Jake

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 09:31 PM) I don't think you will see him playing more athletic than he does now, and we can agree that he's not the athlete he once was. 80-85% perhaps. And at 85%, is he good enough to help this team win? We got plenty of great athletes in the league nowadays, especially at his position. For a player who used to get by with athleticism, having his athleticism reduced to closer to the par of the league is the reason why he struggles to score at times. At the end of the day, he needs to learn to play smarter, not harder. If he still relies on his athleticism to get by, he will hurt this team as much as he help this team. He's always one of those players that you wonder how his game will transform as he ages and loses a step. That point has come for him earlier than he or we would like, now we will see how he cope with his game. I don't really see any deficit in athleticism. It's just a matter of putting it all together, being a basketball player.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 03:29 PM) Eh, I don't buy it. 1) He's done taped segments before (e.g., Kenny Mayne). He wasn't to obligated to do that. 2) his media stunts draw more attention to him. If you really have a disorder you're doing everything in your power to lessen the attention. I don't know 100% if it's true, but it is definitely plausible. For a person with social phobia, standing in front of a ton of reporters with no advance notice of their questions and knowing they may even be broadcasting live is very different than doing a sit-down interview with somebody. Social phobia tends to manifest in situations where the person doesn't know how the social interaction is going to go. He has also stated previously that he worried about how the things he says to the media would make his teammates feel - he said something to the effect that it is hard to take questions from the media without coming off like you're taking the credit for success. In HS and college, he always had teammates step in and take postgame questions from the media on his behalf.

Ug. I don't feel comfortable committing a lot of years to this guy

We have all the tools to inform people, but those same tools can misinform. While some people used to be underinformed, now they have all the information and then some - and choose wrongly. I research communication and science/risk communication is one of the field's biggest growing areas.

Having the basketball IQ to understand what's going on out there while you're hurt is a lot different than doing the right things at game speed. I'm okay with how Rose is doing. There is undeniably a dropoff, but he's playable and we often see flashes of that raw talent that made him special. He still does some stuff getting to and finishing around the hoop that keeps me hopeful that we'll be seeing the awesome version of him at some point in the future.

Belisario has had all kinds of monkey business with immigration and getting to ST on time. Wouldn't shock me if there are more problems along those lines

I only use it when there's breaking news and there's no other choice

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 02:07 PM) I'm not saying I care, but this would slow the games down, and it doesn't seem like they're gonna do stuff that slows the game down for a while. This was my first thought as well. More players inevitably means more substitutions, which will degrade watchability further. They can look into tweaking the rules regarding call-ups and what have you if they think more flexibility is necessary.

I try not to make whether the players are motivated against bad teams a top criteria for evaluating a coach. There's only so much the guy can do and he might sacrifice whatever other positive influence he can have by going too hard after the small stuff

If there really is a big problem with Thibs and the FO and/or players (which I'm not fully convinced of), it's not an obvious decision how to resolve it. You can't just fire Thibs; he's one of the very best coaches in the league. You can't start canning people in the FO - they've put together a truly excellent roster and have demonstrated a really steady, patient hand that has kept the team consistently good with a lot of young talent. It will be even harder to try to divine which players might be too blame for the disconnect.

Someone has to figure out how Poppovich has maintained such success

The main thing with Rose tonight was that he let the refereeing get to him. He had several spurts where he looked great but he got hosed a few times and never regained his temper

I've gotta say it feels like the refs are trolling Derrick Rose

This team is GOAT!

Jimmy Butler is so damn good

Rose is at the scorer's table waiting to come in. We better feed Jimmy either way

Rose grabbing the knee

Pau is very, very bad on defense.

