Brian Windhorst is barely able to contain his contempt. I wish he would just join Substack already so I could pay him to absolutely unload his venom, as he is clearly aching to do.
Yes! Unleash Windy. I'm in the minority, but I think his pod is the best bball pod there is. Everyone hates on Windy, but he seems to pull the least punches and sticks to basketball, which is what I'm looking for in Bball pod.
Windy takes his journalism ethics stuff more serious than any other NBA reporter at ESPN. My guess is its because he knows he was in the right place and right time with Lebron and rode those coattails (which he has acknowledged), and so maybe he overcompensates.
My one complaint about Windy, is that he has consistently been wrong or over exaggerated discontent within the Jazz. I read and listen to everything about the Jazz (they are my only pro sports team) and Windy is more wrong than he is right regarding the Jazz - to which Tim McMahan usually corrects him.
Find myself thinking about the lack of nuance in the world today. Everything seen as black or white, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.
Case in point - saying X is not a democratic country when you don't like decisions of democratically elected leaders. Nope, you just don't like the current government.
How Canada is no longer a democratic country, a BLM activist got bailed out after an assassination attempt, the russiagate narrative collapsed, and the MSM ignores it so no one cares. Maybe we’ll get another war in Ukraine to distract everyone!
I'm mildly amused by this article and the general failure that the all star weekend has been so far (by all second-hand accounts, since I've been rendered into a casual by this terrible product).
People won't admit Ethan, but they're coming round to your views. I know Bomani is quite nuanced and hard to place but Howard Beck saying something that isn't avowedly pro-player is one that I did not expect. In fairness to the players, the terms of sports legacy debates have been framed in overly simplistic (and borderline toxic, if I recall some of what Lebron had to deal with in the first half of his career) terms by the media. Short run spamming of that strategy definitely worked, but we're now seeing how it has debased the product for all stakeholders involved (players, owners, fans and media partners) in the long-run.
Really? If something can entertain people across multiple generations, it must have been sufficiently insightful, universal or well-constructed to begin with, no? I'm skeptical that comedy that doesn't age well would be quite as meaningful or good.
Daryl Morey is a clandestine subscriber to House of Strauss who talks about every NBA-related article with Colin Cowherd. After the Sixers win the championship with 2022’s version of Shaq and Kobe, Morey will grant a podcast request from House of Strauss that will (a) get Adam Silver fired , (b) convert the NBA season to 58 games with a one-and-done playoff format and (c) get Adrian Wojnarowski banished from the Game Of Zones.
If you think these Covid lockdowns were bad, just wait until climate changed is used as a pretense for more and more authoritarian behavior. It will also be used to force folks to accept a lower standard of living (already happening but CC will be used to accelerate this).
I want all the conspiracy theorists to work in government at high level and see just how chaotic and unplanned everything is. The idea of a grand plan with nefarious aims is so beyond the capability of public administration
100%. Pass the torch to Giannis. I respect that Lebron is an all time great, he just seems like such an insufferable ass. I guess it’s the culmination of being on the cover of slam when you’re 16 and being given a hummer on a loan against your future earnings. The hype train inflated his ego to an unprecedented level.
Everything changes.I keep read diverse thought about the city of San Francisco. Can you write a column telling your subs your thoughts about San Francisco today?
Hottest of hot: Robert California is hilarious and I very much enjoyed when he was a part of The Office (even if he seemed to be coming in from a different show)
Arden & Trudeau have portrayed them selves as these emphatic leader. Yet the have made the 5% of there country 2nd class citizens. Which has resulted in the occupation of the capital cities of both leaders. There response shows a complete lack of empathy. There treatment of unvaxed people at this point of pandemic is troublesome. Considering the only thing that we can say for certain about the Vax at this point is it reduces your chance of ending up in hospital. So the only reason for a mandate is to lessen hospital load. Seems to me a crazy reason for a mandate.
Uh the only reasons to vaccinate is to reduce infectious viral titers ( which reduces transmission), reduces viral replication which leads to variants, reduce hospitalizations which allow staff to give emphasis on other admissions, reduce illness and staff absenteeism across the US, reduce deaths, reduce long Covid and post Covid sequalae ( latest studies on residual heart damage on people with even mild Covid) .. That’s enough for me to wish the USA wasn’t 54th in vaccinations and 16th highest death rate out of 155 nations even though the vaccines were developed in this country.
