Thunks

Plan to End Tanking in the NBA

4/8/2026

New Anti-Tanking Draft Rules

The 4 Play-in losers automotatically get picks 11-14
4 2nd round losers automatically get picks 7-10
8 First round losers and 10 non-playoff teams go into the lottery and draw the top 6 picks. The remaining 12 teams will pick 15-26
Conference finals teams automatically get picks 27-30

Teams in each of the picks brackets after the top 6 lottery picks are in order of best record, instead of inverse order as now. So every game of the season does count for something.

You can’t win a top 6 pick in the lottery 3 years in a row. (The Spurs rule)

So the obvious concern with this system would be that a team playing in the 2nd round might throw the series for a top 10 draft pick. So let’s say this year the Spurs are playing the Nuggets in the 2-3 matchup. Denver is trying to win while Jokic is in his prime. But the Spurs could say, we have Wemby and a young core, our championship window is 10 years, let’s bow out now for one more high draft pick. I think that only happens if Wemby is injuried. Of course if Wemby is injured, then the Spurs would be expected to lose, so it might not make a difference. The issue would be if Jokic and Wemby both went down and neither team wanted to face the Thunder in the conference finals with out their best player, so they both try and throw the series. That would be bad. Like a horrendously ugly blight on the league. I can’t over state how bad that would be be. But I would say it is unlikely for 3 reasons.

Players and coaches don’t think of tanking the way organizations or fans do. So it is unlikely that players would play bad on purpose. Winning matters to their legacies and bank accounts. They won’t purposely throw a games for future draft picks when their is no guarantee they will even be on this team next year. They will try to win while they can.
Tanking in the regular season works because there are so many random games that the scrutiny is not there all the time, I mean somebody has got to lose every game right? In the playoffs the intense scrutiny of every play and every coaching decision should prevent any concerted effort to throw a game.
And the Commissioner could always penalize a team suspected of throwing a series by confiscating their draft picks. So that removes any incentive to try and throw a 2nd round series.

One more provision to help a team that makes the playoffs but has no lottery luck is to give them the hope to buy more talent……
If you have picked outside the top 10, and not advanced out of the first round in 3 consecutive years, and are a receiving team in revenue sharing, and you have the cap space, you can petition the commissioner for a waiver that allows you to offer a Supermax contract to a free angent.
This is actually the more dangerous idea because teams absolutely would long term plan to be mediocre for 3 years until a certain free agent is scheduled to come the market

For the Love of Ed O'bannon...

3/17/2026

As we are all filling out our NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets amidst all the marketing and promotion of DraftKings, FanDuel, and Kalshi Prediction markets, I have to wonder:

In this new modern age of NIL and the transfer portal, and player empowerment, do NCAA players get a cut of all of the money that is now being legally bet on them?

Pay Us What You Owe Us

3/14/2026

“tied to revenue in a meaningful way" is the WNBA Players Union party line to say they want a cut of Gross and not Net revenue, because they don’t trust the WNBA is being honest about expenses. And the sticking point is expansion fees. The WNBAPA keeps making proposals that factor in Expansion fees as Revenue. The league’s proposals do not include expansion fees as revenue. This seems to be the whole hold up to negotiations for months.

Why I hate Country Music

10/27/2025

I think rap is about arrogance in the face of oppression and that appeals to the angsty teenage outcast in me.
But I Categorically hate country music. So what is country music about that would be such an affront to me (besides the whiney twang and the horrible southern accents)?

SuperSonics Fandom

4/10/2024

At this point I think I am just going to have to be a die hard Seattle SuperSonics fan, and root for them to the exclusion of any other professional sports team, even though they don’t currently exist.

Addiction is Generational Trauma

4/5/2024

Addiction is a generational trauma perpetuated through eons by humanity.
Any drug use really is a learned behavior passed down from generation to generation. It gets tricky because a lot of ancient drug use was for mystic or religious purposes but the idea of alcohol and drugs being a means to help people cope with the harsh realities of life can be identified in any time period.

