The Dallas Mavericks conundrum

 

The discussion is permeating the Dallas Mavericks ecosphere. Should the Mavericks tank or continue to try and make the playoffs?

There is quite a bit of people on both sides of the coin. And there are pros and cons to each side. So what should they do?

As a believer in using pros and cons to help you make decisions maybe we should explore those. Or maybe we should let the proponents of each side make their own arguments.

Okay they can on their own platforms. lol

Obviously tanking is to get better draft picks. Keep Kyrie and AD sidelined, let them rest up for next year along with a more experienced Cooper Flagg and hopefully a high draft pick and that does look promising.

Unfortunately there is no guarantee with draft picks. And I don’t think you can rest Anthony Davis enough to ever completely see a healthy AD for a full season. And I am not picking on him specifically. It just seems big men in general struggle with injuries. Not all of course, yet quite a few. AD just seems to have more than his fair share. His latest hand injury is just strange.

Anyway do we rest him up so his hand is good for next year? And do we rest Kyrie so he can truly be one hundred percent? Yet this adds another year of age to both of them. How rusty is Kyrie with being out for well over a year?  So are there more cons to tanking than pros?

Or what if we try this year? Cooper Flagg gets even more experience in a playoff push that last month of the year with AD and Kyrie. And who knows? Like I mentioned and I am not a fan of rooting for injuries, but like AD, Chet for OKC and Victor for the Spurs are big men that might face injuries themselves. Look at Giannis this past week. He will be out for 6 weeks more or less. Should the Bucks rest him? So what does the West look like end of March. A healthy Kyrie and a functional AD make the Mavericks an interesting possibility. The LA Clippers are on a major run. If the playoffs started right now, they would be the team no one would want to face. Maybe at the beginning of April the Mavs could be that team.

Yet if we bring back Kyrie to early or push him too hard what happens? And will AD’s hand be healed or will he be playing hampered? Is it worth chancing these two again?

And what about the other players involved? I am not sure what happened, but what happened with Dlo? I actually had hope he might be at least a contributor throughout the year and definitely not what is going on with him now. I cannot figure out why he dropped off like on a cliff on this team. Maybe his couple of good years were just the perfect storm for him and he just isn’t a player that can adapt to his surroundings. Who knows, but definitely disappointing.

Klay Thompson quite frankly is where we need him to be. I hope he gets the opportunity for us to stay competitive and he has a good rest of the year. He would definitely fit as a successful 6^th man scoring threat in a playoff run.  Trade deadline talk is irking me since I would like to see him stay.

I am not sure what is going on with Daniel Gafford, but would definitely like to see him healthy and involved.

And for me the reason I hope we do not tank though is I think it would be an insult to Naji Marshall, Max Christie and PJ Washington Jr for us to tank. I mean a serious insult. These three players are not role players. They are players on a competitive team that make a difference in winning and losing. All of them are valuable and I don’t want them to lose their attitude and grit in a tanking season and affect their attitudes next year. We need to keep them long term because they are the types of players that shape teams and make the impactful difference. 

Also Dwight Powell is much more than a stopgap these past few games. He is always overmatched, yet over matches in attitude and effort. He also deserves to play competitive basketball even if he is sitting on a bench for most of the game. He epitomizes what it means to have a winning attitude.

Could Caleb Martin actually come around like the past few games?

Of course the heartbreak is Dereck Lively II being out for the year

And then there is Brandon Williams, Ryan Nembhard and Moussa Cisse. Why waste what they are doing?

We have the players to compete so I am of the opinion we should. 

Go Mavs

Let’s talk Trump’s affordability economy

 

Or more specifically two proposals he made. The first being the ten percent cap on credit card interest and the second the limitations that large companies cannot own homes just to rent.

At first glance these are a populists dream: affordable credit and bringing houses back to the market so Americans can own a piece of the American dream.

What does it really mean?

First there is some legitimacy for populists in this thinking. The blowback from the supporters of credit cards and the companies is pretty strong. This is a surface reason to believe these policies might have merit. If the rich are against it, then the rest of us should be for it. Too often when the rich complain they know they might lose something or it won’t benefit them. So how plausible are these proposals?

