thecampster

I don't want to laugh at that...but I can't help myself.

I entered the army at 23 years old 5'9". 3 years later I grew almost 3 inches in 8 months while overseas. Measurements are on my entrance papers and my physical after leaving active duty orders......I have receipts....what now son?

Me!

In light of this criticism of Trae, I bring back this article from the turn of the century about Gary Payton. http://sonicscentral.com/payton.html

about 9-1 fan fury We were tops in the East off and on that season and Management tried to sell that Manning was a more complete player. Nique was more than a stat line to many fans in Atlanta and people were hot. They tried to get behind Manning but the team never recovered emotionally. Nique was a leader that season in the locker room.

Consider this me hijacking the thread to call for the reinstatement of Danny Ferry!!!

Okay so that's an interesting take!

Anyone else willing to trade JC/CC + 15 for Embiid? I'd do it without remorse or forethought.

Denver in 5. Denver won the season series 2-0 average score 118 - 113.5.

FYI, if you haven't seen the movie....its a good example of all we're talking about here.

My whole thing is if you appreciate me / others for their service show it. Your story has me seething. That should have never happened....I am sorry. But the story is all too familiar. We pay lip service to appreciate service members but all too often discard them when they get home....line them up 2 days a year and then put them away. Not everyone who says the words is wrong....but far too many use it as an empty platitude. I was asked about this recently and I said "you have no idea what you're thanking them for". Person gave me a chance to explain what being deployed is and it changed their whole perception of what they were saying. To be deployed is to look at those you love, wife, kids, mom, dad and say, "I'll be back", knowing full well that is not under your control. Its giving up every bit of your self, every bit of your autonomy and many times (like your wife's father) for people who will put you away the second you get back. I was helping a guy do interviews some time ago and after one of the interviews, he admitted he didn't want to hire the best candidate because he was former military and "those guys can snap at any time." He then uttered a few anti military tropes. I held my breath and told him "I'm a veteran". Guy went terrified 'white'. But that's a bunch of the bias these guys feel all the time. We see them homeless on the streets or standing in the line at the VA for therapy. My deployment, my military life was easy. I sometimes feel embarrassed talking about it. I was a broadcaster. But I met so many young kids, just tools of the machine. I say the things I say for them. It has nothing to do with me.... I know someone right now (I won't say who) and his job was to interpret audio/written coms to provide targets for drone strikes. Yah.....he's got a few issues to work out. He's the guy who could use more than an empty platitude.

You can ask me about this. The place I called home for 8 months. Or this...that little 6x10 , 5 foot high plywood enclosure was my sleeping quarters for 8 months. When you thank me for my service, this is just a small part of what you're thanking me for....why its insulting for people to say it and move on....they just don't understand. Or this - Tent City and the outdoor showers. Or this - The clearing barrel....every time you leave post, come back you remove your magazine, check the barrel for a bolo in the chamber then fire into the sand in this barrel. If your weapon fires, its an article 15 punishment. No chambered rounds on base unless under attack. Safety first.

And we have stories. I'd rather not type it out, but ask me about the time I was sneezed on by an Oxen while escorting a Serbian journalist onto an air base. or Ask me about my 2 week apprentice DJ. or Ask me about the gal who used photos of stick people to talk to when doing her radio show. Ask me about mistaking a thunderstorm for an uprising (yes, I did this). Ask about my heartbreak laying my eyes on the Sava River in Sarajevo for the first time. Ask about my dislocated shoulder playing Frisbee Football, the kids on the side of the road yelling "give me lunchbucket" to get the M&Ms or chocolate sauce out of our MRE's. Ask about the woman missing 1.67 fingers on one hand and who did it to her. Ask me what its like to be away from your wife and kids for 8 months. Ask me about not knowing my student loan repayment expired 10 years after my last service date (I went back to college 11 years later). If you catch me at a game, ask me about my service, people I served with. Just don't thank me for my service and walk away feeling like you did me some grand favor.

But @kg01 told me I had a quota???? Rethinking all my life choices.

I think (am hoping) its mostly tongue in cheek. Good strategy to allow some cooling off. I think its just pushing the envelope kind of a thing.

FYi, pretty sure your mailbox is full....delete the porn!!!

As a veteran and with many veteran associates, there is a lot of this sentiment.

I don't think you can make that decision either way at this point.

