illinilaw08

I love the Nuggets' process here. They gave up a future second and cash to take a flyer on a guy who was a preseason top-5 pick. Get him into your program, give him a redshirt year, and see what you have when the dust settles. If the Nuggets hit on just one of Porter or Bol, they jump from "good playoff team who is really fun to watch" to "title contender" pretty quickly.

This. Don't spend capital moving up in this draft. Also of note, if the Hawks moved up for Hunter, Garland is expected to go at 5 to CLE, and White at 6, then that means Culver falls to the Bulls? I can live with that.

I think that it's a relatively weak draft so a team can talk themselves into THT's measurables. You see a guy with his wingspan, and you see the potential for an elite, switchable defender who can develop into a solid scorer as well. The case for Ayo - as somebody who watched him a lot this year - is tougher for me. I don't think Ayo showed he's a plus passer. I don't think Ayo showed he could reliably get to the rim/foul line. I'm not sure Ayo has elite athleticism. Even in a relatively weak draft, the case for Ayo as a guy in the mid-first round this year was one I just couldn't see.

They get paid almost nothing to play minor league baseball - outside of the signing bonus. The kids the Sox drafted in rounds 2-4 will never have more leverage than they have now, so I have no issue with them squeezing every dollar they can get out of the team that drafts them. As has been said on this thread previously, at some point, the team says, "that's too much - we aren't going to spend any more here. Either take the deal or risk it all on college."

His character is redeemed, then he's running back to Cersei. He is redeemed, and then he's running back to Cersei. All of the times that they push Jaime back to Cersei on the show seemed to be because the plot dictate that happen rather than the natural progression of his character arc. Characters die on this show, but that doesn't mean that the characters shouldn't act consistent with their characterizations over the prior 8 seasons...

In the show, doesn't Jaqen H'ghar wear Arya's face at some point? The rules of Faceless Man magic are not very well defined on the show.

Cersei has been the Mad Queen ever since she blew up the Sept of Baelor.

My issue here is that none of this is internally consistent. Jon is literally Ned Stark right now - right down to telling Sansa his secret because "she's my sister." Ned putting honor over politics ended with him losing his head. Varys at the time was all about chaos in the capital (if I remember right). And now Varys is backing Jon? Why didn't Varys back Ned back in Season 1 then? Why was the lesson then that you have to play the game vs. now where it's honor above all else? The Ringer had a pretty solid article today about the issue with Dany right now being that we haven't heard her say anything about how she would rule since Mereen. Her "Mad Queen" heel turn is based on her belief that she's destined for the Throne, and that she's willing to kill people to do that (let's ignore - for the moment - that Jon executed all of the Night's Watch dudes that stabbed him, and Ned executed a guy for deserting the Night's Watch - when is killing your enemies bad on this show?). But Tyrion backs her with platitudes about her being a good woman or whatever. Give me a reason to believe that Dany is actually going mad. Give me a reason to think that Jon isn't just getting the hero's edit where Ned and Robb didn't. Give me some nuance in telling the story as we get to the end.

I don't think they mentioned the Valonqar in the show prophesy from Maggy the Frog.

I kind of think the show has lost its ability to make that interesting (IMO). Cersei has no legit claim to the Throne under the laws of Westeros - in either the books or the show. So she's ruling because (a) other than Dany, there's no one alive to press a claim; and (b) she has force on her side (she certainly shouldn't have hearts and minds since she ascended to the Throne by blowing up the popular Queen and wildly popular Westeros Pope). So the Jon v. Dany question just isn't that interesting to me - because who has the stronger legal claim hasn't mattered in seasons.

It's not particularly ominous that - unless there's a dragon to be retrieved - the dead react to water like my dog when he sees a puddle on a walk. "Can't possibly get around that. Walk over."