Not at all saying people shouldn't get vaccinated I am myself. My issue is with creating a class system based on vaccination status it shows a complete lack of empathy. It has no place in society
You forgot to put in your list of reasons to get vaccinated "so you can show people you're a GOOD person" and "so you can claim it would have been so much worse if you weren't vaccinated when you have no idea if that's true."
Are we in a weird jeopardy/better help era of sports media personalities. They think they are smarter then everyone, can’t be wrong but also “tired” and in therapy. It comes through in the media and writing. It comes across to viewer/readers as mild brain worms.
Chris Brown had a daughter, stopped savagely beating up women and then stopped making great music. Bill Simmons had a daughter, stopped writing interesting stuff and turned into a boring basketball historian. Having daughters is correlated with men turning into pious pumpkins who are insufferable boors. Causation, not correlation!
Except Joe Rogan for some reason. Somehow, Mr. Rogan escaped that trap.
I still enjoy bill although I get the point he is filtering himself. I would say that has more to do with the times and not wanting to be cancelled. Than having a daughter tho
On Bill Maher last night, the Editor of the nation Said the problem with America today is the media and that the media has an agenda. In the next breath she said that Americans should vote for Bernie Sanders and that he is the only person who speaks the truth to Americans. What am I missing here?
I know more people, relatives and friends who just will not acknowledge or admit that this is not how liberal democracy works. They should watch old Merv Griffin episodes. He had on civil rights activists, celebrities, and even those who broke with traditional outlooks- no one was rude enough to call for censorship. Back then it was considered the heights of backward thinking because it is.
Can someone explain why MSM critics are so positive about Russia not invading Ukraine? I saw Taibbi calling the invasion prediction a ‘faceplant’ but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. When he’s criticizing reporting, it’s hard to follow exactly what he takes issue with. If he found a more coherent way to express himself, more MSM defenders may listen.
The larger critique is that the American foreign policy establishment is unjustifiably obsessed with war with Russia. The reasons given vary- old Cold Warriors trying to recreate their glory days, a desire to pivot from the bummer of counter-terrorism and occupation, a yearning for a conflict that will justify big budgets and novel weapons systems.
The obsession leads the government to pretend that the Russia is acting like an aggressive, Stalin-era USSR, which isn't really true, but because most foreign policy reporting is done by stenographers and people tied into the larger foreign policy establishment, there is a lot of uncritical parroting of the governments line.
I'm not super interested in this subject, so I can't really defend the details, but that's the gist of it. The Radio War Nerd episodes on it, if you can stand to spend hours listening to hours and hours of a couple of old guys complaining about their ailments and politics, have close readings of the various intelligence-sourced announcements and what's wrong with them.
I'm curious about this too. I love Taibbi, but it does seem to be universally agreed upon that an invasion is coming. I have no idea why he (and others, obviously) believe they have the inside scoop on this being a nothingburger.
If Russia doesn't invade, though - if it turns out that there wasn't really the immense troop build-up that the MSM is claiming, that all this utterly certain broadcasting on the topic was based on shaky sources; if Russia doesn't create a bullshit pretext to invade, and that the Ukrainian parliament has actually offered the tremendous criticism of the US Government and US Press that Matt says it has, and that, as Matt claims, the Ukrainian economy is tanking because of these false rumors - then we are truly through the looking glass. This would be a "weapons of mass destruction" moment.
Here's one my friends and I are debating and have put money on. So "cancel culture," CRT and "woke" were all borrowed from black culture (two items of good-natured slang, one academic obscurity). And as they've been borrowed and weaponized by the right, there's been a natural progression from one to the other: cancel culture --> CRT --> woke. And as they get weaponized, it doesn't take long for them to lose meaning. Jeff Zucker is cancel culture? lol. Removing Michelle Obama's biography from school libraries is fighting CRT? whatever. And I think reasonable people can agree that "woke" is starting to lose the thread: https://twitter.com/adamhillscomedy/status/1495425302729797642 (etc, etc.) There's probably a smart point to be made here about the elasticity of language, especially when brought into the political sphere as a tool, but that's beyond my reach. Mostly I want to go on record with what I think the next one will be. So mark my words, in two months, you're going to hear political types decrying "vibes." School boards calling out questionable vibes; GOP presidential hopefuls saying "America today ... you can feel it: it just has bad vibes."
That's my prediction. My friend thinks the right is going to weaponize "mood" next ("Ted Cruz is a big mood!" "This country needs a mood change") but I like my pick.
Haha -- go for it. I mean, it 100% does. If you just listened to Twitter, you'd think employment was down (it's up) and unionization was up (it's still very down). It's all just vibes! Plus, good for me if you got it popularized -- could only help me with my bet. (Just don't popularize/politicize "mood" or "simp" first, that would be bad for me.)
