard” (at the time Joe) and crack the egg in his chest “to make him human again”.

Not only does Cameron learn to face her fears in that way, but her pain as well: go back, face the source of your fear or pain and then crack the egg. It’s what she does in 2x09 Kali when she seeks Joe out, kisses him and hands him Sonaris. It’s what she does in 3x10 NeXt when she picks the old Mutiny building to remind and feel the pain of the loss of Mutiny, meeting the three other wizards, and then crack the egg in Donna’s chest.

Except, it doesn’t heal, doesn’t resolve the pain. It only gives her control by inflicting as much misery on the perceived source as she’s in. Facing the pain is like digging her nails near her throbbing wound, but she uses that temporarily solution to then rip the scab off, rather than apply medicine to it. So, yes, she managed to go back to the Mutiny meeting room in 1990, because she wanted to feel the pain for self-control. Nothing got healed though.

The Doom game in Gordon’s office is something similar. She plays the game that she blames as the cause why nobody gets Pilgrim, inside the ex-Mutiny building which is another source of pain, in the office of her friend who was angry with her for reuniting with Joe, the same day that Donna tried to get in her face about the past at MISC.

What is surprising in 4x03 is how she hates the game, the concept of “killing things”. Did that not astonish you to hear this from someone who built a company with skinner-box games like Tank Battle, wrote a shooter game Extract and Defend, won at shooting ducks and taught Gordon to “take them outside and shoot them”? It’s “boring” and “unfulfilling”, she says of Doom, but also cathartic (for a moment). It almost seemed OOC, except it isn’t OOC. It’s growth and a sign of how she does not wish to live or deal with pain anymore, nor purposefully hurt others. She has grown to loathe it, and that is because she has grown to love the person she regarded as her “enemy” a decade ago. Yes, she made the antagonistic “parasite” comment to Donna earlier that day, but by nightfall she already knows she derives no pleasure from it. Once the “divorce box” is destroyed by the truck she is done with the method of cracking dragon eggs in a wizard’s chest that Tom unwittingly taught her.

Season 4 is the first time we witness Cameron trying to mend or fix things. She faces Joe in the basement, after he rejected her at Gordon’s party and relegated her to Gordon’s couch. But not to fight or destroy things. No, instead she gives him what she feels she owes him, and even says, “Do you want to talk about what we’re really talking about here?” when she sees how bitter he is. By allowing him to voice his grief and pain, she gave him what he needed to be “human again”, call her up and tell her that regardless she’s too important to him to have her walk out of his life altogether.

Cameron tries to apply this “mending” method to her pain in relation to the loss of Mutiny, when she fixes the Honda inside the building. And for a moment there, she even engages professionally with Gordon and Joe about the algorithm. Met with opposition though, she backs out. She can’t “fix it” by herself and Gordon is unwilling to participate in fixing a broken work relationship, nor is she willing to accept his help with the bike. The space bike breaks down and thus the Mutiny wounds aren’t mended.

Cameron stayed away from Comet ever since, putting a physical barrier between herself and Joe when he talks Comet the moment she wakes, insists she’s done with tech altogether (the lady doth protests too much) and instantly flees the scene the moment he asks her to watch his marketing research for Comet. She’s not running from Joe, but from Comet that used to be Mutiny, and thus from her pain over it. Unfortunately, his overflowing enthusiasm and perfectly normal need to share his work results with his partner is what Cameron is fleeing. He doesn’t know it’s a source of pain, for she hardly acknowledges it to herself.

When we see her enter the Comet building at the end of 4x07 that is the first time she enters the building without wanting to scare others away, without feeling in control (or using it for that end) and without the belief that she can heal the pain. She enters it, grieving over Gordon, Mutiny, the pain she knows Joe must be in. It’s all just pain in its most vulnerable state.

The writers could have made it easier on her: meeting Joe at home, or in his office. But they didn’t. To be there for him, she has to go to the room of her past doom in the longest walk through time to face her reflection.

THE THRESHOLD

Further evidence that Cam’s issue and resolution process in 4x07 is about the events in 3x07 “The Threshold” is Bos’s wedding. Bos tells her they didn’t want to make a fuss about it, but since Diane invited her daughter as a witness, he wanted to invite Cameron there. He doesn’t actually use the word “daughter” to Cameron in 4x07, but both Cameron and Bos know that is what he means, and she hugs him for it.

In 3x07 Bos learned that Cameron got married to Tom and she held it secret for weeks. He’s hurt and confronts her about it in the meeting room, telling her that even if she might not ever see him as her figurative father, he will always regard her as his daughter. She shows her hand and the ring on her finger and sheepishly says “Bos, I got married.”

So, Bos’s and Diane’s marriage with Cameron as witness and “daughter” in 4x07 is a reverse parallel to Bos’s hurt feelings in 3x07. Back in ‘86, n the same scene, Bos also told her that if she marches to the beat of her own drums, she risks losing the band. He urged her to find a way to work with Donna, and reminded her how the two need each other.

Cameron hiked with Alexa in the woods the day of Gordon’s death, and Alexa inquired with Cameron what went wrong between her and Donna. So, several events of the episode in 4x07 in Cameron’s arc all point to that fateful day, when she walked out of Mutiny’s office broken, betrayed, in tears and as hurt as the day Gordon and Joe took her OS out of the Giant.

3x07 has “the threshold” as title, and that is exactly what we see in Cameron’s hesitation to go inside to reach out and be there for Joe. She has to cross the threshold of pain to be love. If her reflections opens the wormwhole of pain when she stumbled out of the meeting room in 3x07, it also lands her to the moment of most important parental advice she had since her first father died. With her stands Bos telling her to, “Find a way to work with him. You two need each other.” For if Donna was Cameron’s anchor in the days of Mutiny, Joe was her anchor long before that: as much as she could tilt the room to the stars for him, he was able to tilt the room back to the ground for her (even if she didn’t like that at the time in 1x06). Bos’s words enable Cameron to cross the threshold for Joe: a small step in the eyes for so many of mankind, but a giant leap for love and healing by Cameron (yes, I’m using Armstrong’s words about the moon landing here). If she couldn’t see the forest for the trees in 4x06 and much of 4x07, Cameron sees it now.