And in a lot of cases it was basically state sponsored:

Predicting the Future

3/27/2024

I think there has to be some kind of primal human instinct towards the god- like ability to predict the future, that explains our obsession with the illogicality of Gambling.

We currently like to talk of gambling as if it is a chemical addiction to the excitement or thrill of winning. But there is almost a spiritual reverence for the ability to predict the future. We don’t just feel like winners. We don’t just feel lucky. We feel powerful and omnipotent in a sphere.

In a way the forces that act upon us to make prop betts are the same forces that led to the development of shamanism or even religion its self. That’s why religion helps addicts and gamblers and sinners. It gives them the same thing they are seeking in a bottle or a needle or at the craps table:
An experience of power beyond the might of human potential.
A higher power.

AA recognizes this long ago and seized on it to give people what they are looking for. In a more and more secular world on high alert for looming natural disaster, gambling and the mythic power over nature that it mimics will become an increasing temptation.

Social Media Rant

1/26/2024

So I went on Facebook just to change my password after I got an alert someone was trying to hack my account and I immediately felt overwhelmed and disgusted.

I used to think that feeling was just kind of an introversion thing, and I likened it to being at some crowded event where there is just a lot of chaos and noise and everyone is shouting to be heard over each other. I used to think of it as a party or convention like atmosphere. But the more I think about it, it’s more like a crowded market or shopping mall on Black Friday, and there are all these Santa’s ringing bells and charities hitting you up for donations, to say nothing of the panhandlers on the street.

The internet was supposed to take us away from that to shop online in our PJs. But social media replicates it in 2D. If you have a specific gift Item you want to get and can only get it there, braving the crowd is worth it. But otherwise, it’s completely unappealing. I have nothing to shop for on Facebook these days. I have nothing to sell either. I don’t even have any interest in browsing. Maybe I’m just too broke to be on social media.

The funny thing here is that I am kind of trying to talk myself into wanting to go on social media. Like I should have FOMO but I don’t. Personally I despise social media. But I recognize the need for it professionally.

I recognize that general isolationism is a big probelm in the world for a lot of people. But despite it's iitial respresentation, social media is more and more the the problem and not the solution.

Is Autism on the Rise

1/10/2024

Is Autism becoming more common?

In the past, severe autism was probably looked at as retardation or demonic possession. More mild was probably less of a concern in a world of strict manual labor. I think many aloof aristocrats were probably autistic. A lot of Cowboys (lanky-wiry fellows) may have been autistic.
Autistic soldiers throughout history may have thrived under the strict regime of military discipline. An autistic person may have thrived in a craftsman or artisan role.
So it is only in the last 100 years of standardized educational standards that we would even really notice autism as atypical.
And so for a while autistic people may have had a hard time forming relationships and having families. But then in the 20th century when society is trying make everyone fit in to it the social issues associated with autism are a more obvious problem.
Woman (more approaptirately school aged girls) are supposedly diagnosed with autism at a rate 4 times lower than men. I suspect that a quiet shy autistic woman was considered an ideal wife for much of history.
Of course society would probably lament that these woman didn’t have more social grace to help them find a husband, but as the 20th century progressed an autistic woman could fill reasonably well enough a lot of traditional woman’s roles; Secretaey, nurse, teacher.
They might have been the more strict variety of school teacher, the real stickler for the rules, the type you didn’t worry would make the kids soft. And in todays world where more women than men are going to college, the ranks of “girl bosses” that will take over the world over the next century likely are full of woman on the ASD.

Does Mating strategy define the political Divide?

8/23/2023

So the political divide being divided by mating strategy comes down to feminists vs antifeminists on the women’s side and a compel vs persuade strategy on the men’s side. Men with a compel strategy align with antifeminists on the right, and persuading males align with feminists on the left.