"Solving For Pattern" and the NBA Lockout

Thanks to Larry Coon (via Pounding the Rock) we learn that the lockout is extraordinarily more expensive than the marginal percentages at stake in lockout negotiations. Now, as someone applying for jobs in computer science, and someone that has recently been obsessed with proper solutions to problems on small and large scales, maybe I can weigh in here with my (probably idiotic and reductive) two cents.

Wendell Barry's great essay "Solving For Pattern" (warning: PDF) is a fantastic burst of sense that tells us lucidly about "holistic" and "organic" solutions to problems without falling into ideological or mystical claptrap. Barry tries to differentiate between good solutions and bad solutions and uses as an example some case studies in agriculture. In his view, good solutions don't create problems outside the scope of the solution or the original problem. As Barry attempts to show, good farms mimick nature in her elegance, rather than in her bare-stripping brutality. Good farms don't pollute the surrounding area with manure. Good farms don't demand too much in resources of the world outside the farm, don't deconstruct their own long-term goals with short-term cash grabs (for example, by destroying the farm's topsoil with a monoculture). Good farms turn (as much as is possible by the Great Eroder) cattle waste into fertilizer for plants and plants into feed for cattle. Good farms are really good (if highly artificial) ecosystems with a sustainable yield. Good farms are not so large in scope or size that they cannot economically sustain the humans needed to tend to them. Good farms are good interrelated processes with the overall goal of social health and well-being.

Now, Barry is not just talking about some pie-in-the-sky utopia rooted in Ecclesiastes' meditations or some sort of Platonic or Randian ideal where a farmer is some sort of virtuous, compassionate genius or anything. No, Barry just calls for the existing attention and intelligence and vision of farmers to be directed to appropriate solutions, rather than directing that mental power to ameliorating work and liabilities with directionless amalgams of short-sighted band-aids (that in the end tally, says Barry, are unsustainable on every level). Barry recognizes that any solution not rooted in a whole understanding of problems, any solution that is not recognized as a process with its own qualitative demands and yields (he uses the analogy of an organ in the body) is doomed to fail at resolving the solution's goals in some ultimate sense.* Transparently, Barry's argument applies to just about any organization and its problems.

Spurs-Grizzlies Game 2 - Part 2

Today we finish up the first rotation of the game. Everyone is still in the same place they were yesterday. Same exact players. Zach Randolph is no wider; Tim Duncan no thinner. Richard Jefferson no taller; Manu no less tenacious.

9:02 4-6

I was watching the Spurs-Knicks series a few weeks ago, and there were a couple hilarious Spurs possessions where no one was doing anything on offense, so much so that the announcers were vocally complaining before the possession was over. And then, with just seconds left on the shot clock, Tim Duncan still managed to drive to the basket or hit a high-arcing shot over his defender. It was really funny until I remembered this series, in which Zach Randolph did the exact same thing over and over. And his defender - usually that pinnacle of class (and legitimately skilled as a man defender) Antonio McDyess - could do nothing.

Spurs-Grizzlies Game 2 - Part 1

Introduction

As part of Pearls of Mystery's ongoing commitment to "stretch the game out; etch your [own] name out," we're going to be deconstructing the heck out of the Spurs-Grizzlies series.  The goals here are several, most of them federal:

1. Improve my ability to analyze basketball on a strategic level
2. Improve my knowledge of various star players and their actual contributions to basketball games, and 
3. Improve my communication and research apparatus of the above

So we're going to do look at every single possession of Game 2.  Some of these are going to be forgettable, especially in garbage time (after one rotation I eminently understand how the old saw "right way to play the game" has quite a bit of evidence), but even when a possession itself is broken or boring, oftentimes a string of possessions will be interesting and coherent.  So part of the challenge for me is to break it up into "possessions" at some times and "flows" at other times.  Will it drag on?  Yes, but after the first game or two like this, I'm going to switch this mode of analysis into 3-8 minute sequences deconstructing incredible runs or incredible breakdowns, or just basketball at its starkest and most stylistically interesting (for example, the Miami collapse in Game 2).

12:00, First Quarter, 0-0

The first possession of Game 2 is a startlingly elegant set play by the Spurs. Sebastian Pruiti shows perfectly a more extreme (and decisive) example of this play, but this more workaday possession is still a beaut.

