DarkandStormy

So the Warriors didn't add Durant to specifically take them over the top against LeBron? No. They added him because they could without losing any of their core pieces. They added him to set themselves up for a 5-6 year run at it while their stars are in their prime. The team they had before him was good enough to take them over the top against LeBron. And if you told me we could add James Harden without losing any of our Big 3, I'd be on board with that too. Hell, I'd be on board with rocking the boat and remaking the roster to add him. I would do it because it made us a better team, not because he's a better matchup against one opponent. ^The same could be said about Butler or George. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I do think the Cavs have to tweak their bench a bit.

So the Warriors didn't add Durant to specifically take them over the top against LeBron?

Signs are pointing to William Karlsson being selected by the Vegas Golden Knights. Official roster will be revealed tonight.

Hmmm...we just went through this. Loan is being paid back via IBR - hopefully the PSLF stays in effect. But every mortgage broker we spoke to said they had to take 1% of the total balance, regardless of the payment amount.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-existing-home-sales-unexpectedly-140244848.html

Love is just a mismatch against the Warriors because Draymond, and then sometimes Durant, are not your typical 4's. So Love is a big defensive liability against them. He also seems to be the best/easiest movable piece for one of these 6'7-6'9 wing guys who could slide to the 4 in a "small" lineup - although Bron does that as well. I don't think Paul George works because he's a FA next summer and I'm not sure Love alone is enough to get him (even in a 3 team deal). Butler...I was just meh about. I don't know if it's an "upgrade" necessarily. He is a good defender but not a good 3 point shooter. I'd take a look at Tony Allen for bench help - he's caused Durant a lot of trouble in the past. I'd take Allen over whatever the heck Richard Jefferson is supposed to be bringing to this team.

Not "blow things up" but more "alter roster to better compete against Golden State."

This seems like an odd fit for GV Yard.

David Aldridge reporting Butler informed Cavs he'd rather stay in Chicago - not sure what kind of leverage Butler has if he gets traded? Weird. And Cavs probably behind the 8 ball without a GM.

Butler could be intriguing. I think Stein or Woj said it could be Love to the Suns (or any other 3rd team, really) who would then send the Bulls a package of picks/prospects. Butler is a very good defender, in the mold of wing player who could play guard, etc. Just an OK 3 point shooter but that's not a huge deal with some of the guys sticking around. It would likely necessitate that LeBron or Butler start at the 4 position, though, unless they make another move.

http://radio.wosu.org/post/police-investigate-facebook-threat-against-columbus-pride-festival Police are investigating a facebook threat ahead of this week's Pride Fest. Stay safe this weekend, everyone.

Spectrum is a scam. We were on the "promo" price of $35/month internet and at the end of the first year we were going to switch. When we called to cancel, they said wait, we'll let you extend at $35/month for another year. We said ok, and transferred the service to a new address. The first bill came and BANG...$45/month. After several "supervisors" up the ladder, we were told that yes, they could see we had the $35/month internet pricing (I think it was for 15 MB?) but that there was nothing they could do. Which...WTF?? They have on file that we should be getting it at $35/month but they can't do anything? LOL So we said ok, please cancel service immediately, we'll pay the pro-rated amount of this month, and please refund the installation service since we were going off of the stated rate when we moved. After hours of hassling we finally got them to agree - throwing around terms like "fraud" really scares their customer service reps. So I have no doubt Spectrum is running an illegal scam. I'm sure plenty of people don't pay attention to their bills and that's where they can make a lot of their money. We bought a ~$50 antenna for local channels plus some oddball extras on there as well. We use Netflix via a family account and in the past, have shared the HBO GO login with family - mostly around Game of Thrones time for a month or two. That's it. I stream sports using family cable login info, but I watch less and less of it so I don't particularly care about adding Sling. Btw, we switched to WOW for internet on a good promo deal for I think a year, maybe two - $35/month. It's only 10MB but two of us stream and play games fairly regularly, no issues yet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2017/06/13/netflix-is-now-bigger-than-cable-tv/#4865de6b158b Netflix Is Now Bigger Than Cable TV

So its annual budget is $146m and its proposing $6.6 billion over ~33 years...which would be some $200m a year? I realize there are present values to be considered and whatnot, but COTA essentially wants to double its budget and then some if I'm reading that correctly. And actually, there's this update: This is uh....what? Why would someone take COTA to then take a shared service? Unless you're coming from outside 270, it makes very little sense. I would think the primary reason people use COTA is because it the service that can take you the farthest for the least amount of money (outside of biking/walking - which again, goes back to the distance thing). If people then have to pay for an Uber/Lyft or Car2Go what's the point of COTA? I wish the report would have had more of an emphasis on something like light rail, a street car, etc. It continues to be rather embarrassing to be the largest city in the country with no passenger train service whatsoever.

