Swaggerville Journal 3/1 - Inner Critic

 

Late at night in a one-bedroom apartment in Boulder, Colorado.

Inner Critic: Hey, are you awake?

Darryl: No.

Inner Critic: You just answered. Are you awake now?

Darryl: Obviously. What.

Inner Critic: I have a question for you.

Darryl: Fire away

Inner Critic: Yeah, I just wanted to know… WHAT THE FUCK?

Darryl: It’s too late for this shit.

Inner Critic: It’s March. Didn’t you make a promise to a bunch of people, last month? I thought we had a deal.

Darryl: I did really well last month.

Inner Critic: You said that you would write every day last month. Every day for 28 days. You even picked February because it was a short month.

Darryl: and I wrote a lot.

Inner Critic: And now it’s March and you didn’t even write 14 entries.

Darryl: It got windy, remember?

Inner Critic: All month?

Darryl: And it got cold so I couldn’t write outside and besides I wrote more last month than I did almost any time last year.

Inner Critic: You said 28 and you didn’t even get to twenty, you got to eight.

Darryl: 8 is enough

Inner Critic: Well this month, you’re going to do better. 

Darryl: Last month, I ran out of things to talk about.

Inner Critic: What about “Pretty Eyes?”

Darryl: *looks at Desktop, with draft entitled “Pretty Eyes” staring back.* Nope. Not happening. Maybe if I run out of things, but no. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it either.

Inner Critic: Publish it, no one reads your blog anyway unless the word NBA is in the headline.

Darryl: People read my Race stuff too… but yeah, try again

Inner Critic: What about Anthony Mason?

Darryl: Too soon.

Inner Critic: Russell Westbrook?

Darryl: Everyone knows how I feel about Westbrook.

Inner Critic: Therapy?

Darryl: Nope

Inner Critic: Your job?

Darryl: Can’t

Inner Critic: Figure it out on your own. Either way, if you want to get better at this, you need to write at least ten things this month. Oh, and Derrick Rose.

NBA Trade Deadline: A Tale of Two Cities

 

The trade deadline is filled with conflicting incentives. You have some players that are begging to leave their current team and start anew elsewhere. You have some players who would like to stay with their current team but are getting traded because it is in the teams long or short term interests to do so. Some players are getting traded to make their teams better. Some players are getting traded to make their team worse. Some players are getting traded just to make salaries match. Some players are moving to better situations. Some players are moving to worst situations. Some trades will have players telling their friends and family how happy they are to move. Some trades involve telling your wife and kids that they are going to be uprooted yet again so that the player can continue to live their NBA dream.

Sometimes we forget that sports and the actions around it don’t just involve matching salaries and skill sets. People are also involved. Trades split up friends and move them to opposite sides of the country. But a trade can change a player’s future, giving them an opportunity to show their talents or put them in a situation where their minutes are reduced and they become largely forgotten. Teams know what players they are getting and giving away, but they don’t know whether those acquisitions and departures will make their team better or worse. Often teams are surprised in one way or the other.

With that being said, 37 players were traded on Thursday, the NBA trade deadline.

 

The Straightforward Trades (2 team deals)

OKC Thunder trades Ish Smith to the Pelicans

This trade appears to have been done for salary relief.

Timberwolves trade Thaddeus Young to the Brooklyn Nets for Kevin Garnett

Kevin Garnett, the only player still in the league from the 1995 draft class, returns to the team that drafted him 2 decades ago. There is speculation that the Wolves want to re sign him but I’m pretty sure that this trade just allows Garnett to retire with the team that drafted him.  Meanwhile, Thad Young has been in basketball purgatory going from the Listless 76ers to the awful Timberwolves to the Nets. One day, he’ll go to a team that can use his talents.

Nuggets trade Javale McGee and a Oklahoma City’s top-18 protected first round pick to the Sixers for the rights to Cenk Akyol.

Javale McGee is a fun player to watch but he’s expensive and often injured. That’s why the Nuggets traded him and included a draft pick. The “player” they got back was drafted in 2005 and likely will not play in the NBA.

Kings trade Ramon Sessions to the Wizards for Andre Miller

Backup Point Guard for Backup Point Guard.  Andre Miller is going to play for his former coach, George Karl and Sessions gets to experience the playoffs.

