Digby

This is how I feel about it too. Seems like a nice kid, but I don't think he's asked for any of this big spectacle around him and it feels like a no-win situation unless he (very quickly) overperforms in the league. Is this even the career/life he wants? Especially after the medical stuff? I saw a tweet that said "actually it's really good that Bronny stays in LA because that's where his medical team is" and I thought that was just so grim. Just get him a desk job for Nike if that's what we're worrying about.

How do you possibly ascribe any meaning to a draft when everyone involved is still four months from playing a minute in the NBA?

American home-field Copa America hopes in disarray thanks to a crooked ref, insanely dirty Panama players, and one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen courtesy of Timothy Weah. Rarely do I feel that the USMNT gets hard done by, but...

Better hope LeBron has an anti-aging regimen that puts Brady to shame because man, his mediocre son and the worst white-guy-overconfidence coach in recorded history aren't gonna solve much. Can we get a 3rd option for an asterisk title for them to win?

Mina Kimes with the prominently displayed Pavement record backdrop? Ugh, my Zoom call schtick has been stolen. Nothing left to say about the left guy, but one of NBC Sports Boston's many unforgivable sins was letting Zoom username BIG PERK get TV-analyst time from his bathroom during the Covid years. He should be permanently chyron'ed with the Joe Mazzulla birdbrain quote. Of course, anyone watching this voluntarily doesn't care.

Peacock will offer a service to show you personalized highlight reels during the Olympics, which is cool if you're an enthusiast for certain sports outside of the glory high-profile ones. But it will include A.I. audio narration by a fake Al Michaels, which is weird and bad. https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/peacock-unveils-personalized-olympic-recaps-featuring-the-voice-of-legendary-sports-announcer-al-michaels-generated-with-a-i

This wordmark is giving Memphis/Pomo vibes of a 90s shopping mall. I hate it but I guess this is the location for it, if anywhere.

Totally agree, it looked great in the "normal" colorway but almost never got used as such. It's a little disappointing for me to see the Bruins just go back to the previous jerseys, even though I like them, because I thought the updated B was nice and because they've always done as well as any team has in terms of constantly keeping the uniforms fresh and updated, without really repeating themselves nor straying too far off the path.

It was a comfortable and predictable win for the best team in the league, wasn't his thing that randomness undermined titles? Or was it that predictability is boring and bad? Or both, depending on wind direction?

Pick value inflation seems unsustainable at this rate, six firsts is insane. That said, Nets had them over a barrel here, I don't see why you wouldn't make that trade. Instant chemistry with the other 'Nova guys that already all know each other, good perimeter defense which is your best chance at challenging Boston. Title windows are fleeting now so I get why they're going Championship or Bust.

Hasn't that guy derailed several threads with multi-post meltdowns? I'll grant that that was the most egregious yet.

The Thunder have been a little weird about it. The official records recognize the Seattle history as theirs and they've kept the retired numbers, I think even with the old Sonics jersey-banners hanging in their rafters. But they've passed on displaying that title patch even though they're entitled to do so. Kind of an unusually tactful move from that crowd. At this point it feels like they'd have to officially give the history back to an expansion Sonics franchise at least for the PR of it, but at any rate it doesn't seem like something they're super attached to anyway. The general "vibes" of how a fanbase respects-or-doesn't its predecessor, pre-relocated team seem to be different nowadays. I could sort of understand still following one of the old New York baseball teams across the country when they moved from NYC to California. Now it seems incredibly odd for a fan to claim the history of a team that only relocated to their state 10 years ago. I'll concede that there are certain exceptions (the Raiders being oddly nomadic, I guess it's cute for the Canes to wear Whalers throwbacks for away nights in Boston or NYC but the theme nights in Raleigh are dumb) but that seems like a safe general rule. Anyway, good thing the Coyotes don't have anything to fight over.

On the subject, did I miss it, or has this board not discussed the news that New Era's buying up 47 Brand, not six months after Old Man D'Angelo kicked the bucket?