THE WHITEBOARD

If you’ve read my meta on Joe’s shrines before 4x07 aired, you probably recognized that Joe sat like Shiva-Yogi on the table as he stares at the whiteboard, exactly as he does on his mountain top in S3 when he works with Ryan Ray.

In S3, Joe’s life like a Yogi on a mountain (top floors) is a self-protective flight from pain and desire, in particular Cameron. He wants to shut out the world, its noise and feelings then. The fact that we see him seated in the same Yogi manner by the end of 4x07 is indicative how much he hurts and tries not to feel it. He just lost his best friend and his business partner, the man he established a communication with where he could say one thing, like “You wouldn’t [not re-design]” while tapping his own chest and thus actually saying, “I wouldn’t [re-launch without re-designing]”. And instead of making a stink, Gordon smiled and rewrote re-design as re-launch. “Who needs a guy?” Joe needs that guy called Gordon.

With Gordon’s death and the almost blank whiteboard, except for the word “re-launch”, Joe faces that same moment in the past once more, when he realized that Ryan had jumped from his balcony to his death. He tried to help Ryan by laying out his options: flee and run and I’ll give you the money or give yourself up and you might be out in a few years and you’re still so young. The reason why Ryan committed suicide was because Joe told him they could never work again as a team, writing stuff on the whiteboard. Because of Ryan’s suicide, Joe fell into a depression and told Gordon to build the local network by himself. Then when they finally are business partners again since the www meeting in 1990, he spent all that time in the basement, screwing around with post-its, longing for Cameron. Seven years he could have worked as an actual team with Gordon, but he didn’t. “You and Cam, I swear to God, no sense of time.” And yet, Joe had no sense of time either.

The existential questions are there, silently and invisibly written on the whiteboard: Did I waste my time on the wrong project? On the wrong person?

The above Shiva imagery comes from 3x04 “The Rules of Honorable Play”, the episode where Donna lies to Cameron about firing Doug & Craig, and later feeling guilty she tells Cam she can take her time to look for a place of her own. After Donna’s words about not having to move-out yet, Cameron asks Gordon “when did you know you were losing Cardiff?”

When Cameron calls Joe to tell him she said yes to a dinner invitation from Alexa and cancels their own dinner plans, Joe’s magnanimous about it. And at the end of the conversation Cameron tells him he’s great and confirms she overheard him talking about building a house by mentioning she has been thinking about it. The moment he puts down the phone though, he’s shaken. Something shifted for him. We get the musical theme that we’ve been hearing for Cameron and Joe several times since 4x02, including the moment in 4x04 when Cameron stares sadly into her campfire, because Joe fell asleep on her during their first night in the trailer. It’s not a doom theme, because S4 also uses it during loving moments, but it signals that one of them is thinking about the other at a pivotal moment for them. In that telephone scene though it mirrors Cameron’s moment about Mutiny: Joe suddenly feels like Cameron is slipping away from him, just like the time window for their hike slipped away. He couldn’t see the glow and love in her eyes when she says that she’s been thinking of building a place over the phone after all.

On top of that he doesn’t get why Cameron says “You’re great!” You know the classic issue for a man with his female partner, right? Don’t ever give her advice, offer solutions or try to fix it for her when she has had a bad day. You can be her problem-solving hero (after asking) when you’re not a couple yet, but once you’re together don’t do more than “listen”. We saw Cameron get all misty over Joe helping her write her press statement in 4x02, before they’re actually a couple, and he feels victorious when she says, “Yes! We should send it!”. Then Joe gives her advice in 4x03 about the bad review and she walks away, leaving him wondering “What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t she want my help?” In 4x04 he wants to introduce her to his friends, while she’s covered all in mud underneath a coat, desperately in need of a hot bath and cry in self-misery. But, he does it exactly right in 4x07 over the phone.

Guys, raise your hands if you know this befuddling aspect about your SO? It probably drives you nuts with itching fingers eager to do something for her and make it better. And when she says “You’re great,” for listening to her, you feel like a fraud, thinking to yourself, “I didn’t even do anything!” Cam’s “You’re great,” feels like a lie to Joe, because he feels he did nothing of significance for her to think so. The sole reason he can imagine her “lying” is to make him feel better, because she feels guilty. And nobody wants to be loved out of guilt. To learn and realize that he’s experiencing classic and common misunderstandings between a couple, that actually are not his fault, Joe “needs a guy called Gordon” too. Gordon talked him through his moment of loss in 4x05 about Cameron, without either of them actually directly having to mention her name.

More, he learns that Alexa challenges Cameron professionally. He asks her with a big grin when she last heard that she was thinking “small”. Cameron answers, “I don’t know. It’s been a while.” His face falters at that, understandably. Who bugged her the past three years over the phone about the browser? And who said in 1990 to take a step back and stop trying to define what the web will be like (content)? Joe did. In that moment, it’s as if she has completely forgotten that he challenged her professionally for years, which he did for her, to help her see the big picture.

So, it only adds to this increasing existential feeling that he may have wasted three years on the wrong project and the wrong person, that perhaps she does not make all the suffering worthwhile. And if Cameron had not stepped across that threshold, but instead say drove to his place and solace him there, then yes it would have slipped away for the both of them right then and there. Cameron would be marching to her own beat, and Joe would not make the effort anymore. Instead, Cameron decided that Joe makes all her own suffering in the past worthwhile and came “to see him” while he’s hurting and grieving. And whether he knows it or not, he’s the sole person this season who managed to challenge her out of her emotional comfort zone. Joe’s greated gift to her is how he taught her the most important aspect about pain purely by example - extending love and forgiveness at the end of the tunnel is the sole way to heal and live with scars and pain; that it outfeels and outlasts everything else. When it comes to loving the persons who hurt you and whom you hurt, Joe is indeed the master guru.