Knicks trade Pablo Prigioni to the Rockets for Alexy Shved and two second round picks.

This is a mostly meaningless trade. It gives the Rockets some guard depth and little else.

Nuggets trade Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee to the Blazers for Thomas Robinson, Will Barton, Victor Claver and a lottery protected 2016 first round pick.

Afflalo goes to the Blazers to be a slightly overqualifed backup. Thomas Robinson, 5th overall pick in the heralded 2012 NBA draft, gets traded to his 4th team since being drafted. The Nuggets receive a draft pick.

76ers trade KJ McDaniels to the Rockets for Isaiah Canaan and second round pick

There are good reasons to the 76ers. I was going to buy tickets to watch the Sixers play against the Nuggets to watch KJ McDaniels. He’s athletic and does a lot of fun things on defense.  Now he’s gone from an occasional starter on the Sixers to a bench player on the Rockets. Canaan is probably going to be the starting point guard for the Sixers. 

Complex deals (3 team trades)

Suns, Bucks, 76ers  

Phoenix acquires Brandon Knight and Kendall Marshall (waived)
Milwaukee gets Michael Carter Williams, Miles Plumlee and Tyler Ennis
Philadelphia acquires Lakers top-5 protected 2015 draft pick

So, Tankadelphia just traded their Rookie of the Year for a draft pick. Some people are worried that this is just the Sixers tanking again. But I think that Carter- Williams is overrated and the RoY award comes from being in a weak draft class. Getting the 6th or 7th pick in the 2015 will be more valuable.

Thunder, Jazz, Pistons

Detroit gets Reggie Jackson
Oklahoma City gets Enes Kanter, Steve Novak DJ Augustin and Kyle Singler
Utah gets Kendrick Perkins (Waived), Grant Jerett, rights to Tibor Pleiss, and 2 second round picks

Detroit gets a starting-caliber point guard. The Thunder get a starting caliber center. I’m surprised that Utah didn’t get more in the trade. I guess that it’s tank time for Utah 

Celtics, Suns, Pistons

Boston gets Isaiah Thomas, Jonas Jerebko and Luigi Datome
Phoenix gets Marcus Thornton and a 2016 second round draft pick
Detroit gets Tayshaun Prince

Prince goes back to Detroit. Thomas gets another opportunity to come off the bench, except now he does it for a non-playoff team.

Swaggerville journal 2/9 - Late Night Scoring

CU REC CENTER - Finally, went to watch CU Law's hockey team play. Naturally, they won. It's always nice running into classmates and it's even better when the event is good. Also, it's nice to finally keep my word about going. In return, Andy scored twice. Also, I think that 36 minutes is a perfect amount of hockey.

With 25 minutes to spare, I got a short post written. There'll be more quantity (and possibly quality) tomorrow.

Swaggerville Journal 2/8 – Evaluation

 

BURKE PARK- It’s another sunny day in Boulder, Colorado. In February, today has an expected high temperature of 60 degrees. Last week, I said that I would try to write something every day. 5 out of 7 days I was successful. I wrote about my bike, going to watch Raw, dancing, salsa lessons, and D’Angelo’s album “Black Messiah”. So far, so good. I could look at the fact that I missed 2 days as a failure, or I could look at the fact that I had 28 entries all of last year and see my 5 entries this month as a resounding success. I’m making an effort to view the world as “glass half full.”

I’m writing this entry from Burke Park. Last year, in 2014, I would come here often when I needed peace of mind. When I was in New York, I would go to Washington Square Park for the same reasons. There is something nice about being outdoors, even for someone like me who doesn’t generally like it.

Of course, today presents a special challenge. It’s windy. At first, it was “cool breeze across the face” windy. Later, as I biked to the park, it was “guess I’m not going to read a book outside” windy. Now, it’s “laptop violently getting pushed across the table” windy.  A lady just passed by and told me how brave I was to continue. Writing about race last year required some bravery. Discussing therapy required bravery. A minor blog post shouldn’t require bravery. I’ll show you what I’m talking about.

I heard you like blog posts, so I put a blog post in your blog post.

I can’t write like this. I’ll have to try again later.