Let’s pretend we aren’t dealing with the Donald Trump we all know and love. If a Democrat had proposed these, they would be dead on arrival. Republicans backed by all the business interests would shoot this down faster than whatever metaphor floats your boat at the moment.

I think there was some Democrats in Congress trying to garner some interest for this type of proposal before Trump offered it.

In normal times Republican Presidents aren’t offering these proposals. Currently many Republicans are trying to figure out how to not support these so they get campaign contributions from the banks, but not come out against the President. The wonderful tight rope many muster especially one Speaker named Johnson.

The reality for these Republicans would be worse, but our loveable President has squandered quite a bit of political capital of late. It is a bit easier not to have to jump on this bandwagon of policy proposals and still act like they are in support of the President by focusing on other wonderful acts by his administration.

Now let’s break it down under Trump. Trump doesn’t have much capital with people outside his supporters. His supporters love hearing him propose these two policies. This is what they voted for. It all sounds good. Unfortunately, these proposals are full of Trump bluster. How much does he truly believe in these two proposals? My guess and probably yours is not much. Is this more campaign talk? Does he get to come out later closer to the election and say I am working for you so vote for my people when in reality he knows this is smoke without fire.

Or worse the businesses find ways to appease him and the two proposals die on the vine. Or the Democrats jump on it, but Johnson finds a way to squash their proposals without interfering with Trump’s rhetoric? That is probably going to happen. Johnson can stand in front of the cameras with his little smirk and say we are working hard to bring affordability back all the while acting like the Democrats are crazy for bringing up the same proposals Trump just did.

Yes Trump is loving the word affordability right now, but what will truly come of it. He is a showman and affordability has become the center stage word. He can definitely run with it. That is his strength.

Yet my feelings are it is all talk for now until he can find something else to entertain people to distract them from his real disasters. The businesses these two proposals affect will find a way to change Trump’s direction. And we all know what that will be. And once this quiets down, he will find another proposal to feed to his supporters so he can continue his charade of saying what they want while getting what he wants behind his supporters back.

Reality though is we need some real action on credit card interest rates. I don’t know if there is a magic number that caps interest that benefits us and doesn’t frighten the banks into drastic action. The ten percent number will frighten them the more it is bantered about. And some of their complaints that ten percent is so low it will prevent people from getting ready credit are valid, mainly to them, but valid overall. The banks base credit on risk factors and how many people really aren’t a risk at ten percent. That number probably does drop significantly. There would be some people who could take on more credit and afford it at ten percent versus the thirty percent they are paying now and would benefit. Unfortunately we as people of the United States aren’t good with credit. Better education to young people would help, but at the moment the current population is struggling with debt and lower interest rates aren’t going to put too much of a dent in habits.

Credit card debt is out of control. Lowering interest could help, but people would have to cut up cards so they could pay off or down their current debt for ten percent to make a meaningful impact. And that is not what the banks would want. Nope they need people to continue to spend/borrow at an interest rate that pays off all the credit cards that go into default. We have painted ourselves into a corner, both the consumers and the banks. Cutting rates to ten percent in theory is great, but right now we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if we had access to more money. It has become a very dangerous nature for us. There might be a number that is low enough to help a good amount of people lower their debt a bit; spend enough so the economy keeps going and allows the banks to manage some of the risk. Yet this also means they would have to accept less profits. And yep we are all laughing on the floor with that wild thought. Lower profits would be a true beginning, but Wall Street is addicted to greed so that ain’t happening.

And the same thinking applies to companies who are making an enormous fortune renting houses and all the while building up a very strong balance sheet of value. They aren’t selling to make Trump happy.

So again Trump sounds great to his supporters, yet the reality is more complicated and the real solutions take too much away, no matter how small, for people who don’t give a flying fart what the people need.

So, what is there to talk about this wonderful new year?

 We could talk about the stock market. Some people think it will go up this year, some think it won’t. There are a couple of sky is falling people out there. And this is pretty normal in any given year. No one really knows, yet people get paid to act like they do. You cannot predict the future, but you can plan based on data. That would be something wonderful to discuss, doesn’t feel like the world is ending since those are normal discussions.