There isn't a lot of turnover right now - supply has been down YoY nationwide (and in Columbus as well) for something like 14-15 consecutive months. It's reaching near 20 year lows I think I read. Part of that is because new builds ground to a halt in 2008/2009. So now with things picking up again, there's a lack of "newer" supply over the last decade. Many people opted to rent instead of buy over the last 8-10 years but are now looking to buy. So you see this huge uptick in prices as supply of homes on the market is very low, but demand is coming back up to pre-2008 levels. It will be interesting to see if this changes - new regulations were put in place last year that force underwriters to account for 1% of a borrower's student loan balance in their monthly DTI ratio, regardless if that's how their payment plan is actually set up. So grad students who have $200K+ in student loans are immediately hit with $2K in monthly debt, and that doesn't even factor in paying off a car or any other loans. Their DTI ratio needs to be under 40% or 45% w/good credit with the mortgage payment to qualify. So you take on a $1,500/month mortgage and suddenly that's $3,500 in debt, again without ANY other loans being taken into account. So they need to be making ~$94K annually to qualify. That might be a ~$290K house on a 30-year mortgage. But paying off a car, appliances, or anything else would immediately throw their DTI out of whack. That new regulation is especially hard on those with student loans who are going through the public service forgiveness program. It will be interesting to see if that has any ramifications.

Berhalter (and possibly Meram) mixed it up with some fans after the match....CrewSC fans, that is.

If you think the booing was classless you didn't watch the game or series. It was more directed at the refs than anything else. The officials blew a play way too early with a puck rolling in the crease - I assume the ref thought Murray had it covered up? - which the Preds tapped in. It would have been a 1-0 lead but it was waived off because the whistle blew. In Game 5 (I think?) Crosby was on top of PK Subban and slammed his head into the ice several times. Both players were called for off-setting penalties.

Thad also missed out on Luke Kennard, Nigel Hayes, Trey Burke, etc. etc. in recent years, all Ohio guys.

Love is fine against the other 28 teams in the league. With the "position-less" Warriors who just switch the hell out of you, he's a liability. He's not athletic enough to switch on the defensive end either, especially when the Warriors go small ball...he has to guard one of Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green, or Iguodala/Livingston/etc - all of whom are more athletic than him and at least 3-4 of whom can just shoot over him if he has to sag off. So we are going to tear apart a team that has made three straight trips to the Finals to match up better against a certain lineup one team can employ? Again, if you name me the PF we are going to get in exchange for Love, I'm all ears. Keep in mind that, so long as we have Tristan, it can't be another paint clogger. It has to be someone who can stretch the defense or else those lanes for Kyrie and LeBron to drive to the hoop will close up quickly. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a better candidate who we have a realistic chance of landing. Let's take a quick look at the top PFs in the league.... You're not gonna get Anthony Davis or Draymond Green. Blake Griffin, Paul Milsap, and LaMarcus Aldridge are all just as big liabilities on D. Derrick Favors is a post player who wouldn't mesh well with Tristan. Serge Ibaka maybe? I don't know that he is an upgrade over Love. More than anything IMO, we need to upgrade the bench with a rim-protecting big man and a backcourt player who brings some scoring punch. I dont think we need another PF to replace love. We need an athletic forward. The matchups will take care of themselves. Draymond is considered a PF, but hes really just an athletic guy that can play anywhere in the front court. There were long stretches of most of these games where Lebron was the tallest guy on the floor throughout the NBA finals. And i say, yes...you have to craft a team to beat the Warriors. They arent going anywhere. If you do nothing, the results will be more of the same next year. Again, our starters are good enough to win a title even against THIS Warriors team. What we need to do is tear apart the bench and get younger/more athletic. Well, they probably don't bring back either Williams or either Jones. Korver is a FA and 36 - his salary last year was nearly $10m. He was a great regular-season upgrade but was a ghost in the playoffs. Mo Williams, Dunleavy, and a 2019 1st for basically a 6 month rental. Great. Jefferson will make $2.5m but he's slow and 36 as well. Frye will make north of $7m at age 34. There is no real backup PG and they're overpaying Shump and J.R. for what they bring to the table. Tristan's going to make $16.4m next season and he just had two games with zero points in the Finals. It's all good if Gilbert is fine with paying the luxury taxes that come with a team ~$30m over the salary cap. The Warriors spent their money more efficiently...drafting Curry, Thompson, and Green gives them flexibility and the ability to offer more on new deals. They also locked in Thompson and Curry on crazy-good deals before the cap skyrocketed with the new TV deal. Speaking of luxury taxes...the Warriors have a bunch of pending free agents - Curry, Iguodala, Livingston, Pachulia, McGee, West, the rest of their bench basically (McAdoo, Barnes, Clark). So they're going to have find a way to fill out their roster (only 6 guys with a contract for next season) while giving Curry a max or near-max contract.