The momentarily glimpse of Joe allowing his grief and pain to wash over him, once he knows she’s there encourages us to believe he can find solace with her.

It is a recurring theme that they find each other when one of them is grieving, the opposite of what Shiva-Joe once called: “you were happy for a moment and you believed the nearest person was the source.” This theme of finding solace to lift the loneliness is also present in the ending of Cam’s Pilgrim.

CONCLUSION

As a result, Cam’s anxiety over Comet and working with Joe, even if just to support and listen to him as his love partner has been resolved by the end of 4x07. I do not expect her to flee or put up any barrier over Comet anymore. Now, I’m not saying I expect a re-launch of Mutiny or Joe-Cam business relationship here, but Cameron doing her part and effort to make it work with Joe, and that includes supporting his professional career.

#halt and catch fire #season 4 #spoilers #jameron #cameron howe #joe macmillan #gordon clark #who needs a guy #comet #mutiny #meta-analysis #john bosworth #OPs

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stillunusual · 6 years

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LEEDS UNITED 2 DERBY COUNTY 0 Leeds United: Peacock-Farrell, Ayling, Alioski, Cooper, Jansson, Forshaw, Klich, Clarke (Davis 79), Harrison (Shackleton 63), Hernandez, Roofe. Subs not used: Huffer, Halme, Gotts, Stevens, Roberts. There's not been much joy for Leeds United since the euphoria of Boxing Day, so it was fantastic to be at Elland Road to witness this comprehensive demolition of Derby County (who now seem to be officially known as "Frank Lampard's Derby") which - depite mounting problems on and off the pitch - really threw down the gauntlet to the rest of the Championship.... Our seven game winning streak came to an end when we lost 2-0 to Hull City on 29th December - a bad day at the office. We then doubled down by losing 4-2 to Nottingham Forest on new year's day, in a match that was mainly decided by two refereeing decisions that went against us. We started badly and conceded an early goal. A few minutes later, Jack Harrision was brought down by the last defender when clean through on goal, but the culprit was only shown a yellow card. Not long after that, Kalvin Phillips was given a dubious straight red, so we had to play most of the game with 10 men. Nevertheless, we didn't disgrace ourselves and I couldn't help feeling that things would have been very different if either of those decisions had gone our way....

We also got knocked out of the FA Cup by QPR, but that's not a big deal. Marcelo Bielsa gave nearly all his senior players a much needed rest and the bench consisted entirely of youngsters, five of whom had never played for the first team. Lewis Baker made a rare start, but was recalled by parent club Chelsea the next day, and they immediately loaned him to Reading, who will offer him more first team football. Leeds have also loaned out of favour defender Conor Shaughnessy to Hearts for the rest of the season.

There was no incoming transfer news prior to the Derby game, but we did get an update about the injury situation. The good news was that Liam Cooper was ready to play and that Pablo Hernandez, who picked up a knock against Forest, would probably make it. However, Barry Douglas also picked up a knock against Forest after returning from illness and is not expected back before the end of January. Patrick Bamford, Gaetano Berardi and Stuart Dallas should also be available before the end of the month and it looks like we might finally get to see Izzy Brown make his debut sometime in February. And then - as if to re-confirm that Leeds United can boil piss like nobody else - "spygate" broke out.... The day before the Derby game a man who was "acting suspiciously" was approached by police outside Derby County's training ground, and after it became clear that he was an employee of Leeds United who was watching the Derby team training, he was asked to leave. In a pre-match interview with Sky Marcelo Bielsa admitted that he had sent someone to observe the training session. He also claimed that he was solely responsible and had not informed the club of his actions. Leeds United then publicly apologised to Derby and issued the following statement after the game: “Following comments made by Marcelo Bielsa yesterday the club will look to work with our head coach and his staff to remind them of the integrity and honesty which are the foundations that Leeds United is built on. Our owner Andrea Radrizzani has met with Derby County’s owner Mel Morris to formally apologise for Marcelo’s actions. We will make no further comment on this matter.” Bielsa also phoned Frank Lampard to explain what he had done, but refused to apologise. His post-match comments were more defiant: “I’m not trying to justify anything. I’ve just explained why I feel I’m not a person who cheats and why I accept any reaction this behaviour creates. Things are as English football says. I have to respect the habits and traditions of this country. I would accept any sanction the club takes against me and any sanction the federation takes against me, and also the judgement of Derby County. This episode affects me. Of course the win is important. The only thing I’m going to apologise for is to have contaminated a football game with this subject. If I was a child, I would say I won’t do it again, but I wouldn’t feel right responding like this and would lose credibility. I won’t say that I won’t do it again. It’s a childish position to answer like that.” To say that "spygate" led to a media frenzy would be an understatement. Poor little Frank was terribly upset while various pundits called for a points deduction, a replay and Bielsa's head. The FA have also promised to investigate the matter.... The game itself was a sell-out and the atmosphere inside Elland Road was electric. The fans were 100% behind the team for the whole 90 minutes as well as repeatedly chanting Bielsa's name. He fielded the strongest team at his disposal, and handed Jack Clarke his first league start. The bench mainly consisted of kids with squad numbers in the 40s and 50s.... It was the best performance I've seen from Leeds this season and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that we played Derby off the park. Leeds dominated the game from start to finish and were denied a definite penalty in the first minute when Gjanni Alioski (who was excellent at left back) was brought down in the Derby box. The referee initially pointed to the spot but changed his mind after a conversation with the linesman, who had raised his flag for offside. Replays confirmed that it was an incorrect decision. However, it was only a matter of time before we scored, as the Leeds team treated us to an awesome display of high energy, high press Bielsaball while all Derby could do in response was chase shadows and commit fouls. With Cooper partnering Pontus Jansson in central defence we were also solid at the back, and Adam Forshaw made sure that we didn't miss the suspended Phillips in the midfield holding role. Best of all, Clarke showed us why Premiership teams are apparently lining up to try and tempt him away from Leeds at the tender age of 18, with a man of the match performance. After wasting a hatful of chances we finally broke the deadlock in the 20th minute when Clarke got behind the Derby defence and delivered a low cross which Roofe guided into the net at the near post. We doubled our lead in the second minute of the second half when Clarke strolled past them for the umpteenth time and sent in a high cross that Derby keeper Scott Carson managed to claw away from under his crossbar. The ball fell to Alioski at the far post, who slipped at the crucial moment but managed to divert the ball into the path of Jack Harrison, who tapped it home from close range. We should have had a second penalty a few minutes later when Pablo Hernandez was taken down in the area right in front of the referee, who pretended not to notice. Derby had a couple of half chances but the result was never in any doubt. The only worry was a brutal lunge at Pontus Jansson in the last minute which required treatment and left him struggling to stay on his feet. After the final whistle he had to receive more treatment before limping off the field. I hope he's OK.... Leeds finished the weekend at the top of the table, four points clear of Sheffield United in second place. Whatever happens next, this season has already given us more than its fair share of unforgettable moments. Supporting a normal team must be really boring....