After Duncan wins the tip, the Spurs and Grizzlies start with an insultingly simple defensive and offensive set-up reminiscent of a tic-tac-toe game gone wrong. I am insulted by this simplicity, Tim! Antonio McDyess stands in the high post (guarded by Zach Randolph) while Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Richard Jefferson, and Manu Ginobili stand around the perimeter. This is straightforward in every sense except that Tim Duncan has the ball.

Tim Duncan Player Description - The Crowning

A friend of mine on a certain private forum has for some months been taking on the absurd task of describing in great detail every single substantial player in the NBA, from rotation players to superstars. He has a bit more experience with many of these players than I do. But today he's covering Tim Duncan, our mutual favorite player. And, being that this is a basketball blog which has had at its emotional center The Big Fundamental, I think I should do the same here on Pearls of Mystery. And for the last week I've been trying to think of what to say, even writing a secondary post to bolster the argument in favor of Tim Duncan's era (and by extension, in favor of Duncan himself). So, for a few absurdly long posts, I'm going to talk about Tim Duncan: his playing style, his personality, and today, his simple, raw success.

In sports, the bare facts aren't so meaningful without context - the name Bill Russell next to that freakish number of titles, the video game numbers from Wilt's great 1962 campaign, Jordan's clipped parabola six-peat, and 72-10? They show a great deal of historical imbalance in favor of those players and teams, sure, but I could probably win 11 of 13 championships against third-graders, and so could you. By myself. No, we have to ask: were these players conquering historically great times or stealing titles from historically weak times? This is relevant because how you see the last decade in the NBA should naturally determine (to great extent) just how you choose to view Tim Duncan's four titles. I mean, it's a good question: are these four titles mere low-hanging fruit - transitional years in a transitional era - or are they representative of a historically great player conquering historically great opponents?

Tim Duncan Contemplates a 2003 Nets Fast Break

It's the Spurs-Nets Finals. Manu catches and shoots a three without moving his head or legs. Long story short, Richard Jefferson, Jason Kidd, and Kenyon Martin are on the break against only one player - Tim Duncan. Kidd has the ball.

Heh. I wish David Robinson were in the game. It's always fun smothering an offensive possession with the Admiral. I wonder if that's what the Navy is like, all just sailing to other countries and stopping them from becoming too offensively powerful. I wish I knew more about politics.

Well, I guess I'm back on defense. I wish someone else were here to help. I guess I'll have to handle it myself. Hmm, I'm in pretty much the right position, being on the corner of the paint. I wish I knew what this spot was called after all these years. Maybe it's the elbow. It has some kind of a name. I'll find out later. After all, my concentration is the only thing that stands between Richard Jefferson and a basket.

Confession Time

I'd like to make a few confessions on behalf of Pearls of Mystery. In the course of writing a blog post, numerous sins of the writer tempt me at every turn. Like, there was this one time I convinced my alcohol-neophyte friends to mix Dr. Pepper and Irish Cream*. Still other times I have had to break someone's leg. I dont remember why or if it had anything to do with writing a blog.

*actually quite tasty, though the tasteless slurry on the bottom would make it unsuitable for a general drink.

But the worst thing I've ever done is definitely that time I tried to break someone's leg. Wait, no, that wasn't me. And even if it was, I don't think that had anything to do with the blog.

In fact, I've never really done anything bad on this blog. But I haven't done anything good, either. Now my task is simple: I just have to do something good without doing anything bad, and I will be tied for the best blogger in the world according to efficiency metrics. Then I just have to keep writing neutral and good things, so that I climb steadily up the usage chart.

Onward!

Synecdoche: 2001 All-Star Game and Relative Conference Strength

I’ve always found the relative strength of conferences and divisions to be such an interesting topic. The separation between "conferences" is starkest in baseball: There are two basically independent leagues with rare regular season offerings between them. We also get an All-Star Game and the World Series between the two leagues. For this reason, the World Series - for all the wonderful sabermetric tools - seems to me somewhat mysterious going in, the term "mysterious" going well beyond "unknown".

