Walton did very well for the Heels last year. He sort of saved their season, truth be told. They desperately needed someone to knock down shots. The main thing is that he did a lot of his damage on set jumpers from offensive rebounds. Losing Sharpe, Brooks, and Kessler, those second chance 3's are going to dry up for him. He doesn't bring a lot else to the table. Making him move his feet is the best way to slow him down. Case in point, when UNC got blown out by Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament and had a more pedestrian offensive rebounding rate, Walton only took three 3-point attempts. He's not a ball handler and doesn't offer much in the way of shot creation or facilitation. His ball handling skills are limited. You would think a shooting guard that hits 42% of his 3's on a high major team would have NBA teams interested. That isn't the case. He made more 3-pointers last season (58) than he attempted 2-point shots (40). Good shooter, but limited player. If UNC is going to change their style and, most importantly, lose their advantage on the offensive glass, Walton may be the most affected by these changes.
Many people have reached out this morning for more of my views on writing controversies. Since so many people asked... Is it okay to bold? I was taught it was sloppy. If emphasis is required, write more effectively. In the above case, I’d already gotten started on drivel about rankings, about which I know little, and assumed I’d lost whatever audience there might be. Hence, I either had to delete the ranking stuff, or bold. Not wanting to waste my genius (“top 10 players are generally better basketball players than those rated 100-500”), I went with the bold.
When referring to a topic, such as adding the s, does one encircle the s with parentheses? As in “s.” Or, maybe “s”, if you’re the kind of person who sticks commas outside of the parens (which got autocorrected to parents, which reminds me that my parents would tell me, right now, to quit wasting my time with this post, much less using parens as a plural of parenthesis, which is a little weird). But really, (should one start sentences with “But”? And how best to punctuate within parentheses? And when, if ever, to use parentheses? If it’s important enough to say, don’t be a wimp and hide behind an aside, as if you’re mumbling something you half don’t want to say—if you don’t want to say it, don’t say it. Or use a footnote, which looks friendly and oh so casual with friends), if you’re going to stick in a parenthesis, don’t do so at the beginning of a sentence so that the reader and the writer have both forgotten the beginning of the sentence by the time the closing parenthesis (finally) rears its ugly head. And what about contractions while writing? Or using four versus 4? Or hyphens as a way to be zippy, or perhaps, as a way to avoid putting in the tiny bit of effort to convert the cobbled-together assertions into a sentence with a comma or two.
But back to the “s.” That initial sentence (“as in s”, or perhaps, “as in ‘s’”) was a question, and the question mark seems kinda large to put into such a small sentence “as in s?”, which isn’t, really, much of a sentence without a verb and, frankly, without much of a noun (okay, s is a noun, but it’s small and slippery).
I hadn’t previously heard the rule of the Jesus possessive (in Sunday school, we tended to get the message that Jesus wasn’t possessive, nor should be the likes of us), as in Jesus’ words in contrast to Jesus’s words (which would presumably be the spelling if referring to Jesus, a neighbor, whose name sounds like it starts with H). So only famous people get to shrug off the S? Akin to Madonna, Prince, and Gaga getting to shrug off last names? Hmmm.
Then there are words like hum drum, which I misspelled as 2 words (the future will look back on spell check’s failure to help me with hum drum with the same disbelief as the future will look back on our inability to provide everyone a vaccine for everything via our handy neck chip). Instead of spelling it correctly, I briefly debated a hyphen (hum-drum, since I was using it as a multi word adjective rather than a couple of nouns, but good Lord, I didn’t want to be pretentious or seeming to be more preoccupied with usage (a word, incidentally, that I hate) than with next year’s lineup that is going to consist—once again—of an array of guys whose faces I don’t yet recognize.
I won’t even get into run on sentences (run-on?) or other variations in sentence length or whether I dare to eat a peach. Or whether I’m going to edit the above paragraph which has one dangling parenthesis that was not, and never will be, properly closed.
By the way, it’s interesting which words get you called a wanker around here. I used wanton, promiscuous, and Lavar Ball without a criticism, but if I slip just a little, the word police are merciless.
Last edited by johnb; 04-17-2021 at 11:58 AM.
Holmgren to announce Monday
If Duke is going to add a guard for next year it’s not going to be TyTy Washington. He announced a final 6 and Duke is not on the list.
If only the English language or arguing about the “rules” were simple. I am fully aware of the usage guidelines you are referring to. Its your choice to follow them and please do. But it is not the only “correct” way to do it and others can choose to follow different “rules.”
Just watched extended highlights of Banchero and Baldwin. Those two would be unbelievable to have on the court together - like nothing we’ve seen at Duke before. Both seem to be big time playmakers in 6’10” bodies. On the offensive end, they could totally play the 3/4 with Williams at the 5. Either can initiate the offense at the wing or top of the key taking pressure off Roach to create shots. And of course Griffin can create his own offense as well.
Can Baldwin guard ACC 3s? Not sure but his length could erase some mistakes. And I think we’d go to a zone to get Williams, Banchero and Baldwin all on the floor together.
The more days that tick by without Baldwin announcing for his dad, the more hopeful I get it could still be the Devils. No inside knowledge.
PBJ would be the definition of a luxury recruit. I'm not sure one can make the case we'll be better if at all with his addition, as he'll push Mark Williams to the bench.
And no I don't think PBJ will ever start at 3.
I’m not sure he can guard the 3 but his highlights are filled with him breaking guys down from the perimeter, slashing to the basket, making the right pass and draining 3s. He’s a perimeter oriented player. And if he comes to Duke, we will see plenty of Williams, Banchero and Baldwin on the court together. We just may see them as the back line of a 2-3 zone.
When I see PBJ play, I see a Brandon Ingram, Jayson Tatum style of game. If he plans to play the 3 in the NBA, what other program in the country would pair him with two bigs and play him at the 3 in college? Maybe just Duke.