#leeds united #soccer #football #marcelo bielsa #championship #elland road #leeds #united #2019

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junker-town · 5 years

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7 NBA Draft lottery conspiracies they don’t want you to believe

The truth is out there. I mean here. The truth is right here.

The world is flat. We never landed on the moon. Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced with a clone. The NBA Draft lottery is rigged. These are a few of the incontrovertible truths about our world, and yet people still keep trying to deny them.

Every year the league consults with the grim specters of the Illuminati to decide whether or not they should rig the draft. Like any competent agency, they don’t play their hand every year — only when it matters. Considering SB Nation is the only sports site not run by the lizard people, we feel uniquely positioned to wake up the world and shine a light on these draft atrocities.

Research is still being conducted by a private group of concerned basketball fans so we can present iron clad proof of impropriety to the United Nations, but for now here’s what we’ve discovered.

NBA Draft lottery conspiracy theories, ranked by how sure we are that they happened.

No. 1 — David Stern rigs the 1985 lottery.

The year is 1985. The first time the NBA decided to hold a draft lottery to determine the No. 1-overall pick. The Felt Forum in New York City is buzzing, the league just secured a new broadcast agreement for the draft with the TBS Superstation, and the Knicks are sitting with the third-worst record in the league.

Everyone knows the Knicks are supposed to get a high pick, but the pressure is still on. The Warriors and Pacers both had worse records, but represent much smaller markets compared to New York. Stern knows the Knicks have to land the No. 1 pick, not only to prove the concept of the NBA Draft lottery and the unpredictability that anything can happen, but ensure that Georgetown standout Patrick Ewing can anchor the Knicks in the NBA’s premier market for the next decade.

In 1985, there was no weighted lottery. Each of the seven worst teams in the NBA was given an equal chance to land the No. 1-overall pick, giving each team just a 14.29 percent chance of being able to pick Ewing. Rather than using a standard lottery ball system as it eventually would, the league put large cards into a tumbler, spun it around and Stern would select one to be the top pick.

It’s here where the NBA’s two-prong plan springs into action. Two separate attempts to rig the lottery, one desired result. Over the years, people have argued for each theory, but it’s our belief that both were done simultaneously to hedge Stern’s bet.

First of all, the Knicks’ envelope was refrigerated, making it cool to the touch. This attempted to make the card stand out amongst the rest, making it easier to select. However, this plan was risky. Under stage lights and with the possibility of time delay, there was a chance the envelope would heat up, rendering the process meaningless.

So, Stern had the help of a secondary source: Jack Wagner, a partner at accounting firm Ernst & Whinney. He placed the envelopes in the drum, and curiously happened to bang one of them on the lip of the vessel — denting the Knicks’ envelope.

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Wagner is the real key to all this, because he was the league’s fail safe. If Stern couldn’t select the cold envelope, he’d instead look for a creased corner, knowing this was the Knicks logo.

Need more proof? Ersnt & Whinney were the accounting firm for Gulf and Western Industries. Guess who was a predominant owner of the Knicks in 1985? Gulf and Western Industries, who held a 81 percent stake in The Madison Square Garden Company.

No. 2 — Stern makes up for trading Chris Paul in 2012.

George Shinn is one of the most notorious owners in NBA history. Once the king of the Queen City, Shinn brought the NBA to Charlotte in 1987 after buying the rights to start a franchise, leading to the creation of the Charlotte Hornets. Just over a decade later, he was in the middle of a public trial for kidnapping and sexual assault, which led to the public finding out about Shinn’s extra marital affairs.

Withdrawing from the public, Shinn decided to move the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans, a decision some believed was caused by public scrutiny in Charlotte. Despite the Hornets still pulling some of the best attendance figures in the NBA, Shinn found a new home for his team.

Things were decent for the New Orleans Hornets for the better part of a decade. The team had a few playoff berths, hosted an NBA All-Star Game, and, thanks to superstar Chris Paul, looked to anchor the team for its future. Then Shinn expressed his desire to sell the team. A year down the road, and a collapsed deal later, Stern announced the league would purchase the Hornets for $300 million, to ensure its financial solvency and the health of the league as a whole.