In NBA basketball, on the other hand, both Finals teams have generally played one another twice, and against the other team's conference fully 30 times. A lot of games (generally 450) are played between the conferences in the NBA. Because of this, strength-of-schedule ranking methods have a solid chance at giving us info about the relative strengths of conferences. While we might not know what to expect, we can make empirically plausible predictions in an extremely direct and simple way. "This team is 6-23 against the West, I'm pretty sure they'll lose in the Finals by an average of 5.4 points against the best team in the West right now, based on this graph here." If you're wrong, there's probably going to be some good reason for it, either an overestimate or an underestimate of someone's efficiency or shot volume or a certain play-call. Then again, few picked Dirk from the first round onward, so maybe our speculation is not so reasonable.

Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain

1. The Move

The fortunes of the Spurs ownership sort of collapsed in 2012, not into dire straits but into a place where owning a team was suddenly an unaffordable luxury. So, even as their team arrested time for an improbable fifth championship, their owners could talk privately only about what the title would do for the selling price. The celebration was outfitted with the second-best champagnes and rings of 80% gold. And they announced, a couple months after the Riverwalk title strut, that Tim Duncan would not be resigned. Gregg Popovich, still regarded as an elite coach, left with him. The other expiring contracts left as well, leaving the Spurs more or less depleted, at once in rebuilding mode. Most of us thought Tim was going to retire, and the TV networks in the area devoted considerable space to tributes for a few days. Then he and Popovich signed absurd 5-year contracts with the Oklahoma Thunder. It was a period of sadness, but no one in San Antonio could really complain about their lot. It was just something that happened, albeit something strange and unfortunate. So everyone was on good terms when the airship of Duncan and Popovich sailed the Texas land-sea up to Oklahoma on gossamer wings in the clouds. From the windows the two saw banners at the airport they'd left behind, thanking them for all the memories and titles. Of course, they wouldn't see my car until they had landed.

See, at this point I'd been a mop-boy for the Spurs since 2009. Alas, the Spurs were downsizing and mop-boys were as a rule not retained: In a revolution, the mop-boys are always the first to be destroyed. Once I'd heard about Duncan and Popovich, though, I decided immediately that I would follow them to Oklahoma and see if I could parlay my experiences with the Spurs to get a mopping job with the Thunder. So for a solid hour I packed my things into my car and I was off. I was an adult for the first time, so I could and would make my own choices from now on, according to my family. Thus debriefed, I immediately chose the route that seemed most familiar to where I had just been, because that wasn't so bad. That was what I was looking for in the Thunder job. Also, as a basketball journalist, Tim's northern migration was the most interesting story in basketball, and I wanted to be on the ground level for the exclusive story. All the tape recorders and notebooks took up almost my entire car. All my lap was filled with food and toiletries and I went to Oklahoma.

Ask Pearls of Mystery Anything (actually just one question, that I wrote myself)!

Why are you so obsessed with Free Darko, Burl Ives, Richard Jefferson, Tim Duncan, Sean Elliott, etc., Alex? I want to hear about actual basketball in an objective and fun way, not about these strange, baroque character sketches with Lovecraftian and otherwise surreal undertones.

That's a good question, Alex. Let me answer your question in order.

1. Bethlehem Shoals (and to a lesser extent Eric Freeman) of Free Darko - Much of the first half of this blog can be read as a surreal parody of Free Darko (SEE: Every use of 'dialectic'). This is because he generally knows his stuff, but often lets his off-beat (though often moralistic or political) character sketches and writerly fixations on interesting narratives take the place of his judgment, like Bill Simmons crossed with...a grad student in journalism or library studies. Granted, he's certainly capable of the occasional "Eff You" short essay, and the clarity of some of his images is often called for. Something that makes Shoals better...or worse...than many other NBA scribes is his (how else shall I say it?) deliberate forgetfulness. It only matters marginally how he characterizes, say, the 2011 Suns when writing about the previous year's or next year's squads. He forgets, for the most part, everything he has written before when the new writing begins, only seeming to explicitly remember them again in the course of writing them. If the 2011 Nash was, say, "Bean from Ender's Shadow," then the process of trading Nash can be "Madame Bovary looking for a suitor" and Shoals will find no need to attempt to reconcile these images. This forgetful approach, without an overarching schema of images, seems cosmically wrong and is infuriatingly vague on occasion (...to the extent anything on the Internet actually infuriates people, a.k.a. annoyance with marginal moral outrage). But it's hard to argue with the results, which are generally successful. There is no ideology, and no bias, to Shoals, which makes his already-nebulous offering of a "unique take" blend further into the surrounding blogosphere, leaving as residue of the apparent uniqueness only the quality of the writing which implies a lifetime of thought and experience that is not perhaps unrivaled but is, still, unique.. Shoals is like a disembodied hand with no accountability, no memory, and no identity, but in the meantime has forged himself as a premier NBA writer. I have high respect for his craft, but his weird ability to co-opt any subject and lend his voice to any narrative he happens to encounter is kind of eerie, and I don't say that altogether respectfully. That fascinates me.