Or we could talk about the NFL playoffs. It is always fun when a team makes an extraordinary comeback like the Bears. Since the Cowboys weren’t whiffing the playoffs I pretty much tuned out the NFL, yet by happenstance got to see the second half of the Bears game. That was fun to watch. Since I am a Cowboys fan, I am not a fan of San Francisco or Philadelphia. Love the cities, not a fan of the teams. Anyway they played each other so now one of those teams (Philly) are now out of the playoffs. NFL playoff talk is always a pretty normal discussion point.

Or college football playoffs. I am rooting for Indiana just because. Texas was out a long time ago, so why not support Indiana. It would be nice to see them win.

The NHL and the NBA are coming up on the halfway points of their seasons. Mavericks are struggling so fighting to stay supportive for them. The Stars always confuse me so will maintain my infamously non bandwagon, but casual support.

Weather is always a safe topic. Us old folks always love talking about the weather, even when the weather is boring. A possible snow storm for the Northeast this weekend. And here in North Texas finally touching on normal winter temperatures around here. Still a bit warm, but closer to normal than Christmas week.

Did you make any new year promises or goals? How is that going since we are just about halfway through the month? No promises to lose weight or anything here, just going to focus on three words: trust, discipline and fun. Let’s hope those three thoughts stay true.

Speaking of fun, have you thought about summer vacation yet?

What about any home improvements? Or are you thinking of a new home? A bit difficult right now, but we can always dream. We have a family member headed in that direction.

How is your health? Your kids? Anyone receive a scholastic honor in the fall semester? Or did they miss it by “that much” Any plays, sports, music success for anyone in the family?

Remember when all this was the norm? There is a plethora of topics we can enjoy. So why don’t we talk to our neighbors about all these things for awhile.

The madness isn’t going away so let’s rest our brains and attitudes for a bit and hopefully refresh our perspectives. Much to the media and our politicians’ chagrin, we actually all are on the same team.

 

Doesn’t it annoy the heck out of you when I get trite like the last few posts?

 

Laugh people laugh

Cheers

Why they divide us and why it is so easy

 

Most people that read already know most of the answer to the two questions, yet we need to start pushing the answer forward and hard to start undoing the damage. How?

They divide us because they can and it benefits them. Who are they? It is basically two groups, media interests and ingrained politicians. People hear me scream we need new parties and new leadership. And that is mainly to break up the duopoly’s hold on the American people that only serve themselves. And the duopoly is supported by the opposing media groups that reap financial benefits and solidifies its’ audiences.

There is a book called “Hate, Inc.” that takes a very deep dive into the media and the history that led us to the current state of affairs. That should be required reading for all Americans, but no one really reads the news anymore in depth or with an open mind so that book wouldn’t help most people at this point.

As long as the ingrained parties and politicians can use their media allies it will be very difficult to change the status quo. Yet breaking that up isn’t the first step. It is breaking up how they divide us so it is a much deeper challenge.

One of our problems is that the ingrained politicians and media use social issues to tug at our emotions to inflame our passions so we don’t listen to the other side. It is the social issues that cannot be solved by public policy that allow this divide to continue. Sane minds do not have to give up their beliefs on social issues, but they need to address them in a different manner than public policy and politics.

At this moment in time we need to concentrate our political efforts on the basics of governing. We need to protect our border while still respecting the dignity of human life and that really is the closest to a social issue we should get to for now. Everything else is just better public policy like improving education, improving social security, creating a more equitable tax code, balancing the budget, prioritizing what is needed for the poor so they have opportunity, protecting our country, using our secondary functions like the Fed to battle inflation or recessions, working on better campaign laws that allow for better participation by all instead of favoring money interests and quite a bit more.

Outside of our politicians demonstrating respect and dignity for each other, we need to become a better educated society to tackle our social issues. For example right now the abortion groups and the pro life groups are at each other’s throats because the two groups use our emotions to separate us, create camps and one sided arguments so much so that we forget that this is a very deep and emotional issue that shouldn’t be left to partisan politics to decide.

We need long and deep conversations. We need to listen so people aren’t screaming, yet as a society we are not ready to go there. We aren’t close. And that isn’t because both sides have intense feelings and thoughts about the matter. It is because people use those and manipulate us to benefit a small minority of our country. And that minority is the established and entrenched power structure in D.C. Trump was supposed to cure us of this according to MAGA, yet in practice he only exasperated it. He inflames his base to a whole new level of hate.