The league-owned Hornets decided to trade Paul, after the star demanded a trade out of New Orleans and put the team over a barrel. An initial deal to the Lakers was vetoed by Stern, citing that it wasn’t in the team’s best interests. Four days later, New Orleans agreed to a deal that sent Paul to the Clippers, bolstering the underperforming Los Angeles team and increasing its worth. Meanwhile the Hornets got back a two second-round picks, the Timberwolves’ unprotected first-round, Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, and Al-Farouq Aminu. It was a potential upside deal for the future, but has aged terribly in retrospect.

By April 2012, the NBA found a buyer for the Hornets when Saints’ owner Tom Benson purchased the team for $338 million. Benson needed a make-good, a superstar to re-launch the team. It was a tough proposition. While bad, there were three teams worse than New Orleans vying for the top pick, with the Charlotte Bobcats holding the worst record in the league, which was also the worst record in NBA history at 7-59.

Everyone knew the No. 1 pick would be Kentucky’s Anthony Davis, a generational athlete with a transcendent unibrow, branding that built itself and would immediately bring star power to whichever team drafted him.

Then, with just a 13.7 percent chance to get the top pick the Hornets somehow wound up with the No. 1 pick, and the ability to draft Davis. The Bobcats got the No. 2 pick. One final twist of the knife for the city that lost its franchise to New Orleans were now robbed of its franchise player.

It’s unclear how Stern pulled off the 2012 heist, but the circumstances are too suspicious and fortuitous to be ignored.

No. 3 — Dikembe Mutombo knows best.

While not a direct conspiracy theory itself, Dikembe Mutombo’s actions prior to the 2016 NBA Draft lottery is stunning proof of the conspiracy the league had been operating in for decades.

The Philadelphia 76ers had the best chance of landing the No. 1 pick on lottery night, but by this point, we’d seen time and time again that “luck” means nothing when it comes to landing the pick. Sure, the Sixers had a 25 percent chance of getting the first pick — but this came after several years of the Cavaliers somehow jumping the worst teams in the league (more on that later).

So, suffice it to say, there was no guarantee the 76ers would pick No. 1 — and yet one guy knew.

Look at that timestamp ... 4:36 p.m. on May 17. Hours before the draft lottery was set to air live on ESPN. Mutombo quickly deleted his tweet, but what happens on the internet lasts forever — and indelible mark of the league’s lottery fixing.

No. 4 — The Cavaliers’ incredible luck.

No team in the NBA has benefited more from the league’s guiding hand than the Cleveland Cavaliers. Drafting LeBron James in 2003 represented more than getting a phenom the entire league coveted, it secured the team’s superstar future for the next 20 years — assuming the Cavaliers drafted right.

In 2011, 2013, and 2014, the Cavaliers unpredictably landed the No. 1 pick in the draft. Over this time, they never had the worst record in the league. All this curiously happened after James made his first “decision” and left for the Miami Heat. Funny how this all works, isn’t it?

Perhaps it was luck, but it was the kind of luck so unpredictable that there had to be an outside hand.

2011: Cavaliers get No. 1 in the lottery thanks to having the Clippers’ pick (2.8 percent chance).

2013: Cavaliers get No. 1 in the lottery (15.6 percent chance).

2014: Cavaliers get No. 1 in the lottery (1.7 percent chance).

The raw odds of this happening is 1,493-1, so improbable it functionally shouldn’t happen. And yet, the Cavaliers kept doing it again, and again, and again. After James left, the Cavaliers were in dire need of a new superstar, and the NBA was there to give them opportunity time, and time, and time again.

In April 2019, the Cavaliers had a 50-50 coin flip against the Suns to determine which team would officially receive the ping-pong combinations for the second-worst record in the NBA. They won, naturally. In a season after James left, this time for Los Angeles.

No. 5 — Ball is lifeline for the Lakers.

At this point, nobody is going to confuse Lonzo Ball with some grand prize worth rigging the lottery over. But this isn’t the story of the UCLA point guard going to Los Angeles — not really. The key players in this conspiracy were then-coach Luke Walton and executive Magic Johnson, both of whom predicted their top-three pick with stunning, Dikembe-esque accuracy.

In a classic case of saying the quiet part loud, Walton appeared on CBS Sports’ We Need to Talk and outlined, straight faced, how the Lakers were going to get their top draft pick to build for the future.

“Magic’s already ensured me that we’re going to get our top three pick this year so I’m excited about that.”

This conversation happened on May 5, 2017. The NBA Draft lottery was held on May 16 — and, just like Johnson promised, the Lakers ended up getting the No. 2 pick in the draft and went on to select Ball.

Yes, the Lakers had a good shot of getting one of the top three picks — but it was far from certain. They entered the lottery with a 46.9 percent chance of picking top three, but that’s not even odds-on, let alone enough for Johnson to “ensure” his coach that the Lakers would get a top-three pick.

Unless he already knew the outcome.

No. 6 — Orlando’s magic.

The year is 1993. The Orlando Magic have just come off as electric a season as anyone could have imagined.

How can a 41-41 year be electric? Shaquille O’Neal. A 20-year-old phenom, O’Neal cruised to rookie of the year honors by posting 23.4 points, 13.9 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks a game, in a season regarded as one of the best rookie years in NBA history.

It took the Magic from cellar-dwellers to barely missing the playoffs thanks to a tiebreaker with the Indiana Pacers. The NBA knew they had a mega star on their hands in O’Neal, and needed to make sure this appointment player could be on as many TV sets as possible the following year.

Enter the 1993 draft lottery. The Magic come to the table with just a 1.52 percent chance of landing the top pick thanks to their 11th-place finish. It’s an awkward year for the Magic to draft. It’s a year of big men, with Michigan’s Chris Webber viewed as the grand prize — but it’s unclear how he could play alongside O’Neal. The Magic need backcourt help, and the Golden State Warriors are in dire need of a big man to pair with Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin, both of whom missed time with injuries in 1992-93.

