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VCplusD12

Official Gamethread: Dallas at ORLANDO

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I was more commenting on how silly it was to be upset with someone for doing something that's a sin in your beliefs but not theirs.

 

That's what the "Holy cow!" example was about. The entire idea of saying holy cow is to reference a lot of East Asian religions that view the cow as sacred, but I doubt if I wrote that that anyone would've actually cared about it, and if Arielle had written it, he'd not have acknowledged it.

 

But really: lots of gods are worshiped around the world, and hundreds more were worshiped at earlier periods. I don't think it hurts my atheist cred to acknowledge that, any more than I have to believe werewolves are real to acknowledge that they exist as a concept.

Besides, everyone knows Saturn is the best. I mean, dude ate his children.

 

As for last night? I think that was just Dirk being Dirk: Hedo actually played good defense on him - that MVP wasn't an accident.

 

Mavs played great defense on us. We had a couple good moves late, but not enough. This team needs to stop choking away late leads - they stop playing defense and everyone gets shoot-happy rather than keeping the ball moving for the right shot.

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I do it because I'm so kind and generous, and because when I wanted to learn more about basketball, people helped me. And I know that it would be a betrayal of those people, if I didn't try to pay their generosity forward.

 

One of the most fascinating things about the way a lot of people post on this board is that there seems to be no level of self-examination at all. Arielle, and the dozens of others who have posted similar things over the years, think(s) that everyone's opinions should be respected, regardless of their validity. The idea there is that if one person researches their thesis and writes a well thought out argument, and another just mashes out a wildly inaccurate and inarticulate theory, both opinions should be respected equally. That notion doesn't hold up to even the most basic level of scrutiny.

 

One of my closest friends is a FANTASTIC painter. She's simply an amazing artist, and makes a very good living with her work. I, on the other hand, have all the artistic skill of an epileptic squirrel. If you were to ask the two of us to each paint the same landscape, she would give you an incredible work of art; I would give you something that looked like a 5th grader made it. And that's completely fine, because I'm secure enough to acknowledge that I'm an indescribably ****ty painter.

 

But if a person were to offer up an opinion that my painting was better in that scenario, you wouldn't think: "Well, I need to respect his/her beliefs" in any way. You'd think that person was insane, an idiot, or an insane idiot, because objective quality and personal preference aren't the same thing.

More importantly though, that is an unbelievably mean thing to do to another person. The cruelest thing you can do to another is tell them that they're great when they're not.

But when Arielle, or someone else, says that all opinions should be respected, when I've done research, gathered information, etc and the other person hasn't, it never seems to occur to him/them how incredibly disrespectful that is to me. If two basketball players started off as equals, but one practiced hard to get better and the other didn't, you wouldn't maintain that you had to respect them both as equal players. If two students had projects for class, and one worked really hard and the other didn't, you wouldn't give them the same grade because everyone should be treated equally. The idea of doing something like that is ridiculous, but that's the same logic being applied here.

 

The idea that everyone deserves to have their opinion respected is silly. An opinion that the sky is brown isn't an opinion that isn't worth respect.

 

What everyone deserves is an equal playing field, and they have that. This board is better than real life in that respect, because no matter what your background, wealth, influence, location, or upbringing in real life, on this forum you arrive with a blank slate and the same opportunities as everyone else. Prove you have value to add to conversation, people will support you. Prove you don't, and you'll be mocked. It's a total meritocracy. That's the dream, but there is a group of people that would see that destroyed in the name of everyone feeling awesome about themselves, whether they've earned that or not.

 

And that's infinitely frustrating for people like me, because I joined this board with a very, very limited understanding of NBA history and of the legal and by-law aspects of the NBA game. I didn't just gain that knowledge through sorcery; I read books. I did research. I asked questions on topics I didn't understand to people who I thought could provide me accurate answers. I gained knowledge and understanding by working for it. By saying that my opinion, that is informed by all of the aforementioned work, is no better than the uninformed and inaccurate ranting of people who don't know what they're talking about, they're not only disrespecting my opinion(while condemning me for doing the same), they're also blatantly disrespecting the amount of work that went into the arrival at that opinion and the amount of work that went into its presentation.

 

There are times I've spent multiple HOURS writing a lengthy, detailed individual post, only for people to immediately casually dismiss it or worse, outright insult me for having written it. But whenever that is pointed out to the group of posters who think I'm a humorless bully, they either ignore it, or they attempt to justify it by claiming that I deserve it or have it coming for reasons that are at best dubious. And while having that level of hypocrisy stare me in the face so often is annoying, I can forgive it because I'm smart enough to see it for what it is: an emotional cudgel and a defense mechanism.