Swaggerville journal 2/6 - Salsa

So you think you can dance?

I'm okay with dancing. What stymies me it's when I have steps to perform. Being told "Do this, at this time" frustrates and confuses me. Either way, I still want to figure out out, and for step 1 of that process, I took salsa lessons.

In college, I tried some ballroom dancing with varied amounts of success. I haven't tried it since. When someone brought up salsa lessons on one of the law school Facebook pages, I decided I'd try again. Last night, after work, I biked over and took a beginner lesson.

I enjoyed doing the lessons. I learned the basic step and then how to do a turn. There was another step that I was taught, but I couldn't figure it out. Either way, I enjoyed it and felt accomplished for my first time trying it out. Then they let us dance on our own.

Yesterday, I told a story seeing how much of a shy introvert I was in high school. Things haven't changed that much. Asking people to dance, even at a salsa dance class where everyone is there to dance, is difficult for me. Another actual problem there was that I had a limited set of moves that I could do, so things got boring quickly, since i'm expected to lead and all I have are 2 moves and one of them is rhythmic walking.

On the other hand, I enjoyed watching other more experienced people do it. While I was doing single-digit addition on the dance floor, they were doing calculus. I think that's how people who give lessons get you to come back. At first, you're frustrated. Learning to dance is difficult and the rewards are incremental. But then, when you see what other dancers can do, you come back for more incremental rewards until, in theory, you're as good as those dancers.

Now is the part where I'm I'm supposed to have a clean ending. I say whether I'll go back. I talk about some valuable lesson that I received. Unfortunately, I have none of that available at the moment. It was nice to go and maybe I'll do it again at some point. Until then, I'll just have to settle for practicing steps like Richard Gere in "Shall we Dance."

Swaggerville journal 2/5- Dancing

It's great that I have friends who have known me for more than a decade. In a lot of ways, I'm a lot different than the person I was when I was 15. The friend who I've known the longest, AK, is also the best male dancer I know. (The best female dancer I know is whomever I happen to be dancing with at the moment.) AK pretty much came out of the womb with rhythm. I've known him since first grade, and at every social, prom, or any event when music is on, he's the best dancer on the floor.

On the other extreme, to give an example of how I felt about dancing when I was younger, I have to talk about Junior Luau from my junior year of high school. When the music was on and there was a lot of fun to have, I was sitting at a table with a bunch of friends, petrified that one of my more extroverted friends might try to force me from my chair. For most of the night, I was successful. I was able to blend in pretty well. Then my classmate Nirmala started approaching the table. Of course, my friend Billy (in one of the rare times that he exposed himself as the evil human being that he is) yells over to her "Darryl hasn't danced in a while". Nirmala forced me away from the table and we danced clumsily and awkwardly for a song or two before I was happily able to get back to my chair.

There are a couple of things I should mention here. Nirmala loved dancing. A few months later, at a Halloween dance, even though I wasn't a better dancer, I was the one doing the approaching. I spent most of the next 5 years getting a crash course in "How To Dance Better" from AK and Nirmala. I wanted to get better. This may have been influenced by the fact that I was dating Nirmala by then. (As someone wise once told me, either you dance with her or someone else will) Since things worked out, maybe Billy isn't that evil and I've gotten more than my share of payback since, so we're even.

Now, at 25, things are a bit different. I try to dance to everything, whether the.music is hip-hop, swing, or even EDM (MOAR JUMPING, MOAR FISTPUMPING). I'm excited about any event where there might be music. Whether dancing in the middle of a circle, battling classmates, dancing on tables in Breckenridge (that was fun), and the classic "trying to get an attractive girl's attention". I definitely enjoy dancing a lot more now than I did back then. I'm still nowhere near as good as AK, though.

Swaggerville Journal 2/4 – Black Messiah

I was pretty disappointed by most of the music that was released last year in 2014. There wasn't a standout rap album. No other genres really had an album that really stuck out to me.

Luckily, in December, Black Messiah by D'Angelo was released. In a major way, it's the opposite of In the Lonely Hour. Where in the Lonely Hour exudes vulnerability and immaturity, Black Messiah is a mature album dripping in... confidence. I've listened to songs from that album almost every day. Every week, I have another favorite song. My favorite song was "Prayer", at first. Another week, my favorite song was "Sugah Daddy". This weekend, my favorite song was "Really Love."  Now, I've given up because the whole album was so good and any song in the album could be considered the best, with the possible exception of “1000 Deaths,” which lyrically does nothing for me.

