Untitled Document
Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Harvard Penn Princeton Yale



 Page 1 of 3 ALL123
Username Post: I'd like to have an argument, please.        (Topic#20856)
Silver Maple 
Postdoc
Posts: 3765

Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
12-19-17 05:30 PM - Post#240567    

Scene: Smokey Joe’s, shortly before the Ivy Basketball Tournament.

Palestra 38: You going to eat your burger?
Mike James: I don’t need to eat my burger. I already know it’s mediocre.
38: How could you possibly know that?
MJ: I’ve had a lot of burgers here over the years. Some have been good, some have been terrible. On average, they’ve been mediocre. So I know this one’s mediocre as well. Furthermore, I’ve developed an advanced efficiency index for restaurant kitchens. My metric accounts for food costs, inventory shrinkage, sanitary inspection grades, Yelp and Trip Advisor ratings, and rat feces parts per million in the ground beef. The average RKEI is 100, of course, and Smokes’ gets a 100.062. So that’s further evidence that this is burger is meh.
38: You’re insane, you know that?
MJ: (Slaps his head) You just don’t understand. Look at it sitting there on the plate, In all its stochastic mediocrity. If you’ll just stop talking for a minute and listen closely, you can actually hear it regressing to the mean. Anyway, how’s your burger?
38: Haven’t tasted it yet, but I just know it’s gonna be awesome.
MJ: Really? Have you ever had an ‘awesome’ burger at Smokes?
38: No, but I was watching the cook before, and his spatula technique was seriously impressive. It’s like that thing just floats over the griddle. He’s a kid they just recruited from the kitchen at the Simon Gratz High School cafeteria, and he’s a true Philly lunchroom legend.
MJ: You do understand that there’s no reason to believe that performance in a high school cafeteria kitchen is at all predictive of performance in a big time restaurant kitchen, right? At best, that burger will be average.
38: Mark my words—this burger is going to be great. (Takes a bite) Omigod—this is horrible.
MJ: No it’s not, it’s average.
38: What the hell is in this thing? Waiter—what’s this burger made out of? It’s disgusting.
Waiter: We make our burgers out of scrapple, sir.
38: Scrapple? Why the hell would anybody want a burger made of scrapple?
Waiter: Why wouldn’t you? Scrapple costs the same per pound as ground beef, so it’s just as good.
MJ: He’s right, of course. You just think you taste a difference, but you really don’t.
38: (Looks closely at the waiter) You look different from the guy who took our order. Who are you? (Rips off the waiter’s fake beard) Jeff! What are you doing here? And what have you done with our waiter?
Jeff: He’s out cold in the walk-in. He’ll wake up in a few hours with a nasty headache, if he doesn’t freeze to death first. Of course, if he does freeze to death, it’ll be ok—he’s about to be replaced by a robot anyway. But you don’t care about that, do you? You just care about your precious spatula-meister from Simon Gratz, who’s never even made burgers before—he only made meat loaf at the high school level!
MJ: And meat loaf is totally different from a burger.
38: How can you say that? It’s made out of ground beef, just like a burger!
Jeff: You really don’t understand advanced animal protein analysis, Colin!
CVonvorys: (From the next table) Hey! I’m Colin! Leave me out of this!
(Argument continues for several more hours.)


 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
Re: I'd like to have an argument, please.
12-19-17 05:34 PM - Post#240568    
    In response to Silver Maple

Excellent.

But I like scrapple.

(and Antonio has really helped the team)

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
12-19-17 05:46 PM - Post#240570    
    In response to palestra38

congrats, his being the 5th or 6th best player on the team helped contribute to improving the team 15 or so spots on KenPom.

Matt Howard is a lot better than Antonio Woods. A lot better.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
I'd like to have an argument, please.
12-19-17 05:48 PM - Post#240572    
    In response to Jeff2sf

Let's see---they lost Howard and the only regular new contributor is Antonio and they are better. Yeah, he sucks.

Go back to the freezer.

 
PennFan10 
Postdoc
Posts: 3578

Reg: 02-15-15
12-19-17 07:29 PM - Post#240578    
    In response to palestra38

Silver Maple--This is genius, pure genius. Love it.

 
Old Bear 
Postdoc
Posts: 3988

Reg: 11-23-04
12-19-17 08:35 PM - Post#240581    
    In response to PennFan10

This is not an argument, yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is .......

 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
12-19-17 08:36 PM - Post#240582    
    In response to PennFan10

Yeah, this was a hoot. You really nailed everyone to a T.

That, and business must be awfully slow this week.



