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.

Cavs SotU

"We are strong. But we are strong because we are fast. But we are fast because we are strong. Or not. The bottom line is, I am definitely the president. I don't think we have any argument there," as President James addresses the joint session to applause.

"And Shaq is certainly the Majority. The Big Fella, half the body weight of the entire team." More applause.

"And Mike Brown is certainly the Supreme Court. His husk could move continents of garment companies, deciding who lives and who dies - a sort of Solomon ruling with terrifying wisdom." More applause.

"And Mo Williams is a child. He is a child." Mo looks offended, and all eyes turn to him, no one saying anything. "No, I don't mean like immature. I mean he looks like a child. It's not a bad thing, Mo. You are a fine point guard. You are...just fine, Mo, the way you are. But you are a child." Less applause, still some enthusiasm. Mo is heard to mouth, "Not true" but the incident passes.

"Big Z is surely our working class. He gets angry and populist, and falls down sometimes and we laugh at him, but we all know, without the working class we are nothing, or would want to be after losing him. Let's hear it for Big Z." Reluctant applause as Z stands up clumsily.

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.

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

Darnell Jackson will outlive us.

Darnell Jackson will outlive us.

Big Z, Il Gauske, the Big One-Dimensional, the Big Dismal, the surreal second center of the Cleveland Cavaliers...is in constant conflict with his superior, Shaq, but it is not the one-sided conquering the casual might expect. On his side Z has not youth, but the relentless consistency of mediocrity. Shaq is a million feet tall and can get into foul trouble quick. He is a force of nature that is actually...really inconsistent and unpredictable, for such a renowned competitor. Big Z can "accidentally" injure the Big Man when Mike Brown inexplicably plays both centers.

But whereas Shaq is incredibly inconsistent, and whereas Z is incredibly mediocre, and they are in ineffable dialectic, there is a third center on the roster: the little-used, invisble Darnell Jackson. Less than 25 and looking like an undistinguished Shaq, Darnell Jackson is Dustin Hoffman from the Graduate, but of the center position of the Cavs. He exists in the rare case that one of these two archetypes (that represent the two sides of Mike Brown's personality) is injured, and Mike Brown needs a dependable third wheel. He has no adjectives. When Darnell plays, he is the absence of form, structure, and meaning.

Categorical Marxism; Shaq. But I repeat myself.

Scientists have known that the world is a giant category ever since Karl Marx proved it in the 19th century. The denialism surrounding this revelation is just plain denialism. The reasons? Well that's a category unto itself.


What is a category? A category is two things. First, a category is a bunch of dots, representing objects. Second, a category is a bunch of transitive arrows between the dots. These arrows represent transformations between objects. So, two objects might be a blank manuscript, and then this very essay. This essay didn't used to be written, but now there it is. I am an arrow going between that blank manuscript and the manuscript of this write-up. Now we have an essay thanks to my miraculous arrowing of that blank scroll. I arrowed the hell out of it. I wrote the essay, son.

Raw, Unfettered Baskebanlysis for Halloween Time

Do you remember John Goodman?  I hate to cut in, mid-scene, but the narrative demands it.  We are in a motel room and John Goodman, burning, walks in.

Anyway, the fire is burning all over the motel but John Goodman appears to be unaffected by the smoke or flames, (naturally, given his extraordinary nature) even as the foundation of the motel may be destructed. In your mind I want you to try and turn the fire surrounding the man into an aura of power.  Yes, let's take this image to the next level.  First picture the fire, in its complexity and red-hot hydra-legs reaching out in every direction..  But now that fire is also a 60 foot radius of undiluted, spherical, visible and translucent energy.  You can see him but it blurs his face a bit.  Alright, so it is red-orange pure power surrounding a smiling John Goodman who is carrying a shotgun. Just for fun let's also put him in his red and white flannel and his jeans and maybe overalls. Still surrounded by a red-orange glow.