One of the things that pops out immediately is that the musical choices that are made for the album almost always work. Black Messiah is an album that you want to listen to with your best speakers. The album features great drums, Spanish guitar, and other instruments. I'm pretty sure I also heard a gong at one point of the album. It's obvious that a lot of work went into making the album. His live performance of "Really Love" on Saturday Night Live sounded great, and I assume that his live performances of the songs from this album are just as good.

Disclaimer: This album is largely “baby making music”. Use caution (and protection) when listening to this album.

If it isn't already obvious, I absolutely loved listening to this album. For those who like arbitrary ratings, I give this album 5 September baby showers out of 5.

Swaggerville journal 2/2 - Raw

I'm glad people appreciate this bizarre little project. One of the problems with writing every day is to try to have something to write about. Luckily, a couple of things were in my favor.

First, I'm a huge wrestling fan. I enjoyed it when I was younger and thought that it was real. I enjoy it now that I know matches are scripted and choreographed. In some ways, it's more impressive.

Second, WWE Raw was in Denver this week. Raw, for those who don't know, is wresling's weekly exhibition. Every Monday, Raw is broadcast live from a different city. This week it was in Colorado.

Third, thank God for snow. Every month or so, wrestling has major events (formerly known as pay-per-views). Usually the episode of Raw that comes after a ppv is really good. There's a lot of fallout from the last ppv and preparation for the next one. The last ppv "Royal Rumble" was last week and it ended controversially. The episode of Raw after the Rumble was scheduled to be in Hartford, CT. Of course, it snowed on the east coast last week and that resulted in the cancellation of Raw. So, as a result, the first Raw after the Rumble was in Denver. 

So, today I bought a ticket to watch Raw. The seats weren't great, but I was in the building, and that's what mattered. It was my first time going to the Pepsi Center by myself as well.

Without getting involved in wrestling minutia, I noticed a couple of things from my night.

The pyrotechnics are deafening.
The slaps are loud enough that I could hear them clearly.
I'm not sure if the Denver crowds are a lot less loud than their New York counterparts, but I have no evidence to the contrary.

One of the things that really stuck out to me was something I didn't know happened until it was too late. For those who don't know, I'm hearing impaired. For the last 20 years, I haven't been able to hear out of my right ear. As a result, I have trouble with deciphering the direction of a sound, even when I can hear it. If someone's on my right side saying something, and I'm not expecting it, they may as well not exist. While I was watching a match, a lady talks me on the shoulder and tells me one of the ushers had been trying to get my attention. Of course, the lady was on my right side and there were a few kids between us, so it took me a while to figure out what she was saying. By time I caught what she was saying and got up, the usher was gone. Of course, it's not the first thing that I've missed because of my hearing. Won't be the last, sadly.

But the night went well. The show was great. The matches were predominantly good. Seeing some of the "behind the curtain" things, live, was also fun. It was nice going out on my own.

Thanks for reading. I don't think I'll be going anywhere tomorrow night. So we'll see how I'm able to find content tomorrow night.

Swaggerville journal 2/1- Wheels

Wheels.

I spent my law school career taking buses, walking long distances and getting the occasional ride from someone. When I first moved to Colorado all I had was what I could fit in a couple of suitcases. I didn't have a ton of money. I didn't have a car. Like most things during my first year, I found a way to make the best out of a rough situation.

During my first year internship at the public defenders office, one of my classmates let me borrow his bike over the summer. It was great. For the next two years, I said I would buy a bike and never actually did. I had a couple of problems (including my apartment flooding, forcing me to move out) and I never was able to buy it.

After the bar exam, I finally bought a bike. It's a used green bike that I've grown to love. It has helped me to get around a lot faster, especially on the weekends when the buses run less frequently. Boulder, CO has a lot of bike routes which make getting around a lot easier.

It's nice having wheels. It still isn't as nice as having a car, but my bike gets me where I need to be. I'm glad that I have it.