Love is fine against the other 28 teams in the league. With the "position-less" Warriors who just switch the hell out of you, he's a liability. He's not athletic enough to switch on the defensive end either, especially when the Warriors go small ball...he has to guard one of Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green, or Iguodala/Livingston/etc - all of whom are more athletic than him and at least 3-4 of whom can just shoot over him if he has to sag off.

Wow, such an amazing team...73 wins last year and they went out and added the 2nd best player in the league who blew a 3-1 lead against them last year. Such a difficult journey. /s LeBron realistically has 3-4 years left as THE MAN and I'm not sure he wants to stick around as 2nd fiddle to Kyrie (when he decides to show up, that is). Don't know what they can do, realistically, besides hope some other team knocks off the Warriors. They have ~$127m on the books ALREADY for next season, and that only counts 10 players. The cap will be $101m or so. Trade Love + for Paul George? Tristan was trash in the Finals and he makes nearly $17m/season. But how are you gonna upgrade his spot?

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2016/06/09/2016_release_mens_basketball_attendance_final.pdf This was last year but OSU was 28th in attendance in Division I and I'm sure had the worst attendance as a % of capacity. Attendance fell off even more this past season so they'll be in the 30's for the '16-'17 season when that report is released. Here - http://www.bigten.org/library/stats/mbb-confldrs.html (WOWOWOW Big 10 graphics are horrendous) but OSU was 8th in the Big Ten in average home attendance and the worst in terms of % of capacity I'm sure. They play in a stale, cavernous monstrosity with no personality. There are quite literally old ladies who knit at games. They haven't had a top 20 national recruit since Sullinger in 2010 (Russell was borderline top 20 a few years ago, depending on which service you believe - obviously he ended up the #2 overall NBA pick). Is that the university or is that Thad? Sullinger was coming to OSU no matter who was coach - he grew up in Columbus and his brother went to OSU. So it's arguable that Thad hadn't landed a top 20 recruit since 2008 - oh, that's convenient, both Buford and Mullens (Columbus) were from Ohio and likely to attend OSU anyway. Again, was that all a product of Thad or OSU just being seen a step below the top-tier schools? Can't say for sure. "You can not tell me that Ohio State has the worst atmosphere in the Big 10." Name a worse atmosphere in the conference over the last 2-3 years.

No one wants to play in front of a 40-50% crowd in arguably the worst atmosphere in the Big 10. Basketball players are never going to be "THE MAN" at Ohio State with the football team. It's a football state. That's a tough sell to players who aren't locked in to OSU. These big name recruits could go to basketball-crazed schools like Kansas, Duke, UNC, UK, MSU, etc. Holtmann has a tough job ahead - a roster comprised of 9 scholarship players and not much time or ability to add any new recruits.

^So much of that is coach-dependent. Georgetown 25 years ago? Uconn 10 years ago? What about a place like Purdue? Illinois? MSU is on the tail-end of the Izzo era. Wisconsin? Kansas should be on that list for sure. You could make a case for UF, but was that all Donovan? (Yes) Was Syracuse all Boeheim? What about Villanova? What about Michigan? What about Maryland? I think you can make the case for OSU being on the edge of the top 10, but in reality (at least currently) it's more like a top 15-20 job.

He's a Xavier alum and honestly they're in a better position right now than OSU.