I thought most projection systems use arithmetic mean, which is typically best when searching for expected value.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 02:15 PM) That Peavy trade just keeps amazing. Avisail Garcia, Frank Montas, Cleuluis Rondon and JB Wendelken in exchange for 1.5 years of Peavy when the team was rebuilding anyway. Sure looks like a steal right now. The Tigers are the big loser in that trade, which is what sane people have said since it happened

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 04:22 PM) Well I've pointed out the main reasons - private lenders versus the government, and re-payment options. The government also can't selectively choose who it loans money to. The only requirement, that i'm aware of, is whether the person is going to school. A person could be dirt poor with no prospect of paying it back and the government is still giving them money. Private lenders can appreciate that risk and build it into the loan and/or their business. Same with credit card companies. The government can't. Bear in mind that "being in college" is supposed to be a bar that is cleared that makes the person somewhat likely to pay back. This is part of the reason there has been some push towards stopping public loans to for-profit colleges and other particularly unsuccessful institutions. The government is also making money on these loans, so as it is they've built enough risk into the disbursement of them that they aren't being gamed on a large scale. Still, I don't think it should be a program based primarily on whether the government can break even on the loans. The outcome for society - more education, economic stimulus, etc. - should be the goal and the costs just have to be reasonable given those goals. This is opposed to we must have some arbitrary cost with little regard for the level of benefit derived from it.

I've seen it hinted that Lynch might have some sort of social anxiety disorder, which is why he dislikes talking to the media. Taking the questions seriously would make him very nervous, etc. I recall Marion Barber was very shy as well, though he came off better than Marshawn

Beckham's role on this team is totally redundant with Bonifacio unless the plan is to have one or the other start in the infield. C Flowers 1B Abreu 2B Sanchez 3B Gillaspie SS Alexei LF Melky CF Eaton RF Avisail DH LaRoche BN Backup catcher BN Bonifacio BN Backup OF BN Beckham SP Sale SP Q SP Samardzija SP Danks SP Noesi RP RP RP RP RP RP RP 7 relievers, doesn't matter who. That's 12 pitchers and then you dedicate your bench to two guys who are iffy bats but play the IF. Beckham has a worse bat, possibly worse glove, and is not remotely useful as a baserunner outside of just getting your slowest guy off the field. To me, he only makes sense if you want no rookie 2B on the roster. Then, you need a guy like Viciedo to give you some kind of bat off the bench.

It's worth noting that state support of public universities is dropping dramatically, which is a very big contributor to the rise in costs. It's not the only one, since these universities are also under intense pressure to add more and more services. Most of the day-to-day operations of a big university have little to do with education and more to do with taking care of people. That stuff costs money.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 11:21 AM) You income out of the tax deduction on student loan interest pretty quickly. I haven't been able to take it in years - and I definitely consider myself squarely within the middle class. If I were changing student loan policy, I'd do the following: 1) Increase the amount of direct loans you can take in a school year. When I was in law school, the combination of subsidized and unsubsidized direct loans I could take in a given year barely covered tuition plus rent for the year - and I had a scholarship. The goal should be to continue to provide low-interest loans to students - in my experience, the private loans have higher lending costs (taking away one of the above referenced incentives from Jenks); 2) Make it easier to discharge student loans in bankruptcy after a time. Something like no discharge unless (1) you've been out of school for greater than some number of years (so students can't graduate and immediately head into bk); (2) you've made consistent payments over those years (with exceptions for hardship cases); (3) your current income falls below a certain threshold; and (4) you have made reasonable efforts during those years to find a job in your field. Almost any other debt you can make go away when circumstances change and you can't afford it anymore. Lost your job? Surrender your house in foreclosure, get rid of the giant deficiency in bankruptcy. Credit card interest killing you? Get rid of it in bankruptcy. Business gone belly up, get rid of those personal guarantees in bankruptcy. The fact that student loan debt - which is basically a necessity - is given such preferential treatment - is mind boggling. As a result, I'd be strongly in favor of a system that provided an out from under student loan debt for people who were struggling under it. Further, I don't think there would be significant abuse of the system. For me, I'd love to get rid of my student loan debt. But I wouldn't intentionally tank my career to get rid of it. To Reddy, on the income based repayment, how frequently do you have to update your income information with the feds? We could also do what governments are supposed to do - not try to profit from public programs like student loans. Do what Warren's bill proposed - lend at the same rate the Federal Reserve does to banks (0.75%) - and you have a great economic stimulus that better aligns with the purposes of the program. Last year the CBO reported that we made about 14% profit on student loans. This is a thing where it would be better to lose money than to make money. It's not a tax, it's a benefit!