The Magic win the lottery (of course) and trade Webber to the Warriors on draft night for Penny Hardaway, and THREE future first-round picks. O’Neal and Hardaway went on to form one of the most exciting tandems of the 1990s, both making multiple NBA All Star Games, and leading the Magic to the playoffs for three straight years, including the NBA Finals in 1994-95.

It all happened because of the NBA and draft lottery night,

No. 7 — The Chicago Bulls land their hometown star in 2008.

The Chicago Bulls weren’t down on their luck by any stretch by the time the 2008 NBA Draft lottery rolled around, but this also presented a unique opportunity for the NBA. The Bulls had languished with two playoff exits and clearly missed one superstar piece to get over the hump. Derrick Rose gave the NBA the opportunity to intervene and solidify the future of a once-proud franchise.

Rose, a Chicago native, had slotted himself as a top pick, along with Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo. However, as the draft drew near, many believed Rose was going No. 1. The Bulls were in need of an upgrade at point guard from Kirk Hinrich, and this was the chance to kill two birds with one stone from the NBA’s perspective.

Chicago had just a 1.7 percent chance of landing the top pick. It was enough, with the league’s help of course.

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flauntpage · 7 years

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Howie Roseman, Non-Football Guy, Owns the NFL

The date was January 3rd, 2016. The Eagles had just wrapped up their 2015 season with a meaningless 35-30 win over the hapless New York Giants to finish with a 7-9 record and lock in a slightly shittier pick in the 2016 draft.

Chip Kelly had been fired just four days earlier after refusing to attend Jeffrey Lurie’s holiday party and alienating every player on the team with the exception of Riley Cooper.

Donald Trump, just months earlier as part of a YOLO dare, announced that he would run for President of the United States, giving the nation a nice little chuckle. And Howie Roseman, fresh off his time as supply closet manager and much to the dismay of almost every Eagles fan, re-gained control of the iron throne at One Novacare Way.

It has been just over two years since that day, and HOLY SHIT have things changed.

The Eagles are playing in the fucking SUPER BOWL and are set up for success for the next decade and change.

There are several players or coaches who have joined the team since that day in January and contributed to the Eagles’ success, but through it all, there has been only one common denominator: Howie Roseman.

In just two years, Roseman turned an underperforming, overpaid, self-serving 7-9 team into a super bowl contender. All while working in a very tight salary cap situation.

Fun Fact: Every single point scored, fumble recovered, interception, or sack by the Eagles in the playoffs, with the exception of one, has come at the hands of a player acquired within the last two years. The one exception: a Fletcher Cox sack. Who was responsible for extending Cox prior to the 2016 season? That would be Howie Roseman.

Obviously, Roseman has done an excellent job, but in looking back at every notable transaction over the last two years, it may be even better than we think.

Hiring Doug Pederson

Roseman is primarily responsible for acquiring player talent, but it would be silly not to mention his role in bringing in dopey (whoops) Doug Pederson. Not only has dopey Doug proven that he is not the Clark Griswold many thought he was, but he has gone full Liam Neeson on us, unleashing a particular set of skills nobody knew he had and kicking the shit out of the rest of the league.

2016/2017 Draft & Undrafted Free Agent Classes

2016: Carson Wentz, Wendell Smallwood, Isaac Seumalo, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, Blake Countess, Jalen Mills, Alex McCalister, Joe Walker, Marcus Johnson, Destiny Vaeao

2017: Derek Barnett, Sidney Jones, Rasul Douglas, Mack Hollins, Donnel Pumphrey, Shelton Gibson, Nate Gerry, Elijah Qualls, Corey Clement

The most obvious win here is Carson Wentz, but remember, it’s not as if Roseman just had the second pick and spent it on Wentz. He had the 13th pick in the draft and pulled off what was perhaps the most creative draft maneuver by anyone not named Kevin Costner. It’s not as if Wentz was the clear cut number one quarterback either. The NFL and draft community was very divisive on the player Wentz would turn out to be. Major credit goes to Howie and the Eagles front office for getting that one right.

Aside from Wentz, the rest of the 2016 class is impressive given the lack of resources Roseman had at his disposal. Big V, Jalen Mills, and Destiny Vaeao are all major contributors to this team and were all selected in the fifth round or later.

The 2017 class has also contributed quite a bit as well. Derek Barnett, obviously, but Rasul Douglas and Mack Hollins have both made several big plays in limited action and Corey Clement has been critical to the Eagles success on third downs in pass protection or catching passes out of the backfield. Both things he rarely ever did in college. Sidney Jones hasn’t even played!

Not all draft picks turn out to be stars, but getting this level of contributions from later round investments has been one of the major differentiators for this team.

Notable Cuts

Riley Cooper, DeMeco Ryans, Josh Huff, Connor Barwin, Ryan Mathews

Not much to see here. Most of these cuts were expected, but the Eagles haven’t been negatively impacted by any of them. So, that’s good.

Notable Contract Extensions

Sam Bradford, Malcolm Jenkins, Vinny Curry, Lane Johnson, Brent Celek, Zach Ertz, Fletcher Cox, Donnie Jones, Chris Maragos, Trey Burton, Jason Peters, Timmy Jernigan, Alshon Jeffery

The thing to note here is that when getting these extensions done, Roseman has done a particularly good job in accurately predicting the market at each position. Take Jeffery for example; his new contract pays him $6.75 million guaranteed per year, good for fifth in the NFL among receivers. But, when players such as Odell Beckham, Mike Evans, Amari Cooper, Brandin Cooks, Jordy Nelson and Golden Tate are up for new contracts in 2019, Jeffery’s $6.75 million per year will look pretty damn good.