Abolish interviews with players immediately after they win a Championship. I want to watch Aaron Donald celebrate with his teammates, not explain to a reporter that it's nice to win the Super Bowl.
Feb 20, 2022·edited Feb 20, 2022Liked by Ethan Strauss
I never thought I'd leave the Bay Area. Born and raised, 30+ years. I'm gone. The last 2 years have pushed me out. I'm done with the (ineffective/harmful) masking of my small children and school vax mandates for them when the risk to children is about as close to zero as you can get. People in this state will never give this up. They're talking about masks for flu season... Nah. I'm out.
Matt's silence is interesting. Similar to Woj, wouldn't it just be good to put your hand up and say 'got this one wrong'? No one can bat a thousand.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
·
Feb 21
The news outlets that published that baseless and embarrassingly incorrect invasion prediction gave Putin a big international PR win last week. And I’m the one carrying water for him?
Thanks for the nice words and for the potential offer but for now my editor does the research I need. Who knows, though, maybe I expand this operation one day.
There’s a real lack of American-born Latinos playing in the NFL and NBA… but no one really talks about it.
Brian Windhorst is barely able to contain his contempt. I wish he would just join Substack already so I could pay him to absolutely unload his venom, as he is clearly aching to do.
Yes! Unleash Windy. I'm in the minority, but I think his pod is the best bball pod there is. Everyone hates on Windy, but he seems to pull the least punches and sticks to basketball, which is what I'm looking for in Bball pod.
h/t Athletic Alchemy https://twitter.com/WizardsHive_/status/1491840997571104773
Can you elaborate? I don’t follow him closely
Windy takes his journalism ethics stuff more serious than any other NBA reporter at ESPN. My guess is its because he knows he was in the right place and right time with Lebron and rode those coattails (which he has acknowledged), and so maybe he overcompensates.
My one complaint about Windy, is that he has consistently been wrong or over exaggerated discontent within the Jazz. I read and listen to everything about the Jazz (they are my only pro sports team) and Windy is more wrong than he is right regarding the Jazz - to which Tim McMahan usually corrects him.
Find myself thinking about the lack of nuance in the world today. Everything seen as black or white, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.
Case in point - saying X is not a democratic country when you don't like decisions of democratically elected leaders. Nope, you just don't like the current government.
Russell conjugations are fun- it's my will of the people, your politics, their authoritarianism.
How Canada is no longer a democratic country, a BLM activist got bailed out after an assassination attempt, the russiagate narrative collapsed, and the MSM ignores it so no one cares. Maybe we’ll get another war in Ukraine to distract everyone!
Stray observations.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/61yMavalT4KBJfVPcMre1D
The second segment is excellent.
https://www.si.com/nba/2022/02/20/nba-superstar-empowerment-disruption-trades
I'm mildly amused by this article and the general failure that the all star weekend has been so far (by all second-hand accounts, since I've been rendered into a casual by this terrible product).
People won't admit Ethan, but they're coming round to your views. I know Bomani is quite nuanced and hard to place but Howard Beck saying something that isn't avowedly pro-player is one that I did not expect. In fairness to the players, the terms of sports legacy debates have been framed in overly simplistic (and borderline toxic, if I recall some of what Lebron had to deal with in the first half of his career) terms by the media. Short run spamming of that strategy definitely worked, but we're now seeing how it has debased the product for all stakeholders involved (players, owners, fans and media partners) in the long-run.
Comedy that ages well isn't meaningful or good.
That’s a fascinating take
The Importance of Being Earnest? The Life of Bryan?
His Girl Friday? PG Wodehouse? Evelyn Waugh? Preston Sturges?
Really? If something can entertain people across multiple generations, it must have been sufficiently insightful, universal or well-constructed to begin with, no? I'm skeptical that comedy that doesn't age well would be quite as meaningful or good.
Daryl Morey is a clandestine subscriber to House of Strauss who talks about every NBA-related article with Colin Cowherd. After the Sixers win the championship with 2022’s version of Shaq and Kobe, Morey will grant a podcast request from House of Strauss that will (a) get Adam Silver fired , (b) convert the NBA season to 58 games with a one-and-done playoff format and (c) get Adrian Wojnarowski banished from the Game Of Zones.
If you think these Covid lockdowns were bad, just wait until climate changed is used as a pretense for more and more authoritarian behavior. It will also be used to force folks to accept a lower standard of living (already happening but CC will be used to accelerate this).