I like the way they incorporate the flag here but it's a little much to have on both the jersey and the shorts -- maybe one or the other would be better. Generally agree that that wordmark sucks and has outstayed its welcome, but that the overall uniform here is a slight upgrade as a remix to their current brand elements. If they ever manage to get something promising-looking on the court (a big if) this feels like a team that's due for a big identity refresh. Preferably one that's pretty original and new. They've done some clever work in referencing old Bullets motifs and typefaces in a modern way, but also have run its course IMO.

Just very funny to me that "Oh, such-and-such owners won't keep this contending team together for long, the luxury tax will be too much" can coexist with "owner of a low-revenue team can tie up $65 million in dead money just like that".

Specifically wasn't it that she made Disney Adults mad because she led a bunch of her teammates in getting belligerently drunk at Epcot or something? That endeared her to me, honestly.

I will note that sometimes the appending of "Lady" in front of the nickname makes for amusing results, e.g. Fairfield University:

So Langdon's first move is to dick around for a month while all the other coaching hire possibilities come off the board, then decide to fire your guy and burn $65 million to not solve any of your team's systemic issues, then? Off to a perfectly Pistons start. A historic franchise like that one doesn't deserve this ongoing mismanagement, and practically speaking probably can't afford it if they'd like to stay in business.

Boston has plenty of years left with the Jays in their prime so I'd say the window will be open for a while, but that doesn't mean a guarantee of a dynasty or necessarily that they will be the year-in, year-out favorite each of those years. Especially in this current era of it being tough to repeat. Ownership claims that they have no problem paying the tax to compete, which I guess we'll see about. If they are willing to keep the core five around, then the new CBA will limit what the Celtics can do to augment that core through moves, which more than anything makes it difficult to keep things fresh and unpredictable. I'm assuming that this year was already borrowed time re: Horford serving as a sixth starter, but obviously that old man has proven me wrong before and he may well contribute til his 40s. A lot depends on this offseason, re: the rest of the East. The Knicks and Magic seem to remain on the upward trajectory next season, maybe Pacers too but I kinda wonder if they haven't already found their ceiling. The Sixers should be a strong contender if they don't screw up in free agency. You'd think the Bucks would also be a 1 seed contender but I'm starting to suspect that upper-level chaos and mismanagement is squandering the rest of their window and talent. If they follow the Peak Spurs blueprint, down to basically being invisible to the rest of the country, I'm fine with that!

Underrated subplot to this year was the Celtics no longer having a direct connection to the Pierce/Garnett years but that they did have Holiday, a link via his presence on the Sixers in what we now know to be the Uncut Gems Series circa 2012.

My favorite ESPN moment last night was misidentifying some random woman as Jrue Holiday's wife. Jrue Holiday's wife is USWNT World Cup champion Lauren Holiday! She ought to be one of the most recognizable WAGs in the league, especially for ESPN producers!

They just did everything that's expected of them, and their stars aren't loud brash personalities, which is bad for narrative. Best regular-season team, a playoff run with only three losses, nine months of pretty consistent dominance... they were neither (edit: not "nearly") the plucky surprising underdog, nor a top-five all-time dominant team. Just pretty dang good, class of the league. It was all pretty anti-climactic compared with some of the 7-game epic series of recent years that we've grown used to. I think the team hasn't got enough credit for just how well they played; all we heard about was how the Mavericks were the hottest team in the league for months and they would be a real problem for Boston, then the Celtics held them to less than 100 in all except the gentleman's-sweep/win-at-home rest game.

It's been a pleasure to watch this era of Celtics, now that we've had the payoff. No shortage of doubters, myself included at times, but the players continued to work at it, the coach figured out how to do it, the FO getting every call perfect. In the end it was a bunch of consummate pros who say the right things and go about their business. Nothing really flashy about it but it was the right moves all the way down and now we've got an 18th banner.

Ice cold takes!

I've made fun of the silly literalism in the references of Nike City designs, but in some ways that's preferable to the way they rationalize some of these ideas. Typefaces inspired by the Coliseum and mid-century architecture? If so, drifted pretty far from the brief on that.