Last offseason, there was a lot of criticism over the contract handed out to Curry. To be fair, though, if we think back to the extension, there was not one person in the entire city of Philadelphia that wouldn’t have made that deal. In fact, Curry was often talked about on sports radio airwaves as one of the primary reasons that the Eagles should switch back to the 4-3 defense. Howie is a lot of things, but a soothsayer is not one of them.

Despite this, Curry was able to change that narrative to some degree in 2017. While he may not be the star many thought he would be, his contract looks much better one year later.

Notable Free Agent Signings

This is where it gets juicy.

The Eagles know from experience that the core of a team cannot be built through free agency. That must be done through the draft. But no draft class is perfect and it only takes one underperforming draft class to create holes in a roster.

Free agency is crucial to ensure those holes get filled and, in some cases, like Alshon Jeffery, can even provide an upgrade. One poor investment, however, can really set the team back. Navigating the waters of free agency can be a really difficult task.

Take a look through Roseman’s signings over the last two years. They are quite impressive:

Chase Daniel, Nigel Bradham, Rodney McLeod, Brandon Brooks, Kamu Grugier-Hill, Torrey Smith, Patrick Robinson, Chris Long, Nick Foles, Stefen Wisniewski, Chance Warmack, Alshon Jeffery, LeGarrette Blount, Corey Graham, Jake Elliot, Bryan Braman

This list is pretty incredible. Not only have these players not been disappointing, almost all of them have outplayed the investment Roseman made in them. Even the smaller signings like Grugier-Hill have made an impact. Corey Graham has been critical to this defense in allowing Malcolm Jenkins to come down and play in the box, particularly since Jordan Hicks has been out.

Remember when everyone was upset that the Eagles were paying Nick Foles too much money to be a backup? What about Jake Elliott? Anyone ever heard of that guy? Even Bryan Braman, who was acquired in December, blocked a fucking punt in the divisional round playoff game versus the Falcons!

Almost everything Howie has touched in free agency has turned to gold.

Notable Trades

Trades are not very common in the NFL, but that is what makes Roseman so unique.

Market inefficiencies flow through the NFL like the plague. Every year, a handful of new coaches take control of their teams, promise to adapt their scheme to the players they have and then proceed to get rid of any and all players who either don’t fit the scheme or take issue with it.

As a result, players like Jay Ajayi become available for a fourth-round pick. Other players, such as Timmy Jernigan, become cap casualties and teams, desperate to get anything of value for them, give them up in exchange for swapping third-round picks.

The inefficiencies of the market are insane, and Roseman is like a shark smelling blood. Take a look at some of the bigger acquisitions that Roseman has made via trade:

Carson Wentz, Sam Bradford, Timmy Jernigan, Ronald Darby, Jay Ajayi

When the Vikings coughed up a first and a fourth for Bradford, the narrative centered on how lucky Roseman got. While luck did play a role, Howie should be commended for how well he played his hand.

The supposed trade market for Bradford at the time was minimal. Roseman very easily could have jumped on a fourth-round pick in desperation to get some value from him, but he sat tight. Did he know that Teddy Bridgewater would get hurt? Absolutely not. But, in a league with 32 starting quarterbacks, the odds of one of them going down is pretty good. It wasn’t dumb luck, Roseman took those odds and it paid off.

Low Risk Misses

Roseman hasn’t been perfect over the last two years, there have been a few moves that haven’t worked out or don’t currently look promising.

Leodis McKelvin, T.J. Graham, Reuben Randle, Chris Givens, Nolan Carroll, Dorial Green-Beckham, Isaac Seumalo, Donnel Pumphrey

These were all low-risk investments, though. Not one of these players have really set the team back.

Much of the talk this season has been focused on how great this Eagles team is and how great of a coach Doug Pederson has turned out to be. Heading into Super Bowl week, I think it’s time we tip our cap to the non-football guy that this blue collar town never gave a chance.

Howie Roseman, Non-Football Guy, Owns the NFL published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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junker-town · 7 years

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The Toronto Raptors keep evolving instead of breaking

Toronto is modernizing its style and strengths even if an NBA title remains out of reach.

The Biosteel Centre has become the laboratory for the Toronto Raptors' reinvention experiments. During the tail-end of practices that are open to media observation, one can find four rims occupied by shooters, a hat-tip to their designs on internal improvement from beyond the arc. In the far-right corner, a fifth and final hoop is dedicated to the harder, non-habitual challenge of the Raptors' "culture reset" that is playing out, for the most part, on the offensive end.

Lorenzo Brown stands at the top of the key and receives a pick from Jakob Poeltl, who catches the ball on the roll, and bulldozes into assistant coach Nick Nurse, who is trying to stave off the 7-foot center with two pads. Instead of trying to finish through contact, Poeltl fires a drive-and-kick pass to Alfonzo McKinnie, in the corner, who misses a three. After a few more reps, Lucas Nogueira takes Poeltl's place. After that, it's the much-maligned Jonas Valanciunas, who, after a couple tries, starts hitting McKinnie right in the pocket.

“On time, on target passes. It’s something I know guys ad nauseam get tired of us talking about it and emphasizing,” says head coach Dwane Casey. “But I'm a firm believer that you are what you emphasize.”

The Raptors’ plan to bring back largely the same personnel for the 2017-18 season yet introduce a modern, pass-happy, 3-point heavy offense was met with reasonable skepticism. It felt like a stilted mandate, the plan of a team that acknowledges the problem but can't muster a solution. If they wanted to change things, why re-sign Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka to cap-killing deals, and retain Casey as coach?

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

So far, they've made it work. At 15-7, the Raptors run the NBA’s fourth-most efficient offense. After finishing second-to-last in the NBA last season in assist ratio — the percentage of a team’s baskets that are assisted — they’re now in the top five. Casey’s goal, in training camp, was to shoot 30 treys per game. They’re shooting 32. The Raptors have always been able to rack them up, but their attack this season is more well-balanced, and they hope, harder to solve in the playoffs. In that regard, they’re certainly less solvable, but they’re still squarely behind the Cavs in Celtics in the Eastern Conference pecking order.

