Road Rules

Take a look at this article, and continue reading after you're done giggling.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Brawl-on-Wheels.html

This is incredible. I don't normally do New Year's resolutions, but this one may be too good to pass up. If you see a story about some random dude jumping onto a car, and getting run over while trying to punch out a window and assault the driver, you'll know who had too much time on their hands.

Jumping up on a car as it's moving, no matter how slow, is a decent move. To stay on a moving car for a mile, while it is striking other vehicles, and be able to punch through tempered glass is impressive. And on the other side of the confrontation, being able to navigate a care while an air bag has gone off isn't super easy. Then she hit him with the car. Which is sweet.

However, I'd like to think that if I had some guy just grabbing onto my roof and punching my window, I have him squished pretty quickly. I mean, all it takes is getting up to about 15 mph, and doing a quick brake check. Then you just squish him, Grand Theft Auto-style, and that's that.

-Chairman

Things We Never Do

So I was sitting in church this weekend, and was expecting to just stroll in, hear a sermon, and sing a couple songs. The usual. Instead, it was a little different. Instead of the usual sermon, we had some time for group prayer, praying for some of the different people affected by the NIU Valentine's Day Massacre.

I'm not really a fan of group prayer, in general, as I'm not particularly fond of being told what to pray for, regardless of whether or not I agree with the sentiment. And when I don't agree with what I am asked to pray, then I just sort of get into a funk. And I wasn't very excited to pray for the people involved in the the NIU shootings. It wasn't that I didn't feel for the victims' families. What struck me was that we only care when it hits home. And that left me with a funny feeling. I didn't know any of the NIU folks any better than I know anyone who got blown up in Afghanistan, anyone who got run over in Maryland, or anyone who was burned alive in Kenya. So I wasn't particularly invested in the NIU situation. And it just struck me that we hadn't done anything in particular to note the tribal warfare that's been ongoing in Kenya for weeks now, or much else around the world, unless there was a reason for it. And that struck me as being sort of odd.

I wasn't in the most spiritual of states for the prayer time, so I just tried to listen. And it was interesting. There were more than a couple people who were praying for the families of the shooter. I had seen the tearful father of the shooter decline to answer questions, and I felt bad for him, for sure. I thought that it was a very reasonable prayer. And I wondered about something related, in a tangential way. I wondered about whether anyone in the Christian world ever prayed for the families of Islamic suicide bombers, like the one that just blew up in Baghdad a few moments ago. I know that I hadn't. I think that I'd be more likely to pray for a fiery end to radical Islam than I would be to pray for the siblings of suicide bombers.

So I came to the question of why we seemed to get into very predictable patterns for prayer. And whether that was good. It seemed to be related to the very predictable patterns for thought that most people have. I've talked about people liking things that are similar to themselves. I think that people end up praying for things that they like, rather than things that are what God likes. We like that people like us are comforted. And I'm cool with that. But we tend to not even consider those who are not like us. I'm not so sure that's kosher.

...Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

I like the Lord's Prayer. It seems to be simple enough.

-Chairman

Premonitions

I don't delve much into things like premonitions. Most of this stuff is just bunk. People have all of these predictions, but only remember the ones that come true. Then they believe that they have ESP or something. Mainly, when you get into premonitions, the lesson that you learn is that people are generally idiots.

Anyway, it wasn't so much a premonition, as an eerie daydream, once I had time to put things back into context. It happened on Thursday morning. First of all, most of you are wondering, "what were you doing being awake before noon?" And that's a very valid question. But I have an excuse. I had to proctor an exam in the morning over in Foellinger, the big, 1500 person lecture hall/auditorium on campus. So, I'm standing there before the exam starts up. Mainly, I was just cranky and tired because I was awake about 4 hours earlier than I was accustomed to, and moreover, I was in some lecture hall with 800 kids taking an exam.

So, my mind wandered off, and I started thinking about what I wanted to do for breakfast after we got done with the exam, and I decided on pancakes at OHOP. Probably the tasty Apple Pancake, or maybe just the Dutch Baby. And some sausage. And coffee. It was going to be wonderful. Then my mind took the next natural step. I started thinking about how this would be the opportune time for some armed psychopath to storm in and start shooting. Early in the morning. 800 students packed into the lower tier of the lecture hall. Of course, I was imagining the shooter coming in through the entrance, and coming down the aisles. So, I thought about how I'd react. My plan was to slide up on the stage, and exit stage left. Make a phone call to 911, and then find some weapons to go back in there and get the shooter.