"Black Swan" Review, Posnanski Praise

Review:

I was reading "The Black Swan" on the flight home. It's got some fascinating stuff on the problem of induction, but overall, the author makes so many snarky hits at concepts and ideas he doesn't really bother to completely understand. I'm halfway through, and it seems to be getting a bit better, but I have to see this book so far as infuriating, decontextualized bile in the grand scheme of things that makes a few good points, and I think I will probably read the rest with such a viciously critical eye that I will probably miss any possibility of enlightenment.

You see, the book is about Black Swans, which are defined to be transformative, unexpected, rare events. The one-in-a-million events, like the invention of the wheel, the onset of a war, etc. Now, after a foreword asking us to imagine all such events in our life and in history, the author (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) claims that most of our lives absolutely hinge on these catastrophically powerful Black Swans, that these events are so transformative that they leave in their dust the gradual changes. This is the general assumption of the book, from which all the rest follows. Taleb's history as a trader gives him a wealth of examples to draw upon to illustrate Black Swans, and the consequent failures of predictions. Taleb also finds a number of historical examples: Wars, far from seeming inevitable, actually take almost everyone by surprise in the beginning. We have failures in predictions, and we are governed by unfathomable forces that are unfathomably rare.

As a Royal Guru once said...

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think about it.

-A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Okay, I've dissed Richard Jefferson enough. This is a mistake, and, as per my motto*, I would like to fix this mistake. As ridiculous as he is, we cannot prey on phantoms just because we are hungry. RJ 2.0 (as some Spurs fans first enthusiastically, than mockingly, titled his promising 2010-11) didn't exactly bring us to the promised land; in fact, he looked lost in the Memphis series, and indeed, the whole time after the All-Star break, he was a less efficient, less influential part of the Spurs on both ends. Sure, he had his place in the starting lineup, but after Tim's injury (and doubly so after Manu's at the end) he just did not have a place on the team. The reasons for this are several, most of them federal: List while I list.

*-"Never make mistakes, always come correct."

David Robinson's Spectacular Vacation

I first met Tim well before he entered the league. I met him when Wake Forest was still a nightmare of responsibility ahead of him. Haha. The year was 1991, and I had planned a summer trip to Cancun, but the plane decided we would go to the U.S. Virgin Islands instead. I decided this is where I would stay for the duration. But when I called to cancel my reservations in Cancun, the hotel would not hear of it. You see, the owners of my favorite Cancun hotel knew and respected me, so before long a room was flown into my new vacation spot.

So I went to the mini-bar and poured myself a moderate amount of Disney Gin and placed the rest of the bottle in the cupboard. It had a moderate amount of alcohol, but I am large and I was barely intoxicated. Also it was Disney Gin. I looked for a court so that I could play a pick-up game against some locals. The rules would be: 2v1 and I had to shoot outside shots. I walked along the beach in Christiantown, the most wholesome town in the world.

Anyway, after awhile I found a court, but it was empty. I smiled with opportunity. I love getting young people involved in basketball. I knocked on every door for a mile with a smile. Finally I gave up. Then I saw this scrappy kid on the court a mile away. I ran to catch up with him to teach him some fundamentals. I ran so fast. At that time I ran a five-minute mile, but at the three-minute mark I hit a street light, and, jogging in place, I waited for the lights to change. While I was waiting, I saw a child taller than the first child enter the arena. That child had no follow-through. I was like that screaming painting, you know the one, while watching him try to hit a futile outside shot. Then a third child entered and had terrible post moves. He was posting up on the others but they were able to take the ball from him before he could move. And they didn't even have any defensive skills. No, kids!

Three Dreams of Sean Elliott

Sean Elliott awoke in his house in the middle of the night. He had dreamt of his funeral.