I want all the conspiracy theorists to work in government at high level and see just how chaotic and unplanned everything is. The idea of a grand plan with nefarious aims is so beyond the capability of public administration
Definitely a stray observation/question. Who's the artist and song for the intro/outro? Shazam really letting me down.
At this point the NBA would be better off if Lebron retired
100%. Pass the torch to Giannis. I respect that Lebron is an all time great, he just seems like such an insufferable ass. I guess it’s the culmination of being on the cover of slam when you’re 16 and being given a hummer on a loan against your future earnings. The hype train inflated his ego to an unprecedented level.
James Harden represents everything that’s worst about the NBA. I would pay 5000$ in cash, right now, if it would ensure he never win a championship.
Won, not win. They need an edit button!
Everything changes.I keep read diverse thought about the city of San Francisco. Can you write a column telling your subs your thoughts about San Francisco today?
Been mulling this. It's not quite sports or industry, but it is on my mind.
Do it. Sh sh sh. Just do it.
Ehh I feel like this is too easy unless Ethan has a super interesting novel take
Hottest of hot: Robert California is hilarious and I very much enjoyed when he was a part of The Office (even if he seemed to be coming in from a different show)
Granted it’s a nice problem to have, but I’m over remote work. I miss seeing people / hate bringing work energy into where I’m supposed to relax
Arden & Trudeau have portrayed them selves as these emphatic leader. Yet the have made the 5% of there country 2nd class citizens. Which has resulted in the occupation of the capital cities of both leaders. There response shows a complete lack of empathy. There treatment of unvaxed people at this point of pandemic is troublesome. Considering the only thing that we can say for certain about the Vax at this point is it reduces your chance of ending up in hospital. So the only reason for a mandate is to lessen hospital load. Seems to me a crazy reason for a mandate.
Uh the only reasons to vaccinate is to reduce infectious viral titers ( which reduces transmission), reduces viral replication which leads to variants, reduce hospitalizations which allow staff to give emphasis on other admissions, reduce illness and staff absenteeism across the US, reduce deaths, reduce long Covid and post Covid sequalae ( latest studies on residual heart damage on people with even mild Covid) .. That’s enough for me to wish the USA wasn’t 54th in vaccinations and 16th highest death rate out of 155 nations even though the vaccines were developed in this country.
Not at all saying people shouldn't get vaccinated I am myself. My issue is with creating a class system based on vaccination status it shows a complete lack of empathy. It has no place in society
You forgot to put in your list of reasons to get vaccinated "so you can show people you're a GOOD person" and "so you can claim it would have been so much worse if you weren't vaccinated when you have no idea if that's true."
It’s time to retire Seinfeld and classic Simpsons references. That stuff is 25+ years ago.
Are we in a weird jeopardy/better help era of sports media personalities. They think they are smarter then everyone, can’t be wrong but also “tired” and in therapy. It comes through in the media and writing. It comes across to viewer/readers as mild brain worms.
Chris Brown had a daughter, stopped savagely beating up women and then stopped making great music. Bill Simmons had a daughter, stopped writing interesting stuff and turned into a boring basketball historian. Having daughters is correlated with men turning into pious pumpkins who are insufferable boors. Causation, not correlation!
Except Joe Rogan for some reason. Somehow, Mr. Rogan escaped that trap.
I still enjoy bill although I get the point he is filtering himself. I would say that has more to do with the times and not wanting to be cancelled. Than having a daughter tho
On Bill Maher last night, the Editor of the nation Said the problem with America today is the media and that the media has an agenda. In the next breath she said that Americans should vote for Bernie Sanders and that he is the only person who speaks the truth to Americans. What am I missing here?
I know more people, relatives and friends who just will not acknowledge or admit that this is not how liberal democracy works. They should watch old Merv Griffin episodes. He had on civil rights activists, celebrities, and even those who broke with traditional outlooks- no one was rude enough to call for censorship. Back then it was considered the heights of backward thinking because it is.
Can someone explain why MSM critics are so positive about Russia not invading Ukraine? I saw Taibbi calling the invasion prediction a ‘faceplant’ but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. When he’s criticizing reporting, it’s hard to follow exactly what he takes issue with. If he found a more coherent way to express himself, more MSM defenders may listen.
The larger critique is that the American foreign policy establishment is unjustifiably obsessed with war with Russia. The reasons given vary- old Cold Warriors trying to recreate their glory days, a desire to pivot from the bummer of counter-terrorism and occupation, a yearning for a conflict that will justify big budgets and novel weapons systems.