The plan was to find a couple objects that I could throw with accuracy, and then come back into the auditorium from an entrance where the shooter couldn't see. The plan was to try to bean him with one of the heavy objects. You know, the usual head shot from 50 feet. But to also close in, in case I missed. Then I would take him out with a pen to the jugular vein.

It probably wasn't the best plan in the world. I needed to have a couple baseballs in my bag, as well as a buck knife (rather than some pen). And even then, it would be sort of a brick of a plan. But that's what went through my mind.

I laughed at myself. Clearly, I'm a moron. I snapped out of it, and finished proctoring the exam, and then skipped out on the pancakes (huge mistake - they would have been wonderful). I just went to the coffee shop and got some work done, and then went home and took a nap so I could catch up on the sleep I had missed.

Later that afternoon, I read about the NIU incident. And then we found out that it was actually of U. of I. grad student.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to pack those baseballs and that buck knife in my bag from now on.

-Chairman

New Media, Same Idiots Reading

Yeah. So people are sort of dumb. We're enthralled with this new media, this Web 2.0, 3.0, etc. sort of stuff, where everyone has a voice. Well, I've decided that most people shouldn't have a voice. Not only do you have a bunch of mouth-breathers running around with blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube videos, myspace pages, or whatever else that people use to make themselves heard, but you have people actually lend credence to it. And oddly enough, this isn't a political posting. Because there are a lot of idiots running around out there with poorly structured ideas. But I'm talking about sports, particularly recruiting.

Gene Wojciechowski's little piece on Kevin Hart (who was the opener in my last posting) offered up some posts from the Cal sports message boards.

"1st DI player to come out of that high school? He must be a superstar at the school." … "I think this qualifies as a KABOOM." … "Yes, I have seen him play. He's pretty good. Has college size, good skills. Good addition for Cal." … "Sounds like a great young man with size and attitude!" … "I think Kevin Hart will be one hell of a sleeper recruit for Cal."

Some of them are OK, particularly the first two. The third one is where things get dumb. You've got people who have no idea how to evaluate talent evaluating talent. And then, you have people who read what they're saying on Rivals.com (or the like) believing it. So what does this say about the people who post on message boards? And more importantly, what does it say about people who build their expectations on those posts?

Here in the Board Room, we're not afraid to go out on a limb and make some predictions. Most of the time, the predictions are at least decent. And (this year aside), we've been awfully good at evaluating the Illini in basketball. But when it comes to evaluating the incoming freshmen, I like to wait until I've had a chance to see them first hand in college-level competition. All I know is that I hear people talk about how great these players are coming in. I hear all the hype from guys who someone saw once, or someone's little brother played against him in AAU ball, or whatever. And it's all essentially useless information.

Looking back at Rich McBride was a top 30 national recruit. I'm looking back at my postings about him. Essentially, he went from a terrible defender to a so-so one who reached too much over the 3 years that the Board Room and his Illini career overlapped. And my observations suggest that he's gone from a spot up shooter to, well, a spot up shooter that's added a mid-range pull-up to his game. Now, doesn't that sound a lot like Trent Meachem? Trent will never be confused with a national top 30 recruit. But if you go back and read the message boards about Richie, what will they say back when he was being recruited? Luther Head certainly was not a national top 25 recruit. But he ended up being a first round NBA pick. Deron Williams? He was a national top 8 to top 12 recruit. At point. Which made him about a top 40 recruit. He was the #3 overall pick in the NBA draft a few years later. And if you go back to the 2004 rankings, you see that at PF, Shaun Pruitt was #20, and some dude named Joakim Noah was ranked right ahead of him at #19. And Sean Williams was a little after at #28. These are rankings at PF, not overall. Williams was a first round NBA pick. Noah was an NBA lottery pick. Think that some guys doing talent evaluation didn't know what they were talking about? They certainly get some right. But boy, they sure do whiff on a lot. And all it takes is some idiot with an internet connection to get the hype rolling.

We've got all sorts of hype about the kids coming in for '09 and '10, but you know what? Let's not listen to all of the idiots out there until we see things first hand. And then you can have this idiot tell you what to think.

-Chairman

Fictional Declarations

Now that the official signing period has started, The Board Room is happy to announce that we have signed Kevin Hart to a scholarship. It came down to a close race between us, Cal and Oregon, and there was some last minute consideration of 'Bama when Coach Saban called offering a scholarship. However, we are pleased to have added Kevin to our program.

Wait. What?

Really?

Oh.

Nevermind. We're actually not recruiting anyone named Kevin Hart. We just made that up. We apologize to our 7 readers for the confusion.

Returning to our normal programming...