I'm pretty sure Bloodraven was just the nickname of Bryden Rivers in the books - not the title that he picked up when he became the Three Eyed Raven. IMO, the show has done a really bad job of explaining Bran's importance in all of this. Saying that he is the world's "memory" seems particularly silly in a world that has a bunch of books. "Some dude chilling north of the Wall is the key to human existence" doesn't resonate for me. Also confusing to me - are the White Walkers a threat to the world as a whole? Because the show has made a kind of big deal over the fact that wights can't swim - and maybe can't sail boats (see aftermath of Hardhome, see also Yara saying that the WWs can't reach the Iron Islands in the first episode of this season). The NK has a dragon now - true - but absent being gifted a dragon by the stupid Magnificent 7 let's capture a wight plan, how is the Night King a threat to the rest of the world?

Grey Worm making plans felt like it was literally from the McBain movie on the Simpsons. He has one week until retirement, and then he's going to sail around the world in a boat called "Live-4-Eva."

Even if they are college guys? Isn't the average number of years in the minors based on age when drafted have more bearing on this discussion than age in a vacuum?

Bears don't have the future draft capital to make another massive splash like that.

He's a pretty solid 3 and D guy (40% from 3 the last three years - his TS% has been really good since he left Chicago). He's not a great player by any means, but Snell is definitely a useful NBA role player.

Yep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO- House of Reps) is a former bankruptcy attorney. He spoke at a conference I was at back in 2017 - shortly after the election. He talked about the fact that there was some momentum for an amendment to the Bankruptcy Code regarding student loan debt had Clinton won in '16. I think it would have to be structured something along the lines of "not subject to discharge for the first 10-years out of school" with some additional requirement of showing a good faith effort to make payments during that decade. By the time that 10-years is up, folks with a chance to pay off the debts will have accumulated enough assets that bankruptcy isn't particularly appealing. Thus, the change in the law would end up helping the people who actually need it and it wouldn't be a race to Chapter 7/13 immediately after graduation.

I'm good. We're aggressively overpaying on the student loans now and are probably about 2-years away from having those paid off. I know some people who went the JAG route out of law school - but you can't everybody from law school going to JAG - lol. The overarching point was that student loan repayment has cut into my disposable income pretty hard over the last decade - and while some of that $$ would end up getting saved, people who aren't in as comfortable a position as I am end up participating less in the economy as consumers. You want to stimulate the economy? Find a way to make that $1.5T in student loan debt go away.

An educated society is valuable. A society with equal access to education provides greater opportunity for upward mobility as well.

Just to be clear - that's both my law school debt and my wife's law school debt. Also to be clear, both of us had decent scholarships and worked while in law school - law school is 'spensive. I generally understood what my monthly payment was going to be. But because I went straight from undergrad to law school, I had no sense of the impact a student loan repayment would have on my budget in the real world. If I had it to do over again, I would probably have put off law school for a couple years. Making those kind of financial decisions when you are 21-22 years old sets some kids up to fail (it's even worse when they are making those decisions at 18).

That's interesting. Does that calculation account for undergrad debt? If so, does it lead to a greater allocation of scholarship dollars to those with undergrad debt? For me, access to higher education is critical to an upwardly mobile society. There are obviously some pretty big issues with the current system which is evidenced by the massive amount of student loan debt in circulation. So I am interested in seeing different ideas on how people are addressing those issues.

It's a relatively safe vehicle for the feds since the bankruptcy code makes it virtually impossible for people to get rid of their student loan debt... Student loan debt is crippling for a lot of people. My wife and I are comfortable, but between the two of us, we're paying approximately $1500/m on account of student loan debt (some of that is overpayment, but still). I legitimately don't know how people can have both student loan debt and children.

Rabbit, I'm at 4.5% on all my grad school loans. I looked into refinancing again, but - like you mention - it wasn't going to save me enough to make it worth the hassle.

My big goal is student loan debt free in the next 2-years. With both the wife and I having large law school debt, getting rid of that makes non-401k saving way, way easier. On taxes, we both take 0 allowances on withholding, but this year is a decent sized tax bill (usually we get a really small refund). The loss of deductions hurt, and the Tax Code doesn't have much sympathy for double income, no kids.

This. And it's what is so frustrating here. Claw back a second. Use the trade exception to get something that is actually of value to building the future roster. Monetizing the trade exception - much like selling the Jordan Bell pick - might be good for JR, but I fail to see how it is good for the Bulls.