 

Look at Arielle's posts in this thread. It becomes increasingly obvious over the course of the thread that Arielle doesn't really want to debate basketball, so each successive post after about page 22 becomes more and more of an attempt to undercut me as a person rather than make any kind of statement about the points I'm making. According to what's said or heavily implied in just Arielle's posts in the last 7 or 8 pages of this thread, I'm an unhappy, bullying, self-important, arrogant "big-talker" with low self-esteem whose internet bravado is really just a front for how badly I feel about myself, and whose life will be filled only with regret in 20 years. And then, in the same thread just a few minutes later he wrote, with what I have to imagine was an entirely straight face:

[/size][/color]

I cannot stress how sad that is. But the even more insulting thing is that he went on to say that I COULD help people on this board learn if only I tried.

 

What the hell?

 

My wanting to help people learn more about basketball is the entire reason that this thread even exists. It's the reason I spent almost two hours one morning writing this post about Jameer to give Babir a better understanding of how Jameer compares to other point guards. It's why I wrote all those CotM posts, even when they almost immediately devolved into places where people could insult me in the replies. It's why I continued to write posts on this board at all after writing this post which got me harassed about being racist for 18 months.

 

But all that other bull****? Yes, I notice it. I can't NOT notice it. When I write a long, detailed post pointing out that someone's point is not only wrong, but also explaining WHY it's wrong and how they can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, and the response I get is essentially "Shut up, you arrogant douche," of course I'm bothered by that, and of course dealing with that all the time is frustrating.

 

For a long time, my avatar was a stick figure of Don Quixote. It started off as a joke, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of the time, as people have constantly pointed out, I really am tilting at windmills on this board. There have certainly been times when I thought about just leaving this board for good, like a lot of posters from my "generation" of posters did, simply because having the same 5 inane and idiotic conversations over and over again is a boring and annoying waste of my time.

 

And maybe at some point I will just wash my hands of this board. But until that point, I'm going to keep trying to point out the truth here, because it's the kindest thing to do, even if the vast majority of people on this board who benefit from that kindness aren't smart enough to recognize it or are too self-absorbed to appreciate it.

 

You know, because I'm a sarcastic person, I was going to post something along the lines of: "So what are you saying?" with a picture of a guy with a real questionable look. I'm sure it wil be a repeated reaction by some...lol

 

But instead of doing that, I am just going to say: Nice write up and +1.

 

Should of went with the first..... I know.

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I do it because I'm so kind and generous, and because when I wanted to learn more about basketball, people helped me. And I know that it would be a betrayal of those people, if I didn't try to pay their generosity forward.

 

One of the most fascinating things about the way a lot of people post on this board is that there seems to be no level of self-examination at all. Arielle, and the dozens of others who have posted similar things over the years, think(s) that everyone's opinions should be respected, regardless of their validity. The idea there is that if one person researches their thesis and writes a well thought out argument, and another just mashes out a wildly inaccurate and inarticulate theory, both opinions should be respected equally. That notion doesn't hold up to even the most basic level of scrutiny.

 

One of my closest friends is a FANTASTIC painter. She's simply an amazing artist, and makes a very good living with her work. I, on the other hand, have all the artistic skill of an epileptic squirrel. If you were to ask the two of us to each paint the same landscape, she would give you an incredible work of art; I would give you something that looked like a 5th grader made it. And that's completely fine, because I'm secure enough to acknowledge that I'm an indescribably ****ty painter.

 

But if a person were to offer up an opinion that my painting was better in that scenario, you wouldn't think: "Well, I need to respect his/her beliefs" in any way. You'd think that person was insane, an idiot, or an insane idiot, because objective quality and personal preference aren't the same thing.

More importantly though, that is an unbelievably mean thing to do to another person. The cruelest thing you can do to another is tell them that they're great when they're not.

But when Arielle, or someone else, says that all opinions should be respected, when I've done research, gathered information, etc and the other person hasn't, it never seems to occur to him/them how incredibly disrespectful that is to me. If two basketball players started off as equals, but one practiced hard to get better and the other didn't, you wouldn't maintain that you had to respect them both as equal players. If two students had projects for class, and one worked really hard and the other didn't, you wouldn't give them the same grade because everyone should be treated equally. The idea of doing something like that is ridiculous, but that's the same logic being applied here.

 

The idea that everyone deserves to have their opinion respected is silly. An opinion that the sky is brown isn't an opinion that isn't worth respect.

 

What everyone deserves is an equal playing field, and they have that. This board is better than real life in that respect, because no matter what your background, wealth, influence, location, or upbringing in real life, on this forum you arrive with a blank slate and the same opportunities as everyone else. Prove you have value to add to conversation, people will support you. Prove you don't, and you'll be mocked. It's a total meritocracy. That's the dream, but there is a group of people that would see that destroyed in the name of everyone feeling awesome about themselves, whether they've earned that or not.

 

And that's infinitely frustrating for people like me, because I joined this board with a very, very limited understanding of NBA history and of the legal and by-law aspects of the NBA game. I didn't just gain that knowledge through sorcery; I read books. I did research. I asked questions on topics I didn't understand to people who I thought could provide me accurate answers. I gained knowledge and understanding by working for it. By saying that my opinion, that is informed by all of the aforementioned work, is no better than the uninformed and inaccurate ranting of people who don't know what they're talking about, they're not only disrespecting my opinion(while condemning me for doing the same), they're also blatantly disrespecting the amount of work that went into the arrival at that opinion and the amount of work that went into its presentation.