Meanwhile, here in Illini land, behind the stellar play of our phenomenal freshman tandem of PG Dimitri McCamey and SG Eric Gordon, we improved to a Big Ten leading 10-1 and 21-3 overall. We took out hapless Indiana, whose D.J. White is stuck as the lone bright spot on a team that's unable to handle the ball or create shots from the guard position. Having McCamey as the calming influence on the offense and Gordon as the assassin from outside has really opened up Shaun Pruitt on the inside, and cleared the lanes for Brian Randle and Calvin Brock to slash at the hoop without defenders waiting. And having the two freshmen control the ball on offense, Chester Frazier has been freed up to play defense, rebound, and otherwise be the emotional heart of this team that's starting look a lot like our team from 2005.

And things look good for us down the road. Despite Gordon going one and done, we're looking to be able to keep things up, as Mike Tisdale is starting to look like he'll be a much tougher version of Nick Smith, and Alex Legion should be able to come and step right in next year. And getting Jamar back will help with any depth problems. It was crucial for Bruce to not only get Gordon, but also show that he could run his system with star players, not the scrappy, good, tough, but not great players like he did at Southern. Certainly, the motion offense isn't conducive to having any one play score over 18 a game, but being able to have someone come in and play well enough to show off NBA skills is crucial to future recruiting.

In any case, it's looking more and more like the 2008 Illini are a Final Four contender, and if we can overcome Bruce's recruiting shortcomings. Derrick Rose (the Chicago kid that Bruce wasn't able to keep in-state) and Memphis, Bill Self's Kansas squad (which includes more Chicago connections), Coach K's Dukies (whose 6th man, Jon Scheyer, was Bruce's brother's player in HS), and our 2005 nemesis, the UNC Tar Heels are all strong squads. But where we have a chance is that we got our guys in Gordon and McCamey.

One thing that's intriguing to me is the parallels between this team and the Syracuse championship team w/ Carmelo and Gerry MacNamara as freshmen a few years ago, and Hakim Warrick as the established rock on the inside. Carmelo was the one and done and the best player. G-Mac was the one who was going to stay for 4 years and build a program. Warrick was an NBA prospect who had shown potential, but needed to have one more good year to lock up his draft status. Throw in the Orange and Blue, and the similarities are eerie. We all remember the run they had.

This year's Illini have Gordon and D-Mac filling in the freshmen roles and Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle doing the Hakim Warrick thing. So, we're actually a little ahead of the Orangemen. It's a little premature to say that we're going to win it all, but a deep run is certainly within reason.

Wait...

The Illini actually did not have Eric Gordon sign. We just made that up. We apologize to our 7 readers for the confusion.

Down the road, we may actually write a little more about Bruce's program. There are some folks who are high on what we've got coming in.

-Chairman

Why I am a Bad Person

Well, there are many reasons, actually. But high on the list is probably how easily I am amused, particularly when it comes to minor human deformities. So I'm sitting here in Panera, just chilling out. I theory, I should be punching out my dissertation proposal, but instead, I'm just zoning out, doing a crossword, and people-watching. So, in walk a couple girls, who sit down. I notice that one of them is sort of cute. So I pay a little more attention. And then I see her take out not one, but two small, clear mouthpieces. After a few seconds, I realize that they're actually the InvisAlign braces, which make things funnier. And then I realize that this girl has a lazy right eye. She looks one way, and a split-second later the right eye catches up. She looks the other way, and a split-second later the right eye catches up. At this point, I'm chuckling out loud. But I have a computer and a newspaper in front of me so it doesn't appear that I'm laughing at anyone. Then I imagined trying to have a conversation with this person. And it was over. I'm just laughing out loud like a lunatic in the middle of Panera. Little quirks like this just amuse me thoroughly. It's like when my little bro was sitting behind OD while we were driving out to Cooperstown back in NY, and happened to notice that OD's ears were just a bit uneven. Noticing that amused me to no end, much to OD's chagrin. The little things that people try to hide are horribly intriguing to me.

Of course, I was planning on writing about a couple things. The first is a brief Super Bowl review. Long story short, Brady played so-so until the 4th quarter, when he looked pretty good. New England made some tactical errors, which is sort of stunning for a Belichick led team. And Eli got lucky. He had 1 unlucky pick, 1 legit pick. There were 5 other times after he let go of the ball when I said out loud that a pick was coming. Watching Eli was like watching Brett Favre a couple weeks ago against the Giants. It looked like Eli was just trying to throw the game away. But he got bailed out by the underrated Giants receiving corps. I'm sad that I didn't get to see history, but I am highly amused that Eli won a championship before Phillip Rivers (who I still think looks like Ryan Leaf when he's got his helmet off). Brady will be back, and when he finally wins #4 (and maybe 5 and 6), he'll put himself on top of the QB Mt. Rushmore. As it stands, I still have him behind Joe Montana, and right with Aikman and Elway. I fully expect that to change in the next few years.

