High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell.
An HBO documentary.
Dicky Eklund.
Christian Bale made this life semi-romantic and heroic.
Watch it and internalize what Hollywood can do to a character’s narrative. Powerful and sad and scary.
Monthly Archives: February 2011
A Good Book
Scorecasting by Tobias J. Moscowitz and L. Jon Wertheim.
It adds to the body of analytics and what drives success in sports and why some teams win and some teams don’t.
I find these books to be a good read with great detail and stats. The thing that I am always surprised about is how these stats never take into account health, injuries, bad or wrong officiating calls and basic luck.
Random things that shape big games at times. That is the wonder of sports.
You will enjoy this book. I am.
I Agree – I Went to Bed Early
I thought the show and production were cringe-worthy last night.
I didn’t get it. I must NOT be in the demo they wanted to serve last night.
I am in the middle.
Not too old – not too young.
I didn’t get it.
Read this one from indieWIRE. It is right on the money!
Best moment of the night: Christian Bale pimping Dicky Eklund’s website to a billion people. 
Here is the link.
“The Art of Selling”
This is a good article. It brought back a lot of memories, sad and happy ones indeed.
We aren’t sellers now.
And although we are buyers, the sellers all want our young prospects and picks in return. They want to work the phones the way we worked the phones so long ago.
This should be an interesting day. Wish George and staff the best of luck.
Youth is Being Served
The Wizards played well. They played hard last night. They played well and they played hard the night before too in Miami. Two great vet teams we have played and a great measuring stick for us.
Back to back games. No moral victories but I am pleased with the team’s progress and compete levels. That is important to us all.
At one point last night we had 5 new players on the floor from when we opened the season. Talk about creative destruction. We have one of the youngest teams in the league now.
The coach played the young kids a lot last night.
We don’t get calls that we deserve yet from the officials. We have to earn that right with productivity and longevity.
And we didn’t hit our free throws. We were 0 for 6 from the free throw line last night in the fourth quarter. We lost the game by 6 points. Taking care of the ball and hitting free throws will come with experience.
There was a lot of enthusiasm and talent on the floor – all young and all with upside last night.
We will have two more first round picks in the off season. Young players are hungry. They will improve with experience.
The game was entertaining and fun last night. The bench was very supportive of each other. It was a good experience. It was all a part of a rebuild. Thanks fans for sticking with us. We had 19,000 people in the building last night. I promise we will get this right. Your loyalty and support will be rewarded long term.
Good Write-Up of Game
“Kings of Leonsis” – I feel funny typing that title.
Yes, of course, we are all concerned.
We won the game. We get two points but the win wasn’t in the manner we all expected or wanted or desired emotionally. We all wanted us to win 6-0 to make amends for the shutout the night before. I “get it.”
But it was a professional win against a team that has nothing to lose and plays with passion and with the upside of youth and a rebuild. We now have 76 points and 19 games left to play. We remain in 5th place in the East.
The trading deadline is here. It is an exciting and fun time for fans. And for media.
One team makes a big trade and then losses a bunch of games immediately afterwards. Was that us with our mid season trade or another team right now? You decide. It isn’t as easy in real life as it looks on paper.
We would like to add jump and difference to our team. Every team in playoff contention wants to. What we don’t want to do is dramatically change our team with a rental in exchange for several talented young assets. That isn’t what we believe in. Change can be good and it can be bad.
I am hopeful we can add some vets to help us improve in the short term. That is our challenge. Wish us luck.
Onward to Big East Tournament
A tough home loss on Senior Day for Georgetown.
What a sad way to end the regular season with a loss against Syracuse.
Onward to the Big East tournament in NYC in March.
President Clinton was at the game which was nice.
What a week at Verizon Center – Lady Gaga; Caps game; Georgetown game; Wizards game; and the Bon Jovi concert. Almost 100,000 turnstile clicks in 4 days.
Thank You for Sharing
Yes I Know That Was an Ugly Game
In so many regards.
And not what we wanted to see. We wanted to see some wins and some points garnered on home ice. And we wanted to see our core group of players back on the ice together.
We didn’t see any of that last night.
And I didn’t get to see the game at Verizon Center because of sitting on a tarmac on a plane for three hours. I did get to listen to the second period on the radio and I watched the third period on television. I think I liked being on the tarmac better.
No time to whine and angst. We play again tonight in Long Island against a much improved Islanders team.
We Are On the Same Page
Ernie said what I believe and we have agreed to in many meetings.
We have to find our own stars right now.We have to load up on options in the draft.
We have to have young players develop. We need more options in terms of young players.
And we have done so.
We have to wait and see what the new rules are within the new NBA and come out of the off season with financial freedom and options and flexibility.
Right now a few teams are attracting big time players. We aren’t there yet. We aren’t a destination where big name players want to come to. I hope to change that. We have a great city. We have budget. We will build a culture of winning. We will be world class in all that we do. We will be a “have” team at some point build the right way around the draft through savvy trades; through free agency; and with a system that is built around the talent we have developed.
I thought we played in Miami last night with upside and with determination. It was good to see.