===

As per his will, Elliott was to be buried in seemingly random coordinates. The grave was to have latitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of Elliott's mother and wife's graves, and also to have longitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of David Robinson and Avery Johnson's graves.

This "grave-site" ended up being right in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and of course he could not be buried there. So Sean Elliott was cremated - the thought among the mourners being that his ashes would be spread exactly on the desired point, carried by a boat. But enduring the harsh January in a boat would be somewhat rough, even over saltwater, So the mourners again compromised a bit, and instead of mixing Elliott's ashes with the lake at the coordinates from his will, the mourners baked Sean Elliott's ashes in a (my sources tell me) very tasty rye bread and served it to various birds that passed by on the San Antonio sidewalk where they were gathered. At these birds the mourners laughed and laughed, for the birds' various chirpings reminded them of the deceased. An aging Tim Duncan even gave a particularly chirpy bird a friendly shove - the call-back was at once virtuous and ridiculous, not to mention fitting. The joke was well-received by the mourners.

===

Now Sean Elliott was awake and immediately said aloud, "What an absurd dream that was," speaking in a voice perfectly fitting the sentence. "Bill will love this." Elliott was not concerned about the image of his corpse and ashes - he knew that dreams were not representative of reality. Their only function, really, was to serve as a conversation piece, he supposed.

Richard Jefferson Handles a Midseason Interview

Interviewer: Hello Richard, how are you today?

Richard Jefferson: I'm feeling pretty good. The team is doing great, too, and, you know, that always helps!

I: Richard, how about a firsthand perspective. Could you talk about Manu's recent surge?

RJ: Manu's been, you know, really great these last few games. Tim Duncan sort of looks more like an anchor, physically, but Manu is just as much of an anchor. A light, fast anchor that moves violently under the ship, even hitting the ship and smashing the hull sometimes. But he boosts our morale in a big way. Manu is just an incredible morale-booster.

I: Yeah, I can see what you mean. He really turns those disappointing quarters into stellar ones.

RJ: Heh, just like Tim Duncan with our whole franchise here.

A Children's Tale

Once there lived a man named Tom. Tom worked hard and one day Tom worked so hard that his employers gave Tom a promotion - they sent Tom to work in freezing Antarctica. In time, Tom would get all sorts of promotions and his employers would send Tom all over the world, to places like Cambodia and Mexico. Far-off places for an Englishman, but Tom just saw it as more work to do. Tom was very happy, for with work would come the satisfaction of achievement. Tom was a good man and worked still harder every single day - harder than anyone had a right to expect. Tom was always traveling in those days.

Tom was meticulous and kept a successful routine. No matter how cold or wet it might be where Tom would be working, Tom would always wear a blue denim overalls and a red flannel undershirt and a tan straw hat. Tom wore boots and a scarf if it was colder - but Tom would never be seen in one without the other. Tom would scarcely sleep in those days, but when Tom would sleep, care would be taken to fall asleep and wake exactly on the hour. That made Tom's wages easier to figure out and Tom's life easier to make sense of. Indeed, routines made Tom's life feel easy and Tom rarely felt burdensome on anyone. Tom ate what was given at such time as it was given. "Life is like pudding," Tom said, "Routines and manners take my mind off the spoon and let me focus on the pudding." Tom would sleep in his outfit. Life was satisfying and no hour felt empty. "When the clock precedes the man," Tom once quipped, "the man precedes the clock."

The Wheels Fall Off

From Spurs Media Day, 2009 at about 2:00.

Interviewer: Does Tim talk about or give the impression to you that, he doesn't have a lot of years left - he now needs to make these seasons count?

Richard Jefferson: No, I've seen him, and you can tell. His game is pretty much trash right now and I've told him that multiple times, that that's why they brought us all in here. Because of his deteriorating body and so, uh, it's one of those things that, you know, I tell him he should be thanking me more than I should be thanking him being brought into this situation. No, all kidding aside, Tim is a person that's gonna - I asked him when we were in the Olympics five years ago and he said he was gonna play until the wheels fell off. So he's a guy that's very passionate about this game - loves to play and so he's gonna play pretty much until they make him stop. Who knows how long he has?

2015

Richard Jefferson: I have called you all here for a press conference, to discuss my future in basketball.

Reporter 1: Are you retiring?