From Super Sunday to Super Tuesday, it's interesting to see how Obama has closed the gap. Obama will probably slaughter whoever the GOP puts up in November, but Hillary is defeatable. Lots of folks that are slightly right of center will gravitate toward Obama, but will be vehemently against Hillary (see how bad she does in the Midwest). Let's face it. California, NY, and NJ are probably going Democrat in November, regardless. However, in swing states like Ohio, Hillary may not play as well, particularly if a moderate GOP candidate like McCain emerges, which looks likely. Because Romney is done. He's the choice that goes farthest to the right in this election (save Ron Paul, who's still irrelevant), whereas Huckabee's morals run right, but his policies seem slightly left of center, actually. And McCain is similar.

So what does this mean?

If you think back to the Hoteling model, if you believe that you can put candidates on a single continuum, voters will go for whoever they believe is closest to them in terms of this left-right distinction, so the candidate that is the first to hit the center of the voting population wins. I don't think that it's quite that simple, but you can quick look at it. First, if you scale everything from -1 to 1, it simplifies things. So, let's say that me, Stalin and Hitler are on the extreme right, and Marx is on the extreme left. This puts Ron Paul at about .95, Romney at about .9, and James Dobson at 1.3 (just kidding, if you cap things off at 1, then you probably put him at .9). The more moderate Huckabee places right around .4, since his morality is close to the far right, but his policy is almost left-center. And McCain is probably a .25, since he runs a bit more left than Huckabee. I'd guess that perceptions of Obama have him at -0.15 or so, and Hillary places at about -0.5. It appears that McCain will only get people within .65 to even consider him, so he loses the far right. Hillary has a similar problem, in that only those within .5 will consider her (I can't see Republicans voting for her, no matter how moderate they are, unless Hillary were to run against Hugo Chavez). Obama may not have as big of a restriction as McCain,

Let's start with Obama v. McCain. Obama takes all of the left, and jostles with McCain for the middle. The problem for McCain is that the folks at the far right may just not bother to vote at all, if you buy into James Dobson. This is makes the Dobson-ites useless in this election, and probably kills McCain. Obama wins this race 80 out of 100 times, I'd say. Oddly enough, Huckabee may have a better chance against Obama, because he (albeit reluctantly) wins the vote of the far right, and is moderate enough that he can spin his position to be a little more centrist. But Obama still wins something like 70% of the time.

Moving on to Hillary v. McCain, you see that Hillary takes the extreme left, but McCain carves into the moderate-left. If you believe Dobson, then you still have a gap on the right for McCain. But McCain competes enough for the left-center to make things interesting. I'd say that Hillary wins 55% of the time against McCain. Hillary likely mops up Huckabee, simply because votes are probably along party lines. More Democrats have been voting in the primaries than Republicans. This would be something like 80% for Hillary.

So what does this mean right now? Let's say that Obama and Hillary are 50-50. And McCain is 90-10 over Huckabee. This suggests that we'll see Obama v. McCain 45% of the time, Obama v. Huckabee 5% of the time, Hillary v. McCain 45% of the time, and Hillary v. Huckabee 5% of the time. Put in the victory numbers, and you start to see some overall chances for each candidate:

Obama looks to be the front runner, not because he's ahead of Hillary, but because he's so dominant over the GOP candidates. My little simulation puts him at 39.5% to be the next POTUS. Right after him comes McCain at 29.25%. This is mainly because Hillary has a good chance to beat Obama, which is good for McCain. In 3rd, is Hillary at 28.75%. She's neck and neck with Obama, but more vulnerable to the GOP candidate in November. Of course, my guy Huckabee is coming in at only 2.5%. Really, you have to say that Romney has about the same chance as Huckabee right now, so it's more like 1.25% each for both Huckabee and Romney.

You can certainly build more complex models, particularly if you go into 2D or 3D spaces, but instinctively, this seems to be about right. You can quantify why the percentages are the way they are a little more, and get a more refined view, as well. But if you assume that the victory percentages are accurate, then this is how the numbers work out.

And once again, I drone on longer than I was planning. I think that I had other stuff to vent on, but I've forgotten it all. But I'll leave you with this. The second-most recent example of how I am a bad person is that despite being curious, and even analytical about the election, I didn't bother voting. Which makes me awesome.