The obsession leads the government to pretend that the Russia is acting like an aggressive, Stalin-era USSR, which isn't really true, but because most foreign policy reporting is done by stenographers and people tied into the larger foreign policy establishment, there is a lot of uncritical parroting of the governments line.
I'm not super interested in this subject, so I can't really defend the details, but that's the gist of it. The Radio War Nerd episodes on it, if you can stand to spend hours listening to hours and hours of a couple of old guys complaining about their ailments and politics, have close readings of the various intelligence-sourced announcements and what's wrong with them.
I'm curious about this too. I love Taibbi, but it does seem to be universally agreed upon that an invasion is coming. I have no idea why he (and others, obviously) believe they have the inside scoop on this being a nothingburger.
If Russia doesn't invade, though - if it turns out that there wasn't really the immense troop build-up that the MSM is claiming, that all this utterly certain broadcasting on the topic was based on shaky sources; if Russia doesn't create a bullshit pretext to invade, and that the Ukrainian parliament has actually offered the tremendous criticism of the US Government and US Press that Matt says it has, and that, as Matt claims, the Ukrainian economy is tanking because of these false rumors - then we are truly through the looking glass. This would be a "weapons of mass destruction" moment.
Do you think Jeffrey Epstein was murdered?
Here's one my friends and I are debating and have put money on. So "cancel culture," CRT and "woke" were all borrowed from black culture (two items of good-natured slang, one academic obscurity). And as they've been borrowed and weaponized by the right, there's been a natural progression from one to the other: cancel culture --> CRT --> woke. And as they get weaponized, it doesn't take long for them to lose meaning. Jeff Zucker is cancel culture? lol. Removing Michelle Obama's biography from school libraries is fighting CRT? whatever. And I think reasonable people can agree that "woke" is starting to lose the thread: https://twitter.com/adamhillscomedy/status/1495425302729797642 (etc, etc.) There's probably a smart point to be made here about the elasticity of language, especially when brought into the political sphere as a tool, but that's beyond my reach. Mostly I want to go on record with what I think the next one will be. So mark my words, in two months, you're going to hear political types decrying "vibes." School boards calling out questionable vibes; GOP presidential hopefuls saying "America today ... you can feel it: it just has bad vibes."
That's my prediction. My friend thinks the right is going to weaponize "mood" next ("Ted Cruz is a big mood!" "This country needs a mood change") but I like my pick.
Sucks for me because I want to popularize saying that Twitter runs off vibes.
Haha -- go for it. I mean, it 100% does. If you just listened to Twitter, you'd think employment was down (it's up) and unionization was up (it's still very down). It's all just vibes! Plus, good for me if you got it popularized -- could only help me with my bet. (Just don't popularize/politicize "mood" or "simp" first, that would be bad for me.)
Abolish interviews with players immediately after they win a Championship. I want to watch Aaron Donald celebrate with his teammates, not explain to a reporter that it's nice to win the Super Bowl.
Ethan will keep complaining about the ceaseless mask rules in the Bay Area and will never pack up and move to Nevada.
I think it's 20-to-1 odds of a Nevada move right now.
I never thought I'd leave the Bay Area. Born and raised, 30+ years. I'm gone. The last 2 years have pushed me out. I'm done with the (ineffective/harmful) masking of my small children and school vax mandates for them when the risk to children is about as close to zero as you can get. People in this state will never give this up. They're talking about masks for flu season... Nah. I'm out.
Gotta say, I’m a little concerned about Berkeley businesses not dropping the masks after the state dropped the mandate.
Matt's silence is interesting. Similar to Woj, wouldn't it just be good to put your hand up and say 'got this one wrong'? No one can bat a thousand.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
·
Feb 21
The news outlets that published that baseless and embarrassingly incorrect invasion prediction gave Putin a big international PR win last week. And I’m the one carrying water for him?
Quote Tweet
George Hackenschmidt
@ETT
Love your work. Saw you on Fearless with Jason Whitlock, are you by chance looking for writers or people to do research for you?
Thanks for the nice words and for the potential offer but for now my editor does the research I need. Who knows, though, maybe I expand this operation one day.
I would really appreciate Ethan's take on the MLB lockout situation
Describe what you think the NBA looks like 5 years from now.
Loved your conversation with Freddie. He's my favorite Marxist! He's also an immensely talented writer.
Comedy films are primed for a theatrical comeback, but only if they are at least as funny as Jackass Forever.