ERGE. #RTZ http://pic.twitter.com/3rKCOaS6h3

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 9, 2017

The Raptors, in the end, represent high aspirations with middling results. That is the story of most of us, and most of us don't wallow and recede merely because even at our best, we couldn't be astrophysicists. We try, and sometimes fail, to be good friends, good family members, good employees. Professional sports, of course, veer toward more win-or-go home propositions. Yet the sense of dread that accompanies most good-but-not great teams is conspicuously absent in Toronto. It is hard, it turns out, for mediocrity to become the expressed persona of a team that is so dedicated to maximizing its abilities.

As the Raptors inch closer and closer to their collective best, it is painfully clear they are a cut below elite. Yet the organization is filled to the brim with people who, everyday, are striving to be better teammates and coaches.

Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Whether or not the Raptors truly believe or don't believe they can win a championship is a question best left to psychics. But I can say this: Professional athletes are so defiant, so single-minded, that if the opponent was gravity, they'd fervently contend that it's still anybody's game in the middle of a free-fall. The Raptors, who ran into LeBron two playoffs in a row, know what it's like to fall.

When you're really up against it, self-belief gives way to self-reflection. The Raptors, who plodded around the court, and ran their actions through DeMar DeRozan, the NBA’s last standard-bearer for mid-range basketball, risked going extinct.

Dippin' into the bag of tricks early. #RTZ http://pic.twitter.com/RPgcxw1ZnB

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 6, 2017

That DeMar's parting offseason admission was that the Raptors were toast without LeBron James, but still entered this season with a renewed ambition to re-tailor his game in order to better serve his teammates, is some kind of beautiful. A beautiful that will not veer into the transcendent but will, over time, pay the bills.

“As a competitor,” says DeMar, “you wanna do every and anything to win. Sometimes, that comes with balance.”

Casey, on the other hand, is on his own mission against instinct: biting his tongue, as the Raptors hodgepodge of young talent works through their early kinks.

There's Pascal Siakam, busting out overzealous spin moves, taking threes early in the shot clock, dribbling around the world like an oversized Fred VanVleet, bobbling behind-the-back passes in transition. There's Norman Powell, driving into traffic, angles and helpers be damned, while OG Anunoby, fishing for steals, gets back-cut by Courtney Lee again.

“I don't wanna limit myself to just be an energy guy or whatever it might be,” says Siakam. “I want to expand my game, and I'm a hard worker. I started playing basketball late, so I have a lot of things I have to learn.”

To allow reps for Anunoby, Poeltl, VanVleet, Siakam, Powell, and Nogueira, Toronto is employing a 12-man rotation that, at this juncture, isn't showing any signs of tightening. Nobody has a short leash. Everybody's allowed to mess up. After spending three seasons in a row sweating every regular-season loss, the Raptors are finally making like a playoff team and treating it like a breeding ground. Sometimes, you can't act like you've been there until you've actually, you know, been there.

The Raptors, as a result, employ one of the best second units — the best, if you ask CJ Miles — in the NBA. None of the Raptors young guns projects to be a star, but they have helped strike the near-impossible balance of winning now and building for the future.

Bench mob connection. #RTZ http://pic.twitter.com/Gax156Lu03

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 9, 2017

The team had plenty of reasons not to make it work. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, career scorers, would have to shelve inborne habits. The shortened preseason hindered their ability to effectively implement a new system. The toughest stretch of their season came early, when the Raptors, in the absence of immediate results, would likely be most prone to reverting to old habits. They couldn't hit a shot for the first month of the season. DeRozan was overpassing. Lowry struggled to channel the appropriate moments for aggression.

“Training camp was tough because it was short. Trying to institute a new system, I thought, we're not there yet,” recalls Casey. “We really struggled in those exhibition games, and the first few games.”

Wax cynical if you must. But the Raptors persisted. And because of that, they managed to execute the blueprint for change that has left so many other franchise stars on the trading block and coaches unemployed. The task of real, appreciable change is often impossible at worst, and trying at best. The Raptors have done it, they’ve done it well, and they have no designs on reversion.

A Sideline Story

I am writing this, dear friends, to eat crow. Well, first, I have to tell on myself. There was a juncture of my life (read: the past year) where I was truly convinced that Andre Drummond just didn't like basketball. I wasn't the only one, and hey, there was evidence suggesting we were onto something. A tall dude without a lot offensive skill who had his first and only All-Star season in a contract year and then proceeded to fall off dramatically in all manner of non-fantasy stats? It was fishy, to say the least.

It turns out that Drummond had it in him to give a shit. A lot of shits, actually. He spent the offseason doubling his free-throw accuracy, which has settled in at 62 percent, allowing his lumbering frame to attract attention down low without being hacked. That is, combined with an attitudinal shift, why he's averaging four assists per game this season — his career high, prior to that, was one. Even when he isn't being doubled, he's done an excellent job of finding cutters from the high post, when opponents try to cheat on pick and rolls. His defense has been a mixed bag. One-on-one, he can't stay in front of quicker guys and ends up in no man's land when he's matched up against spacier guys. But he's gotten better at shutting down traditional pick and rolls, especially with Stanley Johnson on the court, and he's flicked guards out of the restricted area with ease.

.@AndreDrummond had that 20-20 vision tonight. Check out his 26-point, 22-board evening. #DetroitBasketball http://pic.twitter.com/lfXr6pYSNT

— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) November 28, 2017

I don't know what the backstory is behind Drummond's resurgence (and Detroit's, for that matter) is. I'll leave that to Lee Jenkins. But what's clear to me now was that I was stereotyping a tall dude. It’s also a reminder that when things aren't right with a player, the explanation is often deeper than what's happening at the surface level.

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