Short version in case you don't want to read the article. Don't use "thank you for your service" as a guilt relieving platitude or a device to get past that part of the conversation. Rather than "thank you for your service", ask the vet what he or she did in the service. Ask for a story from their service. Ask where they were, when they got out. Ask them what they learned from serving. Respect their sacrifice by educating yourself on issues and voting based on what matters to you. Support veteran causes (I can't stress this enough). Support the V.A, local veteran's services. Be mindful of what you say the other 364 days of the year. https://amuedge.com/why-saying-thank-you-for-your-service-offends-some-veterans/

The Dre thing was/is hard to swallow because he should get the sequel to Everybody Loves Raymond called "The World Loves Dre". Dre loves everyone and has a reputation of being extremely easy to coach.

One interesting thing I heard but didn't discuss with anyone is that Quinn has learned from his few failures in Utah, specifically over reliance on Gobert for interior D and ignoring his deficiencies guarding centers with range. It wasn't just Gobert didn't guard the perimeter well but that when he drifted out to guard his man, they had little else inside. He also feels he over-relied on Mitchell offensively. He'd like more movement, more pick n rolls (one of the reasons the Hawks job appealed to him), more diversity offensively. The phrase thrown around (and you may hear in the media soon) is "3 level scoring". Being able to score 10 feet in, 10-22 and 22+ with equal efficiency.

When Quinn came in, almost every player bought in immediately with the exception of Dre. Dre saw himself as a defensive stopper, ultimate team guy. Quinn's coaching was about recovery, that offense is best played when its a 5 v 1 game and so too defense can be played in a similar dance. Dre was by far the most lock in to 1 player type of a player and would ignore most other parts of defense (dig downs, quick doubles, cheating, anticipating the shot to get in position for a rebound, etc). Dre was coached up on making defense easier and he took it personal. But it was made to seem like a much bigger thing to me that it really was. On this topic (and it showed on the floor), Trae bought in immediately and practiced it. Specifically helping with quick doubles, dig downs and anticipating passes not to his man but within reach to disrupt. We saw his "pest" factor jump substantially under Quinn and right away. Dre was slow to buy in because it was counter to the good man and switch defense he'd learned his whole career. Felt singled out. But the rift was significantly smaller than I was originally told and why it never made it to the board. It was just an example.

**Camp scratches head, composes himself......breathes...... About 75% of the league openly wants to play for coach Quinn. Oddly, there is a small faction of the league that doesn't want to play for him at all. Hiring Quinn attracted attention whether we openly solicited it or not. That said, players talk. There are a lot of players in the league who do not like Trae (old schoolers mostly). Young players love him. Bogi is extremely popular around the league. So is JC. This doesn't make the above 3 safe but it does lay the groundwork for attracting talent. For example, Bey was ecstatic with coming here. He loves the ATL vibe. He's likely to leave in free agency if we don't make moves but I could see him taking a small discount to stay. There is a very good core of players here the league wants to play with and that means as much as anything. Side note: 1/2 the league+ has called about Jalen since the season ended. Just testing our commitment to him. He's highly valued around the league. Teams see him as a future 2nd/3rd option. They see his upside potential as Robin, his floor as long term vet starter.

A note on my method before posting. Many times I hear things and dismiss them out of hand. I've been burned by this a few times. Sometimes I hear things and bounce them off of people I know with some possible insight. when it graduates to "plausibly >50% true", I drop it in the insider private thread. About 75% of the time Sothron has heard similar. About 1/2 the time Supes has heard similar. Example: In the insider thread, I bounced off the guys what I heard about Dre and Coach having friction when he first got here. Coach wanted more/different out of Dre, Dre took it critical. Soth had heard similar, Supes rejected it out of hand. I waited. Found out that though true, it was not as "prominent" as the source made it out to be. I sat on it so as to not rouse the board. Usually when one of us hears something, we put out feelers to those we know....sometimes takes days for them to get back and it breaks in the news first. Sometimes we beat the news. When there's greater than yes/yes/no....like yes/maybe/maybe or yes/yes/maybe in our talks, whoever brought it first or whoever has the most info will drop it to the board. Or then there's this: Supes does it more than me who does it more than Soth. We get something, we're so confident about it, we drop a message in the insider thread and don't wait for validation, we just post it to the main board thread. This last update is in this category. I updated the insider message thread with a few more details then I put here but then posted my update here without the need for validation. So why not all details.....exactly what happened this time around. People like to sit around and call scoreboard when things vary. So I post as much as I'm confident about, withhold what I see as rumor/conjecture. The one thing you might want to consider is a few weeks ago, people on this thread were asking, a few begging, for dirt and I said "none will come out until the finals or later". We could just post for clicks or fame in situations like that, but I had nothing and had no reason to post.

JJ did not guard 1-3 well last year. He got blown by a lot. He's someone told he needs to work on perimeter D....on ball D on smaller players. Bruno didn't see the floor much because he can't guard on the perimeter at all and has been told to work on it all offseason (if back).