 
Silver Maple 
Postdoc
Posts: 3765

Loc: Westfield, New Jersey
Reg: 11-23-04
12-19-17 08:54 PM - Post#240590    
    In response to penn nation

Took most of a billable hour (you're welcome). And the best thing is, if you scroll a short distance up the page, they're still bickering. What could be more perfect?

 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
12-19-17 09:20 PM - Post#240597    
    In response to Silver Maple

All you did was change the subject of debate from a nothing burger to a hamburger.

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
Re: I'd like to have an argument, please.
12-19-17 09:26 PM - Post#240599    
    In response to palestra38

i did not say he sucks. antonio woods doesn't suck. but he is a clearly inferior player to matt howard. only an i d i ot would think differently.

You leave out the idea of others improving. along with antonio. if we got the antonio from two years ago, we would be worse. fortunately he's now average as opposed to below average.

 
penn nation 
Professor
Posts: 21081

Reg: 12-02-04
Re: I'd like to have an argument, please.
12-19-17 09:28 PM - Post#240601    
    In response to Jeff2sf

I say Silver Maple’s Jeff is more authentic than this doppelgänger.

 
sparman 
PhD Student
Posts: 1339
sparman
Reg: 12-08-04
I'd like to have an argument, please.
12-20-17 09:42 AM - Post#240727    
    In response to PennFan10

  • PennFan10 Said:
Silver Maple--This is genius, pure genius. Love it.



  • penn nation Said:
All you did was change the subject of debate from a nothing burger to a hamburger.


Very well done.


 
TheLine 
Professor
Posts: 5597

Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
12-20-17 11:47 AM - Post#240753    
    In response to sparman

That was funny. Well done. Or rare. Not sure which. Maybe both?

Is it OK if I admit I like Antonio Woods? Even if he is no Matt Howard.


 
PennFan10 
Postdoc
Posts: 3578

Reg: 02-15-15
12-20-17 11:58 AM - Post#240757    
    In response to TheLine

What's great is not only do they continue to bicker, but they ignore the humor of all this as well as our conversations about them as if they are the only two on this board.....great entertainment.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
12-20-17 12:07 PM - Post#240759    
    In response to TheLine

Except that he gives them much more of what they need given that Betley is better than Howard and plays essentially the same position. With Betley at the 3, his rebounding is up and despite not shooting as well as he can so far, his scoring is up 3 a game. Rothschild 's scoring and rebounding is more than double last year's output and we now have 2 guards who don't turn over the ball.

Most of all, our defense is far better because we don't have players playing out of position nor do we have to play zone to cover for guys who can't play man.

We're just a better team this year.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
12-20-17 12:09 PM - Post#240761    
    In response to PennFan10

Hey, you can't say that ignore the humor--I commented on it immediately. It's really funny.

I can take it. Have been for years in here---you may not remember the Report Cards I used to do. I was mauled on a regular basis.

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
12-20-17 12:18 PM - Post#240762    
    In response to palestra38

antonio woods is fine. totally fine. Not one of the 25 best players in the league, but sure.

Matt Howard played a different position than Betley. Stretch four. Ryan plays the three.

Matt's ORAT: 101.4, 104.9, 108, 113. On usage of 18/18/21/21

Compared to antonio's 101... in his junior year... with a 16% usage. I don't lol, but, i mean really.



 
TheLine 
Professor
Posts: 5597

Age: 60
Reg: 07-07-09
12-20-17 12:40 PM - Post#240764    
    In response to palestra38

Old Smokes hamburger = Howard
New Smokes meatloaf = Woods

Discuss.



 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
12-20-17 01:05 PM - Post#240769    
    In response to Jeff2sf

Why don't you try to respond to my argument that irrespective of ORAT, the team has a better fit because they have more rebounding and defense in the middle, better ballhandling and defense on the perimeter and freedom for Betley to get more possessions and both score and rebound more.

That would require, however, an understanding of the game.

 
Jeff2sf 
Postdoc
Posts: 4466

Reg: 11-22-04
12-20-17 01:27 PM - Post#240772    
    In response to palestra38

I'm happy to argue the "merits" of your claim so long as you acknowledge Matt's the better player.

 
 Page 1 of 3 ALL123
Icon Legend Permissions Topic Options
Report Post

Quote Post

Quick Reply

Print Topic

Email Topic

2710 Views




Copyright © 2004-2012 Basketball U. Terms of Use for our Site and Privacy Policy are applicable to you. All rights reserved.
Basketball U. and its subsidiaries are not affiliated in any way with any NCAA athletic conference or member institution.
FusionBB™ Version 2.1 | ©2003-2007 InteractivePHP, Inc.
Execution time: 0.223 seconds.   Total Queries: 16   Zlib Compression is on.
All times are (GMT -0500) Eastern. Current time is 03:55 AM
Top