 

There are times I've spent multiple HOURS writing a lengthy, detailed individual post, only for people to immediately casually dismiss it or worse, outright insult me for having written it. But whenever that is pointed out to the group of posters who think I'm a humorless bully, they either ignore it, or they attempt to justify it by claiming that I deserve it or have it coming for reasons that are at best dubious. And while having that level of hypocrisy stare me in the face so often is annoying, I can forgive it because I'm smart enough to see it for what it is: an emotional cudgel and a defense mechanism.

 

Look at Arielle's posts in this thread. It becomes increasingly obvious over the course of the thread that Arielle doesn't really want to debate basketball, so each successive post after about page 22 becomes more and more of an attempt to undercut me as a person rather than make any kind of statement about the points I'm making. According to what's said or heavily implied in just Arielle's posts in the last 7 or 8 pages of this thread, I'm an unhappy, bullying, self-important, arrogant "big-talker" with low self-esteem whose internet bravado is really just a front for how badly I feel about myself, and whose life will be filled only with regret in 20 years. And then, in the same thread just a few minutes later he wrote, with what I have to imagine was an entirely straight face:

[/size][/color]

I cannot stress how sad that is. But the even more insulting thing is that he went on to say that I COULD help people on this board learn if only I tried.

 

What the hell?

 

My wanting to help people learn more about basketball is the entire reason that this thread even exists. It's the reason I spent almost two hours one morning writing this post about Jameer to give Babir a better understanding of how Jameer compares to other point guards. It's why I wrote all those CotM posts, even when they almost immediately devolved into places where people could insult me in the replies. It's why I continued to write posts on this board at all after writing this post which got me harassed about being racist for 18 months.

 

But all that other bull****? Yes, I notice it. I can't NOT notice it. When I write a long, detailed post pointing out that someone's point is not only wrong, but also explaining WHY it's wrong and how they can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, and the response I get is essentially "Shut up, you arrogant douche," of course I'm bothered by that, and of course dealing with that all the time is frustrating.

 

For a long time, my avatar was a stick figure of Don Quixote. It started off as a joke, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of the time, as people have constantly pointed out, I really am tilting at windmills on this board. There have certainly been times when I thought about just leaving this board for good, like a lot of posters from my "generation" of posters did, simply because having the same 5 inane and idiotic conversations over and over again is a boring and annoying waste of my time.

 

And maybe at some point I will just wash my hands of this board. But until that point, I'm going to keep trying to point out the truth here, because it's the kindest thing to do, even if the vast majority of people on this board who benefit from that kindness aren't smart enough to recognize it or are too self-absorbed to appreciate it.

 

 

Wow, ok, DOM. Impressive write up. Sorry you felt you had to write that. Sorry if you felt it was wasted time too, but I give you props for taking the time to write all that. K. I understand you now. To your end, I will be less emotional when I start threads that say "I want Gilbert back" or "Sit Duhon for Ish Smith", because at the end of the day -- I think you and I agree that Stan really DOES know best. It's just that he has a flawed roster. But with all this conversing, I will agree to what you imply to all posters: THINK BEFORE YOU POST. Last night's game frustrated me, and I was frustrated with Stan. I'm over it now, so just hope we win the next game. Sorry if I wasted your time!

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DOM,

 

In your opinion, what do you think this team needs to do to turn it around? Our offense continues to be stagnate and we don't have a go-to scorer, but I don't want to throw in the towel for the season. Do you think Stan is doing the best that he can with this roster? I really think Dwight can step it up as a leader too. He needs to demand the ball more. Our second unit just plain sucks right now. I'm hating on Duhon because he brings nothing to the floor. Increasingly frustrated with this team. Interested to hear your thoughts, but only if you have time.

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I look forward to seeing a whopping 5-page thread following our win against the Nuggets tomorrow.

 

It's like people save up their rants while the game's taking place and just need that "L" to set them off.

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I look forward to seeing a whopping 5-page thread following our win against the Nuggets tomorrow.

 

It's like people save up their rants while the game's taking place and just need that "L" to set them off.

It'll be much worse when we lose in 4 or 5 games to Miami in the playoffs

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I really Wanted the best defensive player in the league (Dwight) on him. Got really upset when he wasn't.

 

Although that may have been better in my opinion I dont think Dwight can guard Dirk when he is facing the basket. Im almost positive he would of drew the foul. Maybe not. Im happy with the D Turk played on that possession.

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Although that may have been better in my opinion I dont think Dwight can guard Dirk when he is facing the basket. Im almost positive he would of drew the foul. Maybe not. Im happy with the D Turk played on that possession.

The fact is Dirk made the shot and so instead of just admitting he made a rediculous play, some people are going to find something to ***** about. Hedo played Dirk just as well as anyone else could have (surprisingly).

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