Kevin Garnett at an AA meeting

Counselor: Please be courteous and respectful. We have a new member today.
Everyone say hello to 'Kevin', our newest member.

Kevin Garnett: Hello, my name is Kevin, and I'm the best alcoholic.

All: ...Hi Kevin.

KG (pointing to chest): No, I'm not alcoholic really. I just like being around people that I'm better than, and telling them so to their face.

Counselor: Kevin, tell us about...

KG (thumping chest): About what? About basketball? I won the finals once, did you all know that?

All: ...

KG (thumping chest): Dave Berri says I'm the best player of the last 15 years.

KG (clutching chest): AAAHHHHH

The construction of humor from horror

Veteran Richard Jefferson woke up and his heart was beating too fast and his eyes felt wet and painful. "Probably the apnea, or the nightmares," he supposed as he stood up and walked to the hotel sink. "The basilisks of 2003. Would they ever slither in and out of Duncan's eyes again, as they had in Game 6? Were they ever really there or had I invented them?" he wondered as he turned on the faucet and moistened a towel to wipe off his bloodshot, pus-filled eyes.

During these quick first moments in the morning, in the slick and adequate hotels of Eastern Conference roadtrips, RJ often had days like this. According to the mirror, the whites of his eyes were completely red. "Clay Face" they used to call him, because his head and face seemed so malleable, innocent, and bald. But the reddened eyes gave the gentle giant a sort of distortive horror and ruined the illusion, and his face now appeared as a bleeding bronze stone - a single, indivisible sadness. He poured a cup of tea from the ancient bronze hotel samovar and noticed, intricately carved around the samovar, an ouroboros - the snake that eats its own tail. "How old was this samovar? What will happen if I -...," sipped Richard Jefferson.

The Summoning

We all know, deep in our hearts, that virtue consists of all and only those things that David Robinson tried to teach us back in the day. The gnomes, Tim, are out of bounds. Not the flowers. The gnomes. The - the occult, Tim. Out of bounds. And building a school is a pretty cool thing to do too. But in the weeping moments, I sometimes crave more than what is written in the interviews and coded in the highlights. What does the Admiral think about the scaffold, for example? Where is his wisdom then?


Now, David Robinson is omnibenevolent, but certainly not omniscient - he is obviously not watching you watch his Hall of Fame speech or his old highlights; he is not so vain or idle. But while he does not see everything, he can be channeled to be anywhere. And I performed just such a channeling the other day.

That great Spurs player and school-builder appeared in a greatcoat outside my apartment - here in freezing, snowy St. Petersburg. Only Mr. Robinson's iconic face was visible through the black cloak, which was neatly ornamented with golden buttons like a constable's uniform. It looked somehow oversized, like a child's costume. This great figure was capped by a black hat shaped like a basketball court that made perfect sense when I saw it. With fast wit, I commented how GREAT his greatcoat was. He showed me that, face excepted, he was made totally of greatcoats. A mass of greatcoats, everstacked and interleaved like a planar knot. The heavy and stacked greatcoats were without flesh or form, just as Robinson himself was without malice. We were beyond the concerns of the physical world and its harsh winters. His face beamed and the winter went away.

Santa Fe Post-Draft Catharsis Symphony

Enter: A spherical room of eyes, stomachs, membranous walls, and appendages, always misshapen, always reaching across the room to the other side.

The man inside heard a seal and a lock.  Looks like he would be here for the duration.  "So this is where they put the players that don't make the playoffs.  I guess I shouldn't have been injured, heh, heh, heh."  He had better make the most of it, he supposes.  Two months will fly by when you are busy!  The stench of organs and dead flesh and meaning would have been overwhelming, but the man in question is a man of indisputable military discipline.  After a few minutes the man had started a fire on some stalagmite-shaped tonsil twitching nervously.  After a few hours his experiments began.  After a while of the man and his business, he had settled things down. 

Two months pass when you are busy, indeed.  "The finals are over!  You can all come out now!"  David Stern's voice had been transmitted to the manifold rooms of the unsuccessful Spurs. Many of them had been psychologically broken merely by the months of solitude, even excluding the special horrors of their chambers.  Each Spur in his room claimed his room and experiences were the most extreme.  Despite these claims, David Robinson's room, the flesh sphere, had in fact been the worst.  The chambers opened to reveal some unneeded therapists and a certain friend of Mr. Robinson.