And he knew that was possible. He may not be a stable genius, but he is a capable manipulator. And that manipulation works because for the last thirty to forty years the Republicans and Democrats set it up. Both sides began the long march of splitting this country socially so they could get re-elected time and time again. If people really paid attention to what their politicians were doing we wouldn’t have 80 year olds entrenched in D. C. Instead they pay attention to the need to get rid of the other guy, the evolution of gerrymandering to benefit the entrenched. The media went along because if they picked and backed a side they got a guaranteed audience for their profits.

All this is well documented, yet no one comes along and splits up this madness. Even today you watch all these “independent” podcasts or nascent news organizations and they are on one side or the other. There is no independence. They joined a side to steal an audience not to liberate an audience.

So I try to break this up by screaming for new parties, yet even then sides will be drawn. My hope is that sides are drawn solely on the political issues to get started. Our country gets back to the push me pull me of liberal versus conservative political policy. When the economy is doing well push forward, when it is in recession, pull back and the politicians that better serve the need of the moment are elected. When things change and the pendulum swings the other way, hopefully districts are broken up more evenly so the people can elect politicians that support the next change needed. And what is scary too many people will say that is a dream when in actuality it should be the norm.

Breaking away from social issues dominating our political rhetoric will help us focus on the immediate needs like inflation, affordability, social security, healthcare and more. Politicians to get elected will have to offer solutions the majority of our country wants instead of creating a feeding frenzy of hate.

Social issues are important and eventually we need to work through them. And the possibility of certain people continued to be marginalized is a problem so the rhetoric needs respect not hate until we know enough as a society to actually decide what if any public policy is needed. If we learn to respect each other we may never need to force social change. I am a conservative, yet I truly understand you cannot legislate morality. It is something people have to understand in their heart, but what morality is correct can even be a dangerous topic to discuss. So at this point the infamous render under Ceasar what is Ceasar’s and render to God what is God might be something we need to think about before we spout off who is right and wrong.

There are many things I would like to see change. I would hope the golden rule of love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself would be first in all our hearts, but right now we just need to stop talking, start reading, start listening and start reflecting on the few things all of us need so the hate stops and the much needed switch to the norm can begin.

So yeah, we need new parties 😊 and a whole bunch more.

Happy New Year, well I guess so

 

I know I haven’t been saying much lately. Kind a hard to tell, but am frustrated with it all.

 

I know you probably hear the news so I don’t want to rehash how idiotic things have gotten.

Yet what to be done.

The Republicans are complicit, the Democrats are hapless and the world has entered one larger crapper.

People complain all day long, but none of us including me have a plan anymore.

Here is what needs to be done. Trump needs to be impeached. Vance needs to be impeached. We need a new speaker in the House of Representatives and I wonder about some of our military for going along with this most obvious oil grab and world power split up.

Putin probably now believes he has free reign to do what he wants. So don’t tell me he doesn’t have something to do with Trump running amuck.

Between Netanyahu coercing Trump into attacking Iran and the Gulf states paying Trump to well who knows, but we know attack Iran there is the possibility of that war.

Then us attacking Venezuela constitutes multiple violations of international law all for their oil. Oh sure someone will be the leader of Venezuela, but they will be handing over their oil to our oil companies hand over fist. And why? Oil only pollutes this planet. So greed wins,,, again.

High possibility of China going after Taiwan now because what is Trump going to do. He doesn’t care about what China does. He really doesn’t except for the bluster he can create.

We have a very weak and bribable president and humanity is going to get screwed for it. But hey, you know America first. And oh yeah that affordability thing; a president who knew about the greatest sexual predator in modern history, he might not have participated, but he knew; a media that is partisan, divided and weak; social media lies; AI madness so no one knows what is the truth anymore; a Supreme Court that doesn’t know how to read the Constitution; the money grabs by Trump and his administration; and who knows what else as I rehash the idiocy.

Yeah I am a bit down in the dumps about the whole thing, so let’s pray I am wrong as heck and have a Happy New Year.

Anyway my words for the year are trust and discipline. So, I think I need tons of discipline to keep the trust going. Things can be better, but we need to get moving on some plan to make it happen.