-Chairman

The Lake Show

Let's see. We'll have the Kobe beef and the kung Pau.

I don't write a ton about pro sports to the depth that I'll write about the Illini. A big part of that is because my favorite teams (the Reds, Bengals, and Knicks) have been terrible. The Yanks, Pats, and Lakers are the teams that I admire most, so I root for them after my favorite teams are out of contention. This usually happens 4 weeks into the season. Of the teams worth of admiration, the one that I actually like the best is the Lakers.

I've always been a Laker fan. A big part of this was growing up in Cincy in the mid-80's. It was either the goofy, white Celtics, the ugly Pistons, the not-quite great Trail Blazers or Jazz, or the Magic/Riles/Showtime Lakers. I always loved watching Magic and Kareem as a kid. I didn't know anything about basketball, but I liked watching those guys. But, the Lakers were relegated to my 2nd favorite team after I moved out to NY.

The Knicks were on TV a lot, and at that point, Magic had gotten AIDS, my man Nick Van Exel couldn't quite get the Lakers into the playoffs, and Riles had come back to NY. I found out that Riles was a local kid who played ball at Schenectady HS, before going to Kentucky for college. Lots of connections emerged. My buddy Joe's uncle did some regional scouting for Riles. Our HS coach's old man was the coach for those old Schenectady HS teams, and he had played with Riles. So my loyalty to the Knicks made sense. Plus, I got to root against those candy-assed Bulls.

Flash forward a dozen years. The Knicks are a train wreck, coached by Isiah, who I never liked. I hated the Pistons for dethroning my Lakers, and I also hated him for his stint with the Pacers (when the Knicks were jostling with the Pacers to be the 2nd best team in the East). I lost a lot of loyalty when they couldn't make a good enough of a roster to keep my man Jeff Van Gundy interested enough to coach. I still want them to do well, but they're largely unwatchable. I've become a Jazz fan now that my guy D-Will is there being awesome. But not in a passionate way. I want them to do well, but I root more for D-Will. But through it all, I'm still a Lakers fan. I've always been a Kobe guy. I think that he's on par with MJ, which is blasphemy here in the cornfields of Illinois, but I've always argued that he'd be the best player ever. LeBron may have some issues with that statement in 10 years. But right now, Kobe's the best player in the world, has been since 2000, and probably will be for the 2 or 3 seasons.

Kobe and the Lakers had been looking for an inside presence since the departure of the Diesel, and now they will have two legitimate ones in a few weeks, once Babyface Bynum returns to the lineup. With the triangle offense, you ideally run things through the post, though having an elite wing option lets you do otherwise. Lamar Odom isn't a true low block option, but is a wing-4, but the Lakers had been a decent team without having a legit post option for the last couple years simply because Kobe is stellar. Now, with the emergence of Bynum as not only a shot blocker and rebounder, but a legit offensive option, the Lakers made the jump into the top 5 of the West. There was still the problem of depth inside - Ronny Turiaf was the 2nd best interior player, but was very limited (think Kurt Thomas w/out the range). Enter Pau Gasol. He's a better scorer than Bynum, though not quite the shot blocker. But he'll rebound and run. Immediately, he steps in to become the starting 5. When Bynum comes back, the Lakers will have a very good frontline with depth, and should be able to legitimately play Bynum and Gasol together (though we'll have to see how they can defend the pick and roll with that lineup).

The Lakers may be the best choice in the West right now. The Hornets are good, but they don't have any playoff experience. Ditto for the Blazers, who are also very young. The Nuggets are intriguing, but are sort of shallow - they're only running 8 guys right now. The Jazz are still not quite there (need more shooting). The Rockets are mystifying. The Warriors are like the Suns-lite. The usual suspects are a little off. The Spurs are old/injured. The Suns are limited in potential and match up horribly with the Lakers. And the Mavs have no killer instinct. The Lakers have the best player, a solid outside shooter in Fisher. Two legit low block options in Bynum and Gasol, and a wing guy in Odom who can play the game inside and out. Their bench has Turiaf coming in as a solid big, Bill Walton's son as a point forward, Trevor Ariza as a legit defensive stopper and energy guy, Jordan Farmar is an athletic point, and Vujacic can come in to give energy and jack 3's. That makes for 10 legit NBA players, a nice mix of youth and experience, and a bench full of options to help with matchups.

We'll see if any of those guys can slow down Tim Duncan in the playoffs, since the Spurs are still the favorite until they lose. And it'll be interesting to see how good the Pistons and Celtics really are. But right now, I'm